Mr. Speaker,
One year ago today, we met in our kickoff House session in a parking lot in Durham. January 6, 2021 began as a day of triumph over adversity.
We gathered with a sense of hope… a new year, a new session, new faces, new leadership… and a new start.
By the end of that day, everything had changed. For me, personally, the biggest change came as a result of my own medical condition. I was diagnosed with Uterine cancer, a particularly aggressive form of it. It has taken a lot from me: energy, participating in activities, walking my dog every day, even my long and much-loved hair has been traded in for my new bald skull and no eye lashes.
But not everything is measured in loss. Following my diagnosis and prolonged cancer battle, I have been bolstered by the loving embrace of my concerned colleagues here in the NH House. I have been overwhelmed by the support you have shown me in my time of difficulty. You have all confirmed my faith in humanity and the ability of everyone’s ability to cast aside partisan differences and display friendship and love when another member is in crisis.I will never forget this outpouring and I stand here today and humbly thank you for that.
However, I also appear before you today feeling conflicted on this one-year anniversary of my diagnosis because as we all are well aware, one year ago today I remember that our country witnessed a moment in history that we won’t and cannot forget.
Not since 1814, when British soldiers marched into Washington, had the Capitol been overrun and pillaged. We all saw the film and photographs. We read the stories about the angry mob that threatened to hang the Vice President. We heard from Senators, House members, and staff aides from both political parties forced to flee for their lives or shelter in terror. We witnessed police officers who were clubbed, beaten, doused with bear spray and abused with racist slurs by the mob.
My friends, that is not the America you and I know and love. Here in THIS House, we disagree, but here we have those arguments with words in a healthy and often vigorous debate.
We do not emphasize our beliefs with the politics of personal attack and with the destruction of property and the threatening of lives and the brutalization of police officers.
Violence in Never the way to decide policy it is never the way to determine how we as a state or as a nation move ahead.
The attacks of one year ago were an attack on the very thing all of us here hold deeply dear – and that is a foundation of making difficult decisions in a democratic forum – with equal access to speak and to help decide the course of our state’s and our nation’s future.
The American poet Maya Angelou described our democracy best in my mind;
“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise. “
I am deeply proud of our New Hampshire way… born from the revolution and built by colonists through town halls and gatherings of all types. We are the descendants of those who showed us the way to resolve conflict peacefully and productively.
We need to join together and stick together and say no to this kind of violence… just as you all joined together in support of one of your own... in support of me. Our state and our country are better than what we saw last January 6… we can learn from it and grow from it and never repeat it.
