In July, Congressional Management Foundation Announced Pressley as a Winner for Outstanding Achievement

Remarks (YouTube) | Photos (Dropbox)

WASHINGTON – At a ceremony in Washington, DC, the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) honored Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) as the winner of a Democracy Award, CMF’s annual awards recognizing non-legislative achievement and performance in congressional offices. Rep. Pressley, a former staffer for Senator John Kerry and Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, was announced as a winner for outstanding achievement in the category of Constituent Accountability & Accessibility.

In May, Rep. Pressley was selected as a finalist and in July, the Congressional Management Foundation announced Rep. Pressley as a winner for the award. In 2023, she was also selected as a finalist in the category of Life in Congress: Workplace Environment.

“I am humbled to receive and accept this Democracy Award. This is a testament to my outstanding staff in Boston and DC who work day in and day out to bring government to the people who call the Massachusetts 7th home,” said Congresswoman Pressley. “As a former Congressional staffer, I know how critical accessibility and accountability are. I am so fortunate to work with a team that makes every effort to build meaningful relationships with folks in our district and build trust. It is a privilege to do this work, and I look forward to continuing to serve the people of the Massachusetts 7^th alongside my team.”

“Rep. Ayanna Pressley has gone above and beyond to put constituent needs first and keep residents appraised of federal resources available through her office,” said Jen Daulby, President and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation. “We are proud to recognize her office with the Democracy Award for ‘Constituent Accountability and Accessibility’ for developing an exemplary cooperative culture that serves the public with dedication and professionalism.”

CMF cited the following as reasons for selecting Rep. Pressley as winner for an award:

“The office of Rep. Ayanna Pressley aims to practice ‘cooperative governing’ and ‘keeping those closest to the pain closest to the power.’ This model of governing informs every interaction that the office has with constituents. The office ensures that videos are captioned and photos include ‘alt-text’ for constituents with hearing and visual impairments, and it is standard practice to use CART or live ASL translation for public community events. Finally, the office has inculcated into staff a mentality to look for and create access to constituents where barriers could exist. This includes language barriers, physically accessibility issues, even providing child care services at events so parents can attend.”

A full transcript of Congresswoman Pressley’s remarks at the ceremony is available below and full video is available here. For photos of the ceremony, click here.

Transcript: Pressley Honored at ‘Democracy Awards’ Ceremony for Constituent Accountability & Accessibility
September 26, 2024
Washington, DC

Good morning all, it is wonderful to be with all of you. 

Many are probably unaware, I’ve been in Congress now for six years, but prior to my serving on the Boston City Council and then being elected to Congress, I was an aide for 16 years. 

Six years in the House and a near decade in the United States Senate. 

So this award is deeply meaningful to me and every member of my team, because I know firsthand that the success of a Congressional office relies on the vision of the member and the dedicated work and personal sacrifice of the team day in and day out. 

So in the spirit of that, although they prefer to be behind the scenes, as a proud mama, I guess, I will embarrass them and ask them to come to the stage and stand with me. 

I want to invite up my Chief of Staff Sarah Groh, and my Acting District Director Eddie Rupia. It’s only right that they accept this award alongside me. 

They are the humble, behind the scenes players. So, again, I know they are uncomfortable in this moment, but it’s deeply important to me that they are given their flowers because they are truly who make this work possible daily. 

I am so grateful for my entire team back home in Massachusetts and here in Washington who work alongside me daily. I always say that “you don’t work for me, you work with me.”

Thank you to the Congressional Management Foundation and the entire CMF team for this honor and congratulations to all of my colleagues who have been nominated and honored today. 

When I was elected to Congress in 2018, we held a ceremonial swearing-in, in community at one of our incredible community colleges, Roxbury Community College. And my team and I worked together to write a community pledge that we would take together, because I believe that we have to do this work in symbiotic partnership with community.

And so it was a way to affirm our collective commitment to this work and to set out together, to be disruptive for good and innovative for equity.

