Darren Soto

Mr. SOTO

Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and congratulate California's new attorney general, my friend, Xavier Becerra. As many of you know, former Congressman Becerra was the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair from 1997 to 1999. He was our Democratic Caucus vice chair from 2009 to 2013, and also our Democratic Caucus chair for the 114th Congress. We all know that Attorney General Becerra was a staunch defender of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other support for people in need. He was also a supporter for our DREAMers, for DACA, and for women's rights. He was also a mentor to me. Aspiring new Members who came here looked to him for advice, especially in their first couple weeks here. I want to thank Attorney General Becerra for coming to a roundtable in my district over in Polk County to visit with so many of our agricultural workers in our community and so many DREAMers. It is so critical for agriculture, for our farmers, and for rural America that we continue to make sure that agriculture continues to be strong in our Nation. As a Californian, he also even starred in Stephen Colbert's ``Better Know a District.'' So I just want to thank, once again, Congressman Xavier Becerra for being an American Member of Congress, someone who looked out for all of us and defended our values.

Mr. SOTO

Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 93.

Mr. SOTO

Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, here in America, we are changing the world with our ingenuity and technological advances. It is our creative and innovative spirit that allows us to continue to be a leader in the world economy and raise the quality of life of the human race. We know that jobs of the present and the future will require many new students and retrained workers to pursue STEM degrees--those in science, technology, engineering, and math. While many politicians have talked a good game about encouraging students to pursue these degrees, it is time to put our money where our mouth is. Today I introduced the ASPIRE Act, H.R. 926, the American Science Principal and Interest Reduction and Employment Act. This act would grant a 25 percent reduction in student loans for any student who graduates with a STEM major. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, one million new STEM jobs are projected to come online between 2012 to 2022, for a total of 9 million, 13 percent growth over the decade. This means we must act now to meet these needs, and I encourage all of you to cosponsor this important legislation. It is time to create real incentives to encourage our students to aspire to new heights and create the jobs of tomorrow today.

