| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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Congress Has Our Backs
00:09:03
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|
unidentified
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Their taxes be you know as low and reasonable as possible so we can grow this economy, be the number one economy in the world. | |
| And I think if we can make this Trump tax cut permanent, I think it'll be good for everybody, every income group, including the small businesses. | ||
| We have a text for you from Constance in Las Vegas, Nevada, who says, So far, Mr. Moore has not mentioned the waste, fraud, and abuse with Trump pillaging the Treasury with his golf trips and planned ego-stroking parade. | ||
| Why is that okay? | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm sorry, I couldn't hear quite the end of that. | |
| The golf trips? | ||
| The golf trips, and she says the planned ego-stroking parade. | ||
|
unidentified
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And why is that okay? | |
| The planned parade? | ||
| Yes, the military parade. | ||
| The House has been in recess, but is now gaveling back into session. | ||
| We take you there live here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Ordering the previous question on House Resolution 405 and adoption of House Resolution 405 if ordered. | ||
| The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. | ||
| Pursuant. | ||
| The House is not in order. | ||
| Pursuant to Clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman, to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 2215, on which the yays and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title. | ||
| H.R. 2215, a bill to redesignate the Salem Maritime National Historic Site as the Salem Maritime National Historic Park. | ||
|
unidentified
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And for the purposes. | |
| Will the House suspend the rules and pass the bill? | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The first roll call vote of the day in the House is on a bill debated yesterday, renaming the Salem Maritime National Historic Site in Massachusetts. | |
| A two-thirds majority vote is needed to pass. | ||
| Coming up shortly on C-SPAN 3 this afternoon, in fact, starting in just a couple of moments, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be testifying on the President's 2026 budget request for HHS. | ||
| He'll also likely face questions about proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the CDC. | ||
| You can also watch the House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing live on the C-SPAN Now video app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| House committees continue working on Republican tax and spending legislation to further the president's agenda. | ||
| During this vote, we will watch the Republican and Democratic news conferences from earlier on the bills. | ||
| Look at you. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| The sun is kind of starting to come out today, just a little bit, so keep your fingers crossed. | ||
| But House Republicans have made significant progress on the one big beautiful bill. | ||
| Nine out of 11 committees have passed their pieces, and the two remaining committees will be done quite soon. | ||
| After our committee work, after that work is done, we will move on to the next step. | ||
| But before we do, I think it's important that we not forget what is at stake for the American people if this bill doesn't pass, which I'm confident it will. | ||
| And what's at stake? | ||
| Think about it. | ||
| What's at stake for Michiganders? | ||
| They would see their taxes go up an average of $2,400. | ||
| Mothers and fathers who need the child tax credit could potentially lose that. | ||
| Mom-and-pop shops could close and even family farms would be affected and no longer cease to exist. | ||
| If we don't pass this bill, there will be real consequences and real consequences for real people. | ||
| We must pass this transformational piece of legislation, and failure is not an option. | ||
| Additionally, this week, House Republicans are honoring police in National Police Week. | ||
| We will vote on multiple measures that support our police and law enforcement officers. | ||
| Those who bravely serve our communities in uniform deserve recognition, especially those who have made the alternate sacrifice in the line of duty. | ||
| Now, I'm curious to watch the Democrats and see what they do this week. | ||
| See if they will actually join us in honoring the men and women in blue. | ||
| The jury's still out. | ||
| I mean, just look at last week when House Republicans visited Small Business for Small Business Week. | ||
| What did the Democrats do? | ||
| The Democrats visited the MS-13 members. | ||
| Will they visit criminals this week instead of police officers during National Police Week? | ||
| The jury's still out, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. | ||
| Now, because Democrats have turned their backs on law enforcement over the past four years, let's not forget they were the party that wanted to defund the police. | ||
| And they actually called for defunding the police. | ||
| They advocated for a border crisis. | ||
| They passed soft on crime legislation. | ||
| They have put the lives of local law enforcement officers in danger. | ||
| But I can assure you those days are over. | ||
| With President Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, America's law enforcement officers and their families know that Republicans will always back the blue. | ||
| We have their backs, and it's only right that we have theirs. | ||
| They have our back. | ||
| It's only right that we have theirs. | ||
| Now, here to speak on that is Representative John Rutherford from Florida. | ||
| He knows a little bit about law enforcement. | ||
| Rutherford is a former law enforcement officer and co-chairman of the Law Enforcement Caucus. | ||
| So with that, Mr. Rutherford? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sheriff. | |
| Thank you, Lisa, and thank all of you for being here today. | ||
| I appreciate what the Republican caucus has done to prove to our law enforcement officers over these last several days that we do have their backs. | ||
| And I can tell you as a lifelong law enforcement officer and sheriff of Jacksonville for 12 years, I know all too well about the service and sacrifice our nation's brave law enforcement officers make every day and the sacrifice of their loved ones. | ||
| Never forget that. | ||
| Anyone who's put on a badge and answered the call of duty knows the dangers that may await. | ||
| They know that going in. | ||
| Sadly, that is the reality officers and their families accept each time they put their lives in harm's way to protect others. | ||
| Putting on a badge has become increasingly more dangerous. | ||
| In 2024, 148 officers tragically lost their lives in the line of duty. | ||
| 79 of those were shot in ambush-style attacks, and 18 resulted in deaths. | ||
| Eight officers were killed in Florida alone, my state. | ||
| The fifth highest number of officer deaths per state. | ||
| We must do more to protect those who protect us. | ||
| But it's also very important that when we ask them to put their lives in jeopardy to step into that breach, that they know that this Congress has their back. | ||
| And they know that now. | ||
| And this means ensuring that they have the resources needed to apprehend dangerous criminals, keep officers safe, and increase retention and recruitment so that these officers have the tools that they need to be safe on the street. | ||
| I'm honored to stand here today to call on all Americans to back our officers. | ||
| You know, these National Memorial Weeks, I'm always reminded of a talk that Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. | ||
|
Lived Well, Made a Difference
00:03:13
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|
unidentified
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And he said, the purpose in life is not to be happy. | |
| It's to be useful. | ||
| It's to be honorable. | ||
| It's to be compassionate. | ||
