Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life of Fitzgerald Barrington Davis, who passed away peacefully on November 1, 2021, at the age of 77 after a long and courageous battle with Parkinson's disease dementia. He was surrounded by his loved ones at the time of his passing and they will continue to honor his legacy of faith, unconditional love, and kindness. His son Dave Davis was a valued member of my district office team for many years.

Fitzgerald was born in Jamaica on May 15, 1944, to Barrington and Gwendolyn Davis. He attended Saint Ann Technical Trade School to pursue his interest in building, design, and construction. As a contractor for the Roads and Works Department in Kingston, Jamaica he oversaw the development of critical infrastructure projects in and around the Kingston area.

Fitzgerald understood that his job was more than just repairing roads and buildings and that these investments in infrastructure could benefit underserved families through community development and jobs. He created programs to help young people learn trades and develop their skills and subsequently employed many of these young people and provided them with opportunities for growth,

which improved the quality of life 'for residents and strengthened his community.

His advocacy for underserved populations led him to a career in politics, and he was nominated chairman for the People's National Party in Jamaica. During his time as chairman, he worked with government leaders to improve conditions for children and families in Kingston. He was also enlisted as the youth leader for the Rennock Lodge Youth Organization.

He emigrated to the United States in January of 1981 and settled in the diverse Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and five children. His first job was with St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, followed by a position with a tuckpointing company, and finally, he worked for the Village of Glencoe for 16 years where he retired in 2006.

After retirement, he continued to serve his community as a volunteer for numerous nonprofit organizations. He was actively involved with the Democratic Party of Evanston and worked as a crossing guard for the City of Evanston. Each morning, he woke up looking forward to seeing the children and brightening up their days with words of encouragement or a witty quip that made them smile.

His faith was the driving force in his life, and he was an elder at First Church of God Christian Life Center in Evanston, and then became an Elder at Deliverance Temple Church in Skokie.

Fitzgerald is survived by his devoted wife of 49 years, Sonia Davis; daughters, Rose Scott and Karen Davis; sons, Byron Davis (Marie), Lloyd Davis (Loraine), Dave Davis (Tara); grandchildren, Klarissa Davis, Lloyd Davis Jr., Kayla Davis, Leah Davis, Theo Davis, and Steven Davis; and great-grandchildren, Ivy and Oakley. Fitzgerald also leaves behind brothers Philip Davis and Chris Davis; sisters Deloris Scott, Beverly Burnett, Angela Davis, and a host of other loving relatives and friends who will rejoice in his memory.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Rabbi Neil Brief's service to Ezra Habonim Niles Township Jewish Congregation and the Skokie, Illinois community. In 1971 Rabbi Brief became the Rabbi for the Congregation, and he became Rabbi Emeritus in 2004.

Rabbi Brief overcame poverty as a child and developed his leadership skills by becoming president of the Brooklyn Brownsville Boys Club and coaching two club championship basketball teams.

He attended New York University and distinguished himself at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion through his study of numerology, which he later adapted to meet the needs of his congregants. He worked throughout his higher education, as a waiter, busboy, camp counselor and teaching religious school. He then served his country as an Army Chaplain, counseling soldiers of all faiths and rising to the rank of Captain within two years.

Rabbi Brief helped bring people together. He brought Skokie's clergy closer together through spearheading the creation of and serving as president of the Niles Township Clergy Forum. And he helped strengthen his congregants' marriages through his leadership in Jewish Marriage encounter.

Rabbi Brief helped lead and serve his community through his work with the Skokie Commission on Family Services, the Rotary Club, the United Way of Skokie Valley and many other service organizations.

He has always stood by those who were oppressed and through his congregational, interfaith, political and humanist work, helped create Skokie spirit and become a true leader in the community. He helped organize rallies drawing thousands of people to protest prejudice in the community.

Rabbi Brief trained as a Reform rabbi and is a member of the rabbinical organizations of Judaism's Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist.

Rabbi Brief and his beloved late wife Erica, raised three children in Skokie--Dena, David, and Debra--all of whom graduated from Niles North High School. They were married for 57 years.

On this momentous occasion, I wish to congratulate Rabbi Neil Briefs 50 years of service to Ezra Habonim Niles Township Jewish Congregation and the Skokie, Illinois community. He has been a treasured friend to me and my family, and an inspiring leader in our community.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

The Democratic Caucus--and I see that now we have all three of the leaders of that caucus that I am so proud to be a member of.

