Mr. Speaker, I am calling this Special Order hour the 40-year address, not to self-aggrandize, although I am marking that milestone year on Saturday when the House Chamber is not open and I will not be able to make such an address, but…
Mr. Speaker, I am calling this Special Order hour the 40-year address, not to self-aggrandize, although I am marking that milestone year on Saturday when the House Chamber is not open and I will not be able to make such an address, but more so to reflect, to look back, to comment on how we got here, and on what it means as Michigan's 11th District has only had in the 187 years of our State's existence 25 Members of Congress.
I happen to be the 25th Member of Congress to hold Michigan's 11th District, and I happen to be the first woman to ever represent Michigan's 11th District and, therefore, the first woman to ever turn 40 in Michigan's 11th Congressional District.
By right, I also claim that I am the first millennial whom Michigan ever sent to Congress in the year 2018. It was that magnificent year when many men and women stood up to run for Congress. A lot of us called ourselves the never evers. We had never ever run for office before, but we felt a call to serve in the face of what we saw as leadership taking this country backwards, leadership in the Oval Office, leadership that was putting forward terminology that was dubbed the Muslim ban in the early 21st century which was almost inconceivable particularly for me representing and coming from southeastern Michigan, a place of great Arab-American presence and all the frustration that we felt with governance by Twitter and anti-democratic principles, but more so because of love of country.
I could start with when I got to Congress, but I don't think that would be totally appropriate because there was a journey to getting here, and it is a journey we are sharing in this largely empty Chamber before the C-SPAN cameras and before the folks watching at home of what brought us here and what brought me here.
I did not come from a family that was preordained to send a daughter to Congress. I was born in the eighties, a decade I barely remember, partly because a person doesn't gain full consciousness as a human being until age 5, so largely the eighties were not that memorable. Of course, my parents have great memories of that decade and the decade prior to it.
My parents are surely incredible people, incredibly hardworking Michiganders. My mom came to Michigan by way of Oakland University. She graduated a year early. She was always ahead of her time. She worked her way through school. In the school cafeteria she was washing dishes. I think she finished school 3 years early.
She probably wanted to do something in the STEM field but, interestingly, the woman who went on to Congress and founded the Women and STEM Caucus is the daughter of a woman who was told the only thing she could study in school was either education or art history. So she studied art history, and she is to this day, obviously, a masterful painter.
More than that, my mother's life is determined by very hard work and exceptional brilliance, tinkering around with electronics and masterful woodcarving. I have one of the lifelike carved eagles that she did in the nineties in my office in the Rayburn House Office Building.
She met my father at Oakland University. He was still working on school, and my dad had started a landscaping business right when he was out of high school. Again, he was so dogged at that practice of working with the earth and working with the soil and planting the trees and knowing every type of plant, bush, and shrub out there, how to design it and make it look good.
Of course, my parents ended up going into business together. They were just kids in the seventies. Oh, gosh, they were hippies. I know my mom has stories, of course, of hitchhiking the country. We do not do that really today; there is Uber.
She hitchhiked the country. She also marched for women's rights and protested against the Vietnam war and went on to this endeavor called Nitro Feed with my father.
They had multiple acres of land out in Macomb County in Utica for this endeavor of theirs, this landscaping business that became the first tree spray company in Michigan.
In the winter when we couldn't landscape in Michigan, they would plow snow. My dad would plow the snow. The inside joke in my family was that my dad would wake up at any hour to the sound of the snow falling to make sure that people could get to work and that they could park in their parking lots. They employed a lot of people, and they had a lot of fun. Like folks were doing in the eighties and nineties, they were making a little bit of money.
Of course, my mom went into business with her sister. These are two female trailblazers. We always say that my Aunt Marcie is sort of the third parent and matriarch of our family. These two sisters are daughters of a woman who had four sisters and Italian roots that trace back to Cleveland, Ohio.
Interestingly, as I am making this address on the eve of my personal anniversary, my colleague, Congresswoman Shontel Brown who hails from Cleveland, Ohio, and represents the 11th District of Ohio, and we call ourselves twin sisters because we share a birthday and we share a district number.
Then I say: My family came from Cleveland, in Mayfield Heights, in an old Italian neighborhood. Of course, this is something that sisters from the Midwest know about hard work and communication.
