Ayanna Pressley

Thank you, Madam Chair, for convening this important and timely hearing.

For our most marginalized communities, the right to abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade has really only been a right in name only.

I was proud to see the House take swift action to pass the Women's Health Protection Act last week.

It is critical that Congress legislate and combat these attacks once and for all.

These misguided bans will not actually prevent all abortions. They simply put safe and necessary abortion care out of reach for our most vulnerable.

Texas' horrendous and extreme S.B. 8 abortion ban underscores the urgency of this moment.

Abortion care is a constitutional right, and this pro-choice Democratic majority... can and must do everything possible to protect and guarantee it as such.

It is unacceptable for communities of color to bear the brunt of white supremacist violence at the hands of domestic terrorists.

In the district I represent, the Massachusetts 7th, Somali immigrants living in Roxbury are directly targeted.

The Federal Government certainly has a significant role to play in deterring and ending domestic terrorism at the hands of violent white supremacists.

It is no surprise, but egregious nonetheless, that Black-owned businesses received only 2 percent of PPP loans from the CARES Act.

I, along with many of my colleagues, have been sounding the alarm for many years about rising bank branch closures in predominantly Black and Brown communities, and the negative impact that this will have on small businesses owned by…

The mass incarceration crisis disproportionately impacts Black and Brown communities and, therefore, these communities face collateral consequences of incarceration.

Abortion care is a fundamental human right. Texas' unconscionable abortion ban is further evidence that lawmakers who aim to do harm will stop at nothing to attack our reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. But not on our watch. It is…

Haitian lives are black lives. And if we truly believe that black lives matter, then we must reverse course.

This policy failure has ended the lives of more than 10,000 Americans.

I know firsthand the fear and the trauma that comes with an eviction notice on your door.

Evictions are disruptive and violent. These are violent events which destabilize families.

We need to codify Roe v. Wade. We need to pass my bill with Judy Chu. We need to abolish the filibuster. We need to expand the courts and we need to repeal Hyde.

Well, Chris, I`m not at all surprised by the draconian acts under the cloak of night by this extreme Supreme Court. What I`m looking to right now, is this Congress to act and we must.

It was a moral imperative to extend this eviction moratorium. So the fact that we did not do that is a moral failing.

The fact that we did not do that is a moral failing. We are standing on the precipice of a national tent city, an eviction tsunami in the midst of spikes of the Delta variant.

I am convinced more than ever that my colleagues in the Senate must stop forcing people with disabilities and people of color to carry the burden of finding ways to organize against these shameful, suppressive, and anti-democratic state…

The voter suppression tactics they support are targeted and precise with the aim of stripping power away from Black folks, Hispanic, and Latinx, and voters with disabilities.

Never forget that on this day, on Election Day, we are powerful.