Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the PRO Act, which protects a worker's right to join a union.

This is not just an issue of economic justice, as we seek to restore power to the people, as we experience an era of entrenched corporate power, and as members of this very body dare to debate the need for a $15 minimum wage.

This is also an issue of racial justice. History shows that unions help to reduce the racial wage gap by empowering Black and Brown workers to fight for better pay and better working conditions; but, due to Republican policies, much of that progress has been lost.

Today, we are seeing the increasing exploitation of workers of color. Antiunion policies have hurt Black and Brown workers the most. Today, people of color are the most likely to be exploited by greedy corporations.

We cannot achieve racial justice without economic justice, and we can't achieve economic justice without protecting all of our workers and their right to organize.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this proworker bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, 56 years ago, 600 peaceful protesters, led by the late John Lewis, prepared to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the right to vote. On the other side stood Sheriff Jim Clark and his armed patrolmen ready to stop them.

The protesters marched on. Clark and his troopers put on their gas masks, blasted the marchers with teargas, and then brutally beat them with billy clubs and cattle prods.

Some of Clark's men mounted their horses and charged into the crowd trampling protesters while unleashing a rebel yell. They beat John Lewis so hard, they broke his skull. He and dozens of his fellow marchers were hospitalized.

Mr. Speaker, 5 months after Bloody Sunday, Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act. As we remember Bloody Sunday, let us also recognize the Jim Clarks who blocked the bridge to democracy today.

Five decades after Bloody Sunday, the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in a decision in 2013 called Shelby. As we commemorate our first Bloody Sunday without John Lewis, Republicans in Georgia have passed a new law cracking down on the right to vote.

Today, as we answer John's call to cross the bridge to democracy once again, let us hope that no Supreme Court Justices stand in our way on the other side. If they do, may we, like our ancestors, march on.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in this Chamber today thanks to the young people of Westchester and Rockland Counties.

When I first ran for Congress, I was joined by a small group of young, committed volunteers. Many of them were not eligible to vote. Many of them were 16 and 17 years old. And my goodness, did they know more about policy and national politics than people who are four and five times their senior.

In this country, when you are 16 and 17 years old, we charge you as an adult in the courtroom. You are able to drive to the job we expect you to work in order to help support your family. So I think that the least we can do is give 16- and 17-year-olds a say in who governs them.

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from California, Karen Bass, for her leadership; as well as the Congressional Black Caucus for always speaking truth to power.

Madam Speaker, today we take a stride towards ending racism in policing. But this is just the beginning. We must recognize that systemic racism extends well beyond law enforcement. Systemic racism is the way governments have deliberately impoverished Black families, then condition necessary medical care on our ability to pay.

It is the way we fund our public schools, a property tax-based system that concentrates tens of billions more dollars in White communities than in Black and Brown communities.

In America, it is the way we run our elections, purging Black voters, especially in Southern States, from the rolls and closing the polls in Black neighborhoods. We can't stop until we have eradicated systemic racism in all of its forms.

Madam Speaker, today, we legislate for the people.

Our passage of H.R. 1 is deeply personal to me. Unlike many of the people we are used to seeing in our politics, I don't come from money or from a political family. I was raised by a young, single mother who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, and we still needed Section 8 housing and food stamps to get by.

Of course, my family struggles could be traced to one common cause, and that is our broken democracy. At the root of why housing, higher education, and healthcare are out of reach for so many millions of Americans is the fact that our democracy does not reflect the will of the American people. Independent redistricting commissions would change that.

When I ran for Congress, the first question political insiders asked me wasn't what I would be campaigning on or how much support I had in my community, but, rather, how much money could I raise?

Public campaign financing would change that.

Many people were surprised that I defeated a billionaire who tried to purchase this congressional seat. But my election should not be the exception to the rule; rather, it should be the norm. Once we pass H.R. 1, it will be.

Madam Speaker, I rise to vindicate the right to vote as precisely that, a constitutional right, not a privilege, a right.

