Hoyer Discusses House Democrats’ For The People Agenda at Bloomberg Government’s 2019 Fall Hill Watch Breakfast

On the Passing of Chairman Cummings

“It’s a sad morning… Elijah Cummings was what Washington and America needs more of – a very decent, thoughtful, kind, but courageous leader… He and I were very, very close. It is a loss, certainly, for his city. He was beloved in Baltimore, but he was beloved throughout our state, and he was respected and loved here in the Congress of the United States. It will be a great loss for the Congress, for his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and for our country...”

On Advancing Prescription Drug Legislation

“…We’re going to bring that bill to the Floor as soon as its ready to come to the Floor… We pledged in our For the People agenda to do a number of things. One of which was bring health care costs down, and that dealt not only with the Affordable Care Act and health care, but also prescription drugs, which are such a challenge for people… That’s a high priority for us, and that is probably our most important piece of legislation that we will be doing [this work period].”

On Making Progress For the People

“…We are proceeding on our legislative agenda, what we told the people we would do. We have done a lot to date on making sure that we’ve addressed wages, we did the minimum wage bill… that we addressed gender equality in terms of pay, pay equity… pension security for, literally, hundreds of thousands who are at risk because the multi-employer pension system is failing… But my point is: there are some who say, ‘oh, they are just focused on impeachment.’ We have a heavy and have had a heavy legislative agenda, passed very significant pieces of legislation that, unfortunately, sit unattended in some basket that Mr. McConnell has somewhere, but they have not reached the [Senate] Floor.”