[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 9, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H7101-H7102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THANK YOU FOR THE HONOR OF SERVING IN THIS HOUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentlewoman from Iowa (Ms. Finkenauer) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. FINKENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say thank you to this 
body and to the constituents of Iowa's

[[Page H7102]]

First Congressional District for giving me the honor to serve these 
last few years, and also my incredible staff, who both here and in Iowa 
have given their all to Iowa and to this country. You have made me 
proud every single day to know you.
  Importantly, I also want to say thank you to my family: my husband, 
Daniel, who has been my rock and been with me every step of the way; to 
my siblings and nieces and nephews, who have taught me to never take 
myself too seriously; and to my parents, who I know are watching right 
now because, as I found out within the first 6 months of being in 
Congress, they actually DVR and record C-SPAN every day so that they 
can find me on the floor during votes.
  You know, I think back to the day that they came to visit right 
before swearing in. My very first visitors to my congressional office, 
where my dad, Jerry, a UA retired union pipefitter welder, and my mom, 
a retired public school secretary, held hands and walked through the 
door of their 29-year-old daughter's congressional office.
  I can't imagine what they thought, but I hope it was better than when 
I told them and sat them down at the age of 24 and said I was running 
for Iowa's State House, where my mom blurted out, ``Why in the heck are 
you doing that?''
  Well, it has been 7\1/2\ years since mom asked that question, and I 
hope every day they have seen the answer.
  The reason I entered public service was because of them. You see, my 
parents couldn't give me a trust fund or debt-free college, but what 
they gave me was worth a hell of a lot more.
  They taught me about treating people with respect, and seeing work to 
be done and doing it; about standing up for those who need a voice; 
and, most importantly, to never think you are better than anyone else 
no matter what you do or where you go.
  The work I have done both in Iowa and here in Congress has been 
shaped by the stories and the lives of my constituents and my family, 
from my late grandfathers, one a firefighter and one a Purple Heart 
World War II vet who worked in a meat packing plant, to my uncles; from 
a former UPS driver to a small business owner; and my mother-in-law and 
my sister-in-law, both who are heroes and nurses.
  Because of them, my fight for working families, wage protections, 
collective bargaining, paid leave, workplace protections, have 
continued to be, in every sense of the word, personal, and that is the 
way policy should be.
  These laws we pass--and, unfortunately on some occasions don't pass 
because of stalemates--aren't just dollars and cents on a page. They 
are affecting people's lives.
  I hope for this body and for the American people that we can have a 
Congress and a Senate who sees that and understands the value of public 
service.
  Until we get there fully, I hope that young people across the country 
find their ``why'' and run. We need you. And when you get here, I hope 
you do the work and I hope you find an incredible staff like I did to 
help you do it.
  You see, this place is not about the crystal chandeliers or the fancy 
titles. It is about the work. It is about the people in your district. 
It is about finding common ground where you can and just getting things 
done.
  I have been proud to get to work with my staff the way that we did 
passing my first bill within the first 2 weeks, becoming the youngest 
woman in the history of this body to ever pass a bill through this 
floor; to working on the Small Business Committee and beginning to 
chair the Rural Development, Ag, Trade and Entrepreneurship 
Subcommittee, where we got to fight for things like better access to 
markets for our farmers and for our small business owners; to stepping 
up for our childcare workers, who need it most right now; and the work 
that we did on that Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, along 
with the honorable Chairman DeFazio, getting to help pass some of the 
best investments in rural infrastructure that has ever come out of 
either one of these Chambers; to standing here, I think in this very 
spot, having to fight back against attacks on Davis-Bacon wages, good 
wage protections, in the middle of a pandemic; to helping our farmers, 
our biofuel industries, trying to fight for and also getting done the 
biodiesel tax credit extender; to, again, one of the things I might be 
most proud of, standing here sharing a story that was hard to tell 
about my own battle with endometriosis, and then fighting and working 
with my staff to help double that funding for research that had been at 
the bottom of the National Institutes of Health's research for years.
  I also just want to say a special thank you to the staff in Iowa, who 
have been there for my constituents in one of the toughest years we've 
ever had, this pandemic, where they have taken calls from folks 
wondering about their unemployment checks, wondering about how they are 
going to be able to feed their family because they are unemployed right 
now through no fault of their own, to then, on top of it, going almost 
2 weeks without electricity post-derecho in my district, which was 
basically like a Category 4 hurricane that came through and decimated 
large parts of my district.
  The way that my staff stepped up when, again, they themselves didn't 
even have electricity or WiFi is extraordinary. You make me proud every 
day.
  And the way that my constituents came together, it made me proud to 
be a Congresswoman and to be an Iowan.
  You see, I, again, just want to say one last big thank you to my 
staff. You are all incredible public servants that I am blessed to have 
known and some of the best public servants I have ever met. And I 
should know, because I met one of the best.

  That late grandfather I talked about, that firefighter, he was the 
one who taught me what all of this was. You see, he is the guy that I 
would sit around the kitchen table with when I was 10 talking about 
what was happening in the world. And he is also the guy that taught me 
what public service should be. You see, when he would run into a 
burning building to save people's lives, he didn't call and ask first: 
What color is your skin? Where are you from? Who do you love? What 
language do you speak?
  He just showed up and he helped people, and he did his job.
  That is what I have tried to do here every single day, both here in 
Congress and my 4 years in the State House in Iowa. It is what I will 
continue to do in whatever I do next.
  It has been an honor and a privilege to get to serve in this body and 
represent this district and this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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