SHEILA JACKSON LEE

Lawmakers erupted in cheers after Vice President Kamala Harris announced the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

Moments before the Senate began Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation vote to become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, the chamber filled with the swell of history.

California took a big step this week toward becoming the first U.S. state to make some form of restitution a reality by tackling the divisive issue of which Black residents should be eligible to receive reparations for the atrocity and injustices of slavery and racism.

“This has been a 30-plus year journey,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee declared. Congresswoman Jackson Lee added that there has never been another time in which she has garnered so much support and momentum for H.R. Congresswoman Jackson Lee recently reflected on the long-overdue redress to African descendants of slaves. They are giants,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee declared. Congresswoman Jackson Lee, who sits on numerous House committees, including the Judiciary, Budget, and Homeland Security, has made the reparations legislation her top priority during the 117th Congress.

Congress has renewed a 1990s-era law that extends protections to victims of domestic and sexual violence.

Eight House Democrats are demanding the Bureau of Prisons make public an audit of sexual assault reports at a federal women's prison in California where inmates say they were subjected to rampant abuse.

“This has been a 30-plus year journey,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee declared. Congresswoman Jackson Lee added that there has never been another time in which she has garnered so much support and momentum for H.R. Congresswoman Jackson Lee recently reflected on the long-overdue redress to African descendants of slaves. They are giants,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee declared. Congresswoman Jackson Lee, who sits on numerous House committees, including the Judiciary, Budget, and Homeland Security, has made the reparations legislation her top priority during the 117th Congress.

H.R. 40 would create a commission on reparations for Black Americans modeled on the process Japanese Americans went through to receive reparations for being imprisoned in internment camps during World War II.

Distrust between the parties is high a year after the violent insurrection. And it has impacted how the institution operates.

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy seized control of the House floor for more than eight hours overnight, preempting passage of President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill with a rambling speech full of vitriol.

Texas Republicans have approved redrawn U.S. House maps that favor incumbents and could decrease political representation for growing minority communities in the nation’s largest red state.

Texas lawmakers are on the brink of finishing redrawn U.S. House maps that would shore up their eroding dominance as voters peel away from the GOP in the state’s booming suburbs.

Thousands of voting rights advocates are rallying across the country Saturday to call for sweeping protections against a further erosion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the nation’s capital on Saturday, multiracial coalitions of civil, human and labor rights leaders are convening rallies and marches to urge passage of federal voter protections that have been eroded since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

United States Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, has sought to allay the fears of over eight thousand DACA-eligible Caribbean immigrants

Black Americans are rejoicing after President Joe Biden signed legislation establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

The 94-year-old Lee began a campaign in 2016 to have the holiday recognized at the national level. She walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth to Washington to bring awareness to the celebration.

The Senate passed the bill yesterday under a unanimous consent agreement that expedites the process for considering legislation.

For many Black Americans, especially those from Southern states, Juneteenth has been an important day in history for over 150 years.

The United States will soon have a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery.

President Joe Biden has signed legislation Thursday establishing a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery, saying he believes it will go down as one of the greatest honors he has as president.

For many Black Americans, especially those from southern states, Juneteenth has been an important day in history for over 150 years.

Lawmakers from both parties say once-stalled legislation on Capitol Hill that would change the nation's policing laws is now closer than ever to consensus.

Bolstered with new momentum, Congress is ready to try again to change the nation’s policing laws.

A House panel has advanced a decades-long effort to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves, approving legislation Wednesday night that would create a commission to study the issue.

The House Judiciary Committee plans to prepare and vote on the measure first proposed by the late Congressman John Conyers in 1989.

The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act passed 244-172 with 29 Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the legislation. The White House announced its support earlier Wednesday for reauthorizing VAWA, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through a variety of grant programs. AdPresident Joe Biden introduced the original Violence Against Women Act in June 1990 when serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A subsequent version was eventually included in a sweeping crime bill that President Bill Clinton would sign into law four years later. Congress has reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act three times since.

