Speaker Pelosi Remarks at African American Mayors Association Annual Conference

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks at the African American Mayors Association Annual Conference. Below are the Speaker's remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, for your very kind words. I accept all compliments on behalf of the courage and the values of the House Democratic Caucus. I bring you greetings from all of the Congress of the United States, welcome you to the [nation's] capital and tell you how important your visit is.

I'm glad that we're joined this morning by Congresswoman Jackson Lee. Sheila, where are you? Give us a wave.

[Applause]

Thank you, Sheila. Very much a part of what we did in terms of the cities.

First, may I just say: I've seen up close and personal the leadership of the Mayor. He – I have three grandchildren in Houston, Texas, so you know what a magnet that is. So I have seen, on many occasions, his leadership. They're meeting the challenges. And they are challenges that you have all faced, whether it's the pandemic, whether it's weather conditions, whatever it happens to be. And the – just the injustices that have existed in our system over time and how we want to address it.

So I was very grateful to get this invitation this morning. I was excited about it so that I can thank the Mayor for his leadership, both as Mayor of Houston, of course, and – but on top of that the [President] of the African American Mayors Association. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Congratulations on your service. I know that you will be leaving the Association in good hands with Mayor Scott – no, Mayor Scott's from Baltimore. But the new mayor coming in — another Scott. Two Scotts. Mayor Scott, Jr. from Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Mayor, congratulations to you and your new team of officers coming in. And I did –

[Applause]

Look forward to working with you.

And then, of course, we have Mayor Brandon Scott of my beloved hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. And I'm very proud that we also have a member of this Association as the Mayor of San Francisco, Mayor London Breed. So we are benefiting from your leadership as you come together with – I love the theme, ‘Transformations in the City' — ‘Transformation in the Cities.' I truly believe that this is where it starts.

Tom Cochran, he was in the position he is now when my brother was Mayor of Baltimore decades ago, Thomas D'Alesandro III – following for a couple of terms of my father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., who was Mayor of Baltimore.

So you see why in Congress, when we were having this debate about the funding, it was without any doubt from the House Members that we would have money going directly to the cities. Directly to the cities, to the counties. Because I know firsthand as a little girl growing up in that house – when I was in first grade, my father became Mayor. When I went away to college, he was still Mayor. So I know your situation. There are no buffers. People know who the President of the United States is and who the mayor of their city is. Occasionally, they know who the Member of Congress might be, one or the other of these people.

But you are the buffer. You are the leader. You make things happen. And again, knowing firsthand, growing up in that household and seeing my brother also as Mayor, know that possible – possibilities can become realities.

When people ask me, from the private sector or nonprofit sector, ‘Where would be a very good place to place resources that will make the most difference?' I say: ‘Go to the mayors. They're on the front line. They know the challenges firsthand. And they have ¬– they have the sufficient size to be significant – small enough, still, to be resilient. And again, therefore, very creative in how we go forward.'

And that means, whether we're talking about meeting the challenges that you all know so well – and Phyllis, Phyllis Dickerson. Isn't she wonderful? Thank you, Phyllis, for your, for your leadership. She spelled out many of the challenges you face. But there's some that my brother and my father didn't – the climate change, the climate crisis. Of course, they had environmental issues, but writ large, the climate crisis. The mayors have been in the lead in how to make change in your communities in order to have justice – environmental justice, when we're talking about that.

And let me just say about our President, President Biden: he is a President for justice. Whether it's environmental justice, as we approach the climate issue, and many of you have faced – certainly Houston has faced firsthand the natural disasters that are springing from the fact that we have not sufficiently addressed the climate crisis. But we will. And you have been lead – the mayors have been leading the way. Even when, at the federal level, we were ignoring or denying it. The mayors were leading the way. I thank you for that.

