Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, Ms. Norton, for having this amazing interest to our country put before us for a vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 1532, No Human Trafficking on Our Roads, and S. 1536, the Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act.

As the vice chair of the congressional bipartisan Caucus for Women's Issues and a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I am pleased that we are solving these issues of real concern.

Human trafficking is an inexcusable crime. According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, about 8 in 10 reported victims are women. It is a crime that exploits women more than anyone else, and especially young girls.

Mr. Speaker, combating human trafficking is a serious concern of mine. Unfortunately, in my district--I represent the Metro Detroit area--a major international transportation and shipping hub in southeast Michigan, we rank number seven in total human trafficking cases reported in our country.

These bills mark progress toward combating human trafficking. We are improving our systems to better recognize and report this crime. We are closing loopholes in our transportation system that traffickers have taken advantage of for far too long.

I am proud to support these bills, and I urge my colleagues to support them as well.

Mr. Speaker, today I needed a vote and a voice for something that is good for this country, and so I stand here in support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address my concerns with the GOP tax bill.

Calling this bill the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is simply wrong.

Adding $1.5 trillion to our deficit and assuming--and basically hoping--corporations will create jobs is irresponsible. There is no guarantee jobs will be created and no incentive for job training. This is wrong.

In America, we have a skilled trade crisis. We cannot continue to operate our economy and jobs without skilled trades. We must give incentives to invest in new technology and equipment for our corporations, but we must do that while demanding that they also invest in skilled trade training and investment.

Tax reform was a real chance to close the skills gap, reinvest in our workers, and create a 21st century job training program.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the Republican spending plans.

Republicans in Congress have passed a tax giveaway to corporations and left behind everyday Americans. Now Republicans are refusing to address constituents' urgent priorities: from children's healthcare to disaster relief, to certainty for DREAMers, and more.

They refuse to bring a clean reauthorization for the Children's Health Insurance Program--CHIP--which serves 9 million children and 370,000 pregnant women. They want to drastically cut other healthcare funding while saying they support CHIP.

Republicans are also planning to cut Medicare and Medicaid. These cuts would be devastating for millions of people who depend on Medicaid for essential health services: children, seniors, low-income individuals, and people with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, this budget will hurt children, women, and all Americans just to pay for a tax giveaway, and it is simply unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the congresswoman from the great State of North Carolina (Ms. Adams) for her endless passion for education of the next generation and her strong support of our HBCUs. I also want to acknowledge our chairman, Cedric Richmond, our CBC chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to recognize something truly incredible. This year, nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities are celebrating their 150th anniversaries, 150 years of excellence, of endurance, and of new opportunity, collective strengths, and a core belief in the value of education.

Mr. Speaker, we so often talk about the American Dream, and we talk about that ladder of success that any American can have if they work hard and get an education. We all know that that first rung of that ladder is clearly education, and if we do not keep our promise in America to educate, we are failing in our American commitment to excellence in developing all young people to obtain their greatness.

As we look upon these accomplishments of 150 years, we are reminded how important and how vital these schools have been to the advancement of African Americans.

Mr. Speaker, by establishing these amazing places or institutions of learning, against all odds, and by turning them into world-class institutions, African-American leaders have made it clear that we hold the belief in education just as dearly as anyone else in America.

However, to ensure that some day we can celebrate these amazing institutions' 200th and 300th anniversaries, it is critical that we, as a country, resist the shameful attacks on our education system.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the current tax plan being negotiated by my Republican colleagues threatens our educational system like never before. It pains me to stand here tonight congratulating 150 years of academic excellence while a small group of Republicans are working behind closed doors to strip educational opportunities for millions of Americans.

I do not believe that this is what the constituents voted for. U.S. citizens did not vote for higher student loan payments, teachers digging deeper in their pockets to supply the basic needs for their students, and a punishing tax on university endowments.

This is truly a tax scam. But perhaps the most senseless attacks on this success are coming from the White House. Earlier this year, I was horrified to see the President refer to the HBCUs as ``unconstitutional'' simply because they were the answer to a fundamentally unequal education system.

And let me be clear, HBCUs were created because there were no other choices. However, this feeling of being horrified or disappointed, I had frequently this year. While I am horrified, unfortunately, it is no longer a surprise. After all, this is a President who refused to denounce the blatant racism in Charlottesville and whose Education Secretary foolishly called HBCUs the ``pioneers of school choice.'' Clearly she doesn't know the history because there was no choice, Mr. Speaker.

