Unfinished Business: CBC to Republican Leadership--Do Your Job

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening along with my coanchor of the Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order hour, with my classmate and my colleague, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries from the Eighth District of New York. It is an honor for me to stand here and be a coanchor with him.

Tonight's topic, Mr. Speaker, is the Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order hour entitled ``Unfinished Business: Congressional Black Caucus to Our Republican Leadership--Do Your Job.'' As the Congressional Black Caucus comes to the House floor this evening as voices to be heard on unfinished congressional business, let me pause for a moment first to pay respect to Gwen Ifill, who passed away earlier today.
Ms. Ifill, an award-winning television journalist for NBC and PBS, helped pave the way for both women and men and African Americans in the field of journalism. Her voice will be missed. Her voice was a voice that we listened to as members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, today, the House of Representatives returned for the first day of the lameduck session of the 114th Congress. As the conscience of the Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus is committed to advocating for change to policies that adversely impact African American communities. Yet, Mr. Speaker, over the past 2 years, the 114th Congress has been highly unproductive, passing one partisan bill after another, which then languishes with no chance of being passed by the Senate or being signed into law by President Obama. In fact, as of November 2 of this year, only 244 bills have been signed into law, and only 20 of those bills have been significant pieces of legislation.

The American people really deserve more from their elected representatives. But the 114th Congress is not over, and we should use the remaining time wisely. The list of legislative items that this House should consider before going home for the year is robust-- legislation to fully fund the government's fiscal year 2017 for one.

The American people deserve a fully funded government that invests resources in people, reduces poverty, and safeguards the social safety net programs.

We are currently operating under a continuing resolution, Mr. Speaker, as you know, through December 9. While the current funding mechanism has been keeping the Federal Government doors open, it fails to fully recognize the importance of investment in programs which would benefit not just a few, but all Americans.
In addition to the omnibus, we should bring to the floor legislation providing reform for the criminal justice system, voting rights, and gun violence prevention, just to name a few.

You are going to hear from several members of the Congressional Black Caucus who have spent an inordinate amount of time crafting legislation, sitting in their committees, and going back home to their district and making promises that the American people are asking for.

Mr. Speaker, we have the opportunity starting today to use the last few weeks of the 114th Congress in a productive way to stand up for the constituents and to pass bipartisan legislation.

Mr. Speaker, how many times have we been in this Chamber and someone in that chair has said that we are going to work together for the good of the country or our constituents? That is what our constituents expect us to do.

So let me just briefly take a moment to remind you, Mr. Speaker, why it is so important that we have a fully funded Federal Government and provide funding for critical programs--critical programs--like those that address ethnic and racial health disparities by improving diversity in the healthcare workforce and increasing the number of health professions in underserved communities, for example.

Mr. Speaker, we have my colleague and friend who has served as our Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust chair, Congresswoman Robin Kelly, who is with us today and has fought tirelessly for health care. You are going to hear from her tonight.

It is well known that poverty and social economic status and health disparities are closely linked and latched together. Many of these gaps are shaped by generations of cultural biases, injustices, and inequality. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: ``Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.''

Mr. Speaker, for years, I have had the honor of serving on the American Heart Association Board where researchers have shared the alarming statistics of how African Americans are 30 percent more likely to die of heart disease and 60 percent more likely to be diabetic than white Americans. The cost of these types of health disparities is simply too high. Estimates indicate that health disparities cost our Nation as much as $300 billion a year, which results in too many Americans suffering unnecessarily because they do not have access to the care they need.

Statistics such as these illustrate the increased need to address healthcare disparities by continued investment in Federal programs such as the Office of Minority Health at the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH.

We cannot shortchange these important Federal programs by putting them in neutral or on pause, Mr. Speaker. We must enact a fully funded omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2017 before leaving Washington--a real simple request of doing your job. This has to stop, Mr. Speaker.

I am privileged to be joined this evening by so many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. I am joined by my coanchor, as I mentioned, and you will hear from him shortly.

At this time, it gives me great pleasure to have the privilege of yielding to Congressman G.K. Butterfield. He is the Congressional Black Caucus chair from the First District of North Carolina. He is someone whose history and past leadership in fighting for justice and against disparities are far too long for me to appropriately say tonight. So, Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield to Congressman G.K. Butterfield.

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Mr. Speaker, let me just end with these words. This may be my last time as the lead anchor, so I cannot leave this Chamber without saying thank you, thank you to President Barack Obama for giving us 8 years of changing this country; thank you to President Barack Obama, whose legacy 10 or 20 years from now will go down in history as one of our greatest Presidents for making change.

Mr. Speaker, let me now say thank you to Congressman Jeffries for reminding me of where we are now. If we really are going to finish our unfinished business, the President-elect, who said, as I paraphrase, gangs roaming the streets, African American communities being decimated by crime, you walk down the streets and you get shot, well, Mr. Speaker, we could take care of that in the 114th if we really believed that. We could do a crime bill; we could do a voters' rights bill; we could do 10-20-30.

Mr. Speaker, as my time comes to an end, I include in the Record statements from Congresswoman Terri Sewell and Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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