Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the American Health Care Act. This dangerous and destructive bill leaves 24 million Americans without coverage. It will cause the uninsured rate for my district in Brooklyn, New York, to skyrocket to over 12 percent and leaves over 400,000 Brooklynites in my district without coverage.

Because of the severe cuts to Medicaid, this bill will also put people in the terrible position of having to choose between being able to eat, being able to obtain life-sustaining medication, or visiting their doctor.

Which one do you, Mr. Speaker, suggest they choose?

For most Americans, Medicaid benefits are not the end goal but, rather, provide temporary support. For seniors, Medicaid can mean the difference between nursing home care and dying alone.

I urge my colleagues to consider the harmful and deadly real-life impact of this legislation, and I vehemently oppose it. I ask that we resist this cynical reverse Robin Hood sham that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.

As President Lincoln said: ``You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.'' This is a sham, and we need to vote it down.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of Mrs. Dolores S. Williams, a community matriarch.

Her life was a true Brooklyn story. Born in Newport News, Virginia, on February 14, 1933, she came to New York City with her family as a young girl as part of the Northern migration from the South in search of opportunity.

Growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn, Dolores graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and married Jacob A. Williams in 1951 and raised three children: Cheryl Elise, Jacob Conrad, and Celeste Elena.

Dolores was a staunch believer in education and was actively involved in her children's school and with issues in her community.

She also practiced what she preached. She returned to school and received a bachelor of arts in education from Brooklyn College at the age of 40. She found success as an educational sales representative for Random House publishing company, inspired by a desire to support the education of all children.

Dolores returned to the classroom, earning a master of science degree in special education from Hunter College, which she used to pursue her passion by working with developmentally challenged children in her beloved Bedford-Stuyvesant.

She was a woman of high distinction and a real New Yorker, a real Brooklynite, survived by three children and nine grandchildren who will never forget her kindness and love.

I, too, was very fortunate in my youth to have been a part of the extended family of the Williams. I befriended their youngest daughter, Celeste, and we grew up together in the quintessential village that raised its children in the Prospect-Lefferts community in Brooklyn, where we were neighbors. Mrs. Williams and her family embraced me and reinforced the values of my home and family. She shared the expectations of becoming highly educated and well-rounded young adults, always encouraging through conversations filled with laughter.

Her support and encouragement helped me in my formative years to focus on my educational goals and lifelong aspirations.

To my dearest Cheryle, Conrad, and Celeste, I extend my deepest, most profound condolences. Now that she has returned to her ancestors, let us always remember her timeless pursuit of public service, her profound respect for education and lifelong learning, and her love for family and community.

She is now in the arms of God. Well done, Dolores Williams. Rest now in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of women and men of New York's Ninth Congressional District on this, the anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act by President John F. Kennedy.

It has been 54 years since the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, yet women in the United States who work full-time, year-round, on average still only earn 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. This amounts to a yearly gap of $10,470 between full-time working men and women.

For African-American women like myself, the pay gap is even larger. African-American women working full-time, year-round, on average still only earn 63 cents for every dollar earned by White, non-Hispanic men.

In my own district, in Brooklyn, men earn $49,691, while women earn only $42,487. Mr. Speaker, that is just not acceptable.

On Equal Pay Day 2017, we are calling upon Congressional Republicans to work with Democrats in getting the long overdue Paycheck Fairness Act enacted into law.

Pay inequity not only affects women, it affects children and families and our national economy as a whole. That is because so many women in our country are the sole or co-bread winner in two-thirds of families with children. Families increasingly rely on women's wages to help make ends meet, and with less take-home pay, women have less for the everyday needs of their families: groceries, mortgages, rent, child care, and doctor visits.

President Barack Obama signed several orders to address gaps in Federal equal pay protections, protecting segments of the civilian workforce from pay discrimination, despite congressional gridlock. Rather than working with Democrats to promote equal pay, House Republicans have voted nine times since 2013 to block the Paycheck Fairness Act from being considered on the House floor.

So let's see whether Donald Trump, who claims he respects women more than anyone else, demonstrates through his deeds in real and substantive plans to do more to help working women and their families.

Mr. Trump, it is time to put the money where your mouth is.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this sham American Health Care Act.

I am from Brooklyn, and in Brooklyn we know: Men lie; women lie; the numbers don't. Here are the numbers:

This reckless and destructive bill leaves 24 million Americans without coverage. It will cause the uninsured rate for my district to skyrocket over 12 percent and leave over 400,000 Brooklynites without coverage.

Because of age discrimination in this bill, the age tax, it will put our seniors in the terrible position of having to choose between eating, visiting their doctors, or purchasing medication.

Which one do you, Mr. Speaker, suggest they choose?

I also vehemently oppose the Empire State kickback language put in this bill as an attempt to get Republican votes. This language is a dressed up earmark that specifically targets New York City. It targets my home.

