Well good afternoon everyone this is debbie with herself powell and I wanted to say hello from my office here in Washington dc we're gonna be hosting facebook lives every two weeks um one of the things that I wanna make sure that I'm doing is communicating with you as much as possible and because we spend so much time here in Washington dc with that it was a great idea for me to be able to answer your question so we'll get to a lot of the questions that were sent to ask d mp and uh hopefully we'll get to some others that come in through the session so with that I know That we have um some questions now that are in queue and the first one from emily I think it is what is the biggest learning curve in your first week of Congress um I have to tell you that I am still going through a learning curve not just the first week it besides trying to constantly find all the different meeting spaces and where we hold our Committee meetings it's a huge place you're walking all over the town of my staff actually is walking me there so I never know where I'm going um that's been a huge learning curve but I I think really expecting and getting to know some of the members that have been here for a long time a lot of us freshmen have come here with a lot of new ideas a lot of excitement and we want to get to work right away and I think we're all learning that things don't happen overnight that it takes some time to get other members to support the ideas and and the bills that you want to introduce that a lot of members have been working on bills that we've been talking about introducing so that's a huge Curve um things don't happen that quickly and for someone like me and uh I'm sure a lot of you were you know I wanna do things very quickly it's learning learning the pace but don't worry we're still pushing we have a lot of energy in this freshman class and we're trying to find ways to expedite these things there's actually a Committee that um is called the Committee to modern ice Congress and I have a couple of members that I'm friendly with and I'm already talking to them about my ideas on how we can modernize Congress so I think that you're gonna be pleasantly surprised to see what's gonna happen in the next two years um I hope The question you can always ask a followup question and here's an interesting question that I got from Joseph and Joseph is from Puerto Rico and I'll read it in English and in Spanish it for that very you're so gorgeous and the Puerto Rico so I'm holding a little come out this week on ask for again so you may have noticed but I assume part of the community that get them in the us so the question from Justice and is um I'm in a talk with autism and asperger's I'm an example of overcoming for the community what alternatives do you have to know beyond With autism and education and employment opportunities um I love this question because just so all of you know I have a nephew my sister adopted charlie when he was a baby he was born in ecuador and charlie has been diagnosed with um autism uh a lot of different um disabilities and I've learned a lot through charlie charlie has taught us a lot so it's something that's always been very close and dear to my heart I actually worked at the hope Center in Miami early on in my career when I worked in nonprofits to help adults with disabilities so um just him one of the things that we're doing here in Congress is encouraging congressional offices to hire adults with disabilities um I'm also I also spoke just yesterday with a couple of members from the Florida delegation that deal with education and funding um asking me to support a bill that provides funding for kids k through 12 that need special support in schools that have that are dealing with disabilities and of course uh that's something that Well they told them and and that I wanted to all of you that I'm very committed to doing we need to support our education system because um just because we have kids that are born with certain disabilities it doesn't mean that they can't reach their full potential with the right resources and that's something I'm very committed to doing so um let's see it's been a question of Venezuela what are your thoughts in Venezuela and I think it's And we also yes um emily I have been from the day that I got sworn in I have been uh advocating to provide humanitarian aid for Venezuela and I'm very proud to tell all of you that I dropped my first bill in Congress it was yesterday today's Wednesday yeah yesterday Tuesday and I'm very proud of that work I have uh several sponsors already that have joined in that bill and it's really asking the American government to support uh the Venezuelan people providing humanitarian aid directly working with non government governmental and geos uh so not with the government but really with organizations that we can trust that will provide this age We are seeing a thousands and thousands of finished ones that are really suffering from malnutrition they don't have access to medicine thousands of doctors have fled the country and right now uh we're going through a very delegate situation I'm very involved with uh talks in a bipartisan manner here on what else we can do to help them as well uh some of my colleagues have introduced other bills that deal with sanctions I'm also asking and we just had a meeting today with the foreign Affairs Committee um and some other The administration