| It's to have made some, to have lived well and made some difference with your life. | ||
| I can tell you all of those officers whose names are inscribed on the wall at the National Memorial, they all lived well. | ||
| And I thank this conference, particularly thank the Speaker for going to the memorial this morning and laying wreaths with several officers from my jurisdiction that came up and others from Minnesota. | ||
| And I really appreciate you having done that. | ||
| And thank you very much. | ||
| Lies, deception, fear-mongering. | ||
| These are the pillars of House Democrats' strategy to try and stop us from delivering on President Trump's America First agenda. | ||
| The mainstream media may let them get away with their annex, but we're here today to correct the record. | ||
| So let's start with the Democrats' absurd claim that our reconciliation bill would cut Medicaid for vulnerable Americans. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's false. | |
| In stark contrast, Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have laid out a clear path to strengthen, secure, and sustain the program for those who need it the most, such as mothers, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. | ||
| Democrats also say SNAP benefits will be cut for Americans who need them. | ||
| Another lie. | ||
| The House Agriculture Committee's piece of the reconciliation bill closes loopholes within SNAP, like the one that allowed for a retired millionaire in my congressional district in my home state of Minnesota to receive thousands of dollars in food stamps from SNAP back in 2016. | ||
| But the Democrats are not content to keep their lives narrowed to these programs. | ||
| They also say Republicans are prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy. | ||
| The actual truth? | ||
| Our bill's extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would deliver the biggest relief to working class families and small businesses in a generation. | ||
| Let's be clear. | ||
| These lies only harm Americans that Democrats claim they're trying to protect. | ||
| But we're not going to let them get away with the lies. | ||
| House Republicans are hard at work getting our reconciliation bill to the finish line. | ||
| The Ways and Means Committee advanced their title earlier this morning, and the Ag and Energy and Commerce Committees will do the same later today. | ||
|
Brave Heroes Backed
00:03:34
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| These three committees worked through the night to deliver on the America First agenda that 77 million Americans voted for last November. | ||
| Our one big, beautiful bill will restore the American dream and create opportunities like never before. | ||
| And no Democrat lie can change that. | ||
| With that, Leader Sklees. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, I'm proud to join my colleagues in celebrating National Law Enforcement Week, bringing a number of bills to the floor to give better protections to our men and women in law enforcement and just continue to remind those brave heroes that we have their back. | ||
| And like Sheriff Rutherford and so many others in law enforcement, they now serve in Congress. | ||
| Pete Stauber, who was a cop on the beat I room with. | ||
| You know, you know the kind of heroes that they are. | ||
| And we hear about heroes a lot. | ||
| You sometimes hear stories about heroes in law enforcement. | ||
| I get to walk with one of those heroes every day. | ||
| And I'm going to embarrass him and he's going to be upset with me, but he happens to be with me this morning. | ||
| And that's David Bailey. | ||
| You want to meet a real-life American hero. | ||
| It's that man right there. | ||
| And I wouldn't be here today, and probably about a dozen other members of Congress wouldn't be here today if not for his bravery that I got to experience firsthand. | ||
| I didn't get to see it all, but I heard it all. | ||
| Over 100 rounds of gunfire when a gunman came out on a ball field and tried to kill all of us. | ||
| And the only reason we're alive today is because he put himself between us and the gunfire, risked his life, got hit during the shootout. | ||
| And the only reason we're alive and he's not is because of the bravery of David Bailey and Crystal Griner. | ||
| And while we hear about heroes every now and then, when you actually get to see one and walk around with one, and he came back to work when he got out of the hospital for his treatment, he wanted to go back to work because he loves what he does. | ||
| He cares about his training. | ||
| It's not talked about a lot because many men and women in law enforcement might never have to use their revolver. | ||
| And hopefully they don't. | ||
| And they don't want to. | ||
| But they go to training every day in case they have to. | ||
| So they're ready to risk their lives to protect us and our communities. | ||
| And that's what David did. | ||
| The reason that we're all here today, including him, is because he took his training so seriously. | ||
| In the days where you could have just phoned it in, he said, you know what, if I'm ever called on to be ready, I want to be prepared to do the job. | ||
| And we know there's so many brave men and women just like David, but I got to see it and experience it. | ||
| And I'm here because of him. | ||
| And I'm always going to pay tribute to the great heroism of what law enforcement represents. | ||
| And so I hope we all remember that. | ||
| It's not just a talking point. | ||
| It's not just stories that we hear about. | ||
| I got to experience it. | ||
| And a number of my colleagues would tell you the exact same thing. | ||
|
Doing The Unthinkable
00:04:33
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| We also, of course, are moving through the reconciliation bill and finishing it up this week. | ||
| And this incredibly important work. | ||
| We're doing what a lot of people said couldn't be done. | ||
| And we're doing it because families are relying on us to get this done. | ||
| We've had many meetings with President Trump, including the last one with the Speaker and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Smith, Chairman of Energy and Commerce Committee Guthrie, last week in the Oval Office to finalize some of the final pieces of this bill. | ||
| A lot of work has gone into getting 11 committees ready to complete all of their work today, by the end of today. | ||
| Think about that. | ||
| 11 committees. | ||
| When we did this in 2017, which is an important bill, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, to get economic growth, to get our economy moving again, to create jobs, to put more money in the paychecks of workers. | ||
| There were only two committees involved in that back in 2017. | ||
| There's 11 involved this time. | ||
| And each one of them has hit their mark. | ||
| And by the end of today, all of them will have exceeded the things that they were asked by us to do. | ||
| And they will be delivering a great product. | ||
| for all members of Congress to vote on. | ||
| Now, we all know not all members of Congress will vote for that bill, but everybody who casts a no vote is going to have some tough questions to answer back home. | ||
| Why would you vote against tax relief for working families? | ||
| You can lie all day long, as the whip pointed out, about the rich and the billionaires. | ||
| The rich and the billionaires are always going to figure out how to get through whatever the tax code looks like. | ||
| You know who can't figure out every single component of it, especially if a tax goes up on you? | ||
| It's the lower and middle-income families of America who have been struggling. | ||
| We were losing our middle class before 2017 when we finally lowered rates for those hardworking families. | ||
| And we saw the benefits primarily to lower and middle income families. | ||
| And they would be the ones hit the hardest if this bill were not to pass. | ||
| Luckily, we're going to come together and figure it out as we have every step of the way to get this done for the American people because failure is not an option. | ||
| We will get our economy moving again. | ||
