California is a very important state. As goes California, so goes the nation. We need to have strong leadership. Someone who can hit the ground running.
I hate to say it but I think it has become very obvious that our system for devising trade agreements, so very important to this country's functioning around the world, has not only broken, but it has broken completely.
I... now see a rare opportunity to push across the goal line much of the unfinished business of America: investing in our infrastructure and workers, universal healthcare, comprehensive immigration reform and scrubbing a tax code that's out of shape and behind the times.
My three daughters are all going to go to college, and it's not even a question. When I was applying to college, my parents were hoping that I would just go somewhere. Today, they look at their grandkids, and they know those kids will have a chance to build this country in bigger and better ways than my parents ever had a chance.
The worst thing would be for a Canada to develop a Hollywood. This is an industry we are going to have to fight to defend. We have to compete now so productions stay here. We don't want entertainment to be like the steel industry.
This is precisely why you choose to run for office and get elected. You're asking the people to let you be their voice. I don't think there is a more powerful and intense experience than the opportunity to be the voice of the 307 million people living in this country.
We are on pace this year to have a trade deficit that is larger than $800 billion. We have never faced that before, but we continue to put forward trade agreements like these that leave us naked to competition that is neither free nor fair.
We have a tax code that allows groups to use their political operations within the tax code, under the guise of a charity, to use undisclosed millions of dollars to do political campaigns.
My father was a construction worker most of his life. My mother, when she came from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, to the United States, never had a chance to go to college either and became a clerical worker. But they did nothing but build this country.
Could today's construction worker married to a clerical worker guarantee four children a college education and buy a house? That's what we're fighting about.
I don't consider this hard work. I love it, and I think I get to make a difference. I really believe in Secretary Clinton, and I want to feel like I'm part of making a difference; I really do.
As a regent, I hope to bring that important perspective of a typical family visitor in combination with my background as a Member of Congress and a proponent of the Smithsonian's efforts to reach all Americans.
According to the American Heart Association, the prevalence of hypertension in African Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world.
