House Speaker Nancy Pelosi New Year’s Update Transcript

Nancy Pelosi: (00:05)
I thank you for your chat remark saying, “What a beautiful way to start the program. I agree with these young singers singing about the beauty of our great country. We could never say that enough. I particularly love the verse that says O beautiful for patriots’ dreams that see beyond the years.” That’s what we have to be patriots that see beyond the years. Has always been important in our country from its start, it has to be as we go forward. Of course as a San Franciscan, I always like the next line, thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears. There it is San Francisco right out the window. But right now we’re joined by people across the country from sea to shining sea. I wish you a happy new year, I thank you all for your courage and fortitude getting through the COVID crisis.

Thank you for your messages of giving us a clue as to what you would like to hear us talk about today and as we go forward. Let’s consider this a launch of 2022, a year that it’s going to be one where we show the public that Democrats deliver, that we show the difference between the parties as we go forward to hold the gavel for the people, for the children. I’m very delighted to be joined today by a very special guest. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is madam chair in many respects. She’s chair of the House Administration Committee. If I need anything on Capitol Hill I have to go to Zoe Lofgren, and so will all the other members. She’s considered the mayor of Capitol Hill. She’s also the chair of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. She also was a leading member of the January 6th Select Committee, and commands a great deal of respect in the Congress.

As chair of House Appropriations, she is dealing with two issues that you all have expressed an interest in. One, the voter protection bills that are before the Senate now, as well as how we are dealing with COVID in the Congress and in the country from our perspective in the House of Representatives. We’ll be hearing from her in a moment. But first, I just want to give you a report, a upper poll of the request that you have made. Zoe will talk about the Voting Rights Act, voter protection bills as well as Voting Rights Act. But please know that there is nothing more important that Congress has to do than to pass this legislation. Zoe has been there from the start, as I say, she’ll address it, but I just want to put it in the perspective of everything that we do is affected by how elections are the sanctity of the vote is respected, how voters have the ability to go to the polls in a way that it has equity and respectful of the position and the neighborhood in which they live.

As well as how we stop the suppression of the vote as well as the nullification of elections, as well as we honor grassroots voices with matching funds. As well as how we snuff out big, dark special interest money there to suffocate the airways. That’s the outside of it, the inside of it we’ll hear from Zoe. BBB, Build Back Better. Aren’t we proud of our president? President Joe Biden has really brought transformative legislation to the fore in this past year. I think it’s really important for Democrats to brag about what we have been doing. We have to do so in a more forceful way, in a more unified way. Under his leadership, President Biden has already produced six million jobs. His predecessor was producing 30,000 jobs a month. He’s already produced six million jobs with his initiatives. They were there, what we did at the beginning, the rescue package which introduced the Child Tax Credit, initiatives to put vaccines in arms, money in pockets, children safely in school and people back to work.

The infrastructure bill well where the Republicans voted no and it took Joe is something very popular across the country. Members have had nearly 1,000 events across the country already promoting what is in that legislation. We had our five in San Francisco joined by Zoe and others of our members from the region. Other members across the country have had their meetings as well. The infrastructure bill is very important, and one important element of it is equity. That we are correcting past mistakes, not putting in infrastructure that divides communities, but eliminating those kinds of projects to unify communities. To do so with equity, with a 40% equity requirement. Now of course BBB, to build back better. The infrastructure is good, we’re building back better there, but we need to be even better than that with equity.

Also, to save the planet. Half a trillion dollars in the legislation to address the climate crisis. This is historic, nothing like it [inaudible 00:05:58] need to get it passed and we must get it passed. But in addition to that, one of the preeminent parts of the bill relates to a preeminent issue in America’s households and across the country, and that’s the healthcare issue. When we talk about healthcare we’re talking about addressing issues that relate to disability. We have a strong home healthcare initiative in the legislation. We have something I’m very proud of when we talk about healthcare is to address the fact that in 12 states Medicaid was not expanded, but in this legislation we don’t expand Medicaid, we expand Affordable Care Act by drawing Medicaid eligible people into Medicare for practically no cost to them. That’s millions of people now having coverage, taking us closer very close to universal coverage. Of course we want the coverage to be as good as it possibly can be, and that is also our constant quest.

