Health Care
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Texas for yielding.
Child welfare advocates have used the adjectives ``landmark,'' ``historic,'' and ``trailblazing'' to describe this bill. I wholeheartedly agree with them. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation that begins a fundamental shift in Federal child welfare policy to preserving families rather than separating them.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today, along with other Members of this body and tens of millions of Americans in every corner of our Nation, to express my profound sympathy and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the 49 beautiful young people of Orlando whose lives were stolen Sunday morning. We may never know the kind of hatred, what kind of sickness moves an individual so vehemently with such unchecked racism and homophobia to commit mass murder allegedly in the name of one or more terrorist causes.
Mr. Speaker, in this House, the Republican leadership has failed to provide sufficient investment in major emergencies facing Americans. They have refused to address the horrible epidemic of gun violence that plagues communities like mine and provides extremists an easy tool to kill dozens of people in minutes.