{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://soto.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-soto-joins-house-democrats-pass-voting-rights-advancement-act", "Rep. Soto Joins House Democrats to Pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act", "2019-12-06", "2019", "2019-12", "Democrat", "House", "FL", "Darren Soto", "S001200", "soto.house.gov", "soto", "https://soto.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "Rep. Soto Votes to Pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, Rep. Darren Soto (FL-09) joined House Democrats in passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA), legislation that restores voting protections in states with a recent history of discrimination.\n\nFive years after the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, the VRAA creates a modern-day formula to determine which jurisdictions have had a recent history of voter discrimination. The VRAA addresses a wave of voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering and other voter suppression tactics enacted at the state level.\n\nThe VRAA restores preclearance enforcement of jurisdictions that have had repeated voting rights violations within the last 25 years.\n\n\"The fight for voting rights is as urgent today as it was over 50 years ago when the VRA was first enacted,\" said Rep. Soto. \"The passage of the Voting Rights Advancement Act is just one step further in our work to prevent discrimination, protect the rights of all voters and restore the promise of voter equality for all Floridians.\"\n\nThe VRAA seeks to restore full protections to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by reinstating the legislative enforcement arm. Specifically, the bill will take into account the Shelby ruling and update the VRA pre-clearance provision to focus on states with a recent history of discrimination.\n\nThere are three ways to become a covered jurisdiction:\n\nStates with a history of 15 or more violation at any level in the previous 25 years;\n\nStates with a history of 10 or more violation, if one violation occurs at the state level in the previous 25 years;\n\nSubdivisions with 3 or more violations in the subdivision in the previous 25 years.\n\nShould the VRAA become law, 11 current states are expected to require the Justice Department to pre-clear changes to state voting laws: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-27T23:45:33Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://soto.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-soto-joins-house-democrats-pass-voting-rights-advancement-act"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3617570511996746, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}