Ben Ray Luján

Thank you so much. And, Madam Chair, thank you again for the time and the Members of the Committee for allowing me to ask some questions today on some important legislation.

I'm encouraged by the increased attention of putting people back to work by building a more sustainable and resilient economy.

Thank you, Madam Chair and ranking members, for organizing this important hearing on how we can protect our constituents from COVID-19 scams.

That is why I plan to introduce the Stopping COVID Scams Act of 2020, which would allow the FTC to levy civil penalties on COVID-19 scammers.

The inequities include a lack of access to broadband, insufficient housing support, barriers to ensuring an accurate census count, and a failure to guarantee access to the ballot box.

the Trump administration's failed response to this crisis.

However, by one estimate, Native artists lose about 500 million dollars' worth of income a year to fake goods sold from non-Native sources.

In New Mexico, Native American art and work is critically important. It amounts to one in eighteen jobs that Native Americans participate in.

Mr. Mehta, does Amazon have any work in this space that you partner or you work with the Indians Arts and Crafts Board?

Five years ago, Rio Arriba County received funding from the state of New Mexico to establish a behavioral health investment zone.

shouldn't those practitioners or others be able to also help treat people to prevent overdose?

Isn't that something that we should fix?

The network had an immediate impact in 2015 when it made overdose reversal drugs available throughout the county.

I hope that is an area that we can work on together and that the committee is willing to be supportive of as well.

there is a concern here, and I hope that you would agree with me that, if that is your understanding, that you do something about it, Mr. Secretary.

no President and no administration in the last 50 years has done more to undermine Medicaid than Donald Trump.

if my colleagues from the other side of the aisle want to protect people with preexisting conditions, they should drop the lawsuit.

There is a reason that most of us in this Congress has--have opposed Medicaid block grants. These are devastating programs.

Last year, a U.S. district court judge in Mississippi ruled that Mississippi's laws, "unequivocally," violated the Fourteenth Amendment and found that the law demonstrated that Mississippi was, "bent on controlling women and minorities,"…

This is a great injustice and one that allows the longstanding disenfranchisement of Native voters to continue.

I urge my colleagues to support the Native American Voting Rights Act.

Native American voting rights are civil rights, and we must ensure that every eligible voter can exercise their right to vote.

Throughout our country's history, Native voters have been subject to guardianship, literacy tests, polling taxes, and outright rejection from the ballot box in regions across the U.S.

Representative Lujan testified about ongoing barriers whenever Native people received that right to vote when they became citizens, but they were denied that right.

As a Nation, we have still not fulfilled commitments to Tribes to work with them on a government-to-government basis to protect Native voting rights.