Women's History Month

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank my good friend and colleague, Representative Kelly from the great State of Illinois, for, once again, presiding over this CBC Special Order, this opportunity for members of the Congressional Black Caucus to speak directly to the American people for 60 minutes on matters of great importance.

Mr. Speaker, certainly, members of the Congressional Black Caucus recognize the strength, the vitality, the intelligence, and the importance of African American women to the African American experience in this great country--in fact, to the American experience.

Consistently, it has been black women who have fought hard to bring American democracy to life, to continue the march to perfect a more perfect Union.

I think often of the role that Harriet Tubman played--a bold, fearless woman who managed to free herself from the horrific bondage of slavery in the South and make it to the North but who then decided, at great sacrifice to her own potential well-being, to go back down South an additional 19 times, freeing more than 200 black slaves.

I also find it fascinating that, when Harriet Tubman once was asked about her heroics--who spent many of her final years in New York--was dismissive. She said: ``I could have freed more if they only knew that they were slaves.''

I think Harriet Tubman gave us some words of wisdom that can serve many communities all across the country today that are still struggling to deal with social and economic injustice. She said: ``I could have freed more if they only knew that they were slaves.'' Sometimes, we have folks who remain trapped in their own circumstances because they have a mindset issue. Harriet Tubman helped to perfect our democracy.

Mentioned earlier by some of my distinguished colleagues were some of the other contributions that were made during the civil rights struggle, and there were many African American women who haven't always gotten the credit for playing a leading role in the civil rights movement--designed, again, to help perfect American democracy--dealing with Jim Crow and racial segregation in the South and in many parts of this country.

I think it was Fannie Lou Hamer who famously said, ``I am sick and tired of being sick and tired,'' when asked why she stepped forward at great sacrifice to herself. I think there are still a lot of Americans in many parts of this country, when it comes to the prison industrial complex, when it comes to the problem of the police's use of excessive
force, and when it comes to the issue of income inequality, who still draw inspiration from Fannie Lou Hamer's words of being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Now, I also stand here today as someone who proudly represents the Eighth Congressional District in New York, a district that in part was once represented by the Honorable Shirley Chisholm. Of course, great women in the Congress today like Joyce Beatty and Robin Kelly and Marcia Fudge and others stand on Shirley Chisholm's shoulders. She was the first African American woman ever elected to the House of
Representatives in 1968. I am proud to represent part of the district that she once served. She was one of Brooklyn's gifts to this country and, in fact, to the world.

I am struggling today because, here again, Brooklyn is once again prepared to share some of our tremendous human capital and wealth with this great country in the form of Loretta Lynch, by way of North Carolina. For the life of me, I haven't been able to figure out what the holdup is, why it is so difficult for Senate Republicans and for
the majority simply to hold a vote so we can confirm Loretta Lynch as the Nation's chief law enforcement executive.

We have heard every excuse in the book as to why Loretta Lynch is twisting in the wind, and none of them are legitimate. I don't want Loretta Lynch to be confirmed because she would be the first African American woman to serve as our Nation's Attorney General leading the Department of Justice; I want her confirmed because she is the best qualified person for the job. Don't trust me, Hakeem Jeffries from
Brooklyn. Rudolph Giuliani, of all people, the great law and order mayor of New York City, former Federal prosecutor, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and many, many others--Democrats, Republicans, people from the North, the South, the East, and the West--have all said Loretta Lynch is a talented law enforcement professional and the right person for the job at this particular point in time.

What in the world is the holdup? I can't figure it out. Is it a problem with her personal background? Let's see. She is the daughter of a school librarian and a Baptist preacher. That can't be the issue.

What is the holdup? Is there a problem with her legal education? I don't think so. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

What is the problem? Does she not have enough law enforcement experience? She is practically a career Federal prosecutor, who clearly has the ability to allow the law and the facts dictate her decisionmaking process.

Is there an issue that she hasn't been adequately vetted? Well, she has actually been unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate, not once but twice, to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. I think she has been vetted.

Well, is it that the Senate doesn't have the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time, as Mitch McConnell indicated? We have got to deal with other matters. Other matters? I don't get it. She has been waiting longer than the five previous Attorney General nominees, combined, since being voted out of the Committee on the Judiciary.

We need all hands on deck. There are terrorists all across the world who want to strike the United States of America, and we are holding up the chief law enforcement officer of this country? Then we hear the excuse: Well, we don't like her position on the President's executive action on immigration. You don't like her position? She is the
President's nominee. What position do you expect her to have?

That is not even a legitimate argument because you had no problem confirming Ash Carter to be the Secretary of the Department of Defense, and my good friends on the other side of the aisle on the other side of the Capitol are obsessing about two things: the President's executive action on immigration as well as the President's negotiations with Iran along with, or as part of, the P5+1. Ash Carter presumably supports
those negotiations. You can't stand them so much so that you even wrote to the Iranian mullahs. I mean, that should shock the conscience of the American people. You can't stand the Iranian negotiations, but you didn't hold up Ash Carter's nomination.

So for the life of me, I am trying to go through a process of elimination to figure out what is the reason that you have held up Loretta Lynch's nomination. What is the reason? Why are we waiting so long? You have got to come up with a good answer to the fact that she is being treated like a second-class citizen.

Unfortunately, as we go down the checklist of excuses that you have provided, not a single one of them hold up. So I am just hopeful over the next couple of days, as we bring Women's History Month to a close, that you will have the decency to do what is right for the American people and allow Loretta Lynch to have an up-or-down vote so we can finally allow democracy to flourish in what allegedly is supposed to be
the world's greatest deliberative body. Allow democracy to flourish; give Loretta Lynch a vote so we can get back to doing the real business of the American people.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source