Jamie Raskin

As Ms. Mace said, it has meant a setback in terms of kids learning, you know, almost across the board.

I am also struck by the way in which the autocrats and authoritarians feel it necessary to attack the LGBTQ community.

Neither of them should be banned.

Why should our teaching professionals question their own expertise to cater to the most conservative voices in the community?

Thank you, Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Mace, and the rest of the subcommittee.

We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fundamental human decency, dignity, freedom from fear, and the same opportunity to thrive as everyone else.

We need you to pass the Safe Schools Improvement Act to protect all students from harassment.

We need you to pass the Equality Act to make discrimination against LGBTQ people illegal.

Strong public schools are an issue of national security and moral urgency.

I appreciate the time to speak with you all this morning. Thank you very much.

I have witnessed firsthand what an environment can become when the most extreme, vile, hate-filled elements take grip of a community.

Every student, regardless of faith, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or any other factor deserves to be seen, heard, valued, celebrated, engaged, inspired, empowered, and loved each day.

Our public schools are the bedrock of American democracy.

Book censorship wrecks a healthy environment for free inquiry and learning.

We are monitoring it and we may have to recess.

I've served with great public officials from both parties, people like John Lewis, people like Liz Cheney, people like Nancy Pelosi.

I trust my 29-year-old and 25-year-old daughters infinitely more to make the personal life planning decisions.

Talk, for example, to our Republican colleague, Nancy Mace, who has written movingly of her own rape at age 16.

The Constitution exists to protect freedom. The apple does not exist to protect the frame.

You know, the same people who want to brand women in United States as criminals for exercising what is today, at least for a few more weeks, a constitutional right have consistently voted against paid family leave policies.

The right to make your own reproductive decisions about your own body is a basic human right, but the GOP has been advocating for decades to take that right away from American women.

When you look around the world, giving women control over their own reproduction and fertility is the key to ending poverty, and we're moving in exactly the wrong direction today.

We have all of the options that would be available to us for someone like Steve Bannon, or Mark Meadows and then additional options because they`re members of Congress.

An attempted coup and a violent insurrection at the capitol interrupting the peaceful transfer of power are unprecedented events.

Democracy is either shrinking and shriveling away or it’s growing and it’s expanding.