Janice Schakowsky: “my heartfelt gratitude to all of those who made it possible to bring this bipartisan resolution to the floor tonight…”

“my heartfelt gratitude to all of those who made it possible to bring this bipartisan resolution to the floor tonight, and particularly to my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), who has long toiled to make this evening happen and this resolution happen. Some issues transcend the regular business of this House, the important business of policymaking, and transcend partisan politics, and move into the realm of moral imperative. The genocide that is occurring at this moment in the Sudan, the murder and the rape of women and girls, even little girls at this moment, is one of those moral imperatives. And if we in this most powerful nation on Earth fail to act when our actions could prevent much, even if not all of the loss of life, then we share in the blame. I stand here tonight not only as a Member of Congress, but as a Jew and as a grandmother. Each year in the Capitol Rotunda, there is a solemn and inspiring ceremony to mark the Holocaust, the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Third Reich, and one of the themes of that event is never again. But it did happen again, and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) listed the scenes of genocide since World War II, and now in the Sudan. And this House and the other body and the administration have a choice to make: Do we or do we not act to stop it? Every day that we delay, a minimum of 1,000 people die. We have to make a choice tonight.…”