Hoyer Remarks at Press Availability Following First Maryland Delegation Meeting of the 119th Congress

WASHINGTON, DC - This afternoon, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) delivered remarks at a press availability following a Maryland Delegation Meeting to discuss priorities for the year ahead. This meeting is the delegation's first of the 119th Congress. Below is a video and transcript of his remarks:

Click here to watch a video of his remarks.

"Thank you very much. And let me say this is an exciting time for the Maryland Delegation in particular.

"We have ten Members, two Members in the Senate, eight Members in the House. We're a bipartisan delegation - thank you, Andy, for making us a bipartisan delegation, although we weren't always trying to make it a bipartisan delegation - so we have the interests of Maryland at heart. This is the Mikulski Room. Barbara Mikulski always talked about Team Maryland, [she] talked about working together.

"And I've been in this delegation when we've been equally divided in terms of party and in terms of gender. But I am really enthusiastic about, we have a new United States Senator, Angela Alsobrooks, from whom you've just heard. And as she did throughout the campaign, she talked about the interest of our constituents. Not our interests, their interests, which is our priority.

"And this is going to be a very challenging Congress. There are a lot of differences on issues, there are a lot of different perspectives on which way to go. And I can guarantee the Maryland voters and Maryland citizens that we will be focused like a laser on their interests and their desire to get costs down. Inflation was a big part of this election. Costs have been very challenging for average working people in our state and around the country. We also want to make sure that our borders are secure. That is an objective that I think we share. There was a bipartisan bill in the Senate that came over to the House that we think furthered that effort. Unfortunately, it didn't pass. But we're going to be continuing to focus on that issue. Very important issues for our people.

"And, of course, we have individual, as a state, interests. We talked about the Francis Scott Key Bridge. That's a big, high priority for us. We believe we are the best site for the establishment or the building of a new FBI facility so that we can have them [be] the most efficient and effective law enforcement agency that they can possibly be.

"I also want to point out that although we have 40% new Members in our delegation, they are extraordinarily experienced Members. We have one who comes - well, I'll go in in order of the numbers - we have a former county executive, two former county executives, Angela Alsobrooks, obviously the County Executive of Prince George's County, one of our largest counties, and one of our other large counties in our state, the County Executive of Baltimore County.

"So we have an extraordinarily strong delegation as it relates to people who were on the ground locally, hearing the issues from their people. And then we have a State Senator, young State Senator, but one of the most effective legislators in the State Senate in terms of bills that she introduced and had signed by the Governor. And Sarah Elfreth represents the Third District, replacing John Sarbanes. Dutch Ruppersberger was "Johnny O's," as we call him, Johnny Olszewski's predecessor. And then from the Sixth District, we have somebody from the administration, somebody who was an Assistant Secretary in the past administration. So she knows the federal executive and she has been active for a long time. Her husband represented that same district for six years, and so she has been intimately involved with the Congress itself. So she hit the ground running.

"So we're going to have a very robust and effective delegation. We are a relatively small delegation, but I believe that we punch way above our numbers and we will continue to do so with our new Members and with Chris Van Hollen, now our senior senator. He and I have worked together, and we're going to make sure that all eight - ten of us - work together closely to the benefit of the people that we represent in not only the state of Maryland, but in the country as well.

"So I'm very pleased to - are we going to introduce everybody? Here's the list. So I'm going to [introduce] one of our senior Members, like the president, came back for a second go round, Kweisi Mfume from Baltimore. But we are Team Maryland. He is a crucial part of that team."