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Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding and I thank him especially for holding this Special Order hour for someone who we are all going to miss. He was a really great guy.

I am honored to be able to reflect a little bit on the life and the service of an extremely dedicated Member of Congress, Doug LaMalfa.

I served northern California alongside Doug from the day that he was sworn in to this body. His area was an area that I represented when I was in the State senate. In Congress, we represented neighboring regions of our State. We shared many of the same challenges and worked together on issues that matter deeply to the people that we both served.

I was proud to work with him on bipartisan efforts to support our farmers and ranchers, to strengthen wildfire prevention, to build Sites Reservoir, and to address the growing home insurance crisis facing families across all of northern California.

He and I worked together to deliver over $500 million in tax relief to fire victims in our district that lost their homes then had to sue in order to get the financial relief to rebuild their homes only to find out that they were going to be taxed on that money that they got in the suit, which wasn't in itself enough to even rebuild their homes. He was caring, and he was a terrific fighter for the folks that we worked for in delivering this.

He believed in practical solutions, and I always respected and appreciated his collaboration on the issues important to our constituents.

I am saddened by the loss of my longtime colleague and friend. Jan and I extend our deepest condolences and keep Doug's wife, Jill; their children; their grandchild; and his devoted staff in our prayers during this very difficult time. I thank the gentleman again for hosting this Special Order hour.

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