30-Something Working Group
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - July 10, 2006)
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I want to thank you and the 30-something Group for the enormous work that you have done on this floor. Again, as you rightfully point out, we do not have and are not provided the opportunity. You would think in this great democracy of ours there would be ample opportunity for these issues to be debated, but unfortunately time and time again we are not allowed the opportunity even to provide a countervailing measure on something as important as Iraq. Or we find the Voting Rights Act all of a sudden mysteriously is shunted off the floor. The Voting Rights Act, something where there is near bipartisan, almost unanimous approval that is worked out. And you would think in the spirit of this great Chamber that we would be able to proceed. But unfortunately, as I said before, this is a one-party town. And when the Republicans control the House of Representatives, as they have for the last 12 years, and the United States Senate and the Presidency, in their arrogance they believe I guess that we shouldn't have a say, that there shouldn't be this discourse and dialogue.
And that is why I am so proud of the 30-something Group that has consistently come down to this floor. And I am proud to say also that so many people in my home State of Connecticut have called and written and said that they have heard you. And your message is getting through. And I commend you as well for linking up with a number of the blogs around the country who tune in on a regular basis so that they get an opportunity to hear from you and Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman Schultz and the way that you are able to articulate these issues.
I see that we have been joined by the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, another individual who has been able to on so many occasions come to this floor in the silence of this Chamber, in the din of the night because we are not allowed the opportunity during the day to express our concerns.
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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. While the gentleman is getting his chart, I would just like to comment again and
commend him, and also commend him in the bipartisan nature and nonpartisan way that you have come down here. I say that with this in mind, because you have heard me talk about the nature of this being a one-party town and what it means in terms of stifling debate and dialogue. And yet we do have plans and we do have ideas and vitality. And so one has to ask himself, Why is it that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to stifle, to cut off debate, to be seemingly uninterested in the proposals that Democrats put forward? The answer I believe lies in what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to say about our colleagues on the other side of the aisle: it is not that they aren't good people. They certainly are. It is not that they don't love their country as we do. They do. But he said that they seem to be frozen in the ice of their own indifference. Frozen in the ice of their own indifference. Indifference towards making sure that there is a workable, living minimum wage. Indifference to working people, indifference to the men and women as Mr. Delahunt has pointed out time and time again who are lined up along the highway to Crawford, Texas, seeking only an audience with the President of the United States to talk about their sons and daughters who have given their lives. Indifference, as Ms. Jackson-Lee has pointed out, to the senior citizens of this country who have become refugees from their own health care system and have to travel to Canada to get prescription drugs that they can afford.
Indifference to what we are doing to college students today, cutting back the funding that they so desperately need. Indifference to what happens at the gas pumps where people who are struggling to make a living and have to get back and forth to work find themselves. And I thank you for combating that indifference here on the floor every single night.
It is our direction, the new direction that Leader Pelosi is taking this party and this country into is what this Nation desperately needs, and that is why I am so proud to be down here with you.
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