| We will give President Trump the resources he needs to keep our border secure now that he has secured it. | ||
| He needs additional tools for our border patrol agents. | ||
| We're going to make America energy independent again. | ||
| It's in this bill. | ||
| We're going to remove the threat of a debt crisis in this bill. | ||
| So many other important things. | ||
| We're getting people back to work in this bill. | ||
| It's an important piece of legislation, but I want to commend all the committees, all 11 committees who have worked hours and hours tirelessly to get their work done, starting with the leadership of President Trump, making sure that every step of the way when there were questions, when there were final decisions that had to be made, he was always one phone call away, and he'll continue to be. | ||
| This process isn't over. | ||
| We're just getting to close to maybe halftime. | ||
| When we pass this bill next week through the House, it'll go to the Senate. | ||
| They'll do their work. | ||
| But we will get this bill to President Trump's desk before the July 4th deadline that the White House has asked for. | ||
| And the reason that we've been able to hit all of these marks is because in every meeting, and I've been in all these meetings, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has been about as patient of a man as I've seen listening to our members. | ||
| And believe me, you know this. | ||
| We have members that have a lot of different points of view, have a lot of different views on how the bill should be put together. | ||
| And they are not ashamed to express those views. | ||
| But at the end of the day, we've all got to come together. | ||
| And he has brought our members together on every tough issue. | ||
| And there are a lot of tough issues. | ||
| Might be one remaining to solve, but we've gotten through every one of them because he's had the patience of Job and continues to lead us the right direction for those families who are counting on us. | ||
| And that's the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, bro. | |
| Well, thank you all for being here. | ||
| There's a lot going on. | ||
| And a lot we will update you on and have been this morning already. | ||
| We're grateful for the opportunity to do that. | ||
| We're really grateful that it's National Police Week. | ||
|
Candles Etched in Honor
00:02:23
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| Republicans look forward to this. | ||
| We really, truly do. | ||
| And we've been welcoming families of fallen officers and law enforcement officers from around the country all week. | ||
| We had a candlelight vigil last night. | ||
| There were a couple of those events last night we participated in. | ||
| You can't give honor where honor is due enough, especially around this subject. | ||
| And people put their lives on the line every single day. | ||
| The numbers are staggering. | ||
| After the candlelight vigil last night, we went, as Sheriff Rutherford mentioned, Representative Rutherford mentioned, we went to the National Law Enforcement Memorial this morning, and it was misty, and the weather was sort of appropriate because it's when you walk that place and you see the names of more than 24,000 officers whose names are etched into the stone there, it really moves you. | ||
| And we lost 345 fallen heroes this year alone. | ||
| They'll be etched into the memorial. | ||
| So there were many officers out there and just paying their respects. | ||
| And we placed Reese as some small token. | ||
| But look, I come from a first responder family, and I know that sacrifice. | ||
| I grew up at the Fire and Police Training Academy in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, because my dad was a training officer. | ||
| He was on the fire side of it, and he also worked the line. | ||
| And when I was 12 years old, he got burned in an explosion on the job, 80% of his body, third-degree burns. | ||
| He had a 5% chance to live, 5%. | ||
| He came back miraculously and survived, but he was terribly disabled for the rest of his life. | ||
| And his co-captain died in that fire. | ||
| They were on the hazmat team. | ||
| And I watched the sorrow that his family, his young family went through, the children he left behind, his spouse, his wife. | ||
| And I just learned at a young age the profound sacrifice that people make, and we have to keep that in perspective. | ||
| We have to stand behind those who are willing to do that for all the rest of us. | ||
| And the House Republicans will stand with law enforcement. | ||
| We definitely do have their back in every way, and we're glad to show it. | ||
| So thank you for your service. | ||
| Thank you for your service, David. | ||
| Everybody who does that. | ||
| My Capitol Police team, my security team, I spend more time with them than I spend with my family and friends and everybody, and they become like family to us, and they do a heroic job. | ||
| So we're so grateful. | ||
| Can't say it enough. | ||
| They deserve our gratitude and they deserve our respect. | ||
|
Detention Center Drama
00:06:19
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| And, you know, I wish all of our House Democrats agreed with that. | ||
| They show with their actions that they don't, you know. | ||
| And we've got to talk about what happened in New Jersey. | ||
| On Friday, as you all know, three Democrat members of Congress got into a physical altercation with our ICE agents. | ||
| I mean, outside the Delaney Hall Detention Center in New Jersey, what a spectacle that was. | ||
| What a horrible, what a horrible display for our children to see, right? | ||
| Amid a long list of shameful and embarrassing episodes this year, that altercation, I think it takes the cake. | ||
| I think it's a new low for congressional Democrats. | ||
| Instead of condemning the action, of course, the Democrat leadership in the House sent out a statement of support. | ||
| My friend Hakeem Jeffries said, quote, we will never bend the knee. | ||
| Bend the knee to what, Hakeem? | ||
| To ICE? | ||
| Come on. | ||
| The reason the Democrats were even at the detention facility is equally concerning. | ||
| The purpose was they were there demanding to shut down the detention facility. | ||
| Now, look, here's who's housed in the dissension facility: violent gang members, rapists, and murderers. | ||
| They want to shut it down. | ||
| We already know the Democrats support open borders. | ||
| They support MS-13 gang members. | ||
| They go visit them in jail. | ||
| They want to allow legals to vote, so many of them. | ||
| But this really is a new, this is a new low. | ||
| Republicans want to detain and deport criminal illegal aliens. | ||
| Democrats want to empty the jails. | ||
| Could you have a stronger contrast than that right there? | ||
| We don't need less detention beds and facilities. | ||
| We need much more. | ||
| And that behavior is just unacceptable. | ||
| We're grateful to U.S. Attorney Alina Haba in New Jersey. | ||
| She's opened an investigation into this matter, and that legal process will play out. | ||
| We're having conversations. | ||
| We had them this morning in the House Republican Conference meeting this morning about appropriate action that we need to take here to address that inappropriate behavior, the wildly inappropriate behavior. | ||
| And we will do that. | ||
| Let me just talk about reconciliation real quick. | ||
| Look, this is the bills coming together, as you've heard. | ||
| The last three committees are reporting out today. | ||
| Everybody in this room, I know, gets fixated on a few final details about all this. | ||
| But I think it's important to just state one more time what we're achieving through reconciliation. | ||
| This will be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress. | ||
| It is large, it is comprehensive, and it deals with reconciling the budget in a way that will be fiscally responsible. | ||
| We're going to slash taxes, including on tips over time, Social Security for seniors and job creators, restore American energy dominance, as you've heard, secure our border and deport illegal aliens. | ||
| We're going to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, return to peace through strength, and reduce spending all at the same time. | ||
