Jerry Nadler: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am heartbroken at the loss of Louise Slaughter, who was a dear friend…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am heartbroken at the loss of Louise Slaughter, who was a dear friend and a beloved colleague. I first met Louise when she was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1982, and Eliot Engel and Louise Slaughter and I sat next to each other on the Assembly floor. She was only with us in the Assembly for 4 years and then she came here. I trailed her by another 6 years. She always was a champion of upstate New York, which caused people to do a double take when they heard her southern lilt. She was a champion of so many things before their time. She was a champion for women's rights. She was a passionate leader as co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus for many years. She protected the freedom of every woman to live, work, and start a family on her own terms. She was, as you have heard, the chairman at one point, the leading Democrat on the House Rules Committee. She was tough, determined, and compassionate, and she was a fighter. She was a fighter for the vulnerable and those without a voice. She was a microbiologist before she came into politics. And she left a lasting imprint of that with her Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act when we started to get the ability to deal with the genomics.…”