Zoe Lofgren: “I will just say a few words here in closing. First, I again thank Carolyn Maloney, who, for the last 22 years, has…”

“I will just say a few words here in closing. First, I again thank Carolyn Maloney, who, for the last 22 years, has worked to be here on this day. I think it took Carolyn 22 years, a female Speaker of the House, 101 women in the House, and a female chair of the Committee on House Administration to come together and get to this day where I believe we are going to finally approve this bill and send it over to the Senate. Hopefully, it will be such a large vote that the Senate will feel a degree of pressure to do the right thing. Madam Speaker, just a word of caution on how long it takes after we vote to approve this and the Senate, hopefully, and the President, hopefully, will sign it, if we pass it. Secretary Lonnie Bunch is the secretary for the Smithsonian Museum. He has done a fabulous job. But one of his claims to fame is that he brought the National Museum of African American History from an idea to reality. He knows how to do this. And he cautioned us that from the moment you say go to the moment you open the doors to the museum, it is about 10 years. You have to raise the money. You have to get the scholars to do the scholarship and the exhibition. So unless you take that first step, you don't get there. That is the advice he gave us last September: If you don't take the first step, you never get there. So this is the first step, and it is an important one.…”