March Toward a More Perfect Union

Floor Speech

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Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor and a privilege to once again have this opportunity to stand on the House floor and to anchor the Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order hour, where today we want to discuss some of the issues and challenges confronting this country that we hope this newly constituted Congress will be prepared to take up.

As we move into the 114th Congress, there is still a lot of business that is undone over the remaining few weeks that we have left during this session, but a whole lot of challenges that we have got to confront as we move forward.

One hundred fifty years ago or so, President Abraham Lincoln publicly pondered the question: How do we create a more perfect Union?

President Lincoln asked that question at a time when the country was tearing itself apart in the context of the Civil War. Since the conclusion of that war--since President Lincoln publicly pondered that question--year after year, month after month, century after century, we certainly have made some progress, significant progress, here in America, but we still have a long way to go, and it is still relevant for us to ask the question: How do we create a more perfect Union?

Where do we go from here?

So I am pleased that so many of my distinguished colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus have come to the floor today to share their thoughts and their insights and their policy prescriptions in our continuing march toward a more perfect Union.

Let me first just yield to the dynamic chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus, who has provided such great leadership to this caucus, to this Congress, and to this country during her career, the distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio, Chairwoman Marcia Fudge.

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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished chair for her observations and, certainly, for pointing out that, while we should be coming together to march toward perfecting our Union, there are some, inexplicably, who want to march toward impeachment before even seeing Presidential action, the same type of folks who, from the moment that Barack Obama was sworn in as President, believe he exceeded his authority just by raising his right hand and taking the oath of office. So let's just hope that we can hit the refresh button on the partisanship, on the obstruction, on the obfuscation and can come together to do the business of the American people.

Certainly, the gentleman who I would yield to next has been a great patriot. He has helped to bring our Constitution to life. For tens of millions of Americans, he is one of this country's greatest freedom fighters, a civil rights icon, and a distinguished Member of Congress. It is my honor and my privilege to now yield to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, Congressman John Lewis.

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Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee, for your very eloquent observations and for laying out a clear pathway as it relates to many of the challenges that we have got to confront here in America and certainly amongst those challenges that you spoke to, the notion that we have got a broken criminal justice system that in far too many communities has placed a target on the back of young African American and Latino men in a way inconsistent with the democratic values of this country and the notion that we were all created equally, and so I look forward to partnering with you on many of these issues, as we all collectively move forward in this wonderful body.

We have also been joined here today by another civil rights champion, someone who has fought for the disenfranchised and to make sure that everyone has equal opportunity under the law, the distinguished gentleman from the Lone Star State of Texas, and I am pleased now to yield to Congressman Al Green.

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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas for his very thoughtful and eloquent observations.

I think it is so important that you pointed out the President's place in the context of his legacy relating to his election because I believe that also ties into his legitimacy in moving forward with executive action on immigration.

This is the first Democratic President since FDR to be elected to consecutive terms having secured a majority of the vote from the American people, and so he has all of the legitimacy, all of the electoral mandate to act in a bold fashion.

We know that President George W. Bush came into the Presidency under questionable circumstances. He didn't receive a majority of the vote of the American people, and I am not sure what took place down in Florida, but certainly, there were significant questions as to the authenticity of the final result.

He came into office under questionable circumstances; yet there was no talk of impeachment, even as he proceeded to get us into not one but two wars and jam a reckless tax cut to benefit the wealthy and the well-off down the throats of the American people.

If you just take Iraq, for example, his administration lied their way into a conflict that has cost the American people thousands of lives, billions of dollars; international legitimacy has been jeopardized. No one from this side of the aisle talked about bringing forth Articles of Impeachment in any meaningful way against George W. Bush.

You have a democratically elected President, Barack Obama, overwhelming electoral college landslide. He has got a mandate to act, and there are some Members on the other side of the aisle who just can't help themselves, who are itching to try and delegitimize this President. Shame on you. Let's just hope that we can move forward in a more productive fashion as it relates to how we interact with the executive branch. The whole world is watching, and they expect us to behave responsibly as we move forward.

