Today I was proud to hold a community meeting with our Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer, leaders, and activists from our community.
pic.twitter.com/jYr3Q65dsH

— Rebecca Seawright (@SeawrightForNY)
July 23, 2021

Roosevelt Island community activists were among those attending the community
meeting with Senator Schumer.

According to a press release from
Assembly Member Seawright:

Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright today held a special district meeting with
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for community leaders of the Upper
East Side, Yorkville and Roosevelt Island. 

The meeting with the New York senior senator at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood
House was arranged by Seawright to hear from the Senator on federal aid for
tenants, small businesses, transportation, health and other vital issues of
community concern. Attendees included advocates, activists, non-profit
representatives, local school leaders, and local hospital healthcare
officials. 

“We owe a debt of gratitude to Majority Leader Schumer who has been tireless
in securing direct economic support to enable our communities to rise, unite
and fight back from COVID-19,” said Seawright.

Seawright thanked Senator Schumer for fighting for economic impact payments,
federal pandemic unemployment compensation, enhanced child tax, and earned
income tax credits, two of the most potent and effective anti-poverty tools
the U.S. government provides.

“As we continue the recovery from the pandemic, we want to ensure that our
district is on the pathway to a thriving Upper East Side, Yorkville, and
Roosevelt Island, ” she said.

Activists spent more than an hour sharing opinions and posing questions on
local concerns.

Before addressing local community issues, Senator Schumer described his
experience of January 6, beginning with the election of 2 Democratic Party
Senators, from Georgia, becoming Senate Majority Leader and ending in the attack and insurrection by supporters
of President Trump at the Capital. 

According to Senator Schumer:

 … As a nation January 6 could be described, at least from my point of
view, by the opening line in Charles Dickens novel A Tale Of Two Cities, 
the best of times the worst of times.

You may remember that January 5th was our election day in Georgia where we had
two Democratic senators if they won, we knew we’d get back to a Democratic
majority. Well, I was very nervous, I stayed up all night watched the
results  Tuesday night bled into Wednesday morning.

I’m on the computer at 2 a.m. What’s the results in Chatham county, how many
African-American turnout was there in Dekalb county. Finally at 4 00 a.m in
the morning, it’s clear that we’ve won and we would gain the Democratic
majority. 

I would replace Mitch McConnell as the majority leader…

… you probably asked yourself the same question I asked myself. How could 74
million people vote for such a despicable human being as Donald Trump and I
don’t care if you’re a liberal or a conservative Democrat or Republican, he is
a vile man, he is dishonest, he is divisive. That’s what he loves to do, just
divide and have people fighting with each other. He’s a racist and he always
appeals to the dark side of human nature which he’s very good at
unfortunately. 

How did they vote for him and I realized that for too many Americans they no
longer had faith in the American dream. We are a bright sunny optimistic
country or have been but in the last 20 years or so a sourness has overtaken
our land and people don’t have faith in that American dream. If you ask the
average American what is the American dream to you  they say it means if
I work hard I’ll be doing better 10 years from now that I’m doing today and my
kids will be doing still better than me.

When people don’t believe that, they can turn to a demagogue and that’s what
they did to some extent in 2020. We didn’t give them a bold strong vision.
Middle class and the people struggling to get to the middle class don’t expect
us to snap our fingers and make all their troubles go away but they expect to
see progress. Our mission and moral was to restore that progress and hope, so
they would never turn to a demigod like they did in 2016 and almost did in
2020. So those were my feelings, joy but awe. 

I can’t sleep. I get in the car at 7 30 in the morning, drive down to
Washington and get on the floor of the Senate for the first time as the
putative majority leader. At 1 pm we’re counting the votes as you may remember
and within an hour before even giving my first speech a police officer in a
bulletproof vest with a submachine gun strapped across his waist grabs me
firmly by the collar. I’ll never forget that feeling and says Senator you’re
in danger. You got to get out of here.

He had to explain to me what the danger was. You may have seen this because
the video security cameras overhead caught it and they showed it at the
impeachment trial. First time I saw. But they show me walking out the Senate
chamber door turning to the right. I’m walking briskly with police officer on
either side go through the door, you don’t see me for 20 seconds and then 20,
25 seconds later we’re running out the door at full speed.

I was within 20 feet of these insurrectionists horrible people, these racist
insurrections, insurrectionist bigots. Had one of them had a gun, had two of
them blocked off the door, lord knows what would have happened. One of them
was reputed to point at me and say there’s the big Jew let’s get him. Worst of
times. Now we’re getting back to the better of times, they’ve arrested about
half of those who invaded the capital…

Stay tuned for more on the meeting with Senator Schumer and discussion of local community issues.