When the ebola has been such a big concern for many, including politicians who in some cases ran campaigns on ebola, we have have thethe senate opportunity to confirm a Surgeon General for this country. There are a number of nominations that must work its way in before the end of the year. We believe that we heard the public right. We will stick to trying to help as much as possible all those families that are survived the difficult times as a result of the wall street crash. We will focus most importantly on the middle class. We can build on the more than 10 10. 5 million jobs created over the last 54 months. We can hope to continue that progression of more than 200 thousand jobs created for the last nine months we continue to have more americans with Health Security that we take for granted in this room. We learned just recently that we have the highest rate of High School Graduation in our country ever. We saw that five states, four of them red, the people in those states said, we should give americans who work for minimum wage arrays. A raise. The American People have spoken to us. It is all about helping the middle class. If you do that, than Everything Else will fall into place good we are ready to do that. Let me introduce my colleagues. They will speak in order after the vicechairman. Congressman from the 31st cocongressman from the Second District in nebraska, and congressman elect from the 33rd district in the state of california. With that, let me yield to the vice chair from new york. Let me thank that chathank tn for his service, and to the caucus. It has done a great job. Through some very difficult times. Those difficult times they will exist for some time to come. We look forward to the 114th congress. I look forward to working with them. Welcome to this wonderful and diverse incoming freshmen democratic class to our congress. Right now, it reinforces what this incoming freshmen class before i turn it over to them, i think, as many of you of heard me say before, with all the natural calamities that happened around the world, and happened here in the United States, some of the more manmade calamities, like war itself and what we have seen happen with crimea, ukraine, middle east, the uncertainty that exists. The other natural calamities in terms of ebola, and the uncertainty that has created for the American People. The American People are looking for more stability coming out of washington, d. C. Something they have not had over the past two years. We have seen manmade instability, shutting down our government, threatening not to pay the national debt. We hope those days are behind us and we can pass a clean cr before we leave the 113th congress, that we can have tax extenders that makes sense for small businesses, entrepreneurs, that we can Task Terrorism risk insurance. That is important to our city and country. Those are ways in which i think our republican colleagues can demonstrate that they are here to work on behalf of the American People, and not just political selfinterests. I look forward to working in a bipartisan spirit to make those things happen, and look forward to this incredible incoming freshmen class. I have the distinction of having the opportunity to introduce to you the most senior of the Incoming Freshman class. Seniority means everything here. Alma adams from North Carolina. Thank you. Thank you. I join with all of my colleagues, thanking them, and looking forward to working with them, and the entire Democratic Caucus, and the republicans as well. I come from North Carolina. We have had we have made National News there. I am happy to be here. To represent the citizens of the 12th district, who had no representation for 10 months. That is almost a year. That is as close to a year as you can get. After i was sworn in yesterday, i am happy to be here to get to work for them, to work with this 113th congress and be sworn in again to the 114th congress. It is unique for me. I had two primaries. I had two general elections. I will be sworn in the second time. It has been a wonderful experience for me, to also be the 100th woman in this 113th congress. With that comes a lot of responsibility. Representing and advocating for women and children and families for working families for workers, and for middleclass families. I am an educator by training for 40 years. I served for 30 years. I am here to work. I have the experience to do that. I am looking forward to making a difference, not only for the 12th district, but the citizens of the United States of america. It is good to be here. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I would like to introduce now my colleague from california, 31st district, pete aguilar. Thank you. As the vicechairman said, we are all a little envious of her position. It is my honor to be here. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to join you. I am currently the mayor in redlands, california. I am Congress Member elect for the 31st district. During this campaign, we talked about a lot of things. Chief among them was a middleclass initiative, which was a return to discussing issues that are so important to the middle class in southern california. Creating jobs, supporting investments in education, making sure we honor the commitments to our veterans and our seniors. Those are going to be the focus of me and my colleagues in this caucus. Under great leadership, we are already talking about these issues that affect our communities. I want to thank them for the opportunity and i look forward to this orientation where we continue to learn and grow and get ready to deliver for our constituents come january. We will be getting ready to deliver and to Work Together on both sides of the aisle. As a local mayor, i have a track record working together to a accomplish things. I look forward to continuing those efforts. It is my pleasure to introduce another one of my colleagues within the 114th congress, brad ashford, congressman elect from nebraska. Thank you. I heard on npr about that. I am proud to meet you. I have never been to a caucus meeting. I have been in the legislature for 16 years. We dont have caucus is our party. This is interesting. This is a whole different deal. I am convinced i also, when i was running for office, i was going to find 25 friends. Ive gotten over that. I have 25 plus democrats and republicans ive never been so impressed by a group of individuals in my life. So much enthusiasm, confidence, and hopefully, if i can just add, a tradition of nonpartisan problemsolving, like we have a nebraska, hopefully we can do that. