Shomari Figures
Representative for Alabama · Democratic · United States
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of the Water Resources Development Act, which you and I had the opportunity to work on directly together as members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“The $40 million that we secured for various projects will make a real life-changing difference for so many of my constituents and can help towns and cities throughout the Second District, from persistent stormwater management issues in Russell County to aging and overburdened sewer infrastructure in Montgomery County; critical water infra…”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“There are areas in the Second District that are too rural for public sewer service, yet the soil concentration is not conducive to traditional septic systems, so they are left to literally run sewer lines into parts of the woods in some areas of my district. As you can imagine, Mr.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“Whether it is Mobile, Montgomery, Phenix City, Troy, Tuskegee, or Union Springs, every person in Alabama deserves reliable water infrastructure, and this bill moves us in that direction. I am proud of the work that we have done to get here on WRDA, and I strongly urge my colleagues to vote in support of it.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, my father was a lot of things to a lot of people. He was a State senator. He was a civil rights advocate. He was a lawyer and a community leader. To me, he was just Daddy. By any assessment, he exceeded expectations of a Black kid born in 1947 in Mobile, Alabama, in a neighborhood called The Bottle.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“Then, there was one who surprised me: George Wallace--that George Wallace, who, just a few years before my father had integrated University of Alabama Law School, had stood in the schoolhouse doors, famously, to block enrollment of African Americans coming into the school. Later on, their lives would cross paths.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
The complete record
63 held · 31 searchable for Shomari Figures. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account.
This is not an official version of US Congress proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one US Congress publishes.
“Whether it is Mobile, Montgomery, Phenix City, Troy, Tuskegee, or Union Springs, every person in Alabama deserves reliable water infrastructure, and this bill moves us in that direction. I am proud of the work that we have done to get here on WRDA, and I strongly urge my colleagues to vote in support of it.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“There are areas in the Second District that are too rural for public sewer service, yet the soil concentration is not conducive to traditional septic systems, so they are left to literally run sewer lines into parts of the woods in some areas of my district. As you can imagine, Mr. Speaker, this leads to environmental and health safety concerns. The residents of Alabama's Second Congressional District deserve better than this. All Americans deserve better than this. These are real challenges in both rural and urban communities where long-delayed infrastructure replacement and upgrades are difficult to achieve without strong Federal support and partnership.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“The $40 million that we secured for various projects will make a real life-changing difference for so many of my constituents and can help towns and cities throughout the Second District, from persistent stormwater management issues in Russell County to aging and overburdened sewer infrastructure in Montgomery County; critical water infrastructure needs in places like Bullock, Butler, and Macon Counties; and in Prichard, which I mentioned earlier, where currently residents lose about 60 percent of their fresh drinking water before it ever reaches a tap, is unacceptable. This is something that with the resources secured here, we can start fixing those problems or continue fixing those problems. I also have parts of my district that need real help with their sewer infrastructure.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of the Water Resources Development Act, which you and I had the opportunity to work on directly together as members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Safe and clean water is a right in this country, and it is our responsibility to provide the resources that are essential to make this a reality for communities across America. For my district, this bill represents meaningful investments that enhance our water infrastructure, protect our communities, and strengthen our economy. I fought for this bill alongside you, Mr. Speaker, to make sure we were bringing resources to our communities that they need. I secured approval for $50 million in water infrastructure projects across the counties of my district, the Second District of Alabama.”
