Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favor of the NIH IMPROVE Act.

One of my core beliefs that has led to my work in Congress is that health care is our most basic human right. Yet, in our country, we see some of the worst disparities in health care access and outcomes. The maternal health crisis is no exception.

Black women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy- related causes than other women. Women living in rural areas are losing access to local labor and delivery units, as more rural hospitals close their maternity wards.

This has not only delayed care but has led to worsening outcomes. Our country's maternal mortality rate is higher than any other high-income country in the world. Over 80 percent of these deaths are preventable. We can and must do better.

We have made substantial progress in understanding and addressing this crisis through the NIH IMPROVE Initiative. In early 2019, Congresswoman Underwood and I met with then-Director of the National Institutes of Health to urge the agency to do more to address the maternal health crisis.

In response, the NIH launched the IMPROVE Initiative later that year, which stands for Implementing a Maternal Health and Pregnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone. The IMPROVE Initiative supports research to reduce preventable causes of maternal deaths and improve health for women before, during, and after pregnancy.

It includes a special emphasis on health disparities and populations that are disproportionately affected, such as racial and ethnic minorities, very young women and women of advanced maternal age, women living in rural areas, and people with disabilities.

THE IMPROVE Initiative has funded:

Maternal Health Research Centers of Excellence--two of which are housed at HBCUs;

Research projects on social determinants of maternal health, the impact of community violence on maternal health outcomes, and structural racism and discrimination; and

The development of new home-based and point-of-care diagnostic devices for postpartum care.

Through the federal appropriations process, Congress has quintupled funding for the Initiative since it was first launched.

However, it has not yet been put into statute, which would ensure the longevity of the program and maintain consistent funding to address maternal mortality.

The bill would authorize $53.4 million every year for seven years. With that funding, the program will continue to investigate disparities in maternal health care, and develop ways to improve care and outcomes, including in our underserved maternal care deserts.

For too long, families in our country have faced the devastating losses of mothers to pregnancy-related causes. And too often these deaths have been completely preventable.

This is personal to me. My daughter, Jeanelle, almost lost her life to this crisis. Her doctor dismissed her pain and concerns, and by the time her medical team finally responded, it was almost too late.

That dismissal and delay in care is a story I hear far too often from other mothers, especially Black mothers. Jeanelle is one of the tens of thousands of women who've experience ``near misses'' with pregnancy- related complications. That experience made me think about what it means to be a mom.

Jeanelle is my daughter, a sister, and the mother of two amazing chiidren--she's also a dedicated contributor to her community.

Mothers everywhere, like Jeanelle, are calling on Congress to do everything we can to better understand this crisis, so we can fix this crisis.

Dedicated research funding is the way to do that. This bill was reported out of the Energy and Commerce Committee with unanimous support. It is bipartisan and bicameral.

Passing the NIH IMPROVE Act today signifies Congress's united commitment to all mothers across our country that we can and will do better. We will deliver for our moms--because our moms can't wait.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Chancellor Sharon Gaber and the exceptional work that she has done leading the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Under Chancellor Gaber's leadership, UNC Charlotte has experienced record enrollment, achieved the coveted R1 status, and made investments that are transforming Charlotte's education landscape and our community.

UNC Charlotte has become a powerful engine for economic growth, driving innovation, workforce development, and research partnerships that benefit Charlotte and North Carolina.

I am also proud to see her work recognized as Charlotte Business Journal's 2025 Business Person of the Year.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Chancellor Gaber and the entire UNC Charlotte community on the transformative impact the university has had on Charlotte-Mecklenburg and our State.

This is a proud moment for the 49ers and Queen City.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes) for yielding time. I thank her for her unwavering support of children and for having been the National Teacher of the Year. I thank her so much.

Mr. Speaker, I rise because dismantling the Department of Education is not just bad policy. It is dangerous for North Carolina's children. In my State, more than 60 percent of students rely on Pell grants and Federal aid to afford college. Nearly 1.5 million K-12 students depend on title I IDEA school nutrition and other Federal supports.

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, over 70 percent of students benefit directly from programs administered through the Department. When the Department is gutted, when staff are fired, grants are frozen, and financial aid systems break, it is our most vulnerable young people who feel it first. These are low-income students, first-generation students, students with disabilities, and families who cannot afford disruptions.