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. All right. Congressman elect ted lieu. Yes. We can go now, were finished. From california. I am thrilled to be here. Let me also thank everyone for the incredible job you have done. I have been here less than 24 hours. Somebody asked me what the differences between here and southern california. Coat checks. This is diverse. We are also proud that a quarter of that class are veterans. I served in active duty in the air force. Im still in the reserves. I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle. It is clear to me that voters want us to Work Together. I believe we can get agreement on transportation, infrastructure funding, protecting the privacy of americans from illegal surveillance. There are also the areas where we will not agree. Those areas are where we will protect our core values. We will protect a womans right to choose. We will protect Social Security and medicare. We will fight for the middle class. On those issues where we can agree to help middle class, we will agree and cooperate. On those issues that hurt the middle class, we will fight to oppose them. I look forward to working with everyone to make our country stronger and safer. Im thrilled to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much. You can understand why we are very proud of the Democratic Caucus. 2 3 are women or minority. It continues a tradition in the Democratic Caucus of continuing to elect individuals who represent what is america today. We are very proud of that. With that, we will take any questions. Theres a report in the New York Times that the president will likely act on Immigration Reform in the coming weeks. I am wondering if you had heard about any of this or had a chance to read these reports. If i can get your reaction to that. I have had a chance to read this same reports, but i know nothing about their veracity. I do know that the president was very clear months ago. He was very clear last week in a lunch with the house and Senate Democratic and Republican Leadership that he was going to take action since congress had failed to do anything to fix the broken immigration system. He was going to try to do what he could to make the law Immigration Law work well, efficiently, and as intelligently as possible. He is committed to act before the end of the year, but more than that, i do not know. You just read the reports . He did not say in our luncheon when he would act. He did say he would act by the end of the year. All the questions about what the president might do to make the broken immigration system work better were posed by republicans. They were posed by republicans. The president was responding to their inquiries. I know that he was hoping that we would have more time during the lunch to discuss economy, jobs, some of the pressing issues like ebola, syria, iraq. He made it clear that he thought about this quite a bit. Short of congress acting, congress has not acted. He was going to try to see what he could do to make the broken immigration system work better where he could under the law. The republican position on Immigration Reform especially executive order weve had several republicans today saying you are really his word was, there could be an explosion. Is there concern here that we could be going back down that road like we did last fall if the president moves ahead of time and that really complicates the cr . Today, tomorrow, next week we could the president could take any type of action on immigration if the house of representatives would unstick its gears and let us vote to improving our laws. For more than a year and a half, about a year and a half, the house has had sitting in his chamber a deal that had 60 aide votes that would fix the broken immigration system. My sense is that the president would like to see the house Republican Leadership act, whether it is on the senate bill or anything else, to do something. Short of that, i think the president is prepared to do what he can using his executive authority to prioritize how we go out there and make a broken immigration system with broken laws work. Again, it is hard to understand why any member in congress would complain to the president about trying to make things work better when it it is in the full purview of those same members to make the law work right by making the changes necessary. We can act and dispose of the need for the president to do anything. If it comes to that wouldnt this be different . The president took this action and created this problem. Maybe in the court of public opinion, its different than the government standoff last fall. I will simply say this to impose ultimatums at a time when the president has said lets Work Together, i think it would be a bad way to start. The president said if congress acts, i will stand down. I will not need to act. Short of congress acting, and in six years, congress has not acted, he is prepared to try to do what he can, as he did two years ago. My sense is that