[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9283-9284]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              REFLECTING ON YESTERDAY'S HORRIFIC INCIDENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I indicated to all those who 
would ask that it was a day of reflection and prayer, to give comfort 
to those who needed to have comfort, and to reassert over and over 
again that when tragedy strikes, we are family.
  When tragedy strikes Americans from the East to the West Coast, to 
the North to the South, whether it be manmade or natural disasters, 
hurricanes or tornadoes, terrible floods that we have experienced in 
different regions of the country, mass shootings, the horrific loss of 
life of children in Connecticut, the tragic Sandy Hook story that will 
live forever, the Pulse Nightclub, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and places 
beyond, San Bernardino, that, in actuality, we recognize that we are, 
in fact, family.
  So I think it is important to raise up those who are still in the 
hospital, and the staff member who was released, in prayer, and to be 
able to explain to the American people how precious our democracy is.
  Before I do that, I do want to praise our Capitol Police, Officers 
Griner and Bailey, and I want to express my deepest prayers for 
Majority Whip Scalise, who is a neighbor. Those of us in the southern 
region, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and beyond, we are neighbors. We 
have that southern thing going on. Texas might argue a little bit that 
they have got a little western thing going on, but we are neighbors.

                              {time}  1015

  So many of our constituents travel back and forth between Louisiana 
and Texas--particularly, my city of Houston--and we welcome them. We 
wish our deepest prayers and a hardy and speedy recovery for Majority 
Whip Scalise, and we thank him for his service to the Nation.
  We also recognize two that are wounded--a staff member and 
volunteer--who just came to be helpful. That is the way we perform 
here. People who say: Send me. I will help you do this. You have got an 
event; I will come over and help.
  That is the preciousness of this country and what is admired by 
people around the world. But I think it is also important to explain 
democracy.
  Democracy generates great passions by Members of Congress, House, and 
Senate. If we went back over the ages and we were able to read the 
papers of those who were on this floor when we were a much smaller 
country, it was high and shrill because of their passion about 
democracy, because they wanted to put together a country that would 
respect people because they fled persecution, and they didn't want us 
to be a nation that would persecute.
  So I think as we go forward, it is important to engage our 
constituents in the beauty of democracy and in the beauty of 
disagreement without being disagreeable and let them know that we 
welcome acting on their behalf. But violent acts or taking things into 
your own hands, let us calm our communities all over the Nation. Let us 
give them a sense of the beauty of our disagreement, because we have 
managed to keep this democracy sacred for so many years.
  Let us not allow our good friends in the media, whom I respect with 
the

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highest esteem because they are a product of the First Amendment, let 
us not jump immediately into blaming this one or that one.
  So many of us have seen the tragedies of the assassination of John F. 
Kennedy, the assassination of Martin Luther King, and the terrible 
tragedy of Gabrielle Giffords, who maintained her dignity and love of 
the institution and has taken on a cause that she believes in and is 
still fighting as an American.
  So now we have the opportunity not to raise up who this person was 
who is now deceased--we don't know his mental state, what his condition 
was, or why he was out. That it one issue. Let the investigation go 
forward. And whatever it is, let us still come together and say that we 
will disagree and not be disagreeable, and we will not encourage or 
rise up or try to not explain what democracy and love is all about.
  Mr. Speaker, I leave this podium by saying: Love prevails over hate; 
and I know that the love that is being generated toward those who are 
wounded and being cared for is going to cause them to have, I pray to 
God, a speedy recovery.
  And I say today: God bless all of you, and God bless the United 
States of America.

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