Emanuel Cleaver: “I came to Congress, and because of my own experiences, I only had one ambition other than being a Member of Congress…”

“I came to Congress, and because of my own experiences, I only had one ambition other than being a Member of Congress, and it was to take leadership in the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance because, experientially, I thought I had experiences that might help. And secondly, having served as mayor, we dealt a lot with housing in Missouri's largest city. I had this opportunity. And I want to thank Ms. Waters for the opportunity to be the lead Democrat on the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee. I think it was fortunate, maybe even fortuitous, that two Missourians ended up working together, and we were able to, I think, do some things that probably might not have been done otherwise because I think we both have a spirit of working together, and it ended up in a good product. But that wouldn't have taken place without the chairman and the ranking member. I lived in 404-B Bailey public housing in Wichita Falls, Texas. I went by on Christmas, and I just parked there for a long time and looked at the kids running around playing, thinking I used to do that on that same little piece of dirt that we called a yard. I wondered about the kids who were in that unit. Will they eventually have the opportunities that I was blessed to have? Or would they suffer the fate of many others with whom I grew up?…”