While this can be unfortunate, disappointing, and even sickening, HBCUs were born out of adversity, and I see no reason to cave to the pressure now. We need to protect our HBCUs for future generations, for tomorrow's leaders because, as we continue to see, equality is a fight. Equality is a process.

I know a day will come, and I pray that I will be able to see with my own eyes, that equality in education and equality in this country is a reality. But until then, we must acknowledge today's successes, the successes of these amazing places, institutions of learning, and continue to fight for tomorrow's dreams of our next generation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Concurrent Resolution 90, which condemns ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and calls for an end to the attacks, and an immediate restoration of humanitarian access to the state of Rakhine in Burma.

Many consider the Rohingya one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

The stories that have come out in recent weeks and days are devastating and horrific.

The waves of brutally violent campaigns against the civilians--marked by mass killings, sexual violence, and forced displacement--have resulted in one of the fastest-growing refugee crises of our time.

Women, who account for the majority of those inside the refugee camps, face widespread rape and other forms of sexual violence, and some are even being sold as sex slaves.

Just like our zero-tolerance policy towards persecution within our borders, we must be crystal clear that the United States will not tolerate the persecution of innocent men, women, and children around the world.

I strongly believe that, with the help of the international community, we will find a peaceful solution to this crisis, despite various obstacles in our way.

This resolution is one step forward in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Rosa Parks, who, 62 years ago today, changed the face of the United States.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused a bus driver's orders to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This simple act led to a bus boycott that helped to energize the civil rights movement.

Reflecting on that day, Rosa Parks once said: ``The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.''

She didn't give up. She didn't give in. Rosa Parks reminds us that we all must never, never give in when faced with injustice. Her brave actions have inspired all of us. Each and every one of us have an opportunity to stand up, sit down, or kneel for what is right.

It is because of civil rights champions like Rosa Parks that future generations can grow up in a nation that is free and fair for all.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the EQUALS Act.

As a former Federal employee, I served in many capacities, from a letter carrier to a manager, and I know the dedication of those who serve in our civil service jobs. This bill is an insult to Federal employees and is completely unnecessary.

Mr. Chairman, I say this is a bill in search of a problem. What are we fixing?

This is not good-government legislation. It just makes it easier to fire Federal employees without due process. By arbitrarily extending probationary periods, this bill takes away civil servants' employment rights and due process protections for at least 2 years.

Mr. Chairman, do you realize that benefits that career employees are entitled to are held in abeyance while they are on probation? They are given a different classification as being probationary than they are as being a career employee.

What are we trying to achieve?

They also give up the right to receive 30 days' notice before they are fired or furloughed, and they do not receive their rights as whistleblowers as probationary employees. This bill simply takes away workers' rights.

How many Members of Congress' parents worked as Federal employees to put them through college and to make a difference in America?

Here we are assaulting the legacy of Federal employees who work every day to make this country an amazing place to live.

This is not the way to address performance issues in the Federal workplace. As a Federal employee who had the responsibility to perform probationary evaluations, you need to talk to the supervisor if they are not doing their job conducting the proper evaluations.

We must continue to support accountability measures and tools. In addition, we must keep the spotlight on gross mismanagement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution that requires every House Member and employee to complete antiharassment, antidiscrimination training. The first commonsense step is to make this training mandatory.

I introduced a bill a month ago and gathered over 100 cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans, to make sexual harassment training mandatory in the House, Senate, and support offices. I am glad the Senate has required training with this resolution, and now the

House must do the same. When women are at the table, Mr. Chairman, I am glad to say the conversation changes, and the voices in Congress of women have changed the conversation here.

It is important that we must do all that we can to improve the congressional workforce, reform our outdated processes, and I support this legislation to address this issue, and I know that my Members of Congress will do the same today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support fully funding the CHIP Act, but to oppose to the Republican bill.

Because of the reduction in the grace period, we are forcing Americans to go into their own pocket. Although this bill will reauthorize CHIP, it fails to show compassion for the low-income families and children who do not have access to critical healthcare, and it is a matter of life and death.

CHIP's impact is overwhelmingly felt in communities of color. Together, CHIP and Medicaid help cover 52 percent of Hispanic and 54 percent of all Black children nationwide.