So there’s more funding and again BBB, whether it’s talking about Child Tax Credit, whether it talks about childcare, whether it talks about universal pre-K, whether it talks about as I mentioned home healthcare. All of these initiatives enable women and people of color and others to be more prominent in the workplace and have their work rewarded. It’s also about equity. Again, having fairness in what we do. But it’s about ownership as well, so that women and minority own businesses can have their shot at whatever government contracts are coming out from the infrastructure bill and the BBB when we’re talking about climate and the rest. So this is transformative, but people tell me don’t use the word transformative, just say it lowers cost. It lowers cost for healthcare, whether it’s home healthcare, lowers costs for families across America. It lowers cost for childcare. It enables so much more to happen. So we’re very, very proud of the legislation, now we just have to get it passed.

What all that I said about it, it creates jobs, it lowers taxes for families, it lowers costs for families, and it is equally paid for by making everyone, wealthiest in corporate America, pay their fair share. So BBB, voting rights, the rescue package which we did at the beginning of the year, job creation, Joe Biden has done a remarkable job, we’re very proud of him. Now we have to make sure that people know. I hope that you’ll be a force with us in all of that, because what we want to do launch today is how we can work together on a regular basis. Many of you are our volunteers in politics, our VIPs. You’ve heard me say it over and over again, our inside maneuvering can only accomplish so much, without the outside mobilization we cannot be fully successful. So thank you for your outside mobilization. Now with that, go back to my motto, we don’t agonize we organize.

Let’s say that today will be the start of our organizing for 2022, for which we’ve been building a foundation. With that it’s now my privilege to yield the floor, as we say in Congress, to our distinguished colleague from the state of California. Oh, and did I say Zoe also chairs the California Democratic delegation. She was absolutely masterful in managing all of the conversations week in and week out, day in and day out on redistricting. The positive reaction we have in California is due to the leadership of Zoe Lofgren. So politically, policy in every way for the people Zoe Lofgren is a leader. Zoe I yield the floor to you.

Zoe Lofgren: (10:16)
Thank you so much Nancy, and I want to wish you a happy new year. Also, thank you for the service you are providing to our country. As a student of history we all are, I don’t think there is anyone who can match the skill of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. She is the most effective speaker the Congress has ever seen, and we should all be grateful for that. Because we have a very slim majority in the House of Representatives, and of course we’re tied in the Senate. But even with those very slim majorities, Nancy has been able to help us find consensus-

Nancy has been able to help us find consensus and move forward for the good of the American people. One aspect of that as we come up to the January 6th anniversary, that sad day when a violent mob attacked the Congress, she has put together a bipartisan select committee that’s working very hard to uncover every fact about that day and the days leading up to that day. And although we are not done, it’s very clear that in addition to the violence, there was intention to the violence. The intention was to replace the individual Joe Biden, who’d been elected by the American people and the electoral college, with the loser of the election, former president Donald Trump, to essentially overturn our constitutional form of government. And I’m grateful to the officers who protected us, protected the Senate and the House, the Vice President from violence, but even more important is they protected our democracy from failing that day.

Now, we will get to the bottom of everything that happened, but we already know there’s things that we have to do to protect our democracy, and Nancy certainly touched upon them. You’re well aware that we passed HR1, the For The People Act, not once, but twice in the House. A great bill that was marked up through the House Administration Committee with our jurisdiction on elections, as well as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, where our election subcommittee headed by G.K. Butterfield had hearings all over the United States, and the judiciary committee where I also served reported out that bill, and we sent that to the Senate. And since then, of course, because of their arcane rules, we have not seen progress.

We have worked very closely, however, with the Senate, and we have a bill, it’s being called the compromise bill, that Senator Joe Manchin has endorsed, the Freedom to Vote Act. I wanted to just go through some of the elements, because when you hear compromise, you might wonder, well, is this really going to provide the protection that our democracy needs? And although it’s not everything I wanted to do that was in HR1, it is a very strong bill, and it will do the job in protecting the democracy that we all hold so dear. It provides for protection of voting rights, registration, as well as funding for compliance, early voting, voting by mail and promoting voter access through voter modernization. It also, although there is a voter ID provision which we have had grave qualms about, the provisions are such that you can use a student ID, a utility bill, the list goes on and on. And if you can’t come up with any of those dozens of identifiers, you can find someone who’s known you for six months or more to attest that you are who you are and vote anyhow.