But this President, what – let me just talk about a few things. When we were doing the funding, we called it our HEROES Act, because what you do – support our heroes, whether it's police and fire, our first responders, whether it's health care, whether it's transportation, whether we're talking about [delivering] food services, whatever it is, education, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers – you all are on the front line. So in the first bill, they said, ‘Well, we'll do some assistance to the states, the states.' But that did not necessarily go to the cities or counties; it went to the states. And so the Senators – when we, we said, ‘Well, this, you know, this is nice, but if they're not going to share to the front lines where this is needed, we have to be more specific.'

So with all due respect to the Senate, and they did pass this bill, they said, ‘Well, we've been governors, and we think the states are' – I said, ‘You know what, we've been mayors and state legislators and the rest.' And our – Mr. Clyburn, our House Democratic Whip here, can attest to it. He was very much in all the things that we do – how is it directly reaching?

Now, we expect the governors to give some money for other purposes. But we don't know if that happens in every state – you know better than I – but we wanted to be sure. So we had $65 billion going directly to every state, township in the country.

[Applause]

You know what it was for because you had your own individual priorities as you had been affected. But that, again, getting back to Biden and justice, when we talked about other bills we did – that was the Rescue Package, and that had that money in it. But it also had Child Tax Credit, it had issues that relate to how we make health care more available.

I guess the thing is now on –

[Laughter]

– I won't repeat what I said before.

[Laughter]

Tell each other if you wish otherwise.

[Laughter]

So – but the thing is, is that here's, here's the horizon when we take – he takes office. We needed to make sure that we had spread and have better access to quality, affordable health care. Twelve states in the country would not expand Medicaid – yours is one of them, Mr. Mayor. I need not tell you how many children, especially poor children in Texas, were deprived.

So in our bill, what we did – again, Sheila and our Congressional Black Caucus, as well as minority-serving – the Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific Caucus – the beautiful diversity of our Caucus weighing in on this. We said if they won't expand Medicaid in those states, we'll expand affordable health care, ACA, into those states.

[Applause]

So as you know, we made it available, health care – those who qualified, those who qualified for Medicaid would be eligible for Affordable Care Act [coverage] – practically like $10 a month. So important. Now we have to make it permanent, and that's one of the fights that we're having in Congress right now. But we will not stop until we have it done, because it's about health, it's about justice. It's fairness. Why should these children and these families be deprived [of] that opportunity because of a political decision in a governor's office, when our country has made a commitment? And that Joe Biden is committed to that.

Of course, the House Democrats – I feel very proprietary about the Affordable Care Act. But again, to have a President in the White House now – as was President Obama – so committed to this and President Biden now.

So then, when we talked about infrastructure, we were like, ‘We're not doing the same thing we've done before.' Infrastructure before was a ‘wonderful' thing that – come in and build a highway right through your neighborhood: dividing, not unifying. And President said 40 percent of what we do on here has to be devoted to justice, to justice.

[Applause]

So that, again, the infrastructure unifies and is built in a way that is sustainable and part of the infrastructure. And by the way, who's building it? Who's building it? We want it to be built by more – not only jobs, but contracts to communities, the underserved communities as well as underserved businesses, should be participating in the economic success of what that infrastructure is and will be.

And so that was another place. And now we have – and Sheila can tell you, we just had our appropriations bill have its distribution for the first time in more than a dozen years where Members can bring individual funding to projects in their communities that spring from the community, that spring. And so I'm sure you'll be having many announcements of that.

[Applause]

But other measures that we have for everything is – does it create growth in a way that is fair, that promotes justice, protects the environment and is there for our children? Of course, the justice issue applies in everything in terms of criminal justice systems, all the rest of that, you know. But we're talking now about an economy that works for everyone. Not only by telling people what works for them, but listening and having the – the policy spring from the communities, from the mayors.

