Kenny Marchant: “I stand before you today, offering a candid reflection of the tasks before us. As someone entrusted to be a leader in…”

“I stand before you today, offering a candid reflection of the tasks before us. As someone entrusted to be a leader in this great nation, I find myself humbled by the decisions we make and the traditions of this institution. In times of hardship, America has often looked to the House of Representatives, the 'people's house,' as a place for deliberation and decision. Many great leaders have preceded our place in this Chamber, and many more will undoubtedly follow. By design we find ourselves here again today, in the footprints of those who stood so firm against the winds of adversity. It was in this very room that President Franklin Roosevelt so famously addressed the Nation after the tragic events surrounding Pearl Harbor had unfolded; and Members of Congress were faced with the daunting effort of placing our nation in a second world war. America was forged long ago as a beacon of democracy, shining bright onto the shores of the world. Ever since our bold proclamation to others that we would shelter 'your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free,' we have called on this body to answer the question: How tired, how poor, how yearning must the oppressed be to warrant our assistance? And so we find ourselves here today, paused at an intersection on the road of democracy. Will we turn back and embolden those that oppress the free and murder the innocent?”