NAUGATUCK – With the unanimous support of delegates from across Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District, Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro accepted the Democratic nomination to run for re-election to the United States House of Representatives.
{{more}}
The nominating convention was held at Naugatuck High School and included the Presentation of Colors by the Marine Cadets of America, Invocation by Pastor Morrison of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church, the Pledge of Allegiance led by Seymour Middle School students Zana and Suzana Imetovski, the National Anthem sung by Charley Tiernan of Hamden Hall Country Day School, musical selections by the Guilford High School Voices, and the benediction by Rev. Edgar Santaella and Pastor Denise Santaella of The Place International.
Placing DeLauro’s name into nomination were John Barto, former Vice President and General Manager, Ansonia Copper and Brass in Ansonia; Dr. Roy Herbst of New Haven and Chief of Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven; Dr. Marlene Schwartz of Guilford and Director of the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity; and Kim Hart of New Haven and member of the New Haven Food Policy Council. Each shared their reasons for supporting DeLauro’s nomination to Congress.
Below is Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s acceptance speech as prepared for delivery:
Thank you. Thank you so much for that warm reception, for your heartfelt support and for your friendship. It means so much to me.
Let me first acknowledge our host—Naugatuck High School and Mayor Peter Hess—thank you for all you do for Naugatuck. I also want to recognize Joan Taf—when the district was expanded to include Naugatuck, she welcomed me with open arms. I also want to thank Ms. Charley Tiernan for that beautiful rendition of our national anthem.
And thank you to the Guilford High School Voices for your gift of music tonight—you make Guilford proud! Thanks also to the Marine Cadets of America from the Armed Forces Reserve Center in New Haven for your presentation of the colors tonight and for your service to our country. Nick Vitale, Alex Rode, Matthew Main, Brendan Flynn, Preston Christy—I am honored to have men of your caliber here.
I want to take a moment to recognize all our soldiers—in Syria, Afghanistan, and around the world. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families. Their courage is an inspiration, and we look forward to their safe return. Pastor Morrison, thank you for your blessings this evening, and for your many contributions to the New Haven community at Varick Memorial Church. I am also so grateful to Reverend Edgar Santaella and Pastor Denise Santaella, who will lead us in the benediction this evening. And thank you to Zana and Suzana Imetovski, from Seymour Middle School, for leading us in the pledge of allegiance.
I also want to acknowledge the delegate nominators on the floor—Lew Panzo of Hamden and Migdalia Castro of New Haven. Thank you so much. And of course, thank you to Jerry Weiner, one of my closest friends whose hard work this evening and commitment over the years have made him an institution in Woodbridge and across the stage.
And thank you to Carol Goldberg—permanent secretary of the convention and a strong voice on the State Central Committee. Carol, politics brought us together, but you have become such a dear friend over the years and I am so thankful for your support.
And thank you to all the volunteers who helped make tonight possible—we could not have done it without you.
I need to thank my strongest supporters of all, my wonderful family. Whatever I have accomplished has only been possible because of their love and their tireless support. My husband, Stan, who has taken on some amazing battles and won them, all around the world. We first met almost 40 years ago, and he has been in my corner ever since.
And I am so proud of our kids: Anna, Kat and her husband Ari, and Jonathan and his wife Justine. And of course, my four grandchildren: Rigby, Sadie, Teo, and Jasper.
I aspire to the example of my own parents, who instilled in me the value of hard work, faith, and education. My mom was always proud of her work and of the opportunities she made real for herself and for her family. She would go on to be New Haven’s longest serving Alderman—or Alderwoman!—over 35 years. She has always been a strong example to me that we should expect more out of life, that we all had a great contribution to make, that we should work hard to fulfill our ambitions and that we should never take no as an answer. Even now, at the age of 102, my mom is still my biggest supporter.
And finally I want to say a particular word of thanks to those who spoke to nominate me this evening. I am humbled by your words—and I take them as a call to continue to fight for our values. John Barto—an American job creator, Dr. Roy Herbst, a pioneer in lung cancer research, Marlene Schwartz, a renowned food policy expert and Kim Hart, a [single mother] fighting to make sure everyone can put food on the table—you represent the endless potential of American ingenuity when people with a vision get the resources and support they need.
From creating manufacturing jobs to pursuing medical advances to working to protect, nurture, and feed our children—you, your work, and your activism represent the best of our state, and I am honored by your nominations. But we need to make sure everyone in this country gets their fair shot to live up to their God-given potential.
We need to level the playing field, to put Connecticut working families first instead of big corporations. We need to rewrite the rules so that working families come first. John’s company was shuttered because of bad trade deals. Dr. Herbst and his colleagues desperately need more federal funding to make lifesaving discoveries. Dr. Schwartz is fighting back against corporations marketing unhealthy foods to children in the midst of an obesity epidemic. And Kim Hart struggles to put food on the table while Republicans slash food stamps and unravel our social safety net. These stories represent the reality of life in America today.
My charge as your representative in Congress is to fight for working families, for increased wages and new jobs, for funding for the programs that benefit our most vulnerable citizens. There is so much on the line in this election—and I will not back down to Republicans who are asleep at the wheel, failing to enact policies that actually help working families.
Congress is an institution that has the power to change people’s lives—that is what it should be used for. And as a member of Congress, I have a responsibility to fight for legislation that reflects the lives people are really living.