The business that my aunt and mother got into was communications. They were in advertising. And, again, a lot of hard work and trials and tribulations but a whole heck of a lot of fun transforming our State and the dialogue of healthcare and how women talk about healthcare, talking about menopause, mammograms, and things that were taboo in the nineties and that great awakening that we had around mental health.
So some of these life reflections of my family and the things that they exposed me to are something that is very humbling to share on this House floor.
I was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I like to say that I took my first breath of air from ZIP Code 48309 at the old Crittenton Hospital.
Of course, Rochester Hills' claim to fame is that is where Madonna, the singer, the 1980s phenomenon, was from. Her mother, Joan Ciccone, ran a small daycare that I attended as a toddler and a little bit into elementary school.
Again, family business, good Italian family business, and there are stories from the neighborhoods of friends, mothers, or parents who knew Madonna in high school. We, of course, remember Mrs. Ciccone picking up the phone and saying: Hello, Madonna. My brother, who doesn't like any attention, remembers one time that Madonna came to visit. He swears Madonna came to visit.
That was growing up in Rochester Hills, what was largely known as exurban, the suburbs outside of the suburbs. Now it is a little more populated and built up. My mother can certainly remember stories of sledding down Rochester Road before all the businesses moved in. Of course, I remember walking down Alston Street with my good friend, Rachel, to elementary school. She is my dearest--I like to call her my oldest friend but sometimes oldest feels disparaging, but she is my longest friend in life.
We would walk down Alston together, and there are a lot of funny stories about me being fearful of her family dog who barely could move and me not wanting to ring her doorbell.
The reason I share these personal reflections and these stories is that I certainly was not afraid to put my hand up and get involved in student activities and student governments or theater or performances or things like that, but I also share these stories because nothing in life is fully ever determined.
We know that we make our own destiny. My running for office eventually one day in life was not something preordained. It was not a given that I was going to come to Congress. I know so many of my colleagues through so many of their personal trials and tribulations join me in sharing this message to the next generation which is that life is uncertain and growing up is tough.
This new generation, our Generation Z, who is racked with the unique challenges of this century, a global pandemic--we just saw the headline this morning about test scores still being
behind--and certainly the challenges of climate change and gun violence, that compels us. When you are young and you are still dependent and you are maybe just getting out of those teenage years, Mr. Speaker, into early adulthood and wondering how you are going to make your way in the world, it is important to recall and to look to those who have done what no one called to ask them to do, but just what they felt compelled to do and to make a difference.
I firmly believe that we still need to believe in this place. We still need to believe in this institution. I could be doing something else this evening, but I have really believed and thought that it would be important to give this address in the House Congressional Record spoken verbally. Sometimes you can write these addresses and just submit them for the Record, but I wanted to take the time to speak these words.
It just so happens that speaking these words on this day, June 21-- the solstice--is really actually quite remarkable. The solstice is a day that comes twice a year. It either comes when it is today when the sun is reaching its maximum destination or its maximum declining and the longest or shortest day of the year. My mother was actually born on the shortest day of the year. Today is the longest day of the year, and, of course, then it begins the reaching toward the shortest day. It also marks summer.
I haven't spent too much time outside today here in Washington, D.C., in the Nation's Capital. It has been a very unusual late spring, now first day of summer. It is cold in Washington. It is 60-some degrees and raining. One reaches for a shawl on weather like today.
I have a friend back home in Michigan whom I asked: What is the weather like at home?
He shared that it is 80 degrees in my beloved Michigan, and it is the perfect ringing day to summer.
It is, of course, also unique and special in all of these hyper- partisan times to reflect on the solstice and the marking of summer because it is man's and human's experience in nature and this recognition that something exists beyond us and something that got done right in Washington a long time ago is the House on the hill, the Capitol on the hill, it is surrounded by nature. It is surrounded by beautiful trees and green and the Mall that you can walk out on, Mr. Speaker, and go see the monuments.
Of course, some of us remember the wild fox that was scampering around. That was last term. We can see some wildlife.
I believe just as many who have been in this Chamber from centuries ago likely recognize the importance of the role that nature plays in our life.
The words of the poet William Wordsworth who was not an American but an English poet speak out:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
I am not the only one who speaks poetry in this Chamber, of course. Mr. Steny Hoyer, our former majority leader emeritus is one to quote Tennyson on occasion.
It is certainly quite grounding as people of this great country, and it is elected officials who use our words, who use our words to move, make change, and bring this Nation to a new place. Sometimes those words can feel contentious or bottled up on competition or trying to win something. In other times, the words can bring us together, the words can call upon us to reflect. The words can call upon us to look above and look at the beauty all around us even on a cloudy solstice- beginning summer day here in Washington, D.C.