Madam Speaker, my daughter is a childcare worker. She works in a childcare center, and I am so proud of her and just the effort and the creativity and just the energy that she puts into this very low-paid job. If it weren't for someone else earning money in the household, she could not really afford to live on that pay.

I quote from a scholar who said, ``most developed countries in this world have some kind of a robust social safety net. The United States has women.'' And when it comes to taking care of those in need, either as workers or as family members, it is mostly women.

I want to tell you that in the eighties, I was director--and proudly so--of the Illinois State Council of Senior Citizens. And as part of that, I was a cochair of the Long-Term Care Coalition that we had in Illinois.

At that time, there was no long-term healthcare policy in the United States of America. And guess what? There is no long-term care policy in the United States of America right now. Families are left to figure it out.

What are we going to do? I am getting older. I don't have family.

What am I going to do to take care of myself? I am getting older and my family is the only one available to take care of me.

I have to move in with my children, or they have to move in with me to take care of me because there is no other choice.

Or you end up--I don't know--in some kind of an institution where people, again, are poorly paid--often women of color, often low-income women. In fact, for home care, the average worker does make about $12 an hour, with no benefits. And if you have to travel from one place to another, there is no payment for that kind of transportation or getting there. It is not really doable. And so we have made pretty much no progress until now. And then the President of the United States, Joe Biden, said we are going to have Medicare, home- and community-based services in this country.

Now, he announced a very big amount of money to go for that. I don't know if that is going to be able to be paid for fully right now in the Build Back Better plan, but we are going to make a start. We are going to say yes. It is not just that we are going to leave families, women at home, not being able to go back to the workplace themselves. We are going to have a home care policy. And that is where people want to be, in their homes, in the United States of America.

I believe that we will see billions and billions of dollars that are going to be able to go to long-term care. And we are going to pay attention to these workers. It is not right. It is not possible to depend on workers who, themselves, live in poverty; don't have someone to care for them when they get older; often can't even afford to get-- we talk about paid sick leave--have no health insurance, have no backup, if they get sick.

This is absolutely not working in this country. If we are going to build back better, we have to build back better for women. We have to build back better for women toward the end of life, as we age. We have to take care of women and children in this country.

It is really embarrassing, in a way, when we look at the rest of the world, how far behind the richest country in the world is in taking care of our families, the most in need in our country. But we are finally at a tipping and turning point right now. We have an administration, we have leaders in the House and the Senate who are now saying those days are gone.

We are now going to be a country that, as the President says, is built from the bottom up and the middle out. We are going to take care of workers. We are going to take care of families, and we are going to take care of women and children. I am just so proud to be part of a caucus that is determined to make this a reality, to transform the United States of America into a place that is safe and healthy and has opportunity for all of us.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Mrs. Bette Horstman and wish her a very happy 100th birthday on December 6, 2021. Mrs. Horstman is a distinguished resident of Morton Grove, Illinois and a constituent of mine. She was an honorable 1st Lieutenant who served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a Physical Therapist during World War

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Women's Health Protection Act that will end the horrifying State-level attacks on abortion access. The Texas law would encourage vigilantism and criminalizes anyone who would even help someone to get an abortion. But Texas is not alone.

Abortion is healthcare. This is a pro-choice country, a pro-choice nation. Women can make the decision to have a child or not have a child. It is about bodily autonomy.

I want to be very clear; Roe v. Wade was not the beginning of women having abortions. It was the end of women dying from abortions.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation and to say ``no'' to harming women.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Frank J. Chulay and wish him a very happy 100th birthday on September 13, 2021. Mr. Chulay is a distinguished resident of Lincolnwood, Illinois. He had an honorable civic service career serving the Village of Lincolnwood and served as Village President from 1985 to 1993.

Frank J. Chulay was born on September 13, 1921. He immigrated to the US through Ellis Island at the age of 2 with his parents, Frank and Elizabeth, from the Hungarian part of Romania and moved to the City of Chicago.

Mr. Chulay spent two years at Wright Junior College and attended Chicago Teacher's College, where he met Altanah, and they later married. He volunteered for a program in the Army Air Corps and was called up to active duty in 1943. Mr. Chulay was trained as a pilot and flew B-24 bombers in the South Pacific. He resigned from the military in 1945, attended DePaul University under the GI Bill, and received a degree in accounting in 1946. In 1967 Frank and Altanah moved to Lincolnwood.