This would further reduce Medicaid funds for New York by an additional $2 billion. The trade-off, raising city taxes to cover the gap.

For most Americans, Medicaid benefits are not the end goal but rather [provides] temporary support, but for our seniors Medicaid can mean the difference between nursing home care, family home care and dying alone.

I urge my colleagues to consider the harmful real life impact of this legislation and to oppose it. Brooklyn Resists . . . America must resist.

Thank you and I yield the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of Brooklyn's own Notorious B.I.G., Jamaican-American Christopher Wallace.

In celebration of his life and living legacy, I share these words:

Thinkin' back on my one-room shack,

Now my mom pimps an Ac with minks on her back.

And she loves to show me off of course,

Smiles every time my face is up in The Source.

We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us,

No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us.

Birthdays was the worst days,

Now we sip champagne when we thirsty,

Uh, right, I like the life I live,

'Cause I went from negative to positive.

And it's all good.

And if you don't know, now you know.

I thank the gentleman from Maryland and the gentlewoman from Washington State for hosting this very important Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice my outrage over Donald Trump's unconscionable, ill-conceived, horribly executed and implemented executive order that limits Muslim immigration and travel into the United States.

This order is an appalling affront to American interests. It is contrary to our ideals and values as a nation, and it flies in the face of our history and the core conviction of freedom from religious persecution that this Nation was built upon. It provides the fuel to our enemies and makes a mockery of our democracy and Constitution. Most importantly, it tears families apart by prohibiting people with valid travel documents from entering the country.

I saw this firsthand on Saturday when I visited JFK International Airport to witness the needless chaos and confusion that this order has created. One person who lives in my district who has been affected by this order is Dr. Kamal Fadlalla. Dr. Fadlalla is a Sudanese hospital resident in Brooklyn, New York. He is trained to save lives, not to take them. Yet, due to Donald Trump's egregious executive order, Dr. Fadlalla has been prevented from returning back to the United States to help heal our sick and save lives.

There is no justification for this shameful order, and it is no wonder that the Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, risked her job and reputation rather than act as Donald Trump's enforcer. I commend Ms. Yates for her personal integrity and fidelity to our Constitution. Ironically enough, during her confirmation hearing, it was Donald Trump's own nominee for Attorney General who suggested that Ms. Yates maintain the integrity of the Department of Justice at all times and that she must refuse to enforce orders that were unconstitutional. This week, Ms. Yates made good on her answer to Senator Sessions and upheld her oath to faithfully uphold our Constitution.

For these reasons, I will proudly introduce a resolution that commends Ms. Yates for her act of moral courage and for her adherence to the dictates of the United States Constitution. I call on all of my colleagues to sign on to this resolution and for House leadership to schedule a vote to commend Ms. Yates. Most importantly, though, I call on Donald Trump to rescind this egregious order that harms our economy, that contravenes our values, and that endangers our national security.

I thank the gentleman and gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 724, which would rescind Donald Trump's refugee ban and help unify the family of Farah Usa, a refugee who risked her life for United States forces in Iraq and whose father, mother, and sister are now barred from entering the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 7, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

I speak for my constituents of the Ninth Congressional District of New York and for women across the Nation when I say that H.R. 7 is not only dangerous, but it is misleading and would be detrimental to women's health everywhere.

This bill not only creates barriers for women who want to access abortion care, but it unfairly targets low-income women with there being a particularly disproportionate effect on women of color, who are more likely to live below the poverty level and become eligible for Medicaid. Additionally, it penalizes small businesses that want to provide comprehensive healthcare coverage to their employees, including reproductive health care.

Let's not punish the single mother who recently left her abusive husband and who has no money, no job, and no health insurance--except for Medicaid--in making her unable to receive the abortion care and services she desperately needs. Let's not punish the young woman who is suffering from cancer, whose life will be in danger if she cannot access an abortion.

This past weekend, millions of women and men across the country, including me, marched with one goal in mind: to let the world know that our rights must be respected and protected. A woman's right to an abortion should be a personal choice that she makes, not a decision that government makes for her.

I thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman).

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.

I know that my colleagues have been talking about their concerns with regard to the troubling nominations of Donald Trump, and I want to add my voice with respect to the Secretary of Education.

About 90 percent of Americans--Republicans and Democrats alike--send their children to public schools; and as a proud graduate of the New York City public school system, I, myself, know firsthand of the importance of both primary and secondary education as part of early childhood and young adulthood. Most public schools in the United States are operated by the city, town, or county for the benefit of the public, and all of the resources that are allocated to public schools are used to support the development of students and to prepare them for success in the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, I believe Betsy DeVos has a very different approach to education, and that is extremely clear. She and her family, over the years, have devoted millions of dollars to replacing public schools in Michigan with charter schools, most of which have recorded test scores in reading and math that are well below the State average. Let me repeat that--most of which have recorded test scores in reading and math that are well below the State average.