This isn't efficiency. It is an educational disarmament. I am proud to defend the Department of Education because protecting the Department means protecting opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak for the 186 Americans who have lost their lives today, not because of disease or illness, but because they did not have access to the health insurance they needed to get treatment.

Every year, 68,000 Americans die because they do not have health insurance, and Republicans have chosen to turn their backs on these Americans and make this crisis worse.

Not only does their bill fail to extend the ACA tax credits, something that helps 88,000 folks in my district afford health insurance, it abandons financial assistance for middle-class families when they are already struggling to make ends meet. It strips away protections for patients, opening them up to discrimination and predatory practices. It restricts access to abortion care which, by the way, is healthcare, putting the government, not a woman and her doctor, in charge of her body.

People are dying, Mr. Speaker, and it is time Republicans take this crisis seriously. Republicans need to wake up. Have some compassion. Our constituents cannot wait. Let's vote ``no'' on

this awful Republican bill, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, my community of Charlotte was under siege by the Department of Homeland Security's campaign of terror last month. They called it Operation Charlotte's Web.

Border Patrol agents engaged in extreme racial profiling, excessive force, and brutal tactics, spreading fear in our community.

It was fear that shattered the car window of a U.S. citizen born in Honduras. He was thrown on the glass-covered ground in handcuffs after he already identified himself to agents.

It was fear when more than 30,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg students, 21 percent of the student body, were absent from school on the Monday after the raids began because parents were terrified that their children would be victims of CBP's brutality.

It was fear as businesses shuttered their doors to try and protect their customers and employees from being wrongfully targeted by these Federal agents.

Cruelty was the point of their operation, but Charlotte never caved in to their cruelty. Instead, citizens packed churches for training to empower themselves to respond to Border Patrol agents. Parents band together to safely get their children to school, and businessowners patrolled the streets to protect their neighbors, their customers, and their employers.

CBP's actions in Charlotte were deplorable and absolutely unacceptable. I have already reached out to DHS and demanded transparency on exactly what Border Patrol was doing in Charlotte. I am still waiting for answers to my questions.

Make no mistake about it. My constituents want answers. I do, too. They deserve the answers, and I am going to keep fighting for them.

Congress must end these unlawful, un-American, and unnecessary raids on our communities.

Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to honor a giant in our State's history, a giant in our profession, and a giant in the fight for civil rights, the late James Ferguson II, who passed away on Monday, July 21, at age 82.

Mr. Ferguson was not just a brilliant legal mind. He was a trailblazer, truthteller, teacher, and proud HBCU graduate who believed deeply in the power of the law to right all wrongs. He spent his life doing just that, from lunch counter protests in segregated Asheville to courtroom battles that reshaped this Nation.

Mr. Ferguson cofounded North Carolina's first interracial law firm. He stood before the Supreme Court in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg and won, changing how schools across America desegregated. He defended the Wilmington Ten. He fought for Darryl Hunt. He trained Black lawyers during apartheid.

Mr. Ferguson did it all with quiet grace, a velvet voice, and an iron resolve.

Mr. Ferguson understood something that I often say about HBCUs: They were not built for comfort. They were built for purpose. So was he.

Educated at North Carolina Central University and Columbia Law School, he returned home not to make headlines, Madam Speaker, but to make a difference.

In my journey, I admired him long before I ever met him, but when I ran for Congress, he became a trusted friend, a supporter, and an adviser.

Mr. Ferguson didn't just practice law. He lived it. He believed that justice must be pursued even when it is unpopular and even when the odds are long.

That is the legacy of James Ferguson, not just the legal victories but the courage to take on cases that no one else would, the integrity to mentor the next generation, and the conviction that justice was not just a profession but, for him, a calling.

Mr. Ferguson was a leader in the courtroom. He was a leader in the classroom. He was a leader in our community. He was a model for what public service looks like at its best. Madam Speaker, as a former educator myself, I know a good teacher when I see one. Fergie taught us all.

Today, I honor his life. I honor his work. I offer my deepest condolences to his family, his children, his grandchildren, his great- grandchildren, and his many friends across Charlotte and across this country.

Let us remember him not only in words but in action by picking up the work that he left behind, by fighting the fights that he could not finish, and by standing tall in the truth that he lived.