| And I put reconciliation on an aggressive timetable back in January. | ||
| I said that we would try to do this as quickly as possible. | ||
| We're still on target to hit that Memorial Day deadline, which people balked at when we first said it. | ||
| The American people are counting on us to get this done and get it done quickly, and we are on target to do it. | ||
| President Biden left virtually every area of public policy in disrepair, and it is incumbent upon Congress to fix it and pass laws that cannot be easily undone or overwritten. | ||
| We're working around the clock to build that consensus to get the 218 votes and deliver on President Trump's first agenda so the American people can really begin to feel relief. | ||
| And as we're working to get this done, House Democrats are working overtime to deceive the American people about this. | ||
| We've discussed it already this morning, but they're not talking about what the bill actually does. | ||
| They're using talking points that are pretty stale. | ||
| They're not afraid to lie about what's in it, and we're not afraid to tell the truth about what the Democrats are doing. | ||
| They've already been forced to take down their advertisements because they were filled with falsehoods about what the bill supposedly was going to have in it. | ||
| You probably saw last week, they're at it again. | ||
| They released a CBO report, so-called, that claims that our legislation cuts many millions of Americans out of Medicaid. | ||
| It's obviously demonstrably false. | ||
| Other outlets have reported on this, okay? | ||
| They included policies that are not even in the legislation. | ||
| How could they have done that? | ||
| Because they released their report before the bill text was issued, okay? | ||
| And most of the media ran with that. | ||
| And I'm just going to say this to my friends in the media, on the Hill Press Corps in particular, right? | ||
| If you allow Democrats to make these intentionally false claims without pushback, then you're aiding and abetting in the spread of misinformation. | ||
| I mean, I'm stating the obvious. | ||
| The job is to get the facts out there. | ||
| So we hope you will. | ||
| We said repeatedly, we are protecting Medicaid for the people who need and deserve it. | ||
| This program is an essential lifeline for our most vulnerable Americans, pregnant women, single mothers, low-income seniors, the disabled. | ||
| That's who Medicaid is intended to be for, and that's who we're protecting. | ||
| While we're eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse to improve Medicaid. | ||
| These are reforms to restore and preserve the system so that it doesn't collapse on itself. | ||
| That means ensuring illegal aliens. | ||
| 382, the nays are 31. | ||
| Two-thirds being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended. | ||
| The bill is passed, and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business is to vote on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 405 on which the yays and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the resolution. | ||
| House calendar number 27, House Resolution 405. | ||
| Resolution providing for consideration of the bill, H.R. 2240, to require the Attorney General to develop reports relating to violent attacks against law enforcement officers and for their purposes. | ||
| Providing for consideration of the bill H.R. 2243 to amend Title 18, United States Code to improve the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act and provisions relating to the carrying of concealed weapons by law enforcement officers and for other purposes. | ||
| And providing for consideration of the bill H.R. 2255 to allow federal law enforcement officers to purchase retired service weapons and for other purposes. | ||
| The question is on ordering the previous question. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
Educational Choice for Kids
00:10:01
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|
unidentified
|
And so, members are now voting on whether to begin debate on three National Police Week bills, expanding police concealed gun carry authority, requiring a report from the Attorney General on a tax on police, and allowing federal police to buy retired guns. | |
| So as this vote continues, Representatives Elise Stefanik, Jim Jordan, and others spoke outside the Capitol earlier today about a pending bill advocating for school choice. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| Thank you for being here today. | ||
| This is a particularly meaningful press conference on a very important policy issue, and I say this as a young mom to our soon-to-be-four-year-old son, Sam, as he's beginning his educational journey. | ||
| We are here today to highlight the importance of the Educational Choice for Children Act, and I want to thank my colleagues who are standing with me: Adrienne Smith, Burgess Owens, and Jim Jordan. | ||
| The Educational Choice for Children Act is a transformative piece of legislation that will expand educational opportunities for children across our nation. | ||
| For too long, students, especially those from underserved communities, have been trapped in failing school systems. | ||
| Despite their potential, these children are denied high-quality education. | ||
| School choice gives students the opportunity to succeed. | ||
| It is the great equalizer. | ||
| The Educational Choice for Children Act legislation aims to expand school choice. | ||
| It will encourage more individuals and businesses to invest in our children's futures by establishing a 75% federal tax credit for qualified charitable contributions made to nonprofit schools with proven success. | ||
| And I'll tell you, this issue hits right at the heart in my home state in New York. | ||
| Governor Kathy Hochle has caused an educational crisis for our kids. | ||
| New York-elected Democrats, their near-universal opposition to school choice, has left our students trapped in failing systems. | ||
| Despite spending more than any state in the nation per student, New York schools continue to underperform with rampant absenteeism and failing outcomes. | ||
| We can and must do better for our next generation of kids. | ||
| It's time to give every child the chance to reach their full educational potential. | ||
| Thank you, and I will now turn it over to my colleague and friend, also a parent, Adrienne Smith. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Elise. | ||
| Thank you, everyone, for showing up here today. | ||
| I'm here because I want to empower families, parents, and students across America. | ||
| I'm a proud product of a public school district in Nebraska, and I am proud to say that. | ||
| I worked in the public education system as well, and I will tell you we have a quality public education system in my home community. | ||
| I will also tell you that not all children across America have access to a quality education, such as the one that I had. | ||
| And that's why I want to empower families, empower students for a brighter future. | ||
| And this is a step toward removing politics from educational funding. | ||
| We want educational funding to be what's best for kids to pursue a brighter future, more opportunities. | ||
| And so, that's why we have advanced this part of the bill, the reconciliation bill, that will give dollars to tax credits, I should say, to scholarship-granting organizations that wrap resources around the needs of kids, especially those from disadvantaged communities and vulnerable communities. | ||
| This is so important that our policies meet the needs of kids rather than just a political formula that happens to be what the choice is of some politicians. | ||
| So I'm grateful, though, to have a great team of supporters here across the House. | ||
| We have a great grassroots movement as well. | ||
| I will now hand it over to Burgess Owens, my friend and colleague from Utah. | ||
| Thanks, Adrian. | ||
| Let me, I guess, start off by saying how proud I am to see these leaders we have behind us. | ||
| They're remarkable visionaries. | ||
| They're responsible for a remarkable gift that we'll be giving to our kids in years to come. | ||