As I have taken some time to reflect a little bit on my life--and I really can't tell you all how deeply humbling and somewhat uncomfortable it is to even talk about yourself in this body, this well of democracy.
I purposely chose to come to the center, the floor of the House, what I believe is the House floor, the center of gravity of our democracy.
When we have been waging great debates in the Congress over many years, I have long implored my colleagues to take it off cable news because that is somewhat filtered, and, of course, doctored.
Our journalists play a great role, but take your discourse to the well, to the floor of the House, to the center of democracy.
Engage in the great debate of this institution for Americans to see unfiltered. Somebody at the Juneteenth event in Huntington Woods pulled me aside, and they said, I am just so exhausted with how polarized it feels, with how partisan it feels. I can't take it.
I said, well, are you watching the news?
And she said, no, I am not watching the news.
I said, well, tune in to C-SPAN because maybe you can't come to Washington and join us in the gallery, but come to C-SPAN and watch your government in action.
Of course, sometimes there is tough debate. As we just saw with my colleagues passing the suspension bills, one that just passed unanimously, it is bipartisan. It is coming together to solve problems and coming together to make a difference.
I certainly do not ever seek to undermine or doubt the intentions of any of my colleagues, although on occasion, their approach may frustrate me.
We are all equal as duly elected Members of this Chamber when we come here to vote. Our Founding Fathers in the era of the Founders and those who maintained this institution, America, as a fledgling--and we are still a fledgling democracy, in my opinion.
Our country is about to turn 247 years old. We can look to some of the most ancient societies, the longest-standing countries in this world, this world that is also 4\1/2\ million years old, and wonder what they think and how they are looking to us.
Yet, we can look inward. We shouldn't exclusively look inward, but we can look inward and reflect that we have accomplished a lot in these 246 years; the governing doctrine of this very Nation that still determines how an individual like Haley Stevens can get to Congress every other year.
The incredible voting electorate of Michigan's 11th District, that is now comprised exclusively of the great Oakland County, in Michigan takes a vote. They take a vote, and they determine who is going to be their representative voice in the Congress.
That is why when we have the privilege of being here in Washington, and, of course, people come and visit--we had a great day, which I will share a little bit about our day in a moment.
When people come to Washington, and they share their needs, or when I am home in Michigan, so joyfully visiting the farmers' markets, visiting the small businesses, doing the manufacturing Mondays--I call them manufacturing Mondays, by the way.
I visit our manufacturers. I see the innovation, the continued hard work of our small businesses; men and women who are dedicated to the production value of this Nation, made in the USA, something that is demanded and called for throughout the world.
It is something that I am so ever committed to as an elected Representative and as a former Obama administration official and as somebody who once worked in a manufacturing research and development institute.
Today, to share with anyone who might be watching, and to just give a glimmer of what happens in a day for a Member of Congress, but there's so much jammed in a day that it is, again, a real privilege to be able to share and speak from this well of the House floor about what occurred today.
I went to my beloved Committee on Science, Space & Technology markup. We marked up three great bills on fire safety, on the utilization of a mist for fire safety, and construction and management standards for rebuilding after fires.
We are saying the words climate change in the hearing, in the markup. We are saying the words climate change. We are recognizing. These are bipartisan bills.
Again, you might recall that I am a Democrat, and I am in the minority party, so I am at the whim of the chairman from the Republican Party for the Committee on Science and Technology.
Yet, there we sit, chairman and ranking member and participating members of the committee marking up bipartisan bills.
Of course, I spoke exuberantly on behalf of the bills and am looking forward to their being passed through committee tomorrow.
We take our votes in committee, and then we are going to have a hearing on artificial intelligence, which is certainly a topic that has motivated and compelled the work of the Committee on Science and Technology ever since I joined the Committee on Science and Technology in my first term in Congress.
I am very fortunate to have served as the vice chair of the committee when we were in the majority and the chair for the Subcommittee on Research and Technology.
Folks might recall that when I helped lead the Congress through the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, industrial policy for this great Nation. Let's make semiconductor microchips in this Nation again because we innovated these things, and we let some people beat us at our own game for a little bit.
Then the pandemic hit, the tide rolls out, and we don't have enough chips. We decided to make chips in this country again by investing $50 billion that since the passage and signing of the bill in August of last year, $50 billion has already beget $200 billion of private sector invest.