Mr. Chulay served as Lincolnwood Village President from 1985 to 1993. He was instrumental in bringing Paramedic Services of Illinois to Lincolnwood in 1989 and helped build the new Village Hall campus. During his term as Mayor, he cast the tiebreaking vote to approve the application to build the Lincolnwood Town Center.

Mr. Chulay treated all he interacted with respect and always put the needs of the Village residents first. He was active in the Northwest Municipal League, where he served as the President for one term, and active in the National League of Cities.

Mr. Chulay was married to Altanah for 48 years before her death in 1992, and has two children, Jeff and Jill, two grandchildren, Kristin and Amy, and one great-grandson, Matthew. Frank has been married to Irma Chulay since 1995.

I appreciate Mr. Chulay's service to the Lincolnwood community and wish him a very happy 100th birthday.

Madam Speaker, one of the greatest honors and privileges of my life has been to serve with John Lewis whom I had the privilege of calling a precious friend.

In August, 58 years ago, the young John Lewis led a march to Washington with Martin Luther King and on August 16 of 1965, the momentous Voting Rights Act was signed into law, thanks to John Lewis.

Today, on August 25, 2021, we are here to vote for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. A bill that he almost gave his life to pass all of those years ago will now restore the power of the Voting Rights Act, the right to vote, in the new legislation named for our dear friend and the conscience of this Congress. Let's vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate my constituent, Fred A. Manuele from Arlington Heights, for receiving the inaugural Prevention through Design (PtD) Award. Presented by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), and the National Safety Council (NSC), this award recognizes individuals, teams, businesses, or other organizations that have improved worker safety and health by designing-out hazards or contributing to the body of knowledge that enables PtD solutions.

Fred Manuele is a longtime occupational safety and health expert and a pioneer in the prevention through design field. ASSP republished many of his influential professional papers in a book titled, Fred Manuele on Safety Management: A Collection from Professional Safety. Fred also published numerous occupational safety and health textbooks that always included the need for designing-out workplace hazards and the methods to do so.

In 1995, Manuele led a focused 10-year NSC initiative, the Institute for Safety Through Design, which culminated in a textbook he co- authored titled, Safety through Design. In 2007, inspired by Fred's work, NIOSH and numerous partners launched a National Prevention through Design Initiative. Manuele volunteered to lead the effort to develop and approve a broad, universal voluntary consensus PtD standard aligned with international PtD activities, practices, and standards.

PtD aims to prevent or reduce occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities through the inclusion of prevention considerations in all designs that impact workers. This includes the design, redesign and retrofit of new and existing work premises, structures, tools, facilities, equipment, machinery, products, substances, work processes, and the organization of work. In addition to reducing the risk of serious injury and illness, significant cost savings are often associated with hazard elimination and the application of engineering controls to minimize risks.

Manuele has received many honors and awards for his accomplishments. He is an ASSP Fellow and a recipient of the NSC's Distinguished Service to Safety Award. He is a former board member of ASSP, NSC, and the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, where he also served as president and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. In 2015, the University of Central Missouri presented him with its Distinguished Service Award. In 2016, Manuele received the ASSP President's Award for his dedication to advancing the practice of safety.

I am pleased to congratulate Fred for his outstanding foresight, wisdom, tireless effort, and major accomplishments in preventing harm to workers by helping organizations avoid and prevent hazards. This award is well-deserved.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor and profoundly thank a long time, super-star member of my staff, Zahra Somani Karamali. After serving in my district offices for thirteen years, Zahra is moving on to pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology and a career as a School Psychologist. It is hard for me to even imagine not having Zahra serving the residents of the 9th Congressional District as one of the most effective Constituent Advocates in the country. Though not in my office, she will always be a beloved member of Team Schakowsky.

Zahra Somani Karamali joined my office in 2008, and she brought perspective, experience, and enthusiasm that have left a permanent impact on our operations and on constituents' lives. She is a dedicated public servant who readily established herself as a strong ally for individuals who would otherwise not have an effective voice. My husband and I had the joy of attending her wedding to Nauman and celebrating the birth and growth of their two wonderful children Ayman and Zayna. She and her family have become cherished friends.

Over the years, Zahra advocated for thousands of constituents who needed help with a wide range of issues. She cut through red tape and solved difficult problems, often in life-changing ways.