| The ability to dream big starts off with the ability to think and have this great education. | ||
| I'd like to start off with stating the obvious. | ||
| When funding follows the student, the student wins and family legacies are built. | ||
| The Education Choice of Children's Act is the most consequential educational bill in our lifetime and is exactly what American families need. | ||
| It unlocks billions of dollars in annual tax credits for donations for local scholarships and organizations. | ||
| The ECC is not another government program, but instead follows a private volunteer giving. | ||
| It allows Americans to invest in America's greatest natural resource, our children. | ||
| These scholarships let families choose the education that best fits their child, whether it be public, private, homeschooled, charter, trade, or parochial. | ||
| It supports lower and middle-class incomes, covering up to 90% of K-12 students. | ||
| It is not of federal mandates, no new bureaucracy, no cuts in public and school districts. | ||
| These are new dollars, proudly generated, locally used. | ||
| It's a true win-win. | ||
| The ECCA allows for competition, innovation, merit, and a failing system that's for too long has put bureaucracy over outcomes. | ||
| I am so proud to be part of this fight for our next generation of children. | ||
| It's a fight that we must see. | ||
| 216 and the nays are 204. | ||
| The previous question is ordered. | ||
| The question is on the adoption of the resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the gentlelady from New Mexico is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote. | |
| A recorded vote is requested. | ||
| Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, a recorded vote is ordered. | ||
| Members will record their vote by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House | |
| OF National Approval of the Rules for Debating Three National Police Week Bills, Expanding Police Concealed Gun Carry Authority. | ||
| Requiring a report from the Attorney General on Attacks on Police and. | ||
| and allowing federal police to buy retired guns. | ||
| Following these votes, lawmakers will debate one of the National Police Week bills, the one on expanding police concealed gun carry authority. | ||
| The next votes in the House planned for about 5 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| In addition to the concealed gun carry bill, lawmakers are expected to vote on tabling or killing Congressman Sri Tanodar's impeachment resolution against President Trump, also a measure aiming to educate the public on how to counter anti-Semitism. | ||
| While members vote here, we'll watch members talk about the debate rules on the three National Police Week bills. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New Mexico, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation. | ||
| Last night, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule providing for consideration of three pieces of legislation, H.R. 2240, H.R. 2243, and H.R. 2255. | ||
| Will all be considered under a closed rule, each with one hour debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the committee on the judiciary or their respective designees. | ||
| Additionally, the rule provides each with a motion to recommit. | ||
| Republicans are here in Washington this week to continue to work on behalf of the American people. | ||
| This is in fact police week, but we have been busy this year, this Congress, delivering for the American people. | ||
| So far, this Congress, we have passed legislation to secure our elections, H.R. 22, the SAVE Act. | ||
| Hold rogue activist judges accountable, H.R. 1526. | ||
| Bring transparency to institutes of higher education, H.R. 1048. | ||
| Make changes to our border with the Lake and Riley Act and the HALT-Fentanyl Act, and to repeal the Biden-era harmful environmental regulations by passing what we call Congressional Review Acts to undo the damage of the Biden administration. | ||
| As Republicans continue to work on behalf of the American people and finalize the reconciliation products we are working on currently, we are also here to recognize National Police Week and the thousands of law enforcement officers who wake up every day to step on that thin blue line to defend and protect us. | ||
|
Austin's Heroic Officers
00:02:08
|
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| In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation which designated May 15th as Peace Officer Memorial Day and the week in which that date falls as Police Week. | ||
| Yesterday, my staff and I got the opportunity to welcome police officers from New Bronffles, Texas, and hear about the challenges they face every day. | ||
| I talk to the men and women of blue virtually every day in the district that I represent, as I know many of my colleagues do. | ||
| My grandfather was the chief of police of a small West Texas town called Sweetwater. | ||
| I was blessed to work in the United States Attorney's Office and Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas, working every day with law enforcement. | ||
| And what they do matters for the peace and security of our country. | ||
| Our republic depends on having security on our streets. | ||
| There are thousands of stories that I could share about the daily heroism of law enforcement officers across the country. | ||
| Hundreds I could share even in the district I represent. | ||
| Officer Dalton Schrader and Jason Wright on February 16th, 2024, Austin Police Department officers Dalton Schrader and Jason Wright responded to four-year-old William Martinez-Romero who was choking. | ||
| The officers quickly jumped into action. | ||
| Body cam footage shows Officer Schrader run to his cruiser to grab an anti-choking device he had bought with his own money to be prepared for situations just like this, while Officer Wright started supporting William with back blows. | ||
| They saved his life that day. | ||
| We must also remember that police week honors fall on peace officers, including one officer who died in the line of duty, Austin Police Department senior officer Ore Pastori, died in action November 11, 2023, responding to a domestic violence call in South Austin. | ||
| Hostages were held inside a home and when officers attempted to enter, gunfire started to go off. | ||
| The SWAT team was called in to help distract the suspect, one being Officer Pestori, who was trying to rescue the victims. | ||
|
Mr. Speaker's Inquiry
00:08:14
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||
| I know I speak for many of my colleagues when I say we couldn't be more excited to welcome tens of thousands of law enforcement officers from around the country to D.C. this week. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The yeas | |
| are 216 and the nays are 203. | ||
| The resolution is adopted. | ||
| Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House | |
| will be in order. | ||
| The House will be in order. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on House Administration be discharged from further consideration of H. Con Res 33, a bill directing the architect of the Capitol to install at a permanent location on the western front of the United States Capitol building an honorific plaque listing the names of all of the officers of the United States Capitol Police, | ||
| the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and protective entities who responded to the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and asked for its immediate consideration of the House. | ||
| Under guidelines consistently issued by the successive speakers as recorded in section 956 of the House rules and manual, the chair is constrained not to entertain the request unless it has been cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee's leaderships. | ||
| Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. | ||
| The gentleman with state is inquiry. | ||
| This is police week pursuant to public law 87726 enacted on October 1st of 1962, police week here in the United States Congress, where Congress honors the courage, the bravery, the service, the sacrifice, and the heroism of members of law enforcement. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman's not stating. | |
