Jackie Speier Quotes

Jackie Speier shares candid thoughts on politics, survival and public service that feel uplifting and realistic.

40 quotes

We were about to board the planes for the flight back to the United States. Jim Jones didn't want us to leave, at least not alive. A tractor trailer loaded with men armed with shotguns and rifles pulled up and opened fire on us at that airstrip. Congressman Ryan was gunned down, having been shot 40 times. The first and only congressman in the history of this country to be assassinated during the line of duty. I was shot five times and left to bleed on that airstrip for 22 hours. Back at Jonestown, over 900 people lost their lives in a mass murder and suicide that night. This is what I awoke to on that long day. I was 28 years old, and I was waiting to die. I laid awake all night fearing some of the gunmen would come back and finish us off. Time passed, and local Guyanese people offered me rum to try and get me through the night. I had a lot of time to think. I promised God that if I lived, I would make every day count. I promised that I would make something out of my life if I was allowed to keep my life. Well, here I am. I have chosen a career as a public servant. One, I hope many of you will contemplate as you move forward in your lives.

#1
Leo Ryan's life and his deeds are about a life that was so much more than Guyana. He was relentless in his search for answers, answers that were not readily available by just asking questions...We remember him today because his story is so much like those of most Americans; we want to believe the best and we sometimes hear the worst.

#2
I'm a big believer that success is never final and failure is never fatal., San Francisco Examiner, April 5, 2008

#3
Jackie Speier Senate website

#4
Jackie Speier election website

#5
2006 Candidates for Lt. Governor

#6
Senator Speier's Legislation History

#7
California June Primary Results

#8
San Francisco City & County website

#9
San Mateo County website

#10
Jackie Speier -- moving on, moving up: Survivor of Jonestown ambush plans run for lieutenant governor, November 16, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle

#11
Reforming California's Prisons: An Interview With Jackie Speier, Mother Jones, July 7, 2005

#12
Commencement Speaker, San Francisco State University, 2006

#13
Senator Jackie Speier one of honored guests at banquet, Armenian National Committee of America Western Region, October 2006.

#14
Every American has the right to feel safe in their schools, in their churches, in their movie theaters, and in their nightclubs.
With a measly 18 percent of our Congress composed of women, the U.S. ranks just 77th in the world in terms of women in elected office, surpassed by such countries as Ezbekistan and Moldova.
If the director of the department doesn't even know what the privacy policy is, we are in trouble.
People have a right to surf the Web without Big Brother watching their every move and announcing it to the world. The Internet marketplace has matured - and it's time for consumers' protections to keep pace.
It's more important than ever for America to rededicate itself to manufacturing at home. When we make more products in America, more American families will make it.
When we foster an economy without hope, we guarantee that a segment of our population will be destined to know homelessness on a permanent basis, and not for the one night I voluntarily spent at a shelter.
Working 40 hours a week used to mean a minimum standard of living and a foothold on the first rung of the economic ladder to the middle class.
When I recently spent a night at a homeless shelter, I was dismayed that members of the middle class had moved in and that earning above the minimum wage did not protect adults from having to share a room with dozens of others.
We need affordable childcare and paid sick leave so workers don't have to choose between their health and their livelihood.
We think nothing of protecting consumers from faulty toasters or unsafe cars. Is it unreasonable to suggest that investors are entitled to information they can trust before investing their hard-earned money? I don't think it's unreasonable at all.
What a gun does to a person who survives is devastating as well. Whether it's the surgeries, I had over ten, the years of physical therapy, the emotional and physical scars that you endure and have to come to grips with the fact that you are different.
Since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the gap between men and women's earnings has narrowed by less than a half-cent per year. At this rate, American women will have to wait until 2062 to bring home the same salary as their male counterparts.
It is important for us to be able to meet and greet the people that we serve. And if we start having police presence everywhere we go, it's going to create a chilling effect on discourse, and it creates an incredible assault on the democratic process.
We must start to treat climate change as what it is - a threat to United States security. And we must not delay.
In my district, California 14, we have about 4,000 families who are on food stamps, but some of my colleagues have thousands and thousands more. Yet, they somehow feel like crusaders, like heroes, when they vote to cut food stamps.
As members of Congress, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to the United States, not the Republican or Democratic party. I have been willing to stand up to my own leadership when it's in the national interest.
Planned Parenthood has a right to operate. Planned Parenthood has a right to provide family planning services. Planned parenthood has a right to perform abortions.
It is past time that consumers recognize the emerging power of 'Made In America' products and services. The nation's shopping list needs this header: Check out what is made here before you 'go' overseas.
Privacy isn't negotiable. It's the right of every American.
There is no longer any anonymity on the Web - unless we mandate it. The most personal information about your online habits is collected, bought and sold, often instantaneously and invisibly. Data collection is a business driven by profits at consumers' expense.
Every day is Earth Day, and I vote we start investing in a secure climate future right now.
When a government for the people becomes a government in spite of the people, then who are we really serving?
I don't know what these Republican congressmen drink that make them experts on women's reproductive health.
My life experiences have helped me to be less fearful. In politics, that has allowed me to take on issues sooner rather than later.
My family wasn't particularly political. Mom and Dad voted, but that was the extent of their involvement. In fact, I ended up going to U.C. Davis because, to them, Berkeley was too radical.
We must start to prepare for a warming world in the same way that we prepare for the possibility of terrorism - by making sure our infrastructure is secure and by working to minimize threats as much as possible.