VIDEO AVAILABLE – LEADER JEFFRIES: "H.R. 5 WILL PUT POLITICS OVER PARENTS"
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke on the House Floor in opposition to H.R. 5 – the Politics Over Parents Act. Remarks as delivered:
LEADER JEFFRIES: I thank the distinguished gentleman from the great Commonwealth of Virginia for yielding and for his leadership. I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 5, legislation brought to us by the extreme MAGA Republicans that will put politics over parents. This legislation has nothing to do with parental involvement, parental engagement, parental empowerment. It has everything to do with jamming the extreme MAGA Republican ideology down the throats of the children and the parents of the United States of America. Now, House Democrats believe that every single child should have access to a high-quality, first-rate education. House Democrats believe that every single child throughout America should learn reading, writing and arithmetic at the highest level possible. House Democrats believe that every single child should be exposed to science, technology, engineering and mathematics so that they have the skills to succeed in a 21st century economy. House Democrats believe that every single child in this great nation should have the opportunity to robustly pursue the American dream.
And House Democrats believe that the parents of this great country should have the opportunity to be involved intimately and engaged intimately in the education of their children. We take a back seat to no one on this issue. In fact, we put resources into making sure that parents have the opportunity to be fully involved and engaged in the education of their children. The other side of the aisle, the extreme MAGA Republicans, have in fact voted against legislative efforts to empower parents in our schools, a deeply personal issue for all of us. I'm the father of two sons who were in public school every step of the way. Kindergarten. Elementary school. Middle school. High school. And parental involvement and parental engagement is critically important. It was for their journey, for their success and we want that for every single parent in America. But what we don't want is the extreme MAGA Republicans trying to tell the parents of America how to educate their children, how to raise their children, what books their children can or cannot be exposed to on their educational journey. That's what the Politics Over Parents Bill is all about.
Their educational agenda is pretty simple. They want to ban books. They want to bully the LGBTQ+ community. They want to bring guns into classrooms, kindergarten and above. That's their educational agenda. They want to ban books about history, ban books about the American journey, ban books about the Holocaust, ban books about slavery, ban books about the Civil Rights Movement, ban books about the LGBTQ+ experience, ban books about the Native American experience ban books about the Latino experience, ban books about the Asian American experience, ban books about our collective journey as a great country, a gorgeous mosaic of people from all over the world who come here to pursue the American dream. That's what makes American exceptionalism so phenomenally important to our collective success as a country. And they want to take that away from the parents of America.
They've already banned – because of what has happened in several states – more than 2,500 books in America, the highest number in recorded history. What kind of books have they banned? Are these books dangerous to the education of our children? They're too numerous for any of us to go through during the time that we have allotted for this debate. But let's go through a few of them. They want to ban a book called "Maus." It's about the horrors of the Holocaust, an egregious crime against humanity that we should never, ever forget. 6 million Jews exterminated. They want to ban "Maus," a book about the Holocaust. What's so offensive in that book? Let me read a passage. "They took us from our papers, our clothes and our hair. We were cold and we were afraid." Extreme MAGA Republicans don't want the children of America to learn about the Holocaust.
What else do they want to ban? They want to ban a book called "I am Martin Luther King Jr." There's a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.; what he meant to the country, the Civil Rights Movement, the march toward a more perfect union, liberty and justice for all. Equal protection under the law, free and fair elections. They want to ban a book, "I am Martin Luther King Jr." What's so offensive about this book? Let me read a passage. "In my life, people tried to tell me I wasn't as good as they were just because of the color of my skin. When someone hurts you like that, it can be tempting to hurt them back. You must refuse. When someone shows you hate. Show them love. When someone shows you violence, show them kindness." That's the book that they want to ban, "I am Martin Luther King Jr."
What else do they want to ban? They want to ban a book called "Melissa," a book describing, in very personal terms, the experience of a trans girl beginning to understand her identity. What's so dangerous about that? I was taught in my religion, growing up in the Cornerstone Baptist Church that we are all God's children. Shouldn't we learn about all of God's children. That's what my religion teaches me. What's so offensive about "Melissa?" What's so offensive about this book? Let me read a passage. "Her heart sank. She had genuinely started to believe that if people could see her on stage as Charlotte, maybe they would see that she was a girl offstage too." Extreme MAGA Republicans don't want your child to learn about the LGBTQ+ experience in America. That's not a decision that extreme MAGA Republicans here in Congress should make. The parents of America should be able to make that determination. What else do the extreme MAGA Republicans want to ban?
I grew up in America where we were taught whenever you were trying to identify something with this great country that, well, there's nothing more American than baseball and apple pie. I'm sure if we searched hard enough, they want to ban something about apple pie. But today we know they definitively have tried to ban a book about baseball, about Roberto Clemente, the first Latino baseball player to make it into the Hall of Fame. Why do they want to ban a book about Roberto Clemente? What are they trying to hide from you? Let me read a passage from this book, "He had no money for a baseball bat, so he made one from a guava tree branch. His first glove, he also made from the cloth of a coffee bean sack. His first baseball field was muddy and crowded with palm trees." Isn't that part of what makes America such a great country that you can aspire to being part of what you see in front of you, in this case, baseball. Young kid growing up in Puerto Rico, by the way, part of America, who decides that he wants to be part of this great American pastime. But the extreme MAGA Republicans want to stop your children. From learning about the Latino experience in America, even when it relates to baseball and Roberto Clemente.
One last example. I could be up here all day. What else do they want to ban? They want to ban a book called "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian," which is about a native teenager's high school experience. What's more American than Native Americans? But they don't want your children to learn about Native American history experience in this. What's so dangerous about this particular book? Let's see. It says, "We Indians have lost everything. We lost our native land. We lost our languages. We lost our songs and dances. We lost each other. We only know how to lose and be lost." That's part of the Native American experience in this country. That's part of reality. That's part of our journey. Extreme MAGA Republicans don't want the parents of this country to have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether the children of America should have an opportunity to learn about the Native American experience.
They want to jam their extreme MAGA Republican ideology down the throats of the children and parents in America. That's unacceptable, that's unconscionable and that's un-American. And that's one of the reasons why we strongly oppose this legislation. We'll fight against this legislation. We'll fight against the banning of books, fight against the bullying of children from any community – and certainly from the LGBTQ community – and we're going to fight against your extreme MAGA Republican agenda that has no interest in dealing with the education of our children, empowering them and offers up solutions like bringing guns into the classroom. We will fight against their efforts at banning books and bullying children and taking away the freedom of parents to make decisions on their own today. We'll fight against it tomorrow. We'll fight against it forever and always stand with the parents and children of our great country. Vote no against H.R. 5.
Full speech can be watched here.