G. K. Butterfield: “Let me thank you, Congresswoman Christensen, for all of your work, not only here in the House of Representatives, but…”

“Let me thank you, Congresswoman Christensen, for all of your work, not only here in the House of Representatives, but what you do for the Congressional Black Caucus all across America. What hasn't come out tonight is you are actually the first vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and you work so hard for all of us and we want to thank you very much. We want to thank you for convening this Special Order tonight. You work so hard to make it happen. I also want to extend my appreciation to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who worked so tirelessly to help make successful the tour that we had a few weeks ago. She and her staff worked so very hard, and I want to publicly thank them for all that they did. I had intended to go to two of the five events, but because of Hurricane Irene in my district, I did not make it to Los Angeles, but I did go to the first one. I was there in Cleveland with Congresswoman Marcia Fudge when we had the jobs fair and the town hall meeting, and it made such a powerful impression on me for us to get up that morning and to drive over to the community college and to see thousands of people lined up trying to get an interview for a job. There was no question about it that these people were sincere, they were jobless through no fault of their own.…”