Now, in terms of how do we move forward, how do we create a more perfect Union, and how do we act potentially in a bipartisan fashion, I think there are at least four areas where there should be opportunity to find common ground. I think we should be able to find common ground as it relates to immigration reform and dealing with our broken immigration system. We should be able to find common ground as it relates to giving America a raise. We should be able to find common ground as it relates to criminal justice reform.

I have been encouraged as a member of the House Judiciary Committee bipartisan task force on over-criminalization by the willingness of Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives, to try to work together to solve this issue of a broken criminal justice system that we have got in America.

There are areas where we should be able to find some common ground. Let me start by dealing with this question of the executive order on immigration, because there is a lot of hysteria in this town now about how some people in the Congress are going to react to the President if he decides to issue some form of executive order on immigration, as if this President would be doing something extraordinary.

The history, in fact, tells us that since President Eisenhower, every single occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has issued executive orders related to immigration. In fact, there have been 39 such orders from Eisenhower all the way through to President George W. Bush related to the topic and subject matter of immigration. In fact, if you look at some of the executive orders that were issued by President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush related to undocumented immigrants from Central America and the need in their view to try to keep families together, they were some of the broadest executive orders issued by any President in the area of immigration.

Where was the impeachment talk back then? Why are we subjecting this President to such reckless conversations? I thought that we were trying to come together in the aftermath of these elections to see if we can have a productive 114th Congress, because certainly we know that the 113th Congress was or is on track, I should say, to go down as the least productive Congress in the history of the Republic. That is quite a designation. I mean, the least productive Congress?

If we go down memory lane and think about some of the highlights, this is a Congress that brought us a reckless, irresponsible government shutdown that cost the economy $24 billion in lost economic productivity all because of this clinical obsession with the Affordable Care Act. We flirted with a default on our debt for the first time in our Nation's history, threatening the full faith and credit of the United States of America. It is a Congress that brought us sequestration, $85 billion in randomly spread out cuts across the government in a way that put hundreds of thousands of jobs in jeopardy. We failed to renew unemployment insurance, leaving millions of Americans on the battlefield of the Great Recession. These are the highlights of the 113th Congress. I don't think that is a record to be proud of as we move forward.

So I think we could all benefit from a reduction in the rhetoric in an effort to try and find common ground. If you don't like what the President may do on the issue of immigration, you are going to control the House of Representatives and you are going to control the Senate. Just act. Do something. Stop talking. Fix our broken immigration system. You have the power to do so.

The Senate acted in a bipartisan fashion last year passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was not perfect but certainly was a good faith attempt to try and address the problem. There were 52 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 14 Republicans, if my recollection serves me correctly. They partnered together to pass a bipartisan piece of legislation.

So I am just hopeful that the House will come together and legitimately try to tackle an issue and just stop throwing out the word "amnesty'' to apply to everything that you don't like. I mean, in this country's greatest tradition, we have never had dual citizenship, and we shouldn't have dual citizenship moving forward. We should just try to find a way to bring these 11 million undocumented people out of the shadows in a fashion that independent economists have said will be beneficial to the American taxpayer and result in dramatic reductions in our Nation's deficit. That is immigration reform. I am hopeful we can find some common ground in that area.

The second area where I think we should come together in our march toward a more perfect Union has to do with giving America a raise. Right now, the Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. In other words, in the wealthiest country in the world, in our great Republic, under that Federal minimum wage, you can have somebody who works full-time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and at the end of the day, with a family of three, find themselves below the Federal poverty line. That is the classic definition of "working poor.'' Why would we cement that into law?

So I think that the responsible thing to do is for us to try to figure out how we can come together and raise the minimum wage. We couldn't get a vote in the House of Representatives on H.R. 1010--this Congress--that would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over the next year or so. Let's hit the refresh button and try to get something done next Congress. And this is not just something that Democrats embrace. This is not simply something that blue States embrace. This is not something that progressives simply embrace. If we are going to take a message from the outcome of the election earlier in November, we can't pick and choose what message we want to take.