Astronomical job creation, supply chain value for my State of Michigan, and it is enormously exciting that we got that bill done.
I am so thrilled to have been a part of that committee, but that was last year's activity. Of course, we carry the words of the things that we have done into today.
As I was marking up the bills in committee, I was reflecting on the bipartisan achievement of the CHIPS and Science Act last term, and we have more to do on that. I will certainly get to that in a moment.
I also had the privilege of sitting down with a--I believe he calls himself a president of a company. I don't know if he would want me sharing this, but of course, I am sharing it. He did come to visit me.
He runs this company called Qualcomm. They are in this chips business. I think this executive was in Washington today.
Well, he knew I was involved with this CHIPS Act, but they wanted to share about this competition that we are in with China and the Chinese Communist Party. This is something that I am very keen to as a Representative of Michigan and as someone who served in President Obama's administration as the chief of staff on the U.S. auto rescue, the initiative that was responsible for saving General Motors and Chrysler from liquidation and countless, hundreds of thousands of Michigan jobs and certainly millions throughout this country.
We know the meaning of being able to make products here in the United States of America and sell them all over the world.
That is the deal, right. That is why the day after the first impeachment of President Trump in the year 2019, before the word COVID ever entered our verbiage--true story--we impeached President Trump.
It was really kind of a sad day in this country, and we didn't get justice that day. The following day we came back into this very Chamber after it being so contentious and so divisive and so emotional.
Democrats and Republicans came back into this Chamber and passed the trade deal, USMCA, a renegotiated NAFTA so that we could have a framework for competing in the 21st century with the rest of the world; strengthening by American content, plussing up our production value in a State like Michigan.
By the way, it was endorsed by the critical stakeholders from both organized labor, AFL-CIO, and UAW, to the automakers because 21st century challenges beget 21st century solutions of coming together.
Of course, I am still talking about today. I am still talking about why Qualcomm and maybe some other chip manufacturers are saying, hey, we need to be able to sell to the world, all right, and we can't cut ourselves off because some are chest thumping as we have done throughout this century and the century prior for war.
We can call ourselves hawks. I don't call myself a hawk on China. I am serious about the competition and the consideration and the frustrations with the CCP.
I know that the Biden administration is attempting to lead just as the administration prior and the administration prior did.
Of course, the dynamic has changed in the year 2023, but America has got to be in the business of de-risking, and America has got to be in the business of leading through smart power and strong power as an open, democratic, capitalist society that says every person can succeed and that we are working toward a more perfect union and the plight of equality and justice.
I founded the Women in STEM Caucus because we want to bring more people into the STEM field. It can't be acceptable that 5 percent of women in STEM careers are Black and Brown.
It needs to be more. It cannot just be a talking point. It needs to be a way of life. When we talk about expanding and when we work on expanding the middle class, which had been shrinking, we talk about uplifting people out of poverty.
It is not because anyone is looking to be endemically poor. That is not the case. My great mother has shared many times over her thoughts on this to me, which is that it is expensive to be poor.
It certainly is expensive in this day and age when you go to the grocery store and when you pay your insurance bill and when you pay your housing bill and when you pay to clothe and feed the kids and all of this and that.
It is like you can't catch a breath. We are being squeezed. Instead of finger-pointing, we need to be committed to the creation of good jobs.
Good jobs means selling American-built, made, innovated, shipped products to the world. You can't cut us off. It is not going to work, right. The automakers will tell you that as well. The suppliers will tell you that.
We need to be realistic. I am not going to overlook what has gone on with Russia and Ukraine because I have been battling Putin since I got into Congress, before I was sworn in.
Paul Whelan, the Novi resident in his fifth year in a Russian prison, the canary in the coal mine for the lawlessness that Putin has pursued on a global scale with this unbelievably outrageous, illegal, ongoing war in Ukraine.
Russia isn't China. We were able to decouple. We brought the West along with us. We are having the conversation on energy security and what we need to do.
I am pragmatic and I am realistic about that. I am proud to have voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, otherwise known as the largest climate bill in history, clean energy incentives, which are unbelievably impacting Michigan's economy right now; making batteries, seeing our manufacturers rise as they do over and over again to the charge of our time.
