Democracy Matters

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAYSON. Madam Speaker, I would like to express my concern about events that are happening now in Brazil. In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff was reelected because a majority of Brazilians wanted to pursue her progressive policies further. But shortly after her reelection, some members of the rightwing opposition started to question the election results and, aided by the conservative media in Brazil, they accused her of manipulating the state budget in order to pay for social programs.

But now they have taken it further than that, and beyond mere accusations, and they have forced her temporarily out of office by impeaching her and putting her out of power while those proceedings take place.

The interim government is implementing the exact policies that were rejected by a majority of Brazilian voters, austerity, cutting social programs, cutting education, cutting housing, cutting health care. These are the things that people wanted; it is what they voted for. Yet, the interim government is undermining democracy by denying these things to the people who voted for them.

My message is simple. Democracy matters. Votes matter. All around the world we are seeing rightwingers trying to deny the democratic forces their rightful power for winning elections.

In Britain, we have seen an effort to undermine the results of Brexit. In Portugal, the same thing happened when a leftwing majority won parliament. And here in the United States, we have efforts to undermine the President. This must end. Democracy matters.

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