A coalition of 150 organizations nationwide is opposing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The Movement for Black Lives argues the bill is entrenched in strategies that have historically failed to address police violence across the country and fails to meet the moment." The bill, designed by the Movement for Black Lives’ Electoral Justice Project, would also redirect funding toward communities to address the nation’s systemic racial injustices. “It’s not just about after the fact accountability,” said Gina Clayton-Johnson, the lead BREATHE Act architect and leadership team member of the Movement for Black Lives’ Policy Table. AdBut the movement faces a significant uphill battle in securing needed political support from lawmakers who will be key in pushing forward the BREATHE Act or revamping the Justice in Policing Act.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds a news conference on passage of gun violence prevention legislation, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 11, 2021, as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, left, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., look on. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)(Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Houston and several surrounding cities are under a boil water notice as many residents are still without running water in their homes. But the crisis was far from over in parts of the South, where many people still lacked safe drinking water. The next phase of the state’s disaster response will be to test drinking water from systems knocked offline by the cold. Power was cut to a New Orleans facility that pumps drinking water from the Mississippi River and generators were used until electricity was restored. Drinking water was made available at fire stations throughout Jackson and officials also planned to set up bottled water pickup sites.

President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with labor leaders in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Washington. Biden backs the idea of studying the issue, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday, though she stopped short of saying he would sign the bill if it clears Congress. Even with Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, passing a reparations bill could prove difficult. Most Black Americans favored reparations, 74%, compared with 15% of white Americans. AdRep. Burgess Owens, a first-term Republican from Utah, argued against a reparations commission.

By Stacy M. Brown“The impact of slavery and its vestiges continues to affect African Americans and indeed all Americans in communities throughout our nation,” Jackson Lee remarked. On Monday, January 4, 2021, Jackson Lee re-introduced H.R. 40, a bill that would fund a committee to explore whether Black Americans should receive reparations for slavery. “The impact of slavery and its vestiges continues to affect African Americans and indeed all Americans in communities throughout our nation,” Jackson Lee remarked. Through legislation, resolutions, news, and litigation, we are moving closer to making more strides in the movement toward reparations,” Jackson Lee said.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent@StacyBrownMedaU.S. rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) will chair the Congressional Black Caucus for the 117th Congress. The announcement came as the CBC embarks on its 50th anniversary as the voice of Black America in Congress. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, who represents Michigan’s 14th district and currently serves on the House Appropriations Committee and the Oversight and Reform Committee, was tapped as 2nd Vice-Chair. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents Texas’s 18th district and currently serves on the House Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security Committee, and the Budget Committee, will serve as Parliamentarian. Though small in numbers, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) founders understood their responsibility for the millions of voices they represented, Congresswoman Bass noted.

The date - June 19th - is not a federal holiday, and many non-black Americans have only recently become of aware of the day. Several of her employees are spending the day volunteering for the Juneteenth Freedom Phonebank, an initiative encouraging Census participation. Declaring the date a federal holiday would add considerable momentum, and there is growing support for the idea. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, introduced legislation Thursday to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. In contrast, 93% of employers close on Independence day, with similar rates for Labor Day, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. –MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A mural honoring George Floyd was projected above his golden coffin, where mourners knelt and cried, paused and prayed Thursday at his memorial service. Al Sharpton, who eulogized Floyd in Minneapolis on Thursday. Having left Houston for Minneapolis in 2014 in search of a job and a new life, Floyd will retrace that path in death. Sharpton said George Floyd was calling for his mother because, as he neared death, she had her hands outstretched to him calling him back home. “Come on, George,” Sharpton said.

Acknowledging slavery and its legacy is first step towards reparationsThirty years ago, Rep. John Conyers Jr. introduced a bill in the House of Representatives calling for a commission on slavery reparations but it got nowhere. On June 19, House Resolution 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans Act,finally made it to the House floor, sponsored now by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. Congress approved the offer and, The New York Times, noted, 40,000 former slaves began planting and building on the land. The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission is demanding $777 trillion as compensation to the continent. It may be that many Americans, including African Americans, want to forget that chapter in their history.