Recently, the Detroit Free Press released an article that explained, while families in Detroit have the choice of many different charter schools, few of these choices actually offer a quality education.

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that Betsy DeVos has used donations to provide to Republicans in the Michigan

State Legislature to prevent State agencies from investigating as to whether charter schools are providing students with a comprehensive education that will prepare them for the future. I am alarmed that the system that was developed by Betsy DeVos, which allows for-profit corporations to operate charter schools, realigns those resources intended for schoolchildren into the pockets of shareholders--making a profit off the backs of children.

Since 1959, the DeVos family has operated Amway, which is a business that has been labeled as a pyramid scheme--paying out millions of dollars in fines and cheating working families. We cannot allow Betsy DeVos the chance to extend those same basic principles used during her time at Amway to affect our education system--enriching wealthy investors at the expense of our children's education. It is not a solution. It is a problem.

I thank my colleague for giving me the time. I hope that the American people are watching very closely as to what is taking place here because, indeed, it is a travesty.

I thank Mr. Veasey for his leadership this evening. I thank our chairman, Cedric Richmond, for his vision and his timeliness in bringing this to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the people of the Ninth Congressional District of New York in opposition to Donald Trump's nominee for the position of Attorney General of the United States, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. I stand with my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus as we raise our voices on behalf of the millions of Americans who depend on this caucus to speak as the conscience of the Congress--speaking truth to power.

Mr. Speaker, I struggle to understand how Senator Sessions can even be considered to lead the Department of Justice when time and time again throughout his political career he has actively opposed the mission and purpose for which the Department of Justice was created. For the better part of my life--at least a half a century--the Department of Justice has assumed a position of leadership in the fight for the civil rights of African Americans who seek the uninhibited right to vote, for young women who seek protection against sexual assault on college campuses, for disabled individuals who fight for equitable access to basic services, and for immigrants who aspire to pursue their visions of the American Dream.

The nomination of Senator Sessions does not support the legacy of progress that has been made under the auspices of the modern-day Department of Justice. As a young prosecutor, he directed racial slurs at his African American colleagues. Senator Sessions spoke highly of the Ku Klux Klan. He actively targeted and persecuted activists like Mr. Albert Turner--one of Dr. Martin Luther King's advisers--for simply trying to register disenfranchised voters.

When he became Attorney General of Alabama, Senator Sessions, a product of segregated education, worked tirelessly to prevent predominantly African American public schools from accessing an equal share of resources that had been long denied to Black students.

As a Member of the Senate, Senator Sessions has been an outspoken opponent of criminal justice reforms that many of his Republican colleagues support. He is a leader in the effort to define undocumented Americans as ``the other'' and forcibly separating families in the United States.

The women and men who lead the Department of Justice are called upon to pursue justice; but with such a documented history of hostility toward the most vulnerable populations--people of color, women, disabled individuals, and immigrant families--we cannot expect Senator Sessions to pursue justice on their behalf.

I absolutely and unequivocally oppose the nomination of Senator Sessions. He has demonstrated his disdain for the most basic of human principles: equality, justice, and fairness. These principles represent the promise of our Constitution. The Senate considering and confirming Mr. Sessions would break that very promise.

Mr. Speaker, I stand with the CBC today asking the Senate of the United States to uphold the virtues of the Constitution and reject this divisive nomination.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 596, a bill that will completely repeal the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010 and was declared constitutionally sound by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Affordable Care Act extends health care coverage to all Americans, regardless of their gender, health condition, or ability to pay.

Unlike other Republican repeal efforts, H.R. 596 does have a bit of a new twist. This legislation instructs the appropriate committees to draft a Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act and directs them to include provisions that will provide people with preexisting conditions access to affordable health coverage and provisions designed to increase the number of insured Americans.

I am not sure where the Republicans have been over the past 5 years, but those two provisions are already in the Affordable Care Act which is already the law of the land. In fact, the number of uninsured Americans has steadily decreased under the Affordable Care Act to a record low of 13.4 percent by the second quarter of 2014, and Gallup's quarterly trends projected that the uninsured rate will continue to drop over all age groups.

The Affordable Care Act is good law. It should not be repealed, and that is why I vehemently oppose H.R. 596. It is another very cynical attempt to take our Nation backward.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty) for extending this time to me, and I want to also thank the gentlelady from Illinois (Ms. Kelly) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus for hosting this evening's Special Order and this extension this evening.

Today I proudly rise to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic events of the nonviolent protests that took place in Selma, Alabama, and to recognize their importance in igniting and fueling the civil rights movement that brought an end to the practice of Jim Crow racial segregation by law in America and voting rights legislation that guaranteed every American citizen the right to vote.