Mr. SOTO

Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today wearing this pink scarf in solidarity with so many millions of Americans who rose up this past Saturday, whether it be in D.C., on the West Coast, East Coast, so many cities in the Midwest, as well as those around the world. It is interesting. My wife and I awoke to chanting of thousands of people. It almost felt like the protest was in our living room. And when we got out on the balcony, we saw thousands of people who were wearing pink hats and carrying signs and so boisterous with hope. Amanda and I decided we would go down to join them. When we got to the street, it was an amazing scene, with the Capitol ahead of us, and so many folks just gathered together--like-minded--with a message of respect and of resistance. As we tried to get towards the stage as we got to The Mall and about a mile away, we couldn't even get past a wall of bodies of so many people who were there to cheer on the message of so many great speakers. But we found our way through, eventually, and made it onto the stage. And what I can tell you was just sheerly unimaginable: 17 blocks of Americans, of all States, of all creeds, of all colors, of all backgrounds, who were there with a message. We had some wonderful speakers that day. We had folks from labor. We had folks from criminal justice reform groups. We had folks who were fighting for reproductive rights. We had many celebrities there, of course, and we also had folks who cared about everything from our economy to agriculture, to equality, to anything you could imagine, so many values that we fought for over the last 8 years. There is a sense that there is going to be common ground among many of these issues as we go forward. American jobs, obviously, everybody in this Chamber wants to make sure that we protect Americans and make sure that we have employment for everyone. We are also going to fight for common infrastructure among all of the 50 States, and that is something that we saw in the Senate the other day that was presented. We may also have some common ground on tax reform, particularly if it means bringing back from overseas a lot of corporate money that certainly would be important to go through the same process as profits derived here. But there is certainly, as we saw at the speech of so many people, there will be areas of resistance. We care about workers' rights. We care about making sure that we have a Department of Labor that will stand on the side of working American families. We care about having an inclusive economy, one that will respect a higher minimum wage; one that will fight for more high-tech, higher paying jobs; one that will fight for our manufacturing base; one that will be based upon tax cuts for the middle class, tax cuts for folks who are working, everyday Americans, as opposed to trickle-down economics and tax cuts for the wealthy. It was also about health care and about saving ACA or, at the very least, replacing it with something that is still going to make sure that we don't have 18 million Americans, according to the CBO, losing their health insurance. It is about making sure that we have a Medicare system that is not going to be block-rented out to the States as a creative way to cut Medicaid for our seniors and for our poor. It is also about protecting Medicare for our seniors who paid into it through their whole lives and making sure it is not privatized, as well as Social Security, making sure that not only those who are receiving it today, but up to those who are millennials and beyond, will be able to receive that benefit. We all paid into it, and we all expect it to be there. But it was also about equality. Many of our LGBT community are worried: Are these executive orders in place that are protecting equality in our Federal workforce going to be continued? Is this advance, this progression, this success in the Supreme Court and in so many other areas of society to have equality for the LGBT community going to be continued onward? There is a big doubt about that. It is also about women's reproductive rights. We saw so many, including Planned Parenthood and so many other groups, who fought not only to protect health care, but to protect women's choice, stand up and say that they don't want to revert back, that they don't want our society to revert back on equal rights for women. And we saw that today with the reinstatement of the gag rule across the Nation and the world, to encourage nations to prohibit reproductive rights, prohibit the ability to have birth control, prohibit the right to be able to exercise the right to choose. So many of my fellow Hispanics are worried about immigration. A simple executive order can assure that our DREAMers go from law-abiding students and members of our military and those who are applying in part of this program to being undocumented and being potentially even hunted down by their government. It is about long-term comprehensive immigration policy and reform. So many from my district, whether it be those who are also Hispanic or those who are from the Caribbean in my district, they care deeply about this. So does our agriculture community, so does our tourism community, so does business in general. These are going to be things that people are going to stand up for, and they certainly stood up for them during the march, along with women's rights, along with equality in general. Then there is the concern about climate change and how there was a push forward over the last 8 years and there will be an attempt to backtrack. I don't have to tell everybody, from the way the weather has been working over the last 10 to 15 to 20 years, that this is going to be one of the greatest challenges of our time--and for our kids and for our grandchildren. We do have to do it the right way, but we stood up to make sure that everybody knows we cannot go back. In addition, Dodd-Frank and financial reform, so critical to preventing another Great Recession. Many of us remember in 2008, in October, when President George W. Bush got on TV and told everyone that we were in for a Great Recession and one that President Obama described as the greatest recession since the Great Depression. There will be an attempt to chip back on those reforms and an attempt to try to get away from the lessons we learned to try to prevent another global meltdown. And of course criminal justice was critical. So many of our youth, so many Hispanics, so many African Americans, so many people who find themselves in greater proportion than other Americans in jail from a system that sometimes discriminates against them. All of these folks stood up, millions of Americans stood up, and, yes, we had hats and, yes, we had pink scarfs and, yes, we spoke about the progress that we made in the fight. But in one word, this was about respect. It was about respect for all women across the Nation, all minorities across the Nation, regardless of ethnicity and religion, all Americans, all of our Americans with disabilities, all of our working class folks who are fighting every day to try to make a good living. The message is clear. The message is clear from the millions of Americans who marched on Saturday that we will be watching, that we will speak up when we see things we disagree with, and when we have to, we will resist. Those who marched on Saturday, we welcome you to the resistance, and we thank you for your support. It is going to be a long 2 years. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOTO

Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, here is my 1-minute breakdown on why I oppose repealing ObamaCare without replacement: First, this law protects all Americans with preexisting conditions; second, it keeps all young adults on their parents' insurance until age 26; third, it protects all Americans from bankruptcy if they get sick by removing lifetime caps. Before the act, millions of Americans were simply kicked off their insurance when these problems arose. We Democrats support keeping these protections for all Americans, and the Republicans want to repeal them. We support improving the act, and the Republicans want to eliminate it. While many have stoked fear and spread false information for political gain, it is clear that repeal without replacement equals disaster. It will eliminate these protections for all Americans, create chaos for working families, and send our country into another recession. It is clear we need to improve the act rather than repeal it. It is time to do the right thing for all Floridians and for all Americans.

Mr. SOTO

Mr. SOTO. ``But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the Members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty- one years of age in such State.''