Philadelphia City Councilmember at-large Nicolas O'Rourke has been tapped to deliver the Working Families Party's response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address next week.
O'Rourke told NBC10 that he wants to convey the values and concerns as well as the needs of the working-class people in Philly and all across the country. Those include concerns around immigration, access to health care and housing.
O'Rourke is a member of the Working Families Party and is a pastor as well as a community organizer.
He says that he is honored to be the one to deliver the response for the party and that it's a testament to the people who are closest to the pain and to the solution.
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“Municipal electeds are the folks who are closest to the ground, closest to the people and when we want to legislate and create a world and a society and certainly here a city that works for everyone, we need to hear the voices of those who are closest to the people," O'Rourke told NBC10. “I think that’s something that Washington could use - hearing the everyday concerns as they say of Main Street - here Market Street what have you - and so we want to relay that.
This will be the seventh year in a row that the Working Families Party will deliver a response to a president's State of the Union address.
O'Rourke was the second-ever Working Families Party member to be elected to the city council in 2019. He is credited by the party as playing a major part in getting voters to turn out in the 2020 election.
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"I’m grateful we see value in even Councilmembers not just congresspersons but those who are at the grassroots to be able to speak to those who are at the heights of power to make sure you get the clearest purest most realistic human picture of the citizenry here and what we need," O'Rourke said.
Representatives Delia Ramirez, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Brown and Ayanna Pressley delivered the response in years past. Others include former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former representative Donna Edwards.
When asked who the Working Families Party will support in the presidential race in 2024, O'Rourke said the party still has an endorsement process to go through but said, "The MAGA movement is not the vision for America that I or anybody in the WFP has so we want to do everything we can to make sure that a vision that is more humane, more just, is what we actually experience here in this country - so who has that will probably get our endorsement.”
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