Sheila Jackson Lee: “None of us can rise to the floor of the House and talk about the cruciality of the American Rescue package and the…”

“None of us can rise to the floor of the House and talk about the cruciality of the American Rescue package and the absolute imperative nature of this particular legislation passing without acknowledging 500,000 lives--not numbers, but names of mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles and cousins, sisters and brothers, just plain good friends, and loved ones that extend beyond one's family. And then for the love of this country, just our fellow Americans. Mr. Speaker, these are hardworking people, many of them essential workers on the front lines. Unfortunately, with the horrific and insulting effort that was made by the last administration, essential workers were out and about in grocery stores and delivery trucks, first responders, and no one attempted to stop the community spread. We had no testing protocol, and it was in my Congressional district that I worked with United Memorial Hospital to ensure that we had testing sites and opened the first testing site in my Congressional district to reach hard-to-serve areas on March 19. Mr. Speaker, since that time, we have done 55 with UMMC, a small hospital that I call, ``the little red engine that can.'' But that was all done by the energy and determination in a city that was clearly one of the hotspots as part of the State of Texas, complete inertia by our leadership until we began to see the high numbers of loss of life in the African-American and Latinx community. Mr.…”