{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://pressley.house.gov/media/press-releases/video-rep-pressley-calls-robust-direct-cash-payments-people", "VIDEO: Rep. Pressley Calls for Robust Direct Cash Payments for the People", "2020-12-17", "2020", "2020-12", "Democrat", "House", "MA", "Ayanna Pressley", "P000617", "pressley.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Video (YouTube)\nWASHINGTON Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) delivered remarks on the House floor in which she called for robust direct cash payments for the American people to be included as part of any COVID relief package.\nA full transcript of her remarks, as delivered, is available below.\nTranscript: Rep. Pressley Calls for Robust Direct Cash Payments for the People\n\tU.S. House of Representatives\n\tDecember 17, 2020\nMadam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people.\nThe people who are struggling and feel abandoned by their government during this crisis.\nI rise in solidarity with every parent who has struggled to buy diapers and formula. Every family behind on rent or crushed by the grief of an empty chair at the kitchen table.\nOur people are crying out sick, tired, hungry and broken.\nThe people we have taken an oath to serve and protect need direct cash to survive the winter. We must send them survival checks immediately.\nSome of my colleagues are patting themselves on the back for sending corporations payoutscorporations, by the way, who have profited off of people during this pandemicand shaming families on the edge. Shame on them, their theatrics and their callousness.\n450 pennies a day for the last nine months. That's what our government has sent the American people to weather this crisis. And nothing for the immigrant families who drive our essential workforce.\nIt didn't have to be this way.\nOur families deserve direct cash, real survival checks.\n$600 is hardly sufficientit is an insult. We must act to save lives now.\nThe pandemic has not discriminated in its hardship, but it would seem compassion and empathy have.\nThank you, I yield.\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://pressley.house.gov/media/press-releases/video-rep-pressley-calls-robust-direct-cash-payments-people"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4575740788131952, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}