May he rest in power.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise today in opposition to the rule to consider the rescissions package of

2025 and its reckless cuts to public broadcasting.

It is not hyperbole to say that public broadcasting saves lives during emergency situations and natural disasters. My State knows that firsthand.

When Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina last year, public broadcasting was there when traditional communication failed. Widespread power, cellular, and internet outages meant that, for thousands of North Carolinians, public radio was how they received their news.

Our local public broadcasting stations provided lifesaving updates for our residents, broadcasted emergency resource information like food and water and distribution, and gave a direct line for North Carolinians to speak to their communities.

Slashing public broadcasting funding will limit their ability to operate during crises and delay critical information to the people who need it most.

Make no mistake: Without public broadcasting, we would have seen more lives lost in Helene. We need to protect these stations so we can protect our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Virginia for yielding.

When you see something that is not right, not fair, or not just, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Those were John Lewis' words.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the fifth anniversary of the late, great John Lewis' passing, a firebrand, a trailblazer, a mentor, and a leader whose outsized presence can still be felt throughout the Halls of Congress.

Congressman Lewis taught us that we have a moral obligation to root out injustice wherever we find it proudly, boldly, and unapologetically.

He believed that the soul of our Nation hinged on everyday people dedicating themselves to the pursuit of justice. To honor his life and legacy, we must speak out about the injustices we face today.

The one big, ugly bill that my Republican colleagues applauded and cheered in this very Chamber earlier this month stands opposed to everything Congressman Lewis spent his life fighting for. It strips care away from the sick, threatening Medicaid for more than a half million North Carolinians. It takes food off the plates of the hungry, with 1.4 million North Carolinians, including 600,000 children, now at risk of losing their food assistance. It denies our children the right to a quality education, targeting our public schools and making it even harder for average Americans to afford higher education.

Make no mistake. This bill places the American Dream further out of reach for nearly everyone who calls our country home and breaks the American promise. The one big, ugly bill is a betrayal of our country. It is up to every single person in the United States, the ordinary people with extraordinary vision, to join us in standing against it.

We must fight back the way John Lewis did, using our voice, our actions, and our communities to right wrongs and to protect those who are suffering from the injustices they face. This is the moral obligation that Congressman Lewis talked to us about. Now is the time to speak up, to act up, and yes, cut up, if we have to, but let's go make some good trouble.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the rule to make in order the amendment at the desk that protects against any cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to recognize the eighth anniversary of Black Maternal Health Week, founded by Black Mamas Matter Alliance.

I want to take a moment to honor the life and legacy of my constituent, Fatima Carter.

I share with you a stunning portrait of her painted by Omari Maynard of the ARIAH Foundation.

Through an initiative called ``In Her Honor,'' the ARIAH Foundation and Mothering Justice uplift the lives of women like Fatima, Black mothers who should still be with us today.

A proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Fatima worked for Abbott Nutrition and was a devoted stepmother to her teenage daughter, China Carter.

After multiple heartbreaking miscarriages, Fatima and her family were preparing to welcome her daughter, Cameron Carter.

Because Fatima lived with type 1 diabetes, her pregnancy was considered high risk. After a medical appointment with concerns about preeclampsia were raised, Fatima went to sleep, and she never woke up.

The coroner listed sudden cardiac death as the cause, but we know it was more than that. It was the result of our healthcare system that too often ignores Black women's pain.

We will not allow her story to be forgotten. We will not stop until justice, safety, and dignity in birth are guaranteed for all.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. De La Cruz for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, on the final day of Women's History Month, I rise tonight to highlight the value of the Women's History Museum. Karen Staser founded the museum in 1995 with the aim of addressing the significant amount of women's history that was missing from our Nation's Capital and museums, including the Smithsonian Institution.

During the museum's startup years, the museum's first project was to oversee the restoration of the iconic women's suffrage statute which resides in our Capitol rotunda to this day.

As an artist of 40 years and as someone who has actually started a small museum gallery in my home State, I am very concerned about museums. This museum also organized a traveling exhibition on women's suffrage, launched a popular newsletter called ``A Different Point of View,'' created a bipartisan Honorary Congressional Advisory Council, and testified before Congress.

Since its founding, the museum has played an integral role in uplifting and celebrating the many women in history who have had an impact on our society, women like my mentor, artist, and teacher, the late Eva Hamlin Miller. Too often, these names are erased from our history books, our K-12 education, and even our museums.