House of Representatives16 September 2026Source ↗
“As I sit here today, it is only my dream and my hope that one day, my children, the children who I have of my own--I have four now of my own just like my father--that one day they can also look to me with the same admiration, with the same twinkle in their eyes that I did with my father and say, ``I want to be like my daddy,'' and that based on the work that we have done in our lives, that that pathway is made easier and possible for them. ____________________”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“He was the named plaintiff, believe it or not, in the Voting Rights Act case that created the first opportunity district for an African American to represent Alabama since Reconstruction, a seat that is now occupied by Congresswoman Terri Sewell. He literally paved the pathway for me to be here some 30 years after his death. Mr. Speaker, I can stand here today with just a simple message to my father, and that is: I am here because of him. That 10-year-old boy, or barely 11-year-old boy back in September of 1996, became a man, and not just any man. He became a Congressman who can stand on this floor in this House and deliver this speech because of what he and because of what my mother did for me.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“This is in an era where Gatorade commercials were plastered around at the time telling kids that ``I want to be like Mike,'' but the Mike I wanted to be like was not a basketball player. He wore a suit to work, and he was my father. Those footsteps that he left, I would later walk in them. I followed those same footsteps to the University of Alabama, where I got my law degree. I followed those same footsteps to the career that I had at the Department of Justice in seeking to make government work for everybody. I followed those footsteps here to Congress because my father, though he never served in Congress, was a State senator. He was the first Black president of the Alabama State Senate.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“Then, there was one who surprised me: George Wallace--that George Wallace, who, just a few years before my father had integrated University of Alabama Law School, had stood in the schoolhouse doors, famously, to block enrollment of African Americans coming into the school. Later on, their lives would cross paths. As Governor Wallace was winding down his terms as Governor, my father was in the State senate. As a kid, though I did not fully comprehend or understand the magnitude of my father's impact or who he was or what he was and what he meant to so many people, I knew one thing: that the respect that I saw shown to him as a kid, whether it was at a park ballfield, in the aisles at Home Depot, or at a gas station, I knew I wanted to be like that when I grew up.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, my father was a lot of things to a lot of people. He was a State senator. He was a civil rights advocate. He was a lawyer and a community leader. To me, he was just Daddy. By any assessment, he exceeded expectations of a Black kid born in 1947 in Mobile, Alabama, in a neighborhood called The Bottle. He went on to excel academically, went to Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, and was one of a handful of students who were selected to integrate the University of Alabama Law School, and he did that. Mr. Speaker, 3 years later, he walked out as the first African American to graduate from the University of Alabama Law School. He didn't stop there. He got elected to the State senate. Because of the Voting Rights Act, he was one of the first three African Americans to walk into that chamber since Reconstruction.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the anniversary of the most defining day of my life to date, September 13, 1996, a fall afternoon. My mother walked into a waiting room at the University of South Alabama's medical center and announced to a collection of friends, family, and colleagues that my father, Michael Figures, had died. He had suffered a brain aneurysm at the house at the dinner table a couple of nights before and ultimately passed away.”
House of Representatives14 September 2026Source ↗
“Speaker, as I stand here today as a Member of Congress, someone who has followed in her footsteps, it is not only my father who I seek to make proud in this moment, but it is Alexis Herman. I can stand here today because of people like her. ____________________”
House of Representatives29 April 2025Source ↗
“She then helped get African Americans jobs and apprenticeships at the shipyards for the first time in Mississippi. That led her to doing similar work in Atlanta and helping to diversify some corporations there. That caught the attention of a young Georgia Governor named Jimmy Carter, who was running for President. He ultimately named her, at just 29 years old, the director of the Women's Bureau at the Department of Labor. Mr. Speaker, her journey took her from a segregated Alabama to serving as an adviser to Jimmy Carter and, ultimately, serving as the director of the Office of the Public Liaison, as it was called at the time, under President Clinton. That led to her being a member of the President's Cabinet as the Secretary of Labor where, under her tenure, unemployment fell to a 30-year low here in the United States.”
House of Representatives29 April 2025Source ↗
“They were people who all were born within a 10- to 15-year range of each other, African Americans, names that some know around the world, like Hank Aaron, but others like my father, Michael Figures, and Thomas Figures, General Gary Cooper, Lonnie Johnson, Yvonne Kennedy, Sam Jones, and this body's very own Sanford Bishop. They were all born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, in generally the same timeframe, and went on to break through a number of barriers, color barriers and otherwise, throughout their careers and make significant contributions to this Nation. Mr. Speaker, Alexis Herman's parents prepared her for the life that she had. Her father was actually the first Black person elected in the State of Alabama to any position post-Reconstruction. This led to him being very active and motivated in Black voter participation.”
House of Representatives29 April 2025Source ↗
“I then pursued career opportunities at the White House. Again, I called on Alexis Herman because she too had worked in the White House multiple times. When considering a run for Congress, the seat that I now hold today, I again called Alexis Herman. That is not because I had known her my whole life, it is because few people could advise on the level that she could. Mr. Speaker, to understand Alexis Herman, you have to understand where she comes from. She was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, my hometown. She came of age with a number of people and some names who you would recognize if you are from the Mobile area.”
