David Valadao: “I thank my colleague from Texas for hosting this and allowing me the opportunity to speak. Madam Speaker, my background…”

“I thank my colleague from Texas for hosting this and allowing me the opportunity to speak. Madam Speaker, my background is, as many of you know and I spoke of many times, I am a farmer from California. One of the things that I have had the opportunity of--and sometimes not always the best opportunity, but I have had a lot of opportunities--is to deal with law enforcement; metal thieves, different folks breaking into houses and doing different types of things. I remember one specific night where we had a person trespassing, and I showed up and it was dark, 10, 11 at night. I drove up in the middle of the field, had no idea if there was someone behind me, someone coming up behind me or on the side of me. It was just a really scary feeling to think that I just drove up on this situation. How many people are out here? What are their intentions? Now, obviously, I called 911, and when the police showed up, they run into these situations on a daily basis. But the fear that I felt, knowing that there were people out there close to me who could have been there for a really, really bad reason, looking to do someone harm, is something that I just couldn't imagine doing on a daily basis. My wife and I are friends with some law enforcement folks in my district, people I grew up with, as my wife did as well.…”