The Women's History Museum is a space where women can go to feel inspired and motivated to dream big. It is a place where women's legacies can live on, be celebrated, and not forgotten.

One such woman I want to mention, Alma Thomas, comes to mind. She was an African-American artist who is now recognized as a major American painter of the 20th century. She attended Howard University and went on to be an educator at Shaw Junior High School here in D.C.

She had a deep understanding of the importance of the arts in children's self-expression and created enrichment programs for her students. Her most influential work included her abstract paintings which she developed later in her life. She was the first African- American woman to be featured in a solo exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art and also the first to have her art displayed in the White House's permanent collection.

We need more representation of African-American artists like Alma Thomas and Eva Hamlin Miller in the Women's History Museum. To exclude their work is to miss significant parts of our country's history and contradict the very founding principle of the museum.

I close again by honoring all of the women of our past who had an influential hand in shaping the present. Wholeheartedly, I support the work of the Women's History Museum. As always, I look forward to working with my colleagues to continue to uplift the work and the contributions of women, not just for Women's History Month but every month and every day of every year.

Mr. Speaker, I rise because this bill threatens the principles that make our schools and sports fields places of opportunity.

This bill does not protect anyone. It unjustly targets transgender women and girls under the guise of fairness, but exclusion is not fairness, Mr. Speaker. Fairness is ensuring that every athlete can participate, grow, and thrive.

For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to the committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, Title IX was originally passed to address the structural imbalances between men's and women's sports, disparities that continue to pose an actual threat to women and girls in sports today.

My amendment, based on my Fair Play for Women Act, would strengthen Title IX enforcement and protect all women by increasing accountability, transparency, and training in athletic programs.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the record the text of the amendment immediately prior to the vote on the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the distinguished service of three of my colleagues who will not be returning to this Chamber in January: Congresswoman Kathy Manning, representing North Carolina's Sixth Congressional District; Congressman Wiley Nickel, representing North Carolina's 13th Congressional District; and Congressman Jeff Jackson, representing North Carolina's 14th Congressional District.

All three of these Members have served their respective districts with devotion, with courage, and with conviction.

To my colleagues, I want them to know that it is a cruel injustice and a stain on the fabric of our democracy that we have to say goodbye to you today, but it is my privilege to highlight the good work that you have done here.

To Representative Kathy Manning, who represents my hometown where I began my public service, I have appreciated our work together in the Greensboro community over the years and the most recent 4 years working on behalf of our community here in Congress. I was especially proud when she joined me to recognize the Greensboro Four earlier this year.

She has been a great partner on the Education and the Workforce Committee. Whether it has been about fighting for equal pay or protecting women's rights or improving our schools and universities, I have admired her courage and commitment, and I thank her.

To Representative Wiley Nickel, I have appreciated his knowledge and experience on the Financial Services Committee. He demonstrates why expertise in finance is necessary in the U.S. Congress. With Shaw University, an HBCU in his district, he has helped develop policy proposals that really dig deep into the root causes of inequity and addresses them at the source.

Through the Supporting Diverse Entrepreneurs Act that we worked together on, students will be provided initial financing and expertise so young entrepreneurs can get to work starting businesses and growing our economy. I thank him. Our schools and young people are better for his service.

To Representative, now attorney general-elect Jeff Jackson, it has been a joy to serve the people of Charlotte with him. We have delivered great community projects together, like Nourish Up's Hunger Hub to feed struggling families and The Umbrella Center, which will serve women and children who have experienced abuse. We can't forget the new main library for Mecklenburg County, which will provide a community center and access to books and critical services for years to come.

We have worked on housing issues together, like the American Neighborhoods Protection Act, and he has been a great model in my Mad Hatter's Annual Luncheon.

The people of North Carolina, Mr. Speaker, will be served well with our next attorney general, and we look forward to what he will accomplish.

North Carolina and our Nation have been well served by these three Members, and it has been my privilege to work alongside each of them.

Their seats were eliminated not by democracy but by the sinister forces of greed and corruption because of gerrymandering. There has been dangerous rhetoric in this Chamber about the sanctity and the validity of our elections, and I do want to acknowledge that while our elections are legitimate, that does not make them fair and it does not mean that our democracy is functioning as intended.