As Members of Congress, we have a duty to protect our Nation's children. We need to support the millions of families who rely on this vital program. This is not the right way. We need to work together in a bipartisan manner to pass an important piece of legislation like CHIP and not take away from our children but support them.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, on October 12, 2017, I was not able to cast my votes during the first vote series due to a family emergency. Had I been present, I would have voted: YES on Democrat Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 2810--National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018; YES on Motion on Closing Portions of the Conference on H.R. 2810--National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018; YES on H.R. 2266--Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Requirements Act, 2017, as amended; YES on Motion to Recommit S. 585--Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017; and YES on Passage of S. 585--Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017.

Mr. Speaker, on October 11, 2017, I was unable to cast my votes during the second series due to a family emergency. Had I been present, I would have voted: YES on H.R. 452--To designate the facility of the United States Post Office located at 324 West Saint Louis Street in Pacific, Missouri, as the ``Specialist Jeffrey L. White, Jr. Post Office'' (Rep. Luetkemeyer--Oversight and Government Reform); and YES on H.R. 3243--FITARA Enhancement Act of 2017 (Rep. Connolly--Oversight and Government Reform).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today, along with millions of middle class Americans, to oppose the Republican budget resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support tax reform. Unfortunately, this budget resolution is a partisan tax reform package. I support tax reform, which will help lower taxes for low-income Americans, I support tax reform that will rebuild our middle class, and I support tax reform that simplifies the Tax Code for small businesses. I will not support a tax plan that disproportionately gives advantages to the rich.

But, Mr. Speaker, this tax plan will raise our deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. Mr. Speaker, this tax plan will take away critical dollars from an infrastructure bill that our Nation so desperately needs.

We still have time. Let's work together to do what is right for all Americans. Let's work together and do what is right for our country.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address the infrastructure crisis our country is facing.

Today, in Oakland County, Michigan, in the heart of my district, we are struggling with a major water main break. In my district, schools are being closed and hospitals are transporting patients to nearby areas. It will be days before the region will receive access to reliable, safe drinking water.

This is not an isolated incident. We are not investing in our Nation's infrastructure. Not surprisingly, Michigan's infrastructure received a D grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is unacceptable.

Lack of investment, lack of action is a matter of public health and public safety. It is a matter of life and death. It is obvious today in my district, but also in districts across this country.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues not to ignore this crisis. We need an infrastructure plan. Flint, Michigan, showed us that infrastructure is about the lives of American citizens. Let's work together to fix our Nation's infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Veasey for his leadership and for his dedication.

Today, I am at this mike for a number of reasons. One is that we have witnessed, over the weekend, another time in history that will be written for many to read, for generations to try to understand what exactly happened.

Most of us are raised that, in a time of grieving and mourning, you are sympathetic, you are patient, and, most of all, you try to be understanding.

I am at a loss in trying to understand how the dialogue was reduced to name-calling and then just unfactual information. But what I had hoped and what I feel that, as an American, as a Member of Congress, as a citizen, if someone gets it wrong, that at least I deserve, ``I'm sorry, I didn't get the information right,'' or maybe ``I spoke out of turn.'' And when you are grieving the loss of someone you love dearly, someone who was serving this country, someone who, as the family of a military service person, gave the sacrifice as well for them to represent our country.

I would hope--I was hopeful that that would happen, but it did not. There comes a point in time, Mr. Speaker, as American citizens, that we begin to stand up and say, as our country, there is an expectation. There is an expectation for those we elect, there is an expectation for those in leadership, and truly, there is an expectation of civility and, at minimum, truth.

As we know, the FBI has had a long, troubling history of using its broad investigatory powers to target Black citizens. It is not a myth. It is a fact. It has been written. During the 1960s, Director Hoover used the counterintelligence program to surveil and discredit civil rights activists, members of the Black Panther Party.

For an example, the FBI falsified a letter in an attempt to blackmail the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King into silence.

So the Congressional Black Caucus is concerned by the assertion that coins a new term, ``Black identity extremists,'' and claims, with high confidence, that they are likely to target law enforcement based on perceptions of police brutality against African Americans.

In August, the FBI Counterterrorism Division issued a chilling and outlandish warning to its agents, all hidden behind the veil of an internal report never meant to be seen by the American people. It worries me because, in 2017, such a misguided and hateful and dangerous report exists at all.