| The gentleman's not stating a proper parliamentary inquiry. | ||
| Further parliamentary inquiry? | ||
| The gentleman will state his inquiry. | ||
| Do the House rules require compliance with the 2022 public law 117.103 signed by the president at the time that requires a plaque listing the name of all police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th to be placed on the western front of the Capitol building. | ||
| Do the House rules require compliance with that public law? | ||
| The chair will not respond to an inquiry regarding the general application of the rules of the House to a matter not currently pending before the House. | ||
| All right, further parliamentary inquiry. | ||
| The gentleman with state is inquiry. | ||
| We appear to be in violation of the House rules given that the law that was passed in 2022 required that a plaque honoring those heroic police officers be placed on the western front of the Capitol building no later than March 15th, 2023. | ||
| But 791 days have passed and this Republican Congress has refused to comply with the law. | ||
| It's time to honor those heroic officers. | ||
| It's unconscionable. | ||
| It's unpatriotic. | ||
| It's unfathomable. | ||
| It's unacceptable. | ||
| And it's un-American. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you need to honor those officers and treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve. | |
| The gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| The chair will not provide an advisory opinion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| The script says Ohio, but it's Kansas. | ||
| So we're going to go into suspensions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what | |
| purposes? | ||
| The gentleman from Kansas, mr Schmidt, seek recognition. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 405, I call up the bill H.R. 2243 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | |
| The clerk will report the title of the bill. | ||
| Union Calendar No. 58, H.R. 2243, a bill to amend Title 18, United States Code, to improve the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act and provisions relating to the carrying of concealed weapons by law enforcement officers and for other purposes. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 405, the amendment in the nature of the substitute recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary printed in the bill is adopted and the bill as amended is considered read. | ||
|
Retired Officers' Concealed Carry Rights
00:15:37
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||
| The bill as amended shall be debatable for one hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on the judiciary or their respective designees. | ||
| The gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Schmidt, and the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, each will control 30 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Schmidt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 2243. | |
| Without objection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield myself such time as I may consume. | |
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| H.R. 2243, the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Reform Act, which reforms LEOSA, makes important updates to the existing LEOSA program. | ||
| In 2004, President George W. Bush signed LEOSA into law. | ||
| The law exempts certain active and retired law enforcement officers from local and state prohibitions on the carrying of concealed firearms. | ||
| In order to qualify under LEOSA, active law enforcement officers must meet several important requirements. | ||
| For example, they must be authorized to carry a firearm by their agency. | ||
| They cannot be subject to disciplinary actions by the agency that could result in a loss of their police power. | ||
| They must meet certain firearms qualification standards. | ||
| They cannot be under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicating substances. | ||
| And they must not be prohibited by federal law from possessing a firearm. | ||
| Retired law enforcement officers must also meet several requirements in order to qualify under LEOSA. | ||
| For example, they must have separated from service in good standing and served as a law enforcement officer for an aggregate of 10 years or more. | ||
| They also are required to meet certain firearms training standards and must not be prohibited by federal law from possessing a firearm. | ||
| The LEOSA Reform Act will allow these officers to carry a concealed firearm in the same manner many licensed citizens carry a firearm in their state. | ||
| For example, the Leosa Reform Act will allow law enforcement officers qualified under LEOSA to carry concealed firearms in national parks, certain federal facilities that are not open to the public, on public transportation, in school zones, and in other areas. | ||
| The bill also reduces the frequency that qualified retired law enforcement officers are required to meet certain qualification standards. | ||
| Many states allow state-licensed concealed carry permit holders to carry a concealed firearm in gun-free school zones and on public transportation in the state in which they are licensed. | ||
| This bill affords qualified law enforcement officers the same privilege. | ||
| This legislation improves public safety as our officers face increasingly greater dangers and current restrictions hinder their ability to carry firearms and protect themselves and others. | ||
| At a time when violent crime continues to plague our nation, we must support our active and retired law enforcement officers and ensure they are able to protect themselves and to protect others, no matter where they are in the United States. | ||
| This legislation is supported by the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Major County Sheriffs of America, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Narcotics Officers Association Coalition, the National Sheriffs Association, and the Sergeants Benevolent Association, NYPD. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman from Kansas Reserves, the gentleman from Maryland, is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I'll yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you kindly. | ||
| This is police week, in colloquial terms, law enforcement week. | ||
| And traditionally, we do two things in law enforcement week. | ||
| One, we recognize the valor and the sacrifice and the commitment of the police officers who serve our communities, who serve us in Congress, and who serve across the country. | ||
| And two, we try to think of ways that we actually can assist them in doing their jobs better so we can make their work more effective and safer, and we can make the police function generally more efficacious for the American people. | ||
| And unfortunately, with this bill, we're not doing either. | ||
| And in fact, the majority is really falling down on the job in terms of both of those major objectives. | ||
| In 2022, on March 15th, we passed H.R. 2471 to post in the Capitol on the west side of the Capitol a plaque in honor of the hundreds of police officers who nobly served us on January 6th, | ||
| 2021, when our institution, when our democracy came under attack by proud boys, oath keepers, and other violent extremists who stormed the Capitol, drove members of the House of Representatives out of our chamber, drove members of the Senate out of their chamber, and attempted to overthrow a presidential election. | ||
| Now, the new administration has seen fit to pardon more than 1,500 rioters and violent insurrectionists who attempted to overthrow our constitutional form of government on that day. | ||
| And they succeeded in bloodying, wounding, injuring, hospitalizing more than 140 police officers on January the 6th. | ||
| And several officers died in the subsequent weeks, and several people died on that day. | ||
| Now, we passed a law, not a recommendation, not an idle promise, not a suggestion in a suggestion box. | ||
| We passed a law to post this plaque in the U.S. Capitol. | ||
| And yet, Speaker Johnson has done absolutely nothing to post this plaque. | ||
