U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (CA-28), the Democratic chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, joined Democrat U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (TX-15) for a press conference Thursday at Texas Southmost College in Brownsville.
Part of the reason for the press conference was to highlight the Biden administration’s bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and the impact it’s having on Lower Rio Grande Valley communities, including $68 million for deepening the Brownsville Ship Channel, more than $1.5 million for the Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport, nearly $3 million for Valley International Airport in Harlingen and a six-figure grant for the Port Isabel-Cameron County Airport.
Gonzalez, who’s running for the Texas 34th Congressional District seat in the upcoming midterms, also touted recent wins by the Biden administration such as the president’s executive order providing up to $20,000 in student loan forgiveness per individual, plus passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which among other things caps insulin prices at $35 per month for Medicare patients.
“For the first time in history we will be negotiating pharmaceutical prices for Medicare recipients,” Gonzalez said.
He also highlighted the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, aimed at bringing microchip manufacturing back to this country from China.
“We have had a remarkable string of legislative successes in Congress,” Schiff said. “When you consider how evenly divided the Congress is, it makes the achievements all the more remarkable.”
He noted that American Rescue Plan Act, passed in the early days of the Biden administration, saved millions of jobs and resulted in the creation of 10 million jobs over the last year and a half.
“That is the fastest job growth the country has ever seen,” Schiff said. “It has brought unemployment down to historic levels, with I think more than 20 states having unemployment below 3%. It’s been quite extraordinary.”
Bipartisan legislation was also passed for the first time in years in an attempt to address the epidemic of gun violence, while the Inflation Reduction Act also makes a sizable investment in tackling climate change, including the affects of drought, which Texas and California have “deep experience” with, he said.
Gonzalez and Schiff also used the event as an opportunity to discuss Jan. 6, the “big lie” — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — and the ongoing internal threat to American democracy.
“I think that Jan. 6 is something that many elected officials around the country and others want to sweep under the rug and act as if it didn’t happen, but it was a direct attack on our democracy,” Gonzalez said. “It almost prevented the transition of power.”
Schiff, who was speaking on the House floor as rioters fresh from a Donald Trump rally attacked the Capitol, was evacuated along with other members of the chamber “at great cost to the men and women in uniform protecting us,” he said.
“Over 140 Capitol police officers and metropolitan police officers were badly injured,” Schiff said. “Some would later lose their lives.”
He said he had hoped, after the day’s violence had subsided and in light of the falsehood that had spawned it, that the country would finally be able to “repudiate the idea that whenever you lose an election that somehow it was rigged,” though it was not to be.
“Sadly there are many people around the country running for office on that big lie, who continue to propagate the falsehood that the last election was somehow stolen or illegitimate because their side lost,” Schiff said. “We’ve always had a compact between the parties. You campaign hard, you fight hard, and when the election comes you accept the results and you move on.
“If you lose you dedicate yourself to doing better the next time. It is a dangerous thing for a democracy when one party gives up on that idea, and when their candidates are running on a platform of a big lie about the last election.”
He stressed that democracy is fragile and not something to be taken for granted.
“We all need to understand that the fact that we’ve been able to live for two and a half centuries in this democracy doesn’t mean that we will be fortunate to do so for another 100 years, let alone 10 years, if we don’t all take care and cherish this legacy that we’ve been given,” Schiff said.
He said he came to the Valley to see in person things Gonzalez has been telling him about for the last year or so. Schiff said Gonzalez has earned respect from both sides of the congressional aisle through his championing of issues like infrastructure and lower prescription drug prices, and also for “bringing resources back home” for constituents.
“This visit has been long in the planning and I really appreciate the opportunity,” Schiff said. “I was eager to visit his district to see the work he’s been doing and the needs among his constituency for further investment in roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure. I look forward to our continued work together on these and other vitally important issues.”
