Mr. Speaker. Congress certainly has the power to pass this literacy test amendment under the enforcement clauses of the 14th and 15th amendments. The 14th amendment to the Constitution guarantees that no State shall "deny to any person within its Jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In New York State thousands of American citizens have been denied the equal protection of the laws. New York State requires a prospective voter to take* an English language literacy test or to establish his literacy by showing an eighth grade education at a school conducted in English. As a result of this requirement thousands of American citizens of Puerto Rican origin do not register to vote. Senator ROBERT KENNEDY estimated that there are approximately 730.000 Puerto Ricans In New York. of whom approximately 480.000 are of voting age. Less than onethirdabout 150.000 are registered to vote. While it cannot be said that all the other 330.000 are not registered because of the literacy test. there is no doubt that a substantial number do not register for this reason. The New Yorker of Puerto Rican origin has every opportunity to be as well informed a voter as his Englishspeaking neighbor. There are Spanishlanguage newspapers. televisions. and radio. The schools in Puerto Rico teach civics and American history. The Englishlanguage literacy test is an arbitrary requirement for voting and should be abolished. I have sponsored legislation throughout my service in Congress to abolish the literacy test completely. In this Congress my bill to eliminate the literacy test is H.R. 2477. I testified at length before the House Committee on the Judiciary on this question. I believe the least we can do in this session is to adopt the literacy test amendment sponsored by Senator KENNEDY of New York. Unfortunately. this amendment is not included in the voting rights bill which has been reported out by the House. In view of the action taken by the other body.
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literacy test