| And I know that some of my colleagues think that they are being most effective when they're doing nothing. | ||
| This is a Congress that's getting the reputation for being perhaps the greatest do-nothing Congress in the history of the United States. | ||
| But here's one thing that this Congress can do, which is to post this plaque, which reads, on behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. | ||
| Their heroism will never be forgotten. | ||
| What an extraordinary irony that is. | ||
| Their heroism is already being forgotten, or at least there are some people who would like us to forget their heroism. | ||
| Well, that's on the symbolic front, because everybody wants to pay lip service to the police. | ||
| Everybody wants to say we honor them. | ||
| Well, let's really honor them. | ||
| Let's put up a permanent plaque for future generations of Americans to see that these officers risk their lives for the people in this chamber, for the members of the House and the Senate. | ||
| for the leadership of the House and the Senate, for the staff who work here, for the reporters who are here. | ||
| We have many officers who have had to leave the police service because they've been wounded and disfigured permanently by the injuries they suffered at the hands of these people. | ||
| This is the very least we can do at a time when the President of the United States is saying he wants to create a fund for January 6th. | ||
| Not a fund for Michael Fanon, who had a heart attack and had to beg for his life. | ||
| Not a fund for Sergeant Gannell, who was forced out of the force because of permanent injuries and now is living on a fraction of the salary he had before trying to support his family. | ||
| Not a fund for Officer Hodges, who was tortured in the eyes of the world, who got caught in the doorway while the insurrectionists beat him with all of their weapons that they brought that day. | ||
| No, it's not a fund for them that President Trump is suggesting. | ||
| He wants a fund for the rioters. | ||
| He wants a fund for the families of the insurrectionists. | ||
| And as Sergeant Gannell said recently, it seems like he believes that the rioters and insurrectionists were the ones defending the Capitol on that day. | ||
| Let's get this plaque up. | ||
| We voted for it on an overwhelming bipartisan basis, and I appeal to Speaker Johnson to enforce the law. | ||
| Even if you don't like it anymore, even if you change your mind about the plaque, this is the law. | ||
| Let's get it up there. | ||
| Now, secondly, we should be talking about how we can actually aid and abet and assist law enforcement officers in their work. | ||
| And unfortunately, we have not had from the majority a single bill that they're willing to bring to the floor to increase any funding for local law enforcement. | ||
| On the contrary, the emissaries from Doge, and here I don't necessarily hold my colleagues accountable for this because they didn't seem to know about it any more than we did, but the functionaries of Doge slashed more than $500 million that the Department of Justice was giving to local police departments across the country and community safety groups and organizations assisting victims of rape and sexual assault. | ||
| And as far as we can tell, one person in Doge, one unelected midnight bureaucrat whose career was made with Elon Musk, who seems to have skipped town now, that guy cut out hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to local law enforcement and community safety groups across America. | ||
| And I introduced an amendment in the budget reconciliation process in the Judiciary Committee to restore all of that money. | ||
| Not a single member, neither a Democrat nor a Republican, spoke against it. | ||
| And my Republican colleagues did not say a word, but they all voted against it. | ||
| They voted to uphold that nasty handiwork of Doge, slashing hundreds of millions of dollars, which we appropriated on a bipartisan basis in the House, in the Senate, signed by the President, programmed by the Department of Justice, and awarded to their communities. | ||
| my community, your communities, communities across the country, and one young person, a midnight computer hacker from Doge, Elon Musk's emissary, destroyed all of it, more than 300 grants. | ||
| And now they come forward with a budget for next year that would cut more than a billion dollars out of law enforcement. | ||
| FBI, Department of Justice, ATF, you name it. | ||
| right down the line. | ||
| I'll have some more to say about that after. | ||
| So what do we have? | ||
| Well, I rise in opposition to this bill. | ||
| In 2004, Congress passed LEOSA, a law that allows both off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms irrespective of state law. | ||
| It compelled all states to allow off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms under the terms set by Congress overriding the rules of the state. | ||
| Now, when Congress debated it 20 years ago, members of the Judiciary Committee on both sides of the aisle expressed anxiety about the bill trespassing on the rights of the states to decide on gun laws for themselves. | ||
| The Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, Congressman Sensenbrenner, opposed LEOSA for the reason of federalism and state rights. | ||
| He voted against it. | ||
| Several police groups opposed the legislation, expressing concerns about how it would affect officer safety, how it would create confusion in the event of an active shooter, how it might expose their agencies to more liability, and the insufficiency of training requirements for retired officers. | ||
| Despite all that, LEOSA became the law after Congress legislated some important limits on it and imposed common sense training requirements on the former officers. | ||
| Those have been in place for more than 20 years, but now H.R. 2243 would terminate the realm of discretion that states have to limit when and where individuals may carry their concealed firearms under LEOSA. | ||
| It would force states to allow off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms onto all private property open to the public, including restaurants, bars, parks, national parks, and playgrounds. | ||
| It would also force states to allow off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms on buses, trains, and subways. | ||
| It would even force states to allow for the concealed carry of firearms in gun-free school zones. | ||
| It also allows the off-duty and retired officers to completely disregard state laws prohibiting high-capacity magazines. | ||
| This legislation thus not only supersedes the considered policy judgments of the states, but it threatens the safety and security of federal agencies by forcing them to allow concealed carry in many federal buildings. | ||
| Forcing federal offices and buildings to allow concealed carry is a completely unnecessary and dangerous risk. | ||
| The legislation also weakens training standards. | ||
| Under current law, a person carrying a firearm must meet state training requirements every year. | ||
| But this bill would allow individuals to do concealed carry with training certifications obtained every three years. | ||
| This is troubling given that the bill extends nationwide concealed carry to retired officers who are no longer receiving the training that accompanies their old employment. | ||
| Now, our colleagues have different reasons that they advance for this, which I think are pretty refutable. | ||
| But in the big picture, this bill does nothing for existing police officers right now. | ||
| It does nothing to enhance public safety. | ||
| And our friends have completely missed the mark, I think, in terms of what Law Enforcement Week should be all about. | ||
| I'll reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from Maryland Reserves, the gentleman from Kansas, is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| You know, a law enforcement officer does not cease being a law enforcement officer merely because he's off duty or because of where he goes or she goes. | ||
| And upon retirement, the scars of service, including the animosities built up with many people who do not care for law enforcement officers because they have been subject to the enforcement of the law over the course of a career, upon retirement, those old animosities often linger. | ||