Zahra helped immigrant families who were pursuing green cards or struggling to obtain a visa to travel home to visit sick relatives. She helped reunite families, assisted refugees, and helped immigrants obtain naturalization status. She expedited passport applications so that mothers and fathers didn't miss their daughters' wedding abroad. When residents called because they had missing mail or delayed tax returns, Zahra provided an empathetic ear and an enthusiastic hand to help solve those issues. During the pandemic she helped constituents who were stranded abroad and helped constituents obtain desperately needed stimulus checks and important benefits. She fought for constituents to receive all the benefits they needed and deserved and tackled problems big and small with compassion and professionalism.

Zahra is active in the Ismaili community and played an instrumental role in building and strengthening my and my office's relationships with the Muslim community. I am proud to have stood alongside her and so many others in that community in good times and in bad, and I deeply cherish the relationships I've formed along the way.

Zahra is always enthusiastic and willing to do whatever needs to be done. She represented me at office hours in libraries across the northwest suburbs, helped organize and conduct a wide array of events, and spoke on my behalf at events across the district.

Zahra has been an essential member of the team, and a big reason why my office is well known for its effective constituent services. I will miss Zahra very much, as will everyone on the staff. I expect to hear from many constituents who will be very disappointed to hear that Zahra is no longer there to help. We pledge to her that we will all work hard to fill the gap. I know that the fortunate students and families she will serve in the years ahead will benefit from the wonderous gifts that have made Zahra so invaluable to me.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my friend and a champion of the LGBTQ community, James W. Flint, on his 80th birthday.

At just 17, Jim enlisted in the Navy. He quickly became an accomplished service member before returning home to Illinois. Since the early 1960s, Jim has been the lifeblood of Chicago's LGBTQ+ community, dedicating his time, resources, and talents to expanding and creating the LGBTQ nightlife scene. For over 60 years, Jim has been a trailblazer and inspiration to many across the state of Illinois and beyond, and has been a committed activist and business leader.

He started his career as a bartender and quickly became the entrepreneur we know and love by opening his first locale, the Baton Show Lounge, in downtown Chicago. It was a first of its kind drag bar, featuring drag queen entertainers before these kinds of shows became as popular as they are today. In the decades since, Jim has owned many fabulous establishments, including Annex 2, Annex 3, Redoubt, Redoubt Atlanta, and River North Travel, in addition to the Baton Show Lounge, which is still open today and was recently relocated to my very own 9th Congressional district.

In addition to his extraordinary bars, in 1980, Jim founded the Miss Gay Continental Pageant, a national level drag showcase. He was motivated to start the pageant when he learned that many other pageants were discriminating against drag performers we would today identify as transgender. At that time, many of the pageants created rules and barriers that excluded entertainers that were living as women or who had any kind of plastic surgery. Today, now known as the Miss Continental Pageant, it has expanded to a pageant system that celebrates male and female entertainers from all across the country and around the world, and occurs in Chicago annually.

He was also a co-founder of the Windy City Athletic Association, which gave LGBTQ Chicagoans the opportunity to compete in amateur athletics with their counterparts from all across the nation.

Jim's deep community roots quickly positioned him as an activist and community organizer. In 1986 he ran for the Cook County Board of Commissioners, and although his bid was not successful, it was groundbreaking as he was one of the first openly gay people to run for public office in Illinois.

As is the case for all trailblazers, Jim has faced and overcome significant challenges in his personal and professional life. From witnessing rampant domestic violence, drug abuse, and homicide within the LGBTQ community to the many lives we lost to the AIDS epidemic in Chicago and across the country, Jim has withstood phenomenal pain.

Throughout times of unthinkable tragedy, Jim's warm energy and generous spirit have never wavered. His drive; compassion, and fantastic flamboyance are remarkable and have allowed him to be incredibly successful. He has played a tremendous role in shaping the LGBTQ community around the country, and his impact on the City of Chicago is immeasurable. As a businessman in the LGBTQ and Chicago community, he has blazed trails and opened doors for so many others.

And as a public servant, activist and community leader, he has made sure that the needs of the LGBTQ community were not ignored by our government. I am honored to call Jim a friend and wish him all the best and continued success.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for all of his hard work. I appreciate it.

It is not every day that we get to vote for something that will have an immediate and positive impact on our constituents like the legislation that we have before us today.

