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Dear Friend,
This will be my last week serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has been the honor of my life to represent Rhode Island’s First District in Congress, and I want to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone who placed their faith and trust in me over the last twelve years. Every day, I put my heart and soul into the work we do to improve the lives of every Rhode Islander and to protect our great democracy.
This June, I will become the President and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations. I am excited to begin this extraordinary opportunity and build on the work that I have been leading in Congress and to continue to make a meaningful impact on the lives of Rhode Islanders.
You can find a summary document here.
I was first elected to Congress in 2010 when the country and Rhode Island were just starting to recover from the Great Recession.
Like most Americans, I was convinced that Congress was completely broken, but I was determined to try to change that. I knew that there were Members of Congress who were only interested in being combative and making headlines, but then I realized there were some Members who were interested in working together to get things done for the country. Don’t get me wrong, at times it can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to work with people who may agree with you on one issue, but completely disagree with you on everything else – including on how you live your own life.
But, it is important to recognize that there are a lot of people in Congress that put their country over party and work hard every day to improve the lives of their constituents and all Americans.
Watch and read Congressman Cicilline’s final floor speech here.
Even during our most difficult times like January 6th, two impeachments, and as we struggled to deal with a global pandemic, I’ve never lost faith in the resiliency and strength of our democracy.
It’s not always pretty or easy, but we have always come out stronger on the other side because of the powerful heroes of democracy who serve in this place and fight to preserve it every day. I still believe in our democracy and the ability of Congress to tackle big challenges and improve the lives of all Americans.
We did that with the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Respect for Marriage Act, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
While I may be leaving Congress, I will never stop fighting for what I believe in, and I will always be proud of the work we have done together. You can read more about all of this work, too much to mention in this letter, here.
Again, I extend my most profound gratitude to the people of Rhode Island for giving me the greatest honor of my life, the opportunity to represent you for the past twelve years here in the Congress of the United States.
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