It is a travesty that our Nation's laws do not fully protect the right to vote. The reason, of course, is white supremacy. Over 150 years ago, during Reconstruction, we tried to build a multiracial democracy in this country. For the first time, Black people won seats in this very Chamber, but white supremacists were not having it. So, like today's Republican Party, they devised ways to deny Black people the right to vote.

Madam Speaker, thanks to the 15th Amendment, they could not expressly prohibit Blacks from voting, so they barred prisoners from voting. Then they invented excuses to put Black people in those prisons. It took 70 years for a Black candidate to win a seat in this Congress from the South again.

These Jim Crow laws remain on the books. They are why over 5 million incarcerated people are barred from voting. These people look like me. They are parents. They are children. They fall in love. They make mistakes just like we do. They are citizens of the United States of America just like we are, and they deserve the right to vote.

Mr. Speaker, it is not often that this Chamber does remarkable things. Today, we pass the Equality Act, which includes my bill, the Juror Non-Discrimination Act.

This has been a long time coming and it represents progress that, for me, was unbelievable when I was growing up. You see, to grow up poor, Black, and gay is to not see yourself anywhere. It is also to feel completely unseen, as so many people around you invalidate your very existence. Growing up, I watched helplessly as opportunistic, straight politicians--mostly White, mostly male--used my basic human rights as a political football to further their careers.

Had this legislation been enacted when I was growing up, it would have been direct evidence of the fact that things really do get better, that I didn't have to hide or cry so much.

Thankfully, since childhood, things have gotten better, but that hasn't been because of the mere passage of time. It has been because LGBTQ advocates made life better.

Today, we send a powerful message to millions of LGBTQ people around the country and, indeed, around the world that they are seen, that they are valued, that their lives are worthy of being protected.

How remarkable that is, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished co-chair of this incredible Special Order sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus for those very kind words.

I will say, as someone who has spent most of his life following the work of this Black Caucus, it is an honor to finally join the legends, the luminaries who helped to inspire my own run for the United States Congress. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the CBC for holding this hour to reflect on Black history. I want to share, in particular, the story of a young lawyer who came to the village of Hillburn in Rockland County, New York, during his fight to desegregate our public schools.

Like many places in 1943, the Village of Hillburn had a main school for White children. It was called the Hillburn School. And it had a school for children

of color without a library, a playground, or indoor plumbing. That was called the Brook School.

But our elders did not accept this. They fought back. Parents of the Brook School children organized and, with the help of a young attorney with the NAACP's legal defense fund, they sued the district. With the help of their lawyer, the parents of the Brook School children won their fight against segregation in a case that helped to lay the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education 11 years later.

Who was this young lawyer who came to the Village of Hillburn?

He was the man who would later become our Nation's first Supreme Court Justice who was Black: Thurgood Marshall.

I am moved by the story because it shows how Black history creates Black futures, how the courage and resistance of the Black leaders of years past are the reason a poor Black kid from Rockland County now stands in this special Chamber as the United States Congress Member representing that same school district today.

Mr. Speaker, the economy has been left in ruins by the prior administration's historic failure of leadership. Now, millions of Americans are out of work and we must remember that it is people with disabilities, people of color, and especially women of color, who have been the hardest hit.

As Members of Congress, we must do all we can to ensure everyone--and I do mean everyone--can live in dignity. That is why I support the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021 which will create 1 million new apprenticeships.

This bill includes the Apprenticeship Access for All Act, which I am proud to have coauthored with my colleague, Congresswoman Alma Adams. This legislation will help remove racist and ableist barriers to employment of our national apprenticeship system, because everyone deserves a good-paying job no matter your race or your ability.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, the disgraced, defeated President of the United States. There must be consequences for last week's treason and sedition. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Donald Trumps in today's Republican Party aim to run for higher office; and we must send a message that no one in the United States of America is above the law. The world is watching, Madam Speaker.