Speeches
Pelosi: In Our New Direction, We Have Kept Our Promises to Make Progress for the American People
08/03/2007
“Thank you very much, Leader Reid. Congratulations on your excellent nine new
senators and I’m very proud of the members of the House who have joined the
ranks of Democrats in the Congress as well to make us the majority. As I used to say to my colleagues, ‘You’re
the greatest collection of intellect, integrity, and idealism. But you’re not the majority.’ Now we have three more Members with those
values and we have the majority. We have
with us here today Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter of
“Before I begin, I want to say to Tim Walz and to Senator
Klobuchar how sad we all are at the tragedy that occurred in
“At the beginning of this Congress, we had the first 100
hours, where in that short period of time a flurry of activity that related to
protecting the American people, growing our economy, strengthening our
families, and preserving our planet, and doing that in a fiscally sound, open
and honest way.
“This happened because we had new Members of Congress who
brought with them their energy, their enthusiasm, straight from the campaigns,
with the clearest picture of the desires of the American people. Here we are now in August, and a similar
number of hours this week, we have another record of achievement in terms of
legislation. Some of it following up on
bills that were introduced at that time.
“To make
“In terms of accountability, this week both houses passed
the lobbying reform bill, as Mr. Leader said, and it will soon be signed into
law by the President. This is historic,
a historic change in the relationship between lobbyists and legislators as we
break that link. It has been hailed by
the reform groups outside the Congress as an outstanding step forward.
“In terms of how we grow our economy, both houses this week
passed the America COMPETES Act, our commitment to competitiveness, to keep
“Energy independence takes us to preserving our planet,
which we will take up tomorrow. We’re
very proud of the work that has been done in the COMPETES Act in furtherance of
energy independence.
“Most important of all is how we strengthen our families. And this week, both the House and Senate
passed the SCHIP legislation. Millions
of dollars more for millions of children to be able to receive quality health
care. Who are we as a nation, if we
don’t care for our children? It’s
probably one of the happiest days of my official life to be there on the floor,
which I called ‘the children’s hour,’ when in the people’s House, we passed
that legislation, which now has been passed in the United States Senate. We look forward to reconciling those bills
and sending them to the President’s desk.
“Also in strengthening our families, of course, are bills we
passed to promote higher education and increase the minimum wage. And we passed the Ledbetter bill in our
House, which would end gender discrimination and pay.
“So these are issues that relate directly for the well-being of the American people. They’re relevant to their lives, they hit home with the American people. I’m very proud that in our New Direction we made a number of promises that have been kept and a great deal of them happened in the 100 hours of this week.”