Congressman Conyers:Voting Rights Act, NAACP, Iraq

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Despite facing a Republican-controlled Congress, today we were able to secure the reauthorization of the landmark Voting Rights Act when the Senate unanimously passed this legislation today. Not only did we renew these crucial electoral protections, we were able to strengthen the Act by reversing recent Supreme Court decisions that weakened the bill.

Ironically, president Bush today addressed the annual convention of the NAACP. Was his focus election reform? Educational opportunities? No. I'm not sure who wrote his speech, but the most important issue to this constituency was deemed to be the elimination of the estate tax. Do you know about the estate tax? Repealing this tax benefits only the wealthiest one percent of American society while costing nearly $100 billion in annual revenue. Bush's message to the NAACP? It's time to relieve the burden on America's wealthiest while our brothers are asked to risk their lives every day in a war based on manufactured intelligence.

It's no wonder that the Republican party is abandoning the administration's rosy assessment of the occupation of Iraq. But if Republicans in Congress are now willing to question the conduct of the war, I'd like to know if they would be willing to investigate the lead up to the war through a special committee as proposed by H. Res. 635.

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