|
Acknowledging Officer Bravery
00:05:18
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|
unidentified
|
So those of us who support this measure and support it strongly understand and argue that it is essential to the safety of our existing officers and to the safety of our retired officers that we recognize that ongoing risk and burden that they have taken on and that they continue to carry and allow them to continue to carry the means to defend themselves and others in reasonable locations, | |
| as in many states, ordinary civilian concealed carry permit holders may do. | ||
| So we think it's common sense legislation. | ||
| And I would just point out in response to some of the comments of my colleague from Maryland, I wasn't here in 2004 during the debates that he cited over the original Leosa. | ||
| I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of what he said. | ||
| But I would say this, it is now 20 years later, and I think that history has shown us that many of the concerns presented in 2004 were not in fact realized by Leosa's enactment, nor will they be realized as a result of enactment of this strengthening of that underlying statute for our officers. | ||
| And with that, I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman in reserve, the gentleman from Maryland is recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I appreciate my distinguished colleague's suggestion that I may have the wisdom of somebody who's been here for 21 years, but actually I wasn't here either. | ||
| I got it just from the books myself. | ||
| I was here, I should say, in 2021 when the chamber was stormed, and that is a day I'll never forget. | ||
| So forgive my passion on the point of getting that plaque up. | ||
| I wish our colleagues would just help us convince the Speaker of the House this is something that's simple and it should be done. | ||
| And it's not a partisan issue. | ||
| On that day, we were not Democrats or Republicans. | ||
| We were Americans and we were legislators together being hounded and chased out of this chamber by people who did not accept the constitutional rules of the game. | ||
| And to me, it's a matter of great regret and melancholy that somehow It's become politicized to the point where people can't even acknowledge what they were saying at the time. | ||
| We had Republican leaders who were describing it as terrorism and saying it was absolutely inexcusable and indefensible. | ||
| And now, all of a sudden, we have the majority which will not even follow the law by posting a plaque in honor of the officers who gave blood and sweat and tears on that day. | ||
| One of them, Officer Hodges, who got caught in the doorway, and the whole world saw him screaming to high heaven for probably, I don't know if it was 45 seconds or maybe it was up to 90 seconds as he was being beaten and pummeled and he was being crushed in the doorway. | ||
| And when they finally dislodged him, they took him back where they were taking the officers. | ||
| And you know, we were very shorthanded and they wanted to tell him to just stay there and wash his eyes out. | ||
| Well, he took about five to ten minutes. | ||
| They were pouring water in his eyes and he got up and you know what he did? | ||
| He went back outside and he rejoined the battle because he said he knew that they needed him and we were outmanned and we were outflanked by the forces of violence that came down on us on that day. | ||
| That's the kind of bravery that we should be at least acknowledging, if not praising. | ||
| I know at the time we thanked them for saving our lives and people did die that day. | ||
| And again, there were more than 140 officers who were wounded and brutalized and injured and many still have the physical injuries and scars that they're dealing with as well as the mental scars because there's a lot of post-traumatic stress syndrome. | ||
| One of, or several of the officers who were there had been in the Iraq war and they'd been in the Afghan war. | ||
| And they testified before the January 6th Select Committee that they, several of them testified they had never seen violence as brutal and as bloody as what took place on January 6, 2021 with the various extremist groups that came and led the attack on the chamber and then gave bloody instructions to the rest of the mob about how to treat police officers in their effort to go and hang Mike Pence. | ||
| That was the chant I can still hear in my mind ringing off of the walls of the Capitol. | ||
|
Celebrate Amidst Anti-Semitism
00:15:23
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| Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence. | ||
| And where's Nancy? | ||
| Where's Nancy? | ||
| So we're not going to allow this to be buried into some kind of Orwellian memory hall. | ||
| We've got a law requiring that that plaque go up and we're going to see that that plaque goes up and that the law is enforced. | ||
| You know, as for the Leosa reform, again, it doesn't even purport to do anything for police and law enforcement today. | ||
| It would increase the, I suppose, increase some of the mobility of retired officers, off-duty officers to go to places like restaurants and bars and public parks and national parks and metros and buses and so on. | ||
| They're police. | ||
| I think that that should be decided by our communities whether people are doing concealed carry there. | ||
| I thought that a belief in federalism was something that unifies us. | ||
| That's something that the state governments can decide in cooperation with the local governments. | ||
| And the Congress of the United States does not need to be making decisions about restaurants in Charleston, South Carolina, or bars in El Paso, Texas, or what have you. | ||
| Why don't we let the people of the states and the localities make those decisions? | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from Maryland Reserves, the gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, seeing no other speakers on our side, we're prepared to close. | |
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
| We are prepared to close. | ||
| We've got no more speakers either. | ||
| And I want to thank my colleague for his excellent presentation of the bill. | ||
| I wish it were one that we could be together on, but I think it just goes way too far in terms of trespassing on states' rights and states' powers. | ||
| We have a nice equilibrium and stasis in terms of where the law has been for the last two decades, and this seems unnecessary. | ||
| And it does seem to me like a diversion from the things we actually could be doing to be making the lives of police officers safer. | ||
| The reason why so many police organizations are with 90% of the American people in supporting a universal violent criminal background check is because nobody should be accessing guns, any kind of gun, if they're not able to pass the Brady background check. | ||
| And that background check has saved countless lives since it was instituted. | ||
| And the reason the vast majority of the people support it is because we need to close those loopholes. | ||
| You should not be able to skip a background check by finding a gun online. | ||
| You should not be able to skip a background check by going to a private gun show or engaging in a so-called private sale or transfer. | ||
| We need universal violent criminal background check. | ||
| That will do far more than anything we're looking at today to make the lives of police officers better, to make their jobs easier, because they are on the front lines of these killing fields across the country. | ||
| America's rates of gun violence are completely out of control when compared to the nations in the European Union or Canada, our next-door neighbor. | ||
| We are losing 5, 10, or 20 times the number of people that the residents of those countries are losing because our gun laws are like Swiss cheese. | ||
| They're filled with holes. | ||
| Let's close those loopholes. | ||
| It doesn't diminish anybody's Second Amendment rights. | ||
| Justice Scalia said it himself in Heller versus District of Columbia. | ||