[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      WOMEN'S MARCH ON WASHINGTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, let me tell you where I will not be on 
Inauguration Day. I will not be here or outside at the inauguration 
ceremony. I will be in Washington late that evening because the event 
that I am going to is on January 21. It is the Women's March on 
Washington.
  You can get more information on Facebook, which is how I heard about 
it, or should I say, how my wife, Soraida, heard about it. I said to 
her a little after the election: You know, honey, I don't think I can 
go to D.C. and watch Donald Trump get sworn in.
  And she said: Oh, you are going to D.C., just not for that. And she 
told me about the Women's March. She said: You and I are going 
together.
  Now, I can already hear the phones ringing in my office with people 
calling to say: Oh, you Democrats are sore losers and you just hate 
Republicans.
  No. I went to George Bush's inauguration and I work with Republicans 
all the time. Just read Breitbart, which seems to write an article 
anytime I even glance favorably at a Republican colleague.
  But this is different. I knew that George W. Bush and I would 
disagree on many issues from trade to health care, to the war in Iraq, 
but I never thought that George W. Bush was trying to make my own 
country hostile to me personally, to my wife, to my daughters, to my 
grandson. I never felt he was a threat to the Nation that I love so 
deeply and have served now for more than a quarter of a century.
  The reason that I am not going is that I cannot bring myself to 
justify morally or intellectually the immense power we are placing in 
that man's hands.
  I could not look at my wife, my daughters, or my grandson in the eye 
if I sat there and attended as if everything that the candidate said 
about the women, about the Latinos, the Blacks, the Muslims or any of 
the other things he said in those speeches and tweets, and that all of 
that is okay or erased from our collective memory.
  We all heard the tape when Donald Trump was bragging--bragging--about 
grabbing women by their private parts without their consent. It is 
something I just can't unhear, bragging to that guy on TV that he would 
grab women below the belt, as if that was hitting on them. Sorry. It is 
never okay. It is never just locker room talk. It is offensive and, if 
he ever actually did it, it is a crime.
  I hang out with Republicans, with Republican-elected officials in an 
actual locker room in the Rayburn Building, and if they ever started 
talking like that, I wouldn't just walk away. I would tell them to 
their faces that they are wrong, and I wouldn't allow it to go 
unnoticed or dismissed as normal or excusable. I don't know a 
Republican colleague of mine in this body who would let that type of 
comment just slide as if it were just okay.
  So that is why I will hold hands with my wife and march with the 
women on January 21 in D.C. And that is why I am calling on all of my 
progressive allies to come and march with the women as well. If you 
care about a living wage, come and join the women. If you care about 
the environment, come and join the march. We know as a society that 
when women win, we all win. So I plan to be there.
  It is deeply personal and deeply patriotic to march, to make my 
opinions known by walking with my allies arm in arm. I want to be able 
to look at my two beautiful Latina daughters and my beautiful half-
Puerto Rican, half-Mexican, but 100 percent American grandson, Luis 
Andres, in the eye with a clear conscience.
  When the new President denigrates Latinos or Mexicans or immigrants 
as drug dealers and criminals, I want to be able to say that I did not 
condone or allow that type of speech to go mainstream. That was not 
normalized on my watch.
  Because the future President said that the American-born children of 
immigrants were not capable of being American judges, I cannot sit 
there as if this inauguration is okay and I forgave him.
  I am deeply honored to return to the U.S. Congress, and I want to 
thank the people of the Fourth Congressional District. My constituents 
knew that when they voted for me, I would be a fighter; and I don't 
intend to let them down.
  If the new President comes for the Muslims, I will be a Muslim. If 
they come for Planned Parenthood, I will stand with Planned Parenthood. 
When they deny climate science, I will make my voice heard.
  I will use whatever peaceful means available to make sure the words 
and the actions of our new President do not become the new mainstream 
and normal in America.
  That, Mr. Speaker, is why I will not be here for Inauguration Day and 
why I will be marching with my wife and with a million women from 
across this country.

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