all we have to do is see congress do its job and act. We wont have to worry about the president trying to act through his executive powers. To start with ultimatums if you dont do this our way, we will not do anything else that to me would be a bad sign. Let me ask my other colleagues to respond. I would add to that, as i mentioned before, talking about threatening to shut down the government because they dont get their way or because the president is trying to improve the way in which the laws are carried out i think his childlike, quiet frankly. We need to stop creating more uncertainty. That is not going to help. It will create more uncertainty. That is what we need to into that is what we need to end here. It is no secret, the president talked about executive order for quite some time. We know that it has been coming down the path. It is not the first time a president has use executive order to carry out major events in history of the United States, quite frankly. To add to that, if and when and i believe the president will carry through with issuing executive order it still will not address every issue that needs to be addressed. The Congress Still needs to come back here and fix what is a broken immigration system. That does not change. That still needs to be addressed. Its about time the Republican Congress and the house and senate take charge. The responsibility is squarely on them to act on this issue. What is your position on that right now . We will have an opportunity the bill was sprung on us. This is not the way you typically handle legislative policy, where all of a sudden a bill comes before you for consideration and debate. It is a closed rule, which is another sign that were not having full transparency and democratic action on the floor of the house. Members will not have an opportunity to fully express themselves on behalf of their constituents to try to make changes to a bill that we rarely saw and to try to improve it or perfected. The process is flawed to begin with. This is an important issue which has been on the minds of some members for for quite some time. In my particular case, my biggest concern is this, someone wants to make money by extracting petroleum from shale in canada, pipe it through the United States to get to our ports on the gulf, to then have it exported to who knows which country or what place to sell at a pretty good profit there is no guarantee that an american will benefit one drop from the oil that will be transported through our turf by the company in canada that is getting ready to make money by exporting the oil out of our ports in the gulf. What is in it for americans . Especially if there is some kind of catastrophe or leak of the oil it will happen on our turf. My understanding is that this proposal that is before us would exclude the company that is shipping this oil to the pipeline from any liability should there be a spill, which does not make sense. We get the ill effects of the spill. We get the contamination. And this company is getting all the profits. That would concern me greatly, if americans are not going to benefit from a pipeline that is going all the way across our country, north to south, so that some company in canada can make profits by selling oil to people outside of the United States. I have concerns. I would like to have an opportunity to debate and amend that. This bill and this process that has been set up by the republicans in the house will not permit that. I have real concerns about moving forward with the legislation as it is. Given the results of tuesdays election, give us some idea of the color or tenor of the meetings about the same Leadership Team going back in the field for 2016. This is where it would be nice to hear from the newer members as well. I learned after 22 years that an election is an election. Some of our colleagues have learned that you should not take anything for granted. An election for leadership in the Democratic Caucus, Republican Caucus is no different. You still have to come out with the votes. I dont believe anybody in our Democratic Caucus will be elected to serve as a leader unless he or she deserves that opportunity to lead. We will have an opportunity to have a discussion, debate, about who should be our Leadership Team. I fully respect and will abide by the wishes of our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus on how to move forward on an agenda that will work for all americans. Again, i have been to enough elections to know that it is the votes that count, not what you say or do. We will find out who members of the Democratic Caucus vote for to be members of the leadership. If it is folks you have seen before, it is because theyve earned the opportunity to meet again. As a member of the present leadership, and i say this for the new members as well, something they will experience, the collective wisdom of the caucus. That is what i have faith in. I continue to have faith in that. It will service well as a caucus. Thank you for that, mr. Vice chairman. I think one of the things the new members are looking for is leadership. Who shares our values. Chief among them is an investment and commitment to the middle class. Those are things that i hear being discussed in our community and in that caucus room. That is what im looking for with the leadership and within the discussions we will be having in the future, to make sure that our leadership will reflect the values of the Democratic Caucus, reflect the values of my community, which is important to grow the middle class, create jobs, invest in education. Those are things i want to see out of our caucus and leadership. I might too, if i could. I would like to comment a little bit on the issue of the pipeline. In nebraska, we spent a considerable amount of time