I mention Mr. Whelan today because his beloved dog Flora, 15 years old, as announced by his brother, has passed. So as Whelan is in prison, we just passed the resolution calling on the Russian Federation to release Whelan, condemning it. He will come home. I will not lose hope. I stand by his family every day on this. He will come home, but he is not coming home to his dog.
These are some of the things that have happened today.
The other thing that happened, which was really quite profound, and I think I am allowed to show a prop, is that we held a ceremony honoring the debut of the postage stamp of the Honorable John Lewis. It was incredibly moving.
Speaker McCarthy had a reception afterward in the Rayburn Room. We had biscuits and conversation. The minority leader of the Democrats, the very eloquent and brave leader Hakeem Jeffries, spoke, as well. Mr. Lewis' former chief of staff remembered him.
It was such an honor to be in one of his favorite places in the Capitol, Statuary Hall, seeing the new postage stamp for John Lewis, a man I was so privileged to serve with in his final term in office in the 116th Congress and to be there with so many of my colleagues.
Of course, some other things happened today. We took more votes on
the House floor. Bizarrely, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle censured--we are still trying to figure out what censuring means--but they have condemned my colleague from California, Mr. Schiff. It was really quite emotional for some. I mean, I don't think people were tearing up, but it was emotional because a good portion of us serving in the 118th Congress were here on January 6, 2021, and we would just like to have some basic agreement about facts, right?
Look, you can't dwell and dwell, but we have to have some basic agreement of facts that those who are seeking to censure, many of them--and I do not speak disparagingly--I don't think any of them really joined in the effort to condemn a man in the Oval Office who, as Commander in Chief, watched this Capitol, a branch of his government, be attacked.
You take an oath as the Commander in Chief to protect and serve. I am not out here on what to some is known as or dubbed a witch hunt. I am here for the truth. I am here for an honest conversation.
Of course, I am also here to make sure that we put into place the policies that lead to good and great job creation, good and great futures, because one thing that I have seen campaigning out in the field in these incredible neighborhoods that comprise Michigan's 11th District is that people are busy, and they often do not have time for the blood sport of politics. They are relying on a government that needs to make sure that they are succeeding and getting out of the way to make sure that they are succeeding by putting into place policies that build toward a more perfect Union.
This is what fires me up. This is what motivates me in the charges of our times. I know so many who do engage in the civil discourse and the public discourse and show up at townhalls and show up at community meetings, those who have become a part of the activist organization Moms Demand Action, calling for more commonsense gun safety legislation.
Outside my office in the Rayburn Building, I have decided because of my frustration over and outrage of gun violence in this country that I have known my whole life, and even my parents have known in ways that have been unimaginable--and I say ``my parents'' as in their generation. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. My father, who was also an educator, was doing his student teaching in Pontiac, Michigan, at Bethune Elementary when Martin Luther King, Jr., was taken from us, as were John Lennon, John Kennedy, RFK. President Reagan was shot.
Is this part of some sort of dramatic story of our Nation, or is this a problem that we must fix?
Outside of my office are now the orange ribbons that have marked every mass shooting just this year alone, and I am running out of space on the wall for the ribbons. I am running out of space. We are almost at 300. If you choose to feel, it is unimaginable.
I am on the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and I don't want America to appear weak, but this is not happening in China.
When we met with our counterparts in the British Parliament, they looked at us and said: We had 40 people die from guns--4-0, not 40,000, 4-0 in the last year. We are at tens of thousands. This is human capital.
We can talk about gun violence and talk about the opioid epidemic, and we can talk about people dying from auto accidents, and certainly the million people we lost from COVID-19, and say every life matters, and we have to be committed to preserving life's existence. We have to be committed not from a place of despair or frustration, but from a place of motivation and dogged determination that we will address and fix the scourge of gun violence in America.
It is clear that shame is not working. Calling out and calling out is not working. Presenting the facts isn't working, but what will work, in my opinion, is the arc of time.
Standing here as a woman, as I mentioned at the beginning of this address, the first woman to represent Michigan's 11th District, it took 100 years to get suffrage achieved, to address the enfranchisement, enfranchising women to be able to vote, when Congress had the most number of women ever in history serving in its Chambers, both the House and Senate.
Now, mind you, I want to concede this: We haven't even ever had 500 women total yet in the whole history of the body. In the 247 years of America's existence, we have not had 500 women yet serving in the Chamber, but we had over 100 in the year 2019, for that term, 2019 to 2020, marking 100 years of women's suffrage.
