| 32 years as a Member of Congress. |
| Publikuar më 02 janar, 2021 në orën 20:49 ( ) |
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After 32 wonderful years, today is my final day as a Member of Congress. It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of the Bronx and Westchester, and I am eternally grateful for having been afforded the opportunity to represent you in Washington for 16 terms. Thank you for giving me your trust and allowing me to be your voice in the House. And thank you for all the love and support you've shown me and my family over the years.
Below you can find video of my farewell address on the House floor and text of my prepared speech (yes, I went a little off-script at times to speak from the heart):
Thank you, M. Speaker.
I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.
I would hope that anyone who ever has the privilege to serve as a member of Congress leaves this place with a heart full of gratitude. After 32 years, I certainly feel that way.
 Eliot Engel
Gratitude to the thousands of people—Capitol Police, the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Congressional Research Service, the Architect of the Capitol, the Office of the Attending Physician, and so many others. It takes a small army to keep Congress running, and you seldom get the recognition you’ve earned.
Gratitude to my staff over the years. Let me acknowledge a few who have been with me a long while: the Staff Director on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Jason Steinbaum; my Chief of Staff in New York, Bill Weitz; and my Administrative Assistant here in Washington, Ned Michalek. I’ll submit for the record a full roster of my staff in the Office of the 16th District and on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, with my profound thanks.
And of course, gratitude to my fellow representatives.
I especially want to thank the members of the New York delegation, past and present. We are a group as richly diverse as the great state we come from. I’m proud of the way we’ve stood together and stood up for New Yorkers, particularly in times of crisis and tragedy: the pandemic we’re enduring now… Superstorm Sandy… the Great Recession… and of course in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11.
I’m grateful to our leadership on both sides. And it’s been a unique honor to serve alongside our distinguished Speaker, Mrs. Pelosi of California, for the entire length of my time in the House.
My greatest honor here has been to serve during this Congress as the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
When I was sworn in for my first term in 1989, the then-Majority Leader, soon thereafter Speaker, Tom Foley asked me my top three choices for committee assignments. I told him, “Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Affairs.”
Since I was a kid growing up in public housing in the Bronx, I’ve been fascinated with America’s leadership role in the world. All four of my grandparents were immigrants from what’s now Ukraine… who fled the Pogroms of the early 20th century looking for safe haven and opportunity. They found it in America.
As a child of the Cold War, I remember learning about America as a beacon of freedom and democracy standing opposed to an oppressive, totalitarian ideology.
My entire life has been an education in what a force for good America can be when we’re at our best… in American values that support human rights and human dignity… in America’s character of compassion and generosity.
So of course, as a public servant, I wanted to leave my mark on the way the United States conducts itself on the global stage.
There are a few areas where I’d like to think I made a difference.
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the Balkans and in particular, Kosova. In 1999, I strongly supported the Clinton Administration’s intervention in the Balkans. We know in hindsight that it stopped a genocide. Since then, I’ve been a champion for Kosova’s sovereignty and independence. That country has made tremendous strides and is recognized by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and so many other important nations.
I served for a time as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee and I’ve always pushed for a foreign policy that focuses on prioritizing what’s going on in our own neighborhood.
One of the last bills President Obama signed into law was my Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission Act, which required our government to take stock of what’s worked and what’s failed in our drug policy over the last few decades. The Commission recently submitted its report to Congress with recommendations that I hope will improve U.S. drug policy and save lives.
I’ve also been a strong advocate for closer ties to our Caribbean neighbors. I wrote the U.S.-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act to push for a new strategy to engage Caribbean countries that seeks out the expertise of the vibrant Caribbean diaspora living here in the United States.
And when the Trump Administration cut off assistance to Central America, I was proud to lead a bipartisan effort to restore those resources that are helping to reduce crime and violence and to root out corruption.
I’ve also long focused on American policy toward Syria. In 2003, I wrote the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which helped end the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. In 2012, I sponsored the first bill to arm the Free Syrian Army in its fight against the Assad Regime.
And just a year ago, my legislation, the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, finally became law, providing the toughest sanctions to date on Assad and his enablers. I encourage the incoming Biden Administration to take full advantage of these tools, dial up pressure on the regime, and try to stop the violence.
I said at the start of my time here that Israel wouldn’t have a better friend in Congress than Eliot Engel. And no matter where you stand on U.S. policy toward Israel, it would be tough to argue that I haven’t lived up to that commitment. I’ve been proud to stand with our ally Israel, our closest friend in the Middle East, throughout my career.
I believe the United States and Israel share an incredibly important partnership, and the cornerstone this relationship is the support it receives from both sides of the aisle. Congress should continue to give this partnership its full support in the future. No one should play partisan politics with America’s relationship with Israel.
The Constitution gives Congress broad oversight authority to make sure the executive branch is serving the American people. And as Chairman, I’ve worked hard to demand accountability from the Trump Administration. It hasn’t always been easy, but during this Congress, the Committee has succeeded in shining a light on some pretty troubling developments at the State Department. It’s important that this work continue into the next Congress, even as the Trump administration ends and President-elect Biden takes office.