How about we draw some lessons from the fact that the voters of Alaska came to the polls and overwhelmingly supported an increase in the minimum wage in that State; the voters in Arkansas came to the polls and overwhelmingly supported an increase in the minimum wage in that State; the voters of Nebraska came to the polls and overwhelmingly supported an increase in the minimum wage in that State; and the voters of South Dakota came to the polls and overwhelmingly supported an increase in the minimum wage in that State. Those are four deeply conservative, deeply red States.

America wants a raise. If we are looking for issues where we can find common ground beyond immigration reform, perhaps we can start there. One of the reasons why I think we should start there is because, if you look at what the minimum wage really means in real terms right now, we are falling behind in terms of where we once were and also in terms of making sure that we are giving the people who are working for the minimum wage a fair shot to pursue the American Dream.

If you were to look at this chart that is before us, you will see that in 1968 only 17 percent of the people who fall or fell into the category of a low-wage worker had some college experience, but in 2012 that number has shot way up: 46 percent of the people falling into the category of a low-wage worker with some college experience. No wonder there is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about the future of America amongst the people we represent all across the country when you have got folks with some college experience falling into the category of a low-wage worker.

In 1968, about 48 percent of the people, low-wage workers, had a high school diploma or GED. That number has shot up. In 2012, 79 percent of low-wage workers had completed high school or obtained their GED. Americans are more educated now than we were 45 or so plus years ago in terms of the workforce but earning less. That is a fundamental problem that we have got to confront in this country, and raising the minimum wage is one way in which to do it.

The other thing that we should take a look at related to the minimum wage is the fact that the people who are on it in large measure are actually trying to support themselves on a full-time basis or support their families. One of the most popular myths put forward by those who are determined to do everything possible to stop America from getting a raise like to say, well, people who work for the minimum wage are teenagers, or they work part-time after school and live with their parents. All they are really doing is trying to earn some extra spending money. It is a cute argument, but when you actually evaluate it using some objective factual analysis, you see that these are simply myths designed to undermine the effort to raise the minimum wage for people who are actually struggling to support their families.

Unlike the popular mythology that is put forward that these are teenagers or afterschool workers or people who are trying to get some spending change to go to the movies, the reality is the average age of people who are working for minimum wage numbers in America is 35 years old. Eighty-eight percent of the people working for minimum wage right now are not teenagers, they are 20 years or older. More than a quarter actually have children, and 55 percent of these individuals, as this chart illustrates, work full time. So let's have an evidence-based discussion about the need to increase the minimum wage that is rooted in objective, factual analysis and not hysteria or mythology designed simply to evade the discussion.

And the fact that the minimum wage increase has been embraced by deeply conservative voters in Arkansas and Alaska and Nebraska and South Dakota I think provides us with a starting point to move forward and attempt to find common ground in doing something that makes sense simply for America.

So I have mentioned immigration reform as a possible avenue of trying to identify common ground. I have mentioned the minimum wage. I think we also have to try to deal with the issue of our broken criminal justice system. If you think about the fact that in America there are more than 2 million people incarcerated in our country, that is a tremendous waste of human capital. It is a tremendous waste of our economic resources and results in a dramatic loss of human productivity.

So I have actually been pleased over the last several years that people on the left and on the right, progressives and conservatives, are finding their way toward common ground to deal with a criminal justice system that clearly is broken, and starting perhaps with the notion that we have had a failed war on drugs that has resulted in putting people behind bars far too often, and disproportionately African Americans and Latino men, but putting nonviolent drug abusers behind bars--a dramatic waste of taxpayer dollars in a manner that has proven to be ineffective from a criminal justice standpoint.

As a member of the bipartisanship task force on overcriminalization chaired by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner)--the Democratic leader of the effort was the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), one of the things that was striking as we moved forward with our exploration was the fact that in the Federal system more than 50 percent of the people who are currently incarcerated--more than 50 percent--are there for drug or substance abuse crimes. Only about 8 percent of the current occupants of Federal prisons across America were convicted of violent crimes. Something is wrong with that picture.

