Politics & Power Quote by Lucille Roybal-Allard

Legislation-speak rarely aims for poetry; it aims for permission. Roybal-Allard’s line is built to grant political cover for an expensive, security-forward bill by making it sound like a commonsense upgrade to the nation’s circulatory system. The key word is “progress”: modest enough to dodge overpromising, confident enough to signal momentum. It’s a hedge that anticipates the critique that port security is never “finished,” only funded.

Her syntax fuses two targets that usually compete for airtime: “physical infrastructure” and “our national economy.” That “as well as” is doing heavy lifting, stitching together blue-collar security fears (terrorism, contraband, disruption) with white-collar anxieties (supply chains, trade flow, market stability). The implied argument is: spend now to avoid catastrophe later. By tying seaport hardening to economic survival, she reframes security spending as an investment, not a cost.

The subtext is post-9/11 governance: ports became symbolic soft underbellies, and the SAFE Port Act (mid-2000s) responded to a public newly primed to see logistics as vulnerability. “So clearly dependent” isn’t evidence; it’s rhetorical preemption, a nudge that dissent is irrational or uninformed. Notice what’s absent: any mention of civil liberties, labor impacts, or how security measures can slow commerce. The quote’s political intent is to minimize trade-offs by presenting port security as the rare policy where safety and business interests neatly align - a coalition-friendly pitch in an era when “homeland security” could still unify rather than polarize.