Farewell To Congress
Madam Speaker, I rise today to give my last speech as a Member of the House of Representatives. What an incredible honor this has been. It has never been lost on me that the privilege of serving here was granted by the people I represent,…
Madam Speaker, I rise today to give my last speech as a Member of the House of Representatives.
What an incredible honor this has been. It has never been lost on me that the privilege of serving here was granted by the people I represent, people who trusted me to listen to them, speak for them, and conduct myself with integrity.
Every time I have stepped onto this floor, I have felt the weight of our Nation's history and the hope of millions of people that we will conduct ourselves and do work that serves them well.
One of the joys of serving in Congress has been the surprise of learning how much good work you can do if you are here to do work.
I thank my staff, an incredible group of young people who woke up every morning asking themselves: How much good can I do today? A big part of the reason serving here was such a joy and such an honor was because I was able to do the work with them. I won't go down the big list of everything that we got done, but we were able to do a lot: improve water systems for small towns; expand parental leave for members of the National Guard, parents who had earned it; and improve weather radar detection for the people of North Carolina's 14th District who have needed that for decades.
When people come up to me now that I am leaving and say: Boy, Jeff, I bet you are glad to be getting out of that place, I say, no, that hasn't been my experience here at all.
Part of the reason that has not been my experience is because of the two committees I had an opportunity to serve on: Armed Services and Science, Space, and Technology, relatively serious bipartisan committees, really about the work. There is not a lot of shouting going on in the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. The Armed Services Committee, for someone who enlisted as a private 22 years ago, to be a part of classified briefings with our Nation's top military leaders, what an amazing experience, what an incredible education. To anyone who is considering running to serve, I could not encourage you more strongly.
However, that said, a word of caution to everyone back home, as well as anyone who may be listening. I know that when you look at Congress, you see a lot of anger. What I need you to know is that most of the ones who are angry here are faking. They know that eliciting your outrage is a surefire way to gain your attention. Some of them want your attention more than they want to do a good job. I have seen this over and over again, that when the cameras turn off, so does the anger.
There are moments of genuine frustration felt by everyone. It is felt by me. That is normal in a legislative body. It is to be expected. The ones who are always trying to make you angry, they are faking. It is theater. A ton of you keep falling for it, and you owe it to yourselves not to be fooled by the outrage farmers in Congress.
My request to all of you, to everyone back home, is don't reward the theater, reward the work. If you do that, you will get more work and less theater. I thank my colleagues who do their job in that manner. I thank my staff who genuinely was a constant source of energy and inspiration. I thank my family who allowed me to be away from home to do this work. Lastly, I thank the people of North Carolina's 14th District for trusting me to be your voice. It has been the greatest honor of my life.