House of Representatives29 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of a true hometown hero, a legendary trailblazer, a family friend, a mentor to me and many others, and the former Secretary of Labor for this great Nation, Alexis Margaret Herman. I had the privilege to work on a Presidential campaign myself, President Obama's campaign. Before I decided to join that campaign, I called Alexis Herman because she had worked on several Presidential campaigns.”
House of Representatives29 April 2025Source ↗
“We have to continue to address those environmental health threats in places like Alabama and across the country, where you see disproportionately higher rates of cancer in certain communities because they are located in certain places. We have to be serious about this. It is a privilege to be able to speak on the importance of this issue, especially under the leadership of Representative Clyburn.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“Nobody should have to choose between getting treatment and putting food on the table. There are too many people who should be able to go see a doctor who are not because they refuse to expand Medicaid. We also have to invest in our healthcare infrastructure, particularly in our rural healthcare infrastructure, bringing back those hospitals and clinics and bringing in telehealth hubs, leveraging every resource we have to improve healthcare outcomes. We have to increase funding for Black maternal health initiatives because these are problems we should not be having in 2025. In 2025, we should not be having nearly as many women die from childbirth complications and pregnancy-related causes as we do. When you look at the disparities racially, it is stark. It is shocking. We have to get to the bottom of why that is.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“That is because this is impacting people of African-American descent and Black people in this country in the way it is not impacting other races. We have an obligation, a moral duty as a nation to figure out why. That is why cuts to things like NIH aren't productive. It is not helpful. It is harmful. If you ever want your conscience to be shocked, walk into a dialysis treatment facility in probably any community in this country, then do the statistics yourself. Ask yourself why that is and why can't we figure that out. Why are we not investing more resources, more time, and more attention and focus on trying to improve healthcare outcomes for Black people in this country? We have to. We must. We must start this process by expanding Medicaid in States like mine, the State of Alabama. We must do that.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“People in the State of Alabama have been trying to get me to come visit as many healthcare facilities as possible to shed light and to give more context behind what's really happening in the healthcare system in the State of Alabama. The dialysis community brought me in for a tour last week in Montgomery, Alabama, at the DaVita Center. You see these nurses and technicians that are doing God's work in keeping people alive, but one thing jumps out at you. You can't help but see that every patient in there looks like me. Every kidney dialysis patient looks like me, and so I asked: Is this just a certain day or is this how it goes? They had representatives from five or six facilities there, and all of them said the same thing: No, our patient rolls are about 90 percent Black.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“How do you get retirees to want to come back home where they grew up and set up shop, and you tell them, we don't have a hospital, we don't have a geriatrician? Seven of the thirteen counties in my district don't even have a pediatrician. We have to get serious about addressing this issue in the community. It is an existential threat, it truly is. We know the other statistics: Black Alabamians are more likely to suffer from diabetes and amputations that result from them or to die from untreated cancers or undiagnosed cancers or late-diagnosed cancers and experience preventable complications from just general chronic illnesses. When it comes to kidney disease and dialysis access, the results are alarming.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“We have to understand that these counties where these hospitals have been closing that insurance remains out of reach because the jobs aren't there. We have to understand that preventative care in many of these places is also just a dream because the condition of the communities don't warrant healthcare practitioners setting up shop there or staying there. I don't care who you are. I come from Alabama, we treat Nick Sabin, and rightfully so, as the greatest college football coach of all time, but I can tell you one thing about this: Nick Sabin could not close a recruiting pitch to a business to come relocate in a county that does not have a hospital. I don't care who you are. Businesses don't want to relocate there. Hell, businesses don't even want to remain there.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“I think we are technically third by some decimal points, so congratulations, we live a few weeks longer in the State of Alabama than, say, West Virginia and Mississippi. It is nothing to really be proud of. We are at the bottom of the barrel. Yet, we haven't expanded Medicaid, which is one of the reasons that the first piece of legislation that I joined when I was fortunate enough to be sworn into this body was the COVER Now Act, which would allow counties and cities to be able to get Medicaid expansion funding directly and get through the resistance that the State has put up now for well over a decade. We have got to do better than that. We can continue to ring the alarm, but we have to do better. We have to. We have to address the underlying causes and the underlying issues here.