[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 123 (Tuesday, July 18, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2974-S2976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Maiden Speech

  Mr. WELCH. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to address 
the Senate today as Vermont's new Senator, and I hope to express how I 
will serve Vermont and our country, and I will outline the challenges 
we face as a governing body and as a nation.
  Most importantly, I will state why I believe that the U.S. Senate can 
be an institution that renews the strength and vitality of the 
democracy that all of us--whomever we represent and whatever views we 
advocate--depend on for our mutual benefit.
  But before I begin, I would like to say that my heart, today, is with 
the people of Vermont. They are grappling with the brutal flooding that 
hit us last week. And when I came to the floor last week after touring 
the damage in Vermont, I pledged that, along with Senator Sanders and 
Congresswoman Balint, we will do everything in our power to get the 
people of Vermont the resources that they need to build back from this. 
And I make that pledge again today, and I appreciate the leadership of 
our senior Senator, Senator Sanders, in advocating for Vermont as we 
recover from this real crisis.
  I also appreciate the offers of help from so many of my colleagues 
here in the Senate. One of the first Members who approached me was 
Senator Kennedy from Louisiana, a State that has had to deal with more 
than its share of natural calamities.
  Vermonters, Madam President, have always supported emergency aid when 
disaster struck others. Senator Sanders and I are very grateful for so 
many assurances of support now that Vermonters face their own huge 
recovery challenge.
  I recently heard our colleague, Senator Eric Schmitt, from Missouri, 
give his first speech. He spoke with real respect and reverence for the 
people of Missouri--hardworking, honest, family- and community-
oriented, and very generous. And I felt Senator Schmitt's deep 
connection to the people who sent him here. In that respect, Senator 
Schmitt spoke for me. In fact, he spoke for all of us. And Senator 
Schmitt and I--and all of us--share something else: The citizens that 
we represent, despite many differences on many issues, share common 
needs; all the things that families and communities need--affordable 
housing, safe schools, good healthcare, a secure environment for our 
kids, and good jobs where you can pay your monthly bills and have a 
little left at the end of the month. We share that in common.
  So the question I have is this: If we share so much respect for the 
citizens who sent us here in our commitment to their shared aspiration, 
why can't we make more progress? Why are we so divided?
  I believe there are two reasons: First, our democracy is more 
imperiled at this time than at any time since our Civil War; and, 
second, working middle-class Americans have been treading water 
economically for the past 40 years. Top-down economic policies having 
failed them. So the towns many of us grew up in with diverse economies 
and vibrant downtowns, farms, and factories that support our 
communities are vanishing. And many Americans, no matter how hard they 
work, still struggle to pay their bills.
  Our challenge is strengthening our democracy and improving the living 
standards for everyday Americans. And we must do both, or we won't do 
either. Democracy depends on trust. It also depends on results.
  If conditions stagnate for working Americans and they fall further 
behind, their trust in democracy will

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begin to erode. And we need democracy to ensure that working families 
have a seat at the table when their aspirations are at stake.
  As a young person, I was the beneficiary of the fruits of democracy. 
I grew up in the 1960s, one of six kids in an Irish-Catholic family in 
Springfield, MA. It was stable and secure.
  When I was asked where I was from, I answered by giving the name of 
my Catholic parish, Holy Name, not the city of my birth. The sense of 
community was paramount. Helping a neighbor is what you did, 
reflectively and always.
  When I was a boy, my mother did something that only later did I 
realize what profound impact it had on me. She taught me what small 
``d'' democracy meant in practice. When I was in grammar school, I 
didn't know what abortion was. I did know my parents were churchgoing 
Catholics who were against it. It was also illegal in Massachusetts at 
that time. And a neighbor across the street actually went to jail for 
performing abortions. My mother made dinner every night for our family 
of eight. And every week, she sent me across the street with another 
hot dinner for our neighbors while their parent was away for a while.
  When I think about what my mother did, I really hope I can follow her 
example. Instead of vilifying a neighbor with whom she disagreed on 
something that was really important to her, she made that family dinner 
and helped a neighbor and their family through a very difficult time.
  Wouldn't democracy be stronger, wouldn't our communities be stronger, 
if we made dinner or gave a ride to the post office or helped out with 
childcare for someone who needed a hand, even if we disagreed with 
them?
  Later, I attended Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA, like my father 
and my three brothers. In those college years, two great issues 
captured my attention: the word ``Vietnam'' and civil rights. And as I 
was finishing up my second year at Holy Cross, I learned of a community 
organizing project in the Lawndale neighborhood of the West Side of 
Chicago. It was led by a Jesuit seminarian that was affiliated with 
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I 
was really interested. And I hitchhiked 900 miles from Springfield, MA, 
to Chicago, IL. It really changed my life.
  Lawndale was poor, ignored by city hall. We students went door-to-
door asking about concerns. And when the lack of sanitation services 
emerged as an issue, we got together with neighborhood folks and we 
trucked trash from Lawndale to city hall. If they say you wouldn't pick 
up the trash in Lawndale, we would bring it to city hall. It caught the 
mayor's attention.
  The next week there was a caravan of Chicago sanitation trucks 
throughout Lawndale. It worked. But our fight didn't stop at trash 
pickups. Just before I was to return to Holy Cross for my junior year, 
we discovered that unscrupulous folks in real estate were brutally 
exploiting Black families who were moving into Lawndale through a 
practice what we now know as redline. And they were doing it with the 
active help of the Federal Housing Authority and with the downtown big 
banks. I was really shocked at the injustice. And what was most 
shocking to me then, as an idealistic and eager young person who was 
accustomed to being treated fairly, was that this immense infliction of 
suffering on those families was legal. It was legal for banks and the 
FHA to deny mortgages on the basis of the color of that person's skin.