After all, we don’t conduct oversight just for the sake of conducting oversight. It shouldn’t be used as a political tool. If existing laws and regulations aren’t up to the task of preventing abuses and mismanagement, then we need to remedy those weaknesses. It’s up to Congress to bend back the crooked branch. I’m confident that my successor—my friend from New York, Greg Meeks—will carry the committee’s work forward with distinction.
It’s on that point—the Foreign Affairs Committee’s work—that I take the most pride. I’ve said for a long time that the Foreign Affairs Committee is the most bipartisan committee in Congress. Even in a time when our politics are so polarized, the members of our committee have worked together to advance American interests, values, and leadership around the world.
We don’t always agree. We’ve had heated debates in this chamber over war powers, weapons sales, and more. But when we debate, we debate on the merits of a policy, then we cast our votes. Immediately after, we get back to working together toward policies that leave politics at the water’s edge.
That’s always been the culture of the Foreign Affairs Committee. And I’m grateful to my partner in maintaining that tradition, our Ranking Member, my friend from Texas, Mike McCaul. We’ve become good friends. We’ve represented our country together overseas. And we’ve racked up a lot of legislative victories. I’ll miss working with him.
And there’s so much work left for the Committee to do. In the 117th Congress, I hope the Foreign Affairs Committee continues to take on these challenges. Congress needs to reclaim its authority in foreign policy that’s been chipped away, year after year, in deference to the executive branch. We need to make the State Department Authorization Act a regular part of Congress’s work. And Congress needs to reassert its authority over war powers. I’m confident that the Committee can do big things… that Congress still has the capacity to do big things… to govern.
We’re here to govern. We come to Washington from 441 different communities, each with its unique character and concerns and priorities. That’s 441 elected officials whose job it is to stand up for our constituents… to make their voices heard.
But we can’t lose sight of the fact that the House of Representatives—not 441 individuals, but the body we constitute—has a responsibility to govern.
When I came here 32 years ago, the two parties looked very different from the way they look now. Southern Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans. The diffusion of political ideologies across the aisle made it necessary for the two sides to seek out compromise if the House was going to get its work done.
As the parties have realigned over the years, it’s become harder and harder for the House to advance anything that stands a chance of becoming law, except noncontroversial measures or must-pass legislation like the Defense Authorization and spending bills.
Frankly, it’s become harder and harder just to get to know one another. Unless you’re on the same committee or from the same state delegation, there are so few opportunities to build cross-party bonds. I’m a pretty progressive Democrat by most measures, but I’ve always thought it was important to cultivate relationships with my Republican colleagues.
I may disagree with someone on 95 percent of policy questions. But if you don’t know a person, you don’t stand a chance of finding that five percent in common and trying to build on it. If you don’t know a person, it’s so much easier to dismiss his or her motives, and that’s really where things start to fall apart.
No member of this body doesn’t love America. We share wildly different visions of the best way for America to reach its full potential… of the best way to improve the lives of the American people… but we all love our country. And I worry that more and more, members are mired in mistrust of the other side or saddled with purity tests, making it difficult to build relationships and seek common ground.
We have to resist the urge to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This doesn’t mean abandoning our principles or losing sight of our goals. It means acknowledging that progress in our political system takes time and perseverance. It means understanding that, as convinced as I might be that my view in the correct one, a big chunk of this body—and of this country—is likely to disagree. It means taking wins where we can get them, even if they’re modest. Because when we accomplish even a little bit of good here, we haven’t done so in service of an idea or a party. We’ve done it for the American people. That’s what it means to govern. And we’re here to govern.
For example, I’m a proud member of the Medicare for All Caucus. Going all the way back to my time in the statehouse in Albany, I’ve supported single-payer health care. I hope to see Medicare for All in my lifetime.
But that hasn’t stopped me over the last three decades from voting for legislation that I thought would move the needle in the right direction. I was never under the illusion that we would get there with one swing. But we did get the Children’s Health Insurance Program. We did get the Affordable Care Act, which has made a difference in the lives of millions of Americans. It was real progress, which we’re defending even today.
It was also more than a decade ago and our country still faces massive challenges when it comes to health care and a range of other issues. We owe it to the American people to try to govern… to try to work together. Not reflexively reject what the other side says… not root our entire agenda in trying to make political gains in the next election… not ignore facts, and science, and reality because political allegiances demand it. And yes, that means acknowledging the result of last month’s election and supporting a smooth transfer of power next month when President-elect Biden takes office.
The Constitution has given the American people this body, the House of Representatives. And in turn, the House has given our country the 13th Amendment… suffrage for women… Social Security and Medicare… the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They weren’t easy victories. But if our predecessors in Congress hadn’t tried, they would never have been victories at all.
As we enter the dark winter of this pandemic, we know there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Today, in the United Kingdom, the most vulnerable are being vaccinated against this deadly disease. That will soon happen here. But so much work remains before we can get back to normal. People are out of work… out of money… out of food. And the American people will look to this body to govern. I know in my heart that we can put the American people first and answer the call at this pivotal moment in our country’s history.
The future success of the American people depends on the success of the House in meeting this challenge. So I’ll be rooting for all of you.
With humility and gratitude, I yield back the balance of my time.
Eliot Engel
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| 32 years as a Member of Congress. |
E shtun, 02 janar 2021 - 20:49
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