So we believe in some ways, by putting a bottom line that is actually doable for voters, it will protect against more extreme provisions that have been put up by Republican partisans across the United States. We have all also protected a voter registration list. We’ve done something else that we didn’t do in HR1, and I’ll tell you why. It never occurred to us that the Republicans would go so far as to monkey with the actual administration of elections themselves, that they would go in and replace nonpartisan election officials with partisan hacks to affect the outcome of the election. But we see in many states, that is what is underfoot right now, what the Speaker referred to as election subversion. So in working with the Senate, we have put together provisions that would prevent that, that restricts the removal of election administrators, that prevents voter intimidation and intimidation of election workers, that protects election records and gives judicial protection to the right to vote and nonpartisan vote tabulation. So we think we’ve got a very tight provision to prevent the subversion that we fear and looks to be ongoing.

We have other provisions that were in HR1, for example, preventing for an interference. But the other thing we’ve got in from HR1 is we have to have paper ballots, where we can go back and actually ascertain who won the election. That is in there as well. We’ve all seen our nonpartisan commission here in California work through to get election districts. Maybe everybody isn’t happy with them, but there was no partisanship. This was just an effort to do the right thing by a group of disinterested citizens. We’re not seeing that in states. We’ve got states where Republican legislatures are basically skewing the redistricting process in such a way that even if you get 55 or 60 or more percent of the vote, you can’t get a majority of the seats in the House. We have anti gerrymandering provisions, not only in terms of the Voting Rights Act, but to prevent extreme partisan maps.

When the Supreme Court last looked at it, they said, “Well, how would we know? How would we be able to monitor that?” We are going to provide a formula so that all they need to do is apply the formula, and we have a right to do that under article one, section four of the United States Constitution. We continue on with, as Nancy said, the Honest Ads Act and a campaign transparency and fundraising. But we also know that if we do just that we won’t have protected our democracy.

One of the things that our January 6th Committee is looking at is possible reforms to the Electoral Count Act. Now, the Electoral Count Act was written in the 1800s. There are ambiguities, although it’s very clear that what our colleagues tried to do to overturn the election was not permissible either by the Electoral Count Act or the 12th amendment of the constitution, but to protect ourselves in the future. We’re looking at tightening up the language of the ECA. We haven’t introduced the bill yet, because we’re still discussing the details. We’re hoping to have a bipartisan bill on this, but essentially to prevent just one Senator from throwing chaos into the count by having at least one-third of each House object and to defining what the objections can be and to delineating protections in the judicial branch to prevent mischief, such as being contemplated today. We are also working with our Senate counterparts to streamline the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and I think we have some consensus on that.

So having said that, how do we move forward? Senator Chuck Schumer issued a letter just today indicating that we need to proceed, that he intends to proceed on January 17th, and that the filibuster has been adjusted many times over the history of the United States. I don’t believe that the Senate is in a position to eliminate. I don’t think they’re going to eliminate the filibuster, but adjustments have been made. He quoted the late Senator Byrd saying, “The dead hand of the past can’t control the future,” and of course, Senator Byrd took a lead in making some adjustments. So we’re hopeful that that will be the case, because actually if we don’t protect voting rights, if we don’t protect against the kind of un-American mischief to overturn elections in the future, nothing else we do will matter.

So I want to thank each of you, you VIPs, for stepping up to the bat to make sure that this most important thing gets the attention it needs, and hopefully we accomplish these bills to protect our beautiful democracy. So, happy new year. Again, I look forward to working with all of you and of course our absolutely fabulous Speaker Pelosi. I yield back, Speaker.