  So I had to make a decision at that point. It was time for me to 
return to Holy Cross for my junior year. But that would come with a 
cost: abandoning the neighborhood folks whose hopes we had helped raise 
that they could get relief from these oppressive contracts. But that 
felt wrong. Or I could drop out of Holy Cross and continue my community 
organizing work. That came with a risk then: losing my student 
deferment and being drafted--as many of my classmates from high school 
had been--to go to Vietnam, a war that so many of us opposed. But it 
felt right to stay and continue my work. And I stayed in Chicago.
  During that next year, we created a successful neighborhood-led 
organization called a Contract Buyers League. We exposed the rip-off 
contracts, demonstrated in front of the big downtown banks, the Federal 
Housing Authority. We picketed in the serene North Shore neighborhoods 
of the contract sellers, exposing what they had done in exposure that 
was long overdue. In short, we really raised hell--or as John Lewis 
would say, ``good trouble.''
  But we succeeded in getting then-Mayor Daley to help us renegotiate 
these contracts and substitute them with legitimate mortgages that 
folks should have had in the first place. It made a big difference in 
the lives of many residents of Lawndale. And it certainly made a 
difference in my life.
  I saw the power of a community coming together. And I saw how 
democracy was effective when people cooperate when they did work 
together. And in seeing how much of that injustice was actually illegal 
is when I made a lifelong commitment to two things: the law--if I 
became a lawyer I could use the legal system to help people hurt by bad 
laws; and politics--if I ran for the legislature, I could work to 
change laws to address injustice and create opportunity and strengthen 
communities.
  In my years of service as a community organizer in Chicago, as a 
State senator in Vermont, as a Member of the House of Representatives, 
has taught me that democracy is more--it is more than an ideal we 
strive for. It is the tool that we use to make meaningful differences 
in the lives of people we love and in the lives of people we may never 
meet.
  We must preserve our democracy so that hard-working Americans can 
finally gain economic security--the ability to pay those bills and have 
a little left over and the ability to build stable communities. And, 
hopefully, these communities can grow and thrive so that, one day, if 
their kids decide to stay or they leave and return, they can do so with 
a decent job and promising opportunities.
  And as U.S. Senators, each of us has a unique and urgent opportunity 
to revitalize our democracy and improve prospects for our constituents.
  Let me acknowledge candidly, we have, within this body and within 
this country, very substantial differences on many ideological issues. 
But we also have many areas of agreement. You know, the folks in Katie 
Britt's Alabama, in John Fetterman's Pennsylvania, and the folks in my 
State of Vermont, they need and deserve the same things: affordable 
childcare so parents can work; they need affordable homes and 
apartments; they need the security that when they drop their child off 
at the bus stop or at school, that child is going to return home 
safely.
  These are the building blocks of a strong community. These are among 
the issues that the U.S. Senate should debate. You know, it is said 
that the U.S. Senate is the greatest deliberative body. That is 
something we know that is very much now in dispute. But we do have the 
power to make it so. And in doing so, we can help restore democracy. We 
can debate those issues and others on the Senate floor.
  You know, should social media companies enjoy legal immunity for 
anything their algorithms promote? Should we work for a sustainable 
budget but talk about spending and revenues? Is it acceptable that we 
have the most expensive healthcare system in the world that leaves so 
many people behind? How do we act immediately and effectively to stop 
climate change from burning up the planet?
  The Senate can deliver, and it can and should debate. But 
deliberation should be in service of making a good decision. It should 
be in service of achieving an outcome. It should not be a device by 
which delay is endless and resolution nonexistent.
  Every Senator I know is genuinely honored to be serving in this body. 
Every Senator takes her and his responsibility very seriously. But 
every Senator I know realizes that the honor of service is hollow 
unless we get good things done. That is our job.
  And as a Senator, I will use the valuable lessons of democracy I have 
learned: from my parents, the importance of helping a neighbor you may 
disagree with; from my time in Chicago, the power of democracy in 
action; and from Vermont, struggling today with the onslaught of the 
flood, the strength of community that shows us, that even on the 
toughest of days, the ability to achieve when we work together.
  We in this country and in this Senate may face significant 
challenges. We

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have opportunities to succeed if we face those challenges together.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  I yield the floor.