I say to my colleagues, Representatives Manning, Nickel, and Jackson, I won't forget their service, and I won't forgive the process by which each of them has to leave this Chamber either.

While they may have taken them out of this fight, I know the fight hasn't been taken out of each of them.

Shirley Chisholm reminded us that service is the rent we pay for living on God's Earth.

My thanks to each of them for keeping their rent fully paid up. God bless them as they move forward.

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Census seeks to count every American, every ten years. They do this so that every American may be equally represented and heard in this chamber by one of us. Friends, colleagues, Democrats, and Republicans, I submit this statement tonight, because nearly 250 years after our founding, the people of North Carolina are still not being fairly heard on this floor.

Before the first US Census count was conducted in 1790, North Carolina lawmakers, who looked nothing like me to say the least, joined with other representatives from southern states in advocating that African-American slaves be counted as ``three-fifths'' of a resident. More residents meant more congressional power. So they wanted our ancestors to count--but they denied them the vote. They wanted our bodies, but not our voices.

The echoes of that anti-democratic sentiment live today through gerrymandering. The effects of it are felt by all North Carolina voters and indeed, most voters around the country. The people of Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, and Florida are not being fairly heard on this floor.

To this day, the practice of gerrymandering drags the feet of our democracy, back to the early days of our nation when most of our citizens did not have a voice. The New Majority is built on it, but both parties are complicit in it. I am standing on this tonight, because I won't stand for it anymore.

Gerrymandering does more than sand the gears of our democracy. It harms our ability to govern. We can count people a lot faster than we could in 1790, but there's a reason the Census is only done every ten years. The long stability period gives us time to get to know our constituents, their needs, and the needs of the land, businesses, and organizations therein. It's why it's important that these districts represent cohesive communities. But that stability in governance has not been the case for my constituents, or for most in North Carolina.

The Republican Majority in the North Carolina General Assembly engaged in political pornography to stack congressional districts in their favor, locking 10 of our 14 congressional districts into Republican control in a state that voted 50-50 for the US House.

Over the past ten years of my service, this district has undergone changes in 2016, 2020, 2022, and now here in 2024. My first district looked something like a potted plant, growing along I-85 from Charlotte to Greensboro. If I knew then my district would evolve four more times, I might have traded my house for an RV. Starting in January I'll have served the fifth configuration of my district in ten years. Most of you in this chamber who've served as long as I have, have served just two in that same time period.

Think about what serving five different districts does to our efforts at governance. Every year I give a State of the District speech, and I'm either saying goodbye or introducing myself to half my constituents. Many are surprised to hear from me.

Frequently redrawn districts mean weakened and less effective governance. Constituents need a representative in Congress often for basic help with federal services, like their Social Security checks, unemployment insurance, Veterans benefits, passport services, etc. Constantly scrambling relationships between offices and constituents hurts this process, and hurts our constituents. Worse, it undermines the basic faith Americans have in democracy.

The problem is especially bad in Charlotte, one of the Nation's fastest-growing cities, where many inhabitants relocated from elsewhere and feel especially disengaged with local politics. As hospitable southerners, our state leaders should take responsibility for changing this. Unfortunately, perpetuating it is more in line with our history.

State-level lawmakers are egged on by their counterparts and former colleagues here in Washington. They think they are here to deliver for a party agenda, but let me tell you, we are not here to govern for ourselves or for a party. We're here to govern for the people. America has never been about those in power, but about the work to make a more perfect union.

And there are answers.

While it took nearly 200 years, the sons and daughters of former slaves did eventually realize their right to help choose the representatives who walk these halls tonight. As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ``the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.''

Legal standards for fairly drawn districts are not rocket science. The process worked--in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, and even, for a brief time, in North Carolina. National standards would be imperfect, but far greater than the status quo. They would ensure that the 330 million Americans we counted in 2020 are divided into 435 equally numbered, fairly and transparently drawn, more competitive districts that are representative of real communities. They would give us as representatives time to get to know our constituents, and maybe even solve a few more of their problems, too.

While North Carolina Republicans have chosen party power over the cultivation of democracy, cynicism over faith in the people, and their newfound fears over whatever once inspired them to public service, the people will win in the end.

Democracy will always have the last word.

Mr. Speaker, the vote closed before 92 members could get in the chamber. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 283.