And we knew and believed in the transformative potential of government. But we also knew that many folks in our district, the Massachusetts 7th, saw government as a series of broken promises and harmful policies. 

So we wanted to foster and build that trust from the ground up and set a standard for something I characterize as cooperative governing. 

So over the past nearly three terms in office, we have built, with intention, equity and access into the work that we do daily.

Our goal is accessibility in every sense, so of course we hold town halls and “Coffees with the Congresswoman” in person and virtually. 

We make intentional choices about access including on-site language translation, American Sign Language or CART captions on site. We also produce materials digitally and in hard copy in multiple languages. And we think about the barriers to access that people face when it comes to government services and prioritize holding events that are close to public transit, we hold remote office hours where folks can access casework support at their local lunch spot or a library.

And for our community events, we provide free food, usually contracting a local woman- or minority-owned small business, we make it a practice to provide resources like on-site childcare, and to encourage people from every walk of life and every family model to engage and to participate.

I can’t emphasize enough that part of a commitment to accessibility is also being willing to take feedback, to do more and to do better. 

And we have learned so much the last six years and we are constantly working to make our office and federal resources more accountable and more accessible.

I always maintain that the people closest to the pain should be the closest to the power, driving and informing the policymaking. That is the true practice of this cooperative governing that we’ve created.

And so, in addition to going the extra mile when it comes to follow-ups and building relationships with the folks we represent, we also encourage and train our staff to identify casework and mail program content for our legislative pipeline.

So one such example of this, and I also think it speaks to the power of one, that a constituent sent an email in, cited a problem, and we worked for two years in close partnership with them, that ultimately became a defining piece of legislation within our portfolio and a bill that was signed into law. 

It’s the Post Disaster Mental Health Act. So a constituent, Manya Chylinski, who was impacted by the Boston Marathon bombing, had trouble accessing post-disaster resources. 

FEMA programs were in place for those who lost limbs or experienced physical injuries, but if you were in need of psychological first aid — and the thing about trauma because I’ve worked in that space for a very long time, it doesn’t always immediately present. It manifests in everyone differently. 

So for those who suffered psychologically after surviving the attack, they couldn’t access mental or behavioral health services from FEMA.

So we worked in collaborative fashion, with survivors and advocates to draft responsive legislation to get this technical change successfully signed in to law by President Biden, ensuring that folks that are impacted by various disasters, whether you’re talking about extreme weather events or domestic terrorism, or other major events, that they would be able to get all types of care to heal and to recover.

As I close, I just want to underscore that it’s an honor to get to do this work every day.

Building trust and leaning in to understanding the daily challenges that our constituents are navigating is an ongoing practice. 

I take and my team takes this responsibility very seriously. We are people’s lifeline, their hope line, at a time when there is often a real deficit of trust in government and institutions. 

My love for my district is deep and abiding. I am a better Representative because of every conversation, every interaction, every engagement that I have had with the people who call the Massachusetts 7th home. 

Thank you to my neighbors and constituents for entrusting me with this awesome responsibility and trusting me with your stories, your struggles, and your aspirations.

And I look forward to continuing to build on our office’s best practices in the 119th Congress. 

And I want to say to Sarah and to Eddie, in our organization we have an official poem. I love poetry, and it’s by Marge Piercy, it’s called “To Be Of Use.” If you don’t know it, look it up, I think it perfectly encapsulates the work that we do. 

But my favorite line is the closing line, which says, “the pitcher cries for water to carry, and the person for work that is real.”

I am so grateful to my team for doing this real, deeply transformative and meaningful work every single day.

It’s a great honor. Thank you. 

Details on the process and the history of the Democracy Awards can be found here: https://www.congressfoundation.org/revitalizing-congress/democracy-awards. 

The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit founded in 1977 dedicated to strengthening Congress and building trust in its work with and for the American people. CMF works to revitalize Congress as an institution; promoting best practices in congressional offices; and helps Congress and the people they represent engage in a constructive and inclusive dialogue toward a thriving American democracy.

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