encouraging them asking them to provide to us right away for the benefit of those that are living here in this country um and also freezing any any assets that been as well as have that are uh family members or friends of the maduro regime that happened right here so I want you to know that um I have expressed this very clearly I stand with one leg oh he is the interim President I support the National Assembly the mother regime is an illegitimate regime and I Encouraged but what but what I'm seeing is that we need to be very careful hopefully we can see one way go calling free and transparent Democratic elections which I think are gonna be crucial in the next 60 to 90 days um but we're watching very closely also because we need to make sure that uh our American diplomats that are right now in the country are safe so we're watching and monitoring extremely carefully on a minute by minute basis Meanwhile I've been busy introducing this bill that I'm very proud of asking for the government to provide humanitarian aid right away to win as well so let's see another question are there any questions coming up that you see that I should yeah um William asked what do you see your role being on the House judiciary Committee William hi what we're just going to live it does not say no I would I'm extremely excited that I've been appointed to two very powerful committees here in Congress the judiciary and transportation infrastructure um under the judiciary Committee I am going to be participating in a member participating in the immigration subcommittee or we're gonna be addressing during the you know working on passing a clean Dream act and gps protecting tbs um and also working on comprehensive immigration reform so I'm very excited that I'll be able to have the opportunity to be part of that Committee also I will be participating in the crime subcommittee which deals with gun reform and uh as many of you already know it's a very personal issue for me and uh I'm excited we're gonna have our first hearing on H R eight is the number of the bill starts Very technical but it's the bill where we're gonna be asking Congress and the Senate to pass universal background checks and close the loopholes that we've seen uh with gun shows and some other areas um and we had our first hearing yesterday in the judiciary Committee where we were actually addressing hr one which is the impediment to get strong so for the people act and it really deals with protecting the voting voting rights act and also taking money out of politics which uh I think that we Debris that we've seen undue influence by so many special interest groups that have influenced our politicians our elected officials with money and we're trying to bring transparency to our government I think it's important so many Americans have lost um a lot of faith in this government and I think we have to work hard to bring that trust back and so I'm excited to be a part of that in the judiciary Committee and any other questions coming up or should I continue with my list that I had um yeah we probably have time for about one more question yeah All right so here's a good one that I really like what are some books or inspirational sources that have helped your policy stances do you have any historical or political heroes um so yes and I actually quoted her yesterday and I think uh she's probably a political hero for a lot of us and that's Justice Ruth ginsburg and I'll show you something that I have here that my mother in law my my mother and loved probably really will get very excited about this that she sent me this book to stick the notorious Um she is really an inspiration and she I saw her let me tell you the story that was um exciting I was walking the halls of Congress the first week after I got sworn in and that was lost of course and uh I made the wrong turn but I ran into Justin just a skins berg and I had the opportunity to say hello to her briefly and to thank her for paving the way Any other questions or are we out of time here um well this is actually a pretty good question uh brianna from fl you what's your favorite part about being in Congress hi gina uh I think right now there are a lot of things I'm enjoying it it's it's hard to leave my family every week but my favorite I'll give you a couple I always break the rules with these questions um one of my favorite things is meeting incredible members from the freshman class uh that come from completely different backgrounds you know some have In as National security agents um others have worked in nonprofits and from all over the country different districts and we share the same values which is really we're here to work for the American people and bring the changes that all of you and all of us need in this country so I'm forming a lot of great friendships and and that's one of my favorite things um but the other one is learning a lot you know I've always loved I've always had a hunger to continue to learn and um they're So many things that are happening so quickly and I'm reading um a lot more than I was when I was campaigning so I'm grateful for the opportunity to read and learn and and I just love that um that I have this opportunity to learn so with that I leave all of you and um we'll do this again and so send me send me questions and hopefully I'll get to show you more of my office next time we talk thank you so much I'll see you soon