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“Just while I was running for office, we saw at least four shutter. We are on pace in my district alone to see every single hospital close within the next several years that are not located pretty much in just Mobile or Montgomery. That is unacceptable because it creates conditions that make it tougher for Black people to be able to receive care, for all people to be able to receive care. The disparities in access we know are well documented, so we know that that burden will disproportionately hit the African-American community. This is places that have contributed so much to this Nation, places like Tuskegee, Alabama, that gave us so much, places like Troy, Alabama, that gave us John Lewis, places like Montgomery, Alabama, where their largest hospital is in bankruptcy right now.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“We are seeing across the State of Alabama, particularly in our rural counties, which if you know anything about the South, those rural counties in the South typically have higher Black populations, going back to the historical role and the historical place that they were for slavery, and the descendants stayed there. We are seeing hospitals in these rural communities shut down. This leads to cuts in just general healthcare services, and they create healthcare deserts, forcing folks to drive in some cases, literally, hours for basic care, in some cases well over an hour to be able to get to a hospital. Just in my home State alone, in this district that I ran in, we saw several hospitals close just across the 13 counties that compose my district, just while I was running for office.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“Too often, they live miles from the nearest hospital or clinic, particularly in these rural areas, these rural parts of America, where we are seeing hospitals closed. We are seeing them shut down. We are seeing it more difficult for them to even access basic care. We see in places across Alabama where maternal mortality rates for Black women are more than double that of White women. I am proud to be from the State of Alabama, but I am not proud of all of its health statistics. In fact, I am not proud of most of them. Alabama is America's worst State for maternal mortality. More women die after childbirth in the State of Alabama than anywhere else in America, period. That is not just Black women, that is women in general. The disparity for Black women is alarming, more alarming in that context. It is just unacceptable.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“I subscribe to the notion that no one should be left without access to a doctor, a hospital, or an ambulance simply because of where they are from. The disparities should not be as drastic as they are for people of color. Yet, in places like Barbour County and Washington County and Conecuh County across my district, the data tells the devastating story about who has access to care and who has historically been left behind. I know this is not just unique to Alabama. We see it in South Carolina. We see it in Massachusetts, as my colleague just spoke about. We see it in Mississippi, Georgia, and other places as well, where Black residents face higher rates of those chronic, preventable diseases and illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes. They suffer disproportionately from things like stroke and heart attack.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on an urgent issue that affects the health, well-being, and prosperity of Black families, not just across the State of Alabama that I call home, but across this country, the staggering healthcare disparities that persist across this country and across too many counties in districts like mine, the Second Congressional District of Alabama. Let me be clear at the outset: I do not subscribe to the notion that healthcare is a luxury, that healthcare should be available to those who can afford it, that healthcare should be dependent on where you come from, where you were born, the ZIP Code that you reside in. I believe that healthcare is a basic human right. We know Jesus gave it for free.”
House of Representatives28 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, today I rise with a deep sense of responsibility to highlight an issue that is disappointing that we have to highlight. We just spent the weekend, myself and colleagues on both sides of the aisle from both the Senate and the House and people from around the country and around the world, down in Selma, Alabama, and Montgomery, Alabama, commemorating the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, which recognizes the importance of voting rights.”
House of Representatives11 March 2025Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege last night of sitting in this Chamber yet again, and I witnessed a lot of my colleagues cheering as the President rattled off the numbers, the statistics, and the data of how many people he has terminated and has laid off or fired. Whatever my colleagues want to call it, people are out of a job. As I sat here, I sat in a little bit of amazement because these aren't just statistics that we are talking about. These are people.”
House of Representatives5 March 2025Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this Special Order.”
House of Representatives24 February 2025Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay honor and respect to all those who paved the way and had a hand and responsibility for me standing here today as a Member of Congress, a place where I could not stand in this capacity when this building was constructed, both those historical figures as well as those who more presently were actively involved in supporting and praying for and campaigning for us to be here. That includes my wife, Dr.”
House of Representatives5 February 2025Source ↗