Congressional Leadership Matters

Floor Speech

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Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) for anchoring tonight's Special Order hour and for his tenacity, perseverance, and dedication along with Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick as the coanchor for the Congressional Black Caucus.

At the end of each year, Mr. Speaker, as Members of Congress, we owe it to the American people to show our work. We owe it to the American people to show who we have been fighting for and what we have delivered on their behalf.

Mr. Speaker, as the first year of the 118th Congress comes to a close, I rise today with my colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus because the report card on House Republicans' do-nothing chaos agenda and the CBC's people over politics agenda is in.

Since the 118th Congress was sworn in this January, and as our Caucus has grown to a historic, record-breaking 60 members, we have been fighting for the people. We have been fighting to preserve our democracy, fighting to protect voting rights and create fairer districts, fighting for public safety and police accountability, fighting to protect a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions, fighting against the expulsion of Black elected officials, fighting archaic traditions that block progress, and, of course, fighting extremist Republicans and a judiciary who would rather erase us, who want to see us less free, and with fewer fundamental rights.

While the Congressional Black Caucus and House Democrats have been working to deliver results for the American people, the majority party has descended into complete and total chaos; chaos that left our country without a House Speaker for the first time in our Nation's history and brought the people's House to a standstill for 22 days; chaos that has nearly shut down our government and brought our country to the brink of defaulting on our national debt time and again. The American people deserve so much better than the Republican do-nothing Congress.

By contrast, Democrats have offered a positive vision for our country and a real record of accomplishments to show in our districts and all across America. This is because of the investments that we worked to pass during the 117th Congress, along with President Biden and Vice President Harris, which was made possible because of historic legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs law, including the Chips and Science law to bring U.S. manufacturing back to the United States and so much more, including historic investments in funding for our historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions.

In my district alone, we just announced, with President Biden on Friday, a grant worth $3 billion to fund true high-speed rail to connect Las Vegas to the Los Angeles region. Finally, after decades of people talking about it, because of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it is finally happening. This will be a monumental and transformational boost to our local economy, and it will also create tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs--jobs, jobs, jobs. Jobs that will be offered to every faction of our community and small business owners, including Black-owned and other minority-owned small businesses.

Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we are connecting the more than 123,000 households in my State that did not have access to the infrastructure to connect to broadband, to the internet, something as simple as connecting to the internet, something that far too many of us take for granted, there are counties and rural communities in my State that do not have that access, that do not have that benefit, but thanks to this law, those investments are finally happening.

Another 825,000 families in low-income households are connecting to broadband thanks to the affordable connectivity benefit that was part of the infrastructure bill and that we are now working to make sure is included in the supplemental.

Nevada is also seeing over $300 million invested to support the expansion of electric vehicle charging stations. I am so proud to have met just recently with a number of small businesses, including one Latina-owned business and one Black-owned business. They are electric companies who are now, for the first time, being connected to these contracts and have an opportunity to grow their business, to hire more workers, and to be part of this new burgeoning sector.

These are just a few of our accomplishments, and we still have so much more work to do. I thank my colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus, because many of these historic bills would not have been possible without the leadership and the votes of the Members who make it happen, including our immediate past chair, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty; the assistant Democratic leader, Mr. Clyburn; our Democratic leader now, Mr. Jeffries, who literally worked toward reaching negotiation to deliver the votes necessary.

We know that as we begin the work on behalf of our constituents in 2024 and beyond, there is more work to do, and so we will be tackling issues around Black economic prosperity and wealth creation, continuing to advocate for the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and making sure that every community is safe: Safe from gun violence, safe from overpolicing, safe from hate crimes, whether they be against the Jewish community or Asians or African Americans because we understand that all communities deserve to be safe.

I am proud of the accomplishments, the record that we can stand here and talk about, putting people over politics, and I look forward to working with my colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus as we continue to advance these legislative efforts for the people that we represent.

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