I am thankful, actually, that States, particularly in the deep South, conservative States with Republican Governors and Republican-held State legislative bodies, have recognized the failure of the excessive law and order policies brought to us in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the fact that it was costing their taxpayers dollars, wasting resources, and they have come together to reform the criminal justice system. It has happened in Texas. It has happened in South Carolina. It has happened in Alabama. It has happened in Kentucky. It has happened in Louisiana. It has happened in Georgia. Again, these aren't blue States. These are not traditionally Democratic States, these are traditionally conservative States recognizing the need for criminal justice reform.

So I am hopeful that as we move into the 114th Congress, we can find our way toward dealing with this issue. We have got Senators from the other side of the aisle who have expressed an interest in tackling this issue. And we have Democratic and Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee and beyond who have indicated a willingness to try to fix our broken criminal justice system: to eradicate mandatory minimums; to restore discretion to judges; to focus less on punishment as it relates to nonviolent drug abusers; and to provide treatment and rehabilitation so we can help people successfully reenter our society.

We have to finish the job as it relates to the disparity between crack and cocaine. It was 100 to 1. This Congress acted; it is now 18 to 1, but there is still no pharmaceutical reason for there to be any disparity between crack and cocaine. And we should make our reforms retroactive so we can free thousands of people unnecessarily behind bars right now for a law that this Congress has deemed to be unjust. So criminal justice reform, a third area where perhaps we can work together.

And lastly, as we prepare to wind down this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order, I also want to express my thanks to my good friend and colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) who throughout the last 2 years courageously stood on the floor of the House of Representatives coanchoring the CBC Special Order, and we know that the best is yet to come for Congressman Horsford, but the last issue that we have to perhaps tackle in a bipartisan fashion is fixing the damage that was done to the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.

We all should want to encourage Americans to vote and participate in our great democracy. It is that participation that preserves the integrity of the democratic Republic that has been created in this great country. Why anyone would want to suppress the vote is beyond me, with the exception of noting that some view it as a partisan means of maintaining power, a Pyrrhic victory perhaps, because at the end of the day, these efforts to disenfranchise people are bad for America.

This is a chart that illustrates the fact that in the aftermath of the 2010 election, some people interpreted that midterm election as a mandate to suppress the vote. And so in 41 States, 180 voter suppression-type bills were introduced all across America. In every State that is represented with a red color, laws were introduced to suppress the vote. That is how the 2010 elections seem to have been interpreted by some.

I am hopeful that coming out of the 2014 midterm elections that we will actually come together. There is a bill in the House of Representatives--it has Republican support and it has Democratic support--to help Americans who want to vote vote and undo the damage that was done to the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.

Now, the Voting Rights Act has a great bipartisan history. It was enacted into law in 1965. We are going to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. It was signed and championed by Lyndon Baines Johnson, with the support of civil rights leaders, Dr. King, and of course our own Congressman John Lewis. But every time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized, it was reauthorized by a Republican President. It was reauthorized in 1970, signed into law by President Richard Nixon. And then it was reauthorized again in 1975, signed into law by President Gerald Ford. And then the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized again in 1982, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. And then it was reauthorized again in 2006 and signed into law by President George W. Bush. It has a great bipartisan history.

If we are looking for areas where we can find common ground, where there is an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans, for conservatives and progressives to work together, we have got a lot of options. We can fix our broken immigration system. We can deal with criminal justice reform. We can give America a raise, and we can fix the Voting Rights Act on the occasion of our celebrating the 50th anniversary of its passage.

And so I am hopeful that we can put the dysfunction and the obfuscation and the government shutdown and the impeachment talk and the sequestration and the serial flirtation with the debt ceiling and defaulting behind us and come together, find common ground, and march toward a more perfect union in the 114th Congress.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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