The biggest economic challenge of our time is that too many people are in jobs that do not pay them enough to live on. Families are struggling to afford basic essentials like quality childcare and healthy food. They cannot even think about buying a home, taking a vacation, or putting money in a college fund. These are the realities that drive every decision I make in Congress.
I accept your nomination this evening to continue this fight, to run again and serve the people of the 3rd Congressional District. As I have said to you in years past, I take this not as a reward for past service, but as an incentive to work harder, to get things done, and to help make a difference for the families of our district and our nation.
John Barto—thank you for your kind words. John was my guest at the State of the Union last year—his story shows what is on the line when we enter bad trade deals that put corporate profit before the interests of working families. John, you know the impact of trade in our state’s economy all too well—when Ansonia Copper and Brass folded after bad trade deals increased unfair competition from overseas.
At one time, Ansonia Copper and Brass was Ansonia’s largest taxpayer. When this company closed its doors—due entirely to being undercut by countries with cheaper labor and lower standards—350 good paying jobs in Ansonia and Waterbury vanished. Now, the site—where for decades, thousands of people worked three shifts, six days a week—will be demolished. This is not just a cautionary tale—it is a call to action. We must fight against bad trade agreements that pad the pockets of executives while wages are cut and jobs are lost. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was written with rules that work for corporations—not for working families.
Our goal in any trade policy should be to expand and support the middle class. By all accounts, the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership fails to meet that standard. I have led the fight in Congress against the TPP. We cannot allow this harmful agreement to pass—there is too much at stake for Connecticut’s working families.
Instead, we need to pursue policies that make life easier for the American worker—not harder. I firmly believe that access to paid family and medical leave should be a fundamental right for all workers in Connecticut and across the nation, not a lottery based on where you happen to find work.
I have also been a champion for equal pay for equal work. Men and women working the same job deserve the same pay. More than five decades after the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a woman still makes on 79 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by a man. Equal pay is an idea whose time has come—in fact, it is long overdue.
When women and families succeed, America succeeds.
We must continue to fight for a stronger workforce. We should strengthen the tax credits working families rely on, raise the national minimum wage, and make sure all working families have access to affordable childcare.
Dr. Herbst—your call for increased medical research is personal for me. As a 30-year survivor of ovarian cancer, I am alive today thanks to the grace of God and the power of biomedical research. Funding this research has the power to do more good for more people than almost anything else within the purview of government. In the 2016 budget, I fought to have the National Institutes of Health’s budget increased by $2 billion—the largest increase in funding since 2003. This is a crucial step toward restoring the NIH to its full power, but there is still work to be done. Even at this increased funding level, the NIH budget is still seven and half billion dollars below 2003. Think of the discoveries that are lost. Right now, our country is facing three public health crises: The Zika virus, lead poisoning of 9,000 children in Flint Michigan, and the nationwide opioid epidemic. Republicans refuse to appropriate the fund necessary to adequately address these emergencies they are putting thousands of live at risk at home and abroad. Where are their values? The American people deserve so much more than this.
Republicans are stonewalling much-needed increases to medical research and emergency appropriations for national health crises, while Americans suffer and die. Enough. As the Senior Democrat on the Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations subcommittee, I have taken Republicans to task. I will not stand for these shameful stalling tactics—not while American lives are on the line.
Marlene Schwartz—you have made an indelible impact on our community through your research and work at the Rudd Center to keep our children healthy. When more than one-third of children and teens are overweight or obese, the stakes are too high for us to sit back. We must stand up to corporations who want to peddle unhealthy food to children. They market to our children at every turn—and it has a real and disturbing impact. American children are not meeting basic nutritional goals.
That is why I fought for, and got enacted into law—responsible policies like menu labeling. And I will continue to fight for healthy school lunches, Summer EBT, and stopping the subsidization of childhood obesity. Children establish their habits early in life—we have an opportunity to confront obesity and future illnesses head on. These are our children—we owe it to the next generation to put health before corporate profit.
And finally, Kim Hart. I know it takes a lot of courage to stand up and tell your personal story, and I am touched by your kindness and tenacity. I have always fought for SNAP, or food stamps. It is one of the most powerful programs we have for ending childhood hunger in the United States. It impacts over 439,000 Connecticut residents—34,000 of whom live in our district. Food insecurity does not just affect the poorest in our community—it affects the lives of working families, children, workers, the unemployed, seniors, and veterans. There is not just one face of hunger—when we give this program the support it needs, we lift up the entire community.
Republicans want to shift SNAP to the states, in order to cut benefits. Their proposals to address poverty are a sham—and a danger to millions of families. They want to drug test food stamp recipients. This is insulting—and I will continue to go toe to toe with Speaker Ryan to let him know that his party will not get away with balancing the budget on the backs of our nation’s most vulnerable.
In my 25 years as your Congresswoman, we have come so far—but there is still so much work to do. With the new administration next year, we have a prime opportunity to shift the paradigm in this country, and present a vision that at its heart and soul is about improving the lives of America’s hard working but struggling families.
Tonight, I speak to you re-energized for the challenges ahead and ready for the next chapter in our nation’s story. I promise you that if you place your trust in me once more, I will not shy away from these hard-fought battles—I never have, and I never will.
Thank you for your support, and for this nomination. I promise to be there for you to hear your stories, to uphold the values we share, and, each and every day, to be in the thick of it, fighting for working families, and for Connecticut. Thank you.