Sheila Jackson Lee: “I want to add my appreciation to the gentlewoman from Ohio; the gentleman from New York; and the Members who have…”

“I want to add my appreciation to the gentlewoman from Ohio; the gentleman from New York; and the Members who have spoken, including the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Butterfield; the former chair, Ms. Fudge; and the ranking member on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Mr. Scott. There could not be a more important topic than the topic that we are speaking about tonight. There are moments in history that I think come at times when urgency is the call of the day. It is often said that Dr. King emphasized in his tenure the urgency of moving forward on civil rights and spoke eloquently about the fact of why we cannot wait. If I might, I want to capture his theme of why we cannot wait to end the school-to-prison pipeline. End it now and begin the whole comprehensive approach of criminal justice reform. Let me take Texas as an example and cite some very important statistics from the Appleseed Report and as well a comment on the work that we are doing in the Committee on the Judiciary. I am so glad at this moment in history to be the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations and working with the members of my subcommittee, including Mr. Jeffries, who is a member, Ms. Bass, who is a member, and a number of other members as well, on this very difficult hurdle that we have. Let it be very clear that this hurdle of criminal justice reform is, as I heard Mr.…”