Of course, in 1920, when women's suffrage was achieved, you look back and squint because 1848 was Seneca Falls. How many women who were at Seneca Falls got to live to see their right to vote?
I reflected on my colleague who we honored today, Mr. Lewis. His words that we go back to so many times as a Democratic Caucus ring forward in this plight to ban assault weapons, to pass universal background checks, to stop gun violence in America, to change our culture, which I firmly believe we do by passing laws, not by seeing children in Sandy Hook taken from us and not doing anything.
Mr. Lewis' words ring out: ``Do not get lost in a sea of despair.'' Let me say that again: ``Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It is the struggle of a lifetime.''
Think of the women at Seneca Falls. Think of our country recognizing and celebrating the second anniversary of the now-official Federal holiday of Juneteenth that marked the end of slavery in this Nation. Think of these long trials and tribulations that our young country has gone through.
Before we were even erected as a nation, 400 years of slavery, and only 158 years since it ended, something that was debated in this Chamber.
Can you even imagine today? Then think of in the 21st century Mr. Lewis' words. ``It is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.''
Why take to the floor of the House to speak these words? Why take to the floor of the House in recognition of a personal milestone and the achievements that we have made on behalf of Michigan's 11th District? Why take to the House floor during Pride Month, Equality Month?
I remember coming here in one of the first floor speeches I made for marriage equality and fairness, letting people just love who they want to love and be who they are. We have made so much progress that now it has become another targeted issue for those who do not agree. They are trying to twist it on its head.
I have so many colleagues this evening at the Equality PAC celebration honoring Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, one of the original trailblazers in this body for LGBTQ rights, and we are still going to have the joy and the pride that comes with Pride Month because love is louder and joy is more inclusive.
Of course, in Michigan, we are delightfully blessed with the first statewide elected openly gay official, Ms. Dana Nessel, our attorney general, who alongside the speaker pro tempore of the senate, Mr. Jeremy Moss, one of Oakland County's finest, they declared loudly this month in Michigan that we are the gayest State in the Union and that all are welcome in Michigan because, again, we thrive when everyone succeeds.
Of course, for some, this may not be your words or your declaration, but I speak for so many. I speak for Ferndale. I speak for affirmations. I speak for those who are watching and listening and wondering what they are going to do with their lives and what it means.
I represent and speak for disabled individuals and folks who I am fighting for on the Education and the Workforce Committee to fully fund IDEA so that our school districts do not need to rob Peter to pay Paul, so that we can properly educate every student in this country regardless of ability. That is the purpose of public education.
If you want something else, you can pay for it and go do it, but gosh darn it, we want everyone to have access to a good, quality education. That is what pays dividends to our country. That is what pays dividends back into our Treasury. Speaker Pelosi once shared
that, and I certainly join her in recognizing that point.
Cost, indebtedness, hard work, how to get ahead, how to catch our breath, and how to remain optimistic.
Sometimes it feels, to the outside world, maybe because they are not watching C-SPAN, and they are only watching the news that flies off of anger politics or divisiveness or red meat, but so much gets done here.
Now, in my fifth year here, I have mentioned a couple of times I founded the Women in STEM Caucus. I also founded the Plastic Solutions Task Force, alongside my colleague, Kim Schrier.
I formed the Democratic Manufacturing Working Group, alongside leader Jim Clyburn, the great statesman from South Carolina, showcasing delivery and dedication to the manufacturing economy of America. Of course, I am also working on the bipartisan Manufacturing Caucus, alongside a colleague from Ohio.
I passed my first bill within my first year in Congress, the Building Blocks of STEM Act. It was signed on Christmas Eve. I wasn't at the White House for the signing, but it got signed. It was about STEM equity, making sure that more girls and girls of color can get included into the STEM field.
Will our work ever be done in this Chamber?
I hope not, because democracy thrives when people choose to participate in it. Democracy thrives when people choose to tune in during the middle of the week, on a rainy solstice day, maybe to listen, maybe to think, maybe to input. The tens of thousands of correspondence letters that we reply to in my office, the people writing in.
The ideas that come from knocking on the door in our neighborhoods. The Alleviating Intergenerational Debt Act that I introduced because I knocked on the door of this incredible family in Hazel Park, and mom and dad introduced me to their kids who were going off to Michigan State.