So ‘Transformation in the City' is such a beautiful phrase, because we are on the verge of insisting on transformation in our country. They're going to do things in a very different way. In a very different way – not to perpetuate past injustices or be incremental in how we address some of our concerns. But to be transformative in all of it. We always want people to be able to survive, and we want to help them with that. But we want them to achieve a higher level of success. And for that to happen, we have to get to a transformative stage. That's why I love your theme. That's why I love your leadership. That's why I love what you're here to do now.

They did give me a set of remarks to talk about here, but –

[Laughter]

I told you about my brother and my father and the disparities and – and we're so proud of the President of the United States and Kamala Harris. And aren't we proud of Kamala Harris as our Vice President?

[Applause]

But it is – I think the AAMA has a very, even more special role: of yourself, but then as a part of the other organizations, whether it's the Conference of Mayors, the League of Cities and the rest of that. Weighing in – weighing in very forcefully. It's pretty exciting.

Education. Now, I'm going to just close by saying just one more thing. We have a bill, that, just last night, we got the okay, or the, shall we say – we think we're on a path to go forward with it. It's called America – well, it has different names. And we may rename it, because that's part of turf, you know.

[Laughter]

But – just for what it is, it is the America COMPETES Act of 2022. And what it does is, it brings jobs home. It makes America more self-sufficient and more independent. It has the jobs of the future here. Just to put it in perspective, years ago, we were number one and ever – you know, all the technology and this or that, many of these inventions were in America, and we were the innovative, whatever. And the jobs were scaled up in our country, and it was great.

Then people decided, well, it might be cheaper to make these things overseas. So a lot of this stuff went offshore. And as it went offshore, it took away our capacity to be in control of those products – of the factors of productions, whether it was ingredients to make pharmaceuticals or whether it was chips to make cars and the rest. It's all overseas. And now with the pandemic and everything else, the supply chain has so greatly reduced our access to supply that prices go up, and we have inflation.

So we must bring it home so that we can – now, you know how many chips are in a car? A thousand. Electric car? Two thousand. So if we don't have the chips, we can't be manufacturing the car.

So this is about manufacturing in our country. And that's, again, about justice. So it has money for the chips. It has money for the supply chain. But it also has a big investment in education and research. So our kids, our young people, our people new into the field, whether it's moms coming – having raised children or dads, same thing. It says: ‘These jobs are for you.' This is a whole new world. We're leap-frogging over any past paths to economic success. So it's, again, Joe Biden and success.

And one of the important parts of it is our minority-serving institutions. So much more – much more money going into minority service is – and of course, leading the way are the [Historically] Black Colleges and Universities, as you know, many of you know, have them in your communities.

[Applause]

So this is, again, transformation. But we're learning transformation for you, because transformation takes courage. It's a risk. It's entrepreneurial. And that's what we want. Because we have to jar loose the – all the possibilities for the American people.

So I have great confidence in the cities, whether we're talking about COMPETES or we're talking about education, all of it goes together, and all of it For The Children. Just think of the children, of your communities having so much more opportunity in terms of – whether it's STEM, whatever it is, that they're part of what is. And even if it isn't STEM – if it's about the arts, and the cities have led the way in the arts. And they're jobs, they're jobs too, the arts.

And I'll close by – did I say close already?

[Laughter]

Well, I'll close – this time I mean it – by saying, I do believe that the arts will bring us together as a country. I know that you've had your own competitions and your – and you see the vitality of music and the arts. They're jobs. I mean, they are arts, but they are – they create jobs. And think of it, we listen to music and we laugh together, we cry together, we're inspired together, we forget our differences. And we have the imagination to be creative on how we – how we go forward. So I thank you for all that you do.

I'm glad to see – Mr. Mayor, here's how I said to my Members, because you talked about last night and all that – Phyllis did: ‘I like to see who can hoot with the owls and soar with the eagles the next morning.' Clearly, you all can do that. So thank you for soaring with the eagles, For The People, For The Children, for ‘Transformation in the Cities.'

Thank you so much. And thank you, Mr. Mayor, as well.