Released just 9 days before the hateful violence in Charlottesville, this report targets so-called Black identity extremists by falsely linking peaceful and necessary calls for justice from Americans, from the African-American community, to entirely unrelated acts of violence against law enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I served as a mayor of a diverse city for 14 years and had the responsibility of an entire police force for a city. I have such respect and honor for those who serve us.

I understand how, when there is trouble, the police run to that trouble to protect us, but I also know that the power that is held on the shield of a police force can be used for other than protection of their people. And that in this great country that we live in, time and time again in history, some people will use the comment: Don't be so sensitive about everything that happened. But history has shown us, every change that we have made in this country of freedoms and rights have come from people who had the courage, the political courage, to stand up and fight for that. Is that extremism?

Will you say the right to vote were Black extremists? Would you say that the women who protest and march so that women could have the right to vote, were they extremists? Or were they Americans who believed in this country and had the courage to stand up not just for them but for generations to come?

Our Social Security, when we looked at--and we looked at hunger in this country, and people repeatedly have shown, of all ethnic groups, that nothing in America happens without protests and the courage to stand up. Are they extremists, or they part of this amazing democracy that we have?

And the threat of being labeled by our FBI so you have permission to now treat these individuals, who have the courage to stand up, as unlawful villains and terrorists, and you have the permission now by the FBI to attack and to imprison them.

We must, as a Congress and a country, learn to understand the power of our words, and I am going to close with this.

Your words mean something. If this administration has taught us anything, the words of those who are elected to leadership do matter, whether it is the truth or whether it is a lie. It matters.

It fuels anger and hatred in people. It tells people that it is okay to disrespect others. Words mean something. And for me to be a Black woman in America and be labeled, if I stand up and fight for my rights, if I stand with others, if Black Lives Matter has not just been Black people standing up--it has been all members of the United States, citizens saying that all lives matter and that we will not tolerate criminal injustice against Black people and the murder rate that we see of those who are of color.

This has been a movement in our country, and now we see this internal labeling by our law enforcement in our country. Does that cause me to feel afraid in my own country? Does that give me the fear that history is going to repeat itself because words have given permission for this to happen when you legitimize people whose only purpose to stand and be in a position in your community is to say that you have no value less than me and we hate you?

But do you know what? There are some very fine people there. Being a Black person in America, I can tell you, we have had some fine days. I would not be standing here, this little Black girl from Detroit, if this country did not give me the opportunities. But it came from the protests; it came in the death and the riots of the people in my generation before me who would not sit down and be quiet.

So now are we being told that we are not to use our constitutional rights of free speech and protests and to gather to say that now you are being an extremist? I am not going to allow that to happen in this country, and if you want to label me, label me. But I would not be here today if it were not for those who had the political courage to stand up for what is right, not just for Black people, but for Americans in this country. And that is something that this report strikes a chord with me.

I stand in opposition. I understand when someone takes their freedom to stand up and oppose something that is happening in America, and I want to protect that First Amendment right. But if we can avoid the consequences of halfway speech fueled by fear and false perceptions, we will be stronger as a country.

Mr. Speaker, I call on Congress to join me and my colleagues in condemning this report and standing with us for a more peaceful, a more accepting, and a more equal country where we can really mean, when we stand up and we say the Pledge of Allegiance and we say, ``one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,'' and for all of us we have a name.

We have a name that we were given at birth, and we expect our leadership, our President, our Congress, our Chief of Staff, our military to address us by our names. It is not acceptable, it is embarrassing for us as a country, to reduce ourselves to that level. And I stand here tonight, on the Record, that I am an American. I am a Member of Congress. I am a woman. I am an African American. I deserve respect, and I expect all of our colleagues to conduct themselves the same way, including the President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to fully support the funding of CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP plays a very important role in providing low-income children across the country with health insurance.

Without CHIP, over 9 million children nationwide, including 90,000 in my great home in Michigan, will lose access to doctor checkups, immunizations, and basic healthcare.

For the last 2 days, we heard numerous concerns for the unborn children. We must show that same compassion toward the low-income children who are alive and living in our communities, whose access to critical healthcare, including CHIP, is a matter of life or death.

CHIP's impact is felt in communities of color, 52 percent of Hispanic and 54 percent of all Black children nationwide.

As Members of Congress, we have a duty to protect our Nation's children. We need to extend funding for CHIP and support the millions of families who rely on this program. Let's take care of our children in America.