Dad said, Haley, it is really expensive. I said, I know, college has gotten unbelievably expensive. And we are applying for financial aid. He said, you know, Haley, it's outrageous, we didn't qualify for financial aid. I am a UAW worker. My wife here is a UAW worker. I have $90,000 student loan debt myself as a parent and I don't qualify for financial aid. Why is that?
So I went back, with a very hardworking member of my staff from Oakland County, Sammi Goldsmith, and we looked at this very diligently, and we found that this is a loophole in the financial aid formula.
So we introduced legislation to change it so that that family's daughter doesn't have to have the debt that dad has. Commonsense solutions, expand Pell grants, expand access to apprenticeship training programs, showcase our unions which allow you to earn as you learn.
There is so much to be proud of, by the way. So I am not just hemming and hawing. I am feverishly working on the solutions for tomorrow. I am feverishly working alongside my colleagues, even on tough days or tough moments, like with what happened with the censure earlier today, we remain committed.
We passed the CHIPS and Science Act. We know we need to do more. We need to fund basic scientific research. I was so proud, as the chair of the Research and Technology Subcommittee, to pass the National Science Foundation for the Future Act, that doubled basic scientific research funding in this country. Except it was just an authorization; it wasn't an appropriation.
I don't know what the rest of this year has in store. I don't have a crystal ball.
We didn't default on our debt. Some who sought to undermine the fiscal integrity of our Union by allowing America to default on its debt, it didn't happen because a bipartisan group of commonsense lawmakers came together to say, no, we won't do that.
Now we have to pass a budget. The Federal Government needs to be funded by September 30. So as the end of the year comes up, we are going to talk about basic scientific research funding. We are going to talk about food assistance. We are going to talk about making sure that students can go to school and get access to food, free and reduced lunch, a guarantee.
John Kennedy, President John Kennedy, gave an address 60 years ago this month at my alma mater. He gave a speech about peace. Mr. Kennedy, President Kennedy, comes from a time when it feels like there were fewer spoken words. There were certainly less tweets. There was certainly less cable news. Those words and the quotes, they carried movement. They carried action. I think sometimes that is what feels so frustrating about dealing with this scourge of gun violence. It is also Gun Violence Prevention Month here in June. We can give the best speech. We can write the most eloquent, smartest tweet. We have made some change.
We passed a bipartisan bill to award funding to States that have passed red flag laws, extreme risk protection order laws. Michigan just did it, under the leadership of our great Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in the wake of tragic shootings at Michigan State and at Oxford and the nearly everyday gun violence in too many neighborhoods across Michigan. So we did pass that law.
Again, words, the words that I go back to, the words of Mr. Lewis, to not despair, to be optimistic, because to be optimistic is to stay active. It is to stay engaged. It is to stay agitated. It is to stay feverish toward the work that we must do.
Yes, I will speak until my throat runs dry because this moment and this activity, and my commitment to this democracy and being afforded this time in this Chamber is too serious to pass it up.
But Mr. Kennedy, 60 years ago this month, you know, as we think of other trying times, the Bay of Pigs, avoiding nuclear war, engagements in Vietnam--a war that we did not win, that took too many American lives, and we are so proud of our veterans and those who served.
Mr. Kennedy stood before American University and he said: ``I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.''
It is certainly important and symbolic to reflect on those words today and in these moments that are upon us as a Nation.
I look out and I use that as a rallying call for our work on the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, how to bolster American manufacturing, American competitiveness, how to strengthen southeastern Michigan and Oakland County, under the leadership of Dave Coulter, someone I am so proud to work alongside.
Mr. Speaker, it has been 40 years of unimaginable innovation and activity that has taken place in this Nation: In 1983, Sally Ride is the first woman into space. 1985, has Microsoft Office first hitting the stage. 1991, is the time when the world wide web hit our keyboards.
I remember my mother and my aunt taking me to a meeting. What is a website? If only we could imagine what we would be in now; smartphone devices connecting us at rapid speed. The way in which humanity evolved and changed and then yet again, as technology drives us to be together. The elixir of our alive experience here on planet Earth, and as Americans, through love, through connection, and through ability. Those things don't change. The meaning of family doesn't change. The meaning of friendship doesn't change.
In the 1980s it was a race with the Japanese. Now it feels as though it is a race with the Chinese. Open society, willingness to change, commitment to action.
Ben Franklin once said: ``A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.'' May we all commit to living the good life. May we, as public servants, commit to goodness, to one another, to our fellow Americans, and to this unbelievable and magnificent trajectory our beloved Nation is on.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.