Thank you very much, Zoe, for your presentation. I have a couple questions that have sprung from the chats here, but first I want to thank Cheryl and Hope for interpreting for us. Thank you so much. We’re honored that you’re with us today, and all those that you are communicating with. Two things. One is, and just to revisit, the question is what will these bills do about all the laws that are being passed across the country to undermine the integrity of the vote, the sanctity of the vote, whether it’s voter suppression or nullification of results or a punishing elective, those who are there to oversee the elections, and replace them with others. So if you could speak to those aspects of the bill, I think it’s very encouraging for people to hear.

Well, if we can pass these bills, they will supersede the state actions that are taking place as to federal elections. Now, I’m just pulling up my constitution of-

… Federal elections. Now I’m just pulling up my Constitution of the United States, something that I keep with me at all times. Article 1, Section 4 says that, “The times places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” Here’s the important next phrase, “But the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations.” That’s what we would be doing. We would be making or altering those regulations or laws by protecting the integrity of the count by prohibiting the anti-democratic provisions that block voting and the like. This would supersede state law. As our former attorney general said, the anti-gerrymandering provisions will also affect the outrageous redistricting efforts that have occurred. The fact that it’s close in time would not void the mandate that would be placed on states as to these federal elections.

Well, and so one of the question that came up, it was about it, well, doesn’t the bill overturn Citizens United? Will that… and we’ll go back to you to answer that question.

Well, as you know, Citizens United, one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court has reached, did eviscerate campaign finance reform. That can only be overturned through a constitutional amendment or a better Supreme Court. Obviously it cannot be overturned by mere legislation. However, in that decision, the court itself said the remedy was transparency. That’s what we do in this bill. We make how the money is spent, who’s spending it, transparent. We preclude coordination in ways that are deceptive. That’s all we can do with legislation absent of Supreme Court, and the current court does not look like they’ve come to their senses, or a constitutional amendment, which is so, almost impossible to do.

Thank you, Zoe. I just want to… Zoe has clearly presented what the opportunity is. She also is a daily reminder to us of the urgency of it all. This is very urgent. Our democracy is at stake. We’re not here to be fear mongers. We’re here though, to make sure we honor our oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, a democracy a part of which is the sanctity of the vote to be respected. When we talk about Citizens United being the worst Supreme Court decision, I think there are more bad things to come from that court. All the more reason for us to have strong democratic majorities in the House and in the Senate, and certainly a Democratic president. I wish elections weren’t so important that one party wins, another wins, we have our debate, but this isn’t about that. This is about either you honor the Constitution or you do not.

Now, Tiffany Muller who started End Citizens United is very much a part of the initiative to pass the legislation in the House and in the Senate, that Zoe has discussed. She knows that unless we can end that, it really is crippling for our country, but you can’t do it without 2/3, 3/4 majority in the Congress. The Constitution clearly only has three places where you need more than a simple majority, approving ambassadors… Excuse me, approving treaties. Excuse me, not ambassadors, treaties.

Impeachment.

Convicting a president, or anyone else who has been impeached, and amending the constitution. Other than that, a simple majority is in the Constitution. Right now, the customs of the Senate are standing in the way of our passing legislation. I was very encouraged by Chuck Schumer’s letter this morning that talked about how we are going to proceed and that the Senate had to use the word evolve. Let’s hope that that evolution starts very soon with the opportunity for us to pass this legislation.

Really, I want to emphasize a point that’s Zoe made. When we talk about redistricting and what this legislation needs, the urgency of now is that if we pass it now, the further redistricting or our opportunities in court for some of the redistricting that has already taken place, are greatly enhanced if the criteria that are in the bill for redistricting, whether it’s voting rights, Constitution, community of interest, really makes the hand stronger for fair redistricting. Zoe, did you want to speak to that piece?

And extreme partisanship. That’s why the sooner, the better. We have recourse to the three judge panel in the District of Columbia to enforce this provision, but the sooner we do that the better. I mean, if this is passed after the next election, obviously that would be very difficult to implement. I think it is essential and I gather from Mr. Schumer’s letter today, he understands that speed is important. If we could get this passed in the Senate this month, I know that we can pass it, whatever they do, in the House and the President will sign it and we will have helped to secure our democracy for generations to come.