It is a privilege to represent the Ninth District of New York in offering tribute to the historic people of conscience that walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday. The march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 included more than 600 women and men who walked from the historic Brown Chapel AME Church to the State capital of Alabama.

They marched for the right to vote, the freedom and human dignity that had been denied to them. They marched to end the evil practice of segregation and the violent terrorism to which they were subjected on an everyday basis, to remove from our society

the poison of racism and racial discrimination.

However, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge this peaceful protest was met with tear gas, police batons, police dogs, and hatred and violence. Images of this tragedy were broadcast across America, opening the eyes of millions of citizens to the brutality and injustices that African American communities, especially in the South, had experienced every day.

Five months after Bloody Sunday, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. I was 9 months at that time. Sadly, the right to vote remains under threat in the United States.

Just imagine, five decades later, the disparate treatment and discrimination, the trampling of the civil rights and civil liberties of vulnerable communities of color, black and Hispanic, Latino Americans, continues to be a blood-soaked stain on the Star-Spangled Banner in the minds of many Americans.

In June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, effectively undermining our ability to protect the right to vote and ensure unfettered access to the ballot.

We, the members of the CBC, will not stand silent and allow the partisanship in this House to reverse these gains made through the bloodshed and the lives martyred to erase from the law books those rights for which many fought and died.

Mr. Speaker, while we have made great progress since 1965, it is all relative. As long as systemic racism remains in the hearts and minds of some Americans, there is still much work to be done so that the blood, sweat, and tears shed for the freedom and justice in 1965 and every day since will not have been in vain.

The courage it took for our colleague Representative John Lewis and the countless and nameless Americans to face an angry State-sponsored mob so that we can all enjoy the freedoms of our country must never be forgotten. We must remain vigilant and continuously fight for equal rights for all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or social background. Until then, Mr. Speaker, the struggle continues.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay respect to Dr. Winslow Sargeant who is retiring as Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy.

Appointed in August of 2010, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Sargeant during the last three Congressional Sessions while a member of the House Small Business Committee. He has brought his expertise to bear in helping solve issues facing small businesses and entrepreneurs in my district and across the country as they navigated the most difficult economy our country has experienced in nearly a century.

Dr. Sargeant knows the challenges of starting and building a small firm. He enrolled in a PhD. Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1988 and left in 1992 to work at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota. He received his PhD in electrical engineering in 1995, and worked at ATT/Bell Labs in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1997, Dr. Sargeant and partners co-founded Aanetcom, a ``fabless'' semiconductor integrated circuit design company. The company designed state-of-the- art computer circuits for telecom and broadband applications. In March 2000, Aanetcom was acquired by PMC-Sierra, a publicly traded company.

Prior to becoming chief counsel, Dr. Sargeant served as managing director of Venture Investors, LLC, in Madison, Wisconsin. The firm provided seed and early-stage money to high-potential health care and IT companies. There, he specialized in computer software, hardware, and materials, and worked with technology transfer offices.

As Chief Counsel, he brought years of experience as a federal partner to small firms. From 2001 to 2005, he was program manager in electronics for the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, while also serving as adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The NSF is one of the federal agencies with the largest extramural research and development budgets that are required in the SBIR

program to dedicate a portion of their awards to small firms.

On behalf of the small business community of the 9th District of Brooklyn, I'd like to thank and congratulate Dr. Sargeant, his wife Ikanyeng and three children, Kgosi, Lorato, and Marang and wish them many blessings in the future.

Section 3:

``If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; . . .''

Mr. Speaker, the majority has chosen the first week of the 114th Congress to relitigate the battles of the previous two Congresses. This time, we're here debating whether or not to approve a pipeline, through our nation's Heartland, carrying Canadian tar sand oil.

There are many reasons why I'm opposed to this legislation, Mr. Speaker, the fact that oil produced from tar sands creates 17% more carbon emissions than other crudes; the potentially devastating impact wrought by this heavy crude should a pipeline rupture occur; or that my constituents are enjoying the best prices at the pump in several years without the completion of this pipeline due to the record glut in global oil supply.

Without even getting into the disappointing number of permanent jobs created by this project, which is 50, Mr. Speaker; the President has already clearly stated that he will veto this measure should it ever make it to his desk.

So at the end of the day Mr. Speaker, what are we really talking about here?

It would seem to me that instead of trying to score political points and refighting old battles, the 114th Congress should be using its first week to bring legislation to the floor that fosters an environment of innovation, energy diversification and an investment in clean, domestic forms of renewable energy. Policies that would create hundreds of thousands of new, permanent jobs while also ensuring energy independence for years to come.

While I understand that some of my Democratic Colleagues are in favor, I would strongly urge a ``no'' vote on this misguided legislation.