May 23, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 87 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page H4150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                COMMEMORATING 19TH AMENDMENT CENTENNIAL

  (Mr. HECK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HECK. Mr. Speaker, it was, indeed, 100 years ago in this very 
room that the House of Representatives passed the 19th Amendment to the 
United States Constitution, granting women the right to vote.
  The vote was here, but the work was out there, because the fact is 
the victory was due in no small part to the countless trailblazers who 
championed women suffrage throughout the decades.
  Many of those trailblazers called home that which I call home: the 
Pacific Northwest. That included activists like Emma Smith DeVoe of 
Tacoma and Mary Arkwright Hutton of Spokane. It was because of their 
efforts that Washington State became the fifth State in the Union to 
enact women suffrage in 1910. These efforts built the momentum to pass 
and ratify the 19th Amendment nearly a decade later.
  But the point is, as we celebrate this anniversary, let us not allow 
the progress we have made beget complacency; because the long, hard-
fought battle for equality and representation spans generations and 
continues to this very day.
  Let's continue to affirm those principles as we recognize and 
commemorate the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote.

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