Well, the fact is we did pass the original bills very early on in this Congress. We are waiting for the Senate to follow suit. Now, they will amend the bill and of course, we’re working with them to make sure the amendments are, as you suggested, in furtherance of preserving the sanctity of the vote and the elections.

Tiffany Muller from Citizens United has been joining Eric Holder. Eric Holder, being head of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. That is there to make sure that we have redistricting that is objective. We’re not there to do to the Republicans, what they did to us. We’re there to have objective redistricting. Eric Holder has been remarkable. He helped us pass HR1 in the House, he’s trying to help us to do just that in the Senate, but he’s a national voice for redistricting in the community, in the courts, and across the country, and certainly in the Congress of the United States. We’re really blessed that he has taken this lead in terms of redistricting and fairness in our elections.

Well, he’s been a tremendous resource to us and his whole team, I’m so grateful. I mean, he certainly has put in his time of public service. He could be doing other things, but he’s never given up on protecting our democracy, so a tremendous resource for justice.

President Obama has been so helpful with that, as well as Governor Terry McAulliffe of Virginia was one of the originators of the idea that we go down this path.

I just want to go to COVID because Zoe knows that we’re really… The numbers are growing in the House of Rep and the Congress. Zoe, did you want to speak to public policy and COVID and what we anticipate in the weeks ahead?

We have actually a testing site in the Congress for institutional employees, staff, as well as members of Congress to go in. Testing is essential. If we find positive tests, we do contact tracing to try and make sure that we suppress this virus. We’ve seen a gigantic jump in the presence of Omicron as compared to the Delta virus, in just a week. It went from hardly any to 70%. We have seen a rapid increase in the positivity tests. The virus is racing through the House of Representatives and we need to maintain our posture of caution while continuing to legislate. Very much of the staff is on remote work, where they can be. I know for example, my committee staff and personal staff are working from home most of the time, but there are some people who can’t work from home. Obviously the capital police have to be physically present.

We’re making sure that we do our very best to protect those who physically must be in the Capital, through adhering to the advice the attending physician has provided. We have, I think, if not 100%, close to 100% of the democratic members have been vaccinated and boosted. Unfortunately some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have declined to get that protection and continue to pose a threat to the rest of us. We have imposed a mask mandate for anybody in the building and on the floor. Unfortunately, some of our colleagues who are sort of performance artist members of Congress, more than legislators, have refused to wear masks. We are instituting fines for those who refuse to take this simple step to protect others.

I know that some members will physically gather on the sixth and that’s important because that attack on our democracy cannot be allowed to just pass by unrecognized, but all these steps will be taken to make sure that those…

But all these steps will be taken to make sure that those who are physically present are protected. And I encourage everyone who can to participate virtually, and that is with virtue and virtually.

Well, thank you. So I do want to commend President Biden for what he is doing, because he is insisting on testing, and we need to get more tests available. Today was first day back to school. Well, for my granddaughter, Bella, in public school in San Francisco, and she had to be tested to go back to school. So I know all moms and dads and family members with children in school want them to be in school safely. So testing, testing, testing. We’ve been saying that for 22 months. Testing, testing, testing across the country.

On Friday, the FDA approved the booster shot for younger children that, hopefully, this week, the CDC will give the go ahead. But it will be available later in the week. So, again, testing, vaccinations, spatial distancing as well as wearing mask. Very important for us to crush this new version, this new variant of the virus.

But, again, it is something that the more it is transmitted, the more it mutates, and that causes other variants. So what we want to do is stop the transmittal, and that is masks, spatial distancing, vaccinations, and testing, testing, testing. And that is, again, what the President has been advocating, and we have to do more. And we have help other countries because we are never safe unless we are all safe. And he has put forth initiatives in that regard, and in the Congress, we have to provide the funds to do just that. And that’s what Rosa DeLauro is working on in the Appropriations Committee.

May I just go to January 6th for a moment to invite all of you to our live streaming on that day. On that day, we have a series of events that are public. The first one begins at 12:00 noon on the House floor. We will have a proforma session where only The Speaker is allowed to speak. So I will be making a January 6th statement at that time. And then later at 1:00, we will have … Oh, well, it’s 12:00 Eastern Standard time. Okay. Thank you. Reminded that’s Eastern Standard time.