The Consumer Protection and Recovery Act, introduced by Tony Cardenas, is urgently needed right now to ensure that the Federal Trade Commission can protect consumers by putting money back into the pockets of victims of fraud and scams and other illegal activities.

The restitution authority under section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act has been the FTC's most effective law enforcement tool. But, unfortunately, just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court said that somehow the law wasn't exactly written right, and if you wanted to retain that restitution authority, you had to go back and fix the law.

I do want to say that there is not a single change in the authorities to the FTC, not one. Actually, I take it back, there is one. Before there was no statute of limitations at all, and we did impose a statute of limitations.

What we know is, for 40 years when the FTC had this authority, it was able to do such fabulous things, like get back almost $62 million for delivery drivers in its remarkable settlement with Amazon over Amazon's systemic stealing of drivers' tips.

It enabled the Federal Trade Commission to recover more than $9.5 billion from Volkswagen and Porsche for consumers who were deceived by false advertising about vehicles fitted with illegal emissions defeat devices.

Honest businesses want this legislation because they don't want to have to compete with fraudsters and scammers.

This can't wait. We have seen new bad actors cropping up all over the country and taking money out of people's pockets. It is open season right now for scammers. Every single day that we wait, they get away with the scams and not have to put money back into people's pockets.

I urge my colleagues, join us. There are no secrets here. It is the same bill. Join us to protect consumers. There are plenty of guardrails that have gone on for 40 years, and it is time to pass this bill now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Pallone for getting a transformative auto safety package into the INVEST in America Act. This will save tens of thousands of lives if we can get this passed, and I hope that we will see that happen.

We had a press conference this morning where we had people who have suffered such great harm. We heard the story of a limousine with 18 people, 6 from one family, that went up in flames because of a drunk driver.

We heard from a woman whose child died in a hot car. We have the Hot Car Act that would make sure that there is a warning that there is a child in the back seat, because 1,000 children, babies and toddlers, have died since 1990 in hot cars. This was a press conference with tears and anguish for preventable things, and I am so grateful that this is in the legislation.

I also just want to say that the city of Chicago has the most water lines with lead inside of them, and this legislation will deal with water safety. And this is so important because the lead poisoning does not go away. Children are affected for life because of that.

So the bills that I am talking about are lifesavers as part of this whole package of the INVEST in America Act.

I also want to thank Representative Peter DeFazio for his great work in putting this together.

Mr. Speaker, methane emissions are accelerating climate change and harming our communities, and we are moving in the wrong direction.

After the Trump administration repealed limitations on emissions of methane, we saw the largest yearly increase of methane emissions on record in 2020. We must get back on track.

It is urgent that we restore regulations to limit methane emissions. Methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. We cannot move quickly enough. We have to act now.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the legislation that we will be considering today, to curb these dangerous emissions and protect our communities.

Madam Speaker, I thank the chair for his friendship and for letting me speak.

Madam Speaker, you know, I rise with great enthusiastic support for the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act.

No veteran of the United States of America should be forced to pay out of pocket for basic preventative care. You know, this is 2021. Birth control should not be controversial. Veterans' access to healthcare should not be controversial.

And I really think, how dare Members on the other side even consider shutting down this bill on suspension.

Our veterans deserve access to all of the healthcare services that they need, and that would include every method of birth control.

Really? Are we still arguing this?

Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to just say--this is something that is basic right now, we all believe that contraception should be available. And, you know, it can end up actually being quite expensive.

And why?

I don't understand. So I think this legislation is long overdue. Let's pass it today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my leader here who has done such a great job to protect workers.

We are here today to fix a terrible 2009 Supreme Court decision that weakened protections against age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

A 2020 AARP survey found that three in five workers age 45--yes, age 45 and older--had seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace. So, there is absolutely evidence that this exists. It is real, and we need to do something to fix it.

Meanwhile, Americans are working more and longer than they ever have. Workers deserve strong workplace protections throughout their entire careers, full stop.

I am absolutely proudly and enthusiastically looking forward to voting ``yes'' on H.R. 2062, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, to ensure that older workers can hold employers accountable for age discrimination.

When asking workers, ``Have you ever experienced any kind of discrimination based on age?'' and when the answer is three out of five say yes, beginning at age 45, I trust that this is true. This was in a survey that was done by the AARP, which has millions of members, that told us that. So, the current laws that were cited across the aisle are not doing the job that needs to be done right now to protect our older workers.

Let's pass this bill today.