mr. sensenbrenner of wisconsin and mr. conyers of michigan, for the work they have done to put together some amendments that would update that formula. this time we decided to look back just a few years and to see within the last 10 or 12 years, what jurisdictions have still continued to violate people's rights and who have been found guilty of doing so. and rather than apply the formula to everybody or what we'll do is come up with a series of wrongs put some numerical qualification on it and make a new formula. now that formula is not going to cover south carolina today. but under the formula, any jurisdiction, any state that commits these kinds of atrocities and are found to have done so, they will be brought under the formula. so the formula applies to every jurisdiction in the country. and i think that it's time for us to be honest that everybody will not do right. but we should have something in place, so when a jurisdiction fails to do right we will have a mechanism to address those ills. now, let me hasten to add a

mr. sensenbrenner's amendments, so that we can restore what the roberts court has done to that 1965 voting rights act. >> what do you make of these republicans pushing they voter i.d. requirements, and even in pennsylvania, the leadership which dominates the legislature saying we're openly doing this to say we're doing it to keep votes. that seems completely in violation of the purpose of the voting rights act, this game they're playing about voter i.d. cards. >> just as in 50 years ago, it took the congress to respond in a way that was favorable to the protection of people's rights, it may take that again today, because remember, these are 20 some odd individual states who are doing those things. i would hope that congress would not just fix -- fix the formula, but i would hope we would go further with john lewis's bill, the voter empowerment act, to take a look at all of these schemes that they're now developing, schemes which, if you look at them, could be tantamount to poll taxes and other kinds of schemes they used back in the '40s and '50s to dilute and deny people's votes. >> well s