At 1:00 Eastern standard time, we’ll have something that is, I think, very beautiful. As with we started this program with music, I believe the arts are something that are so unifying for us, so uplifting for all of us, so we’ll have some music. And then we will hear from historians to talk about the narrative of our country’s democracy and January 6th. That’ll be John Meacham, it will be Doris Kearns Goodwin, and that will be moderated by the Librarian of Congress. So we’re very honored with what we’ll have then.

And following that, we will have testimonials from some of our members who were really very affected on January 6th by their proximity to the hoarding, the masses that were coming to harm the members of Congress, and will hear from them. Later in the day, soon as it gets a little bit darker, we will have a candlelight vigil 5:30 Eastern Standard time on the steps of The Capitol. It won’t be speeches. It’ll be prayers and music, but it’ll be about patriotism, love of our country, and, again, the value that it is to the world, our democracy.

And so that’s what we have there. Earlier in the day, as you probably saw an announcement from The White House, the President and the Vice President will come to The Capitol to speak to the nation, and that is a time that will be announced by them. But it will be before all of the things that I just mentioned. But what I mentioned, that will be nationally broadcast. What I mentioned will be live streamed and we’ll be in touch with you about how to access that.

But it’s going to be a lovely day, and I’m so honored that the historians have agreed to give us the narrative, put it in perspective for us. It’s going to be a very special occasion. It’s very sad. We must pass the legislation to protect our democracy. We must protect our capitol and our constitution so it doesn’t happen again. And all of those presentations will be happening this week from the Capitol Police and the rest.

So, again, I want all of us to know that there are, across the country, and many of them on this call, entities who amplify our voices. They should be supported. Understand that anything that we have on TV or that you see and your local activism can be amplified. And “amplify” is our word. Urgency is our timetable. And, again, nothing more eloquent to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituents. So when you are being active about … House and Senate, but also others to call their own members of Congress. Again, we don’t agonize, we organize, but we want to make sure that we are effective and we get the desired results.

We want you to be part of our message, Democrats deliver, that we cannot accept what the Republicans vote no, and take the dough, and go out there and act as if they voted for something. And, again, we want to do so in a way that is unifying for our great country.

So in the spirit of recognizing that the arts are so unifying, we’re going to end our program with Paula West honoring us with spirited song. But before I do, I want to yell to [Zoe 00:39:59] for any closing remarks you may have.

Well, I’ll just say this. We have a lot of challenges, and it’s easy to be concerned, and worried, and fearful, but we also have a lot of power. We have the capacity to save ourselves and our country. And when I look at the hundreds of people that are on this meeting, it encourages me that so many of you, you care about our country. You understand what the stakes are. You’re willing to work for our future. And I’ll tell you, I am, too, and with the leadership like Nancy Pelosi, we’ll never give up, and I think we can prevail.

So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Kwanza, the like. Let’s have a 2022 that is way better than the last two years.

Thank you very much, Zoe. Yes, thank you for acknowledging the power of the grassroots. We had hope to get 500 people. We have over 1500 people on the call, taking the time today. And as we prepare for our next meeting, please let us know what your priority is as to what you would like to hear about.

Of course, BBB, we must pass voting rights. Of course, the most important legislation that we must pass as well. And, again, to put forth the message that Democrats deliver. But we look forward to joining you, we’ll all join together pretty soon. But, again, don’t be shy. You never are. I’ve taken down some of the things you’ve said in the chat as to where we go from here, but let’s make this a regular occasion so that we can hear from you, and, again, echo what you’re thinking as well as what the President of the United States is putting forth.

I’m very proud of our members of Congress, the House Democrats. They’re so great. They’re so courageous. And I have to make sure that they stay in the majority. With that, I want to yield, and, again, thank Hope and Cheryl for their interpreting for us today. Wish you all a very healthy and happy New Year. Stay safe, and let’s be in touch on a regular basis so that we can hold the House and increase our numbers in the House and Senate in preparation for a democratic president to follow.

With that, I yield to Paula West with gratitude for her always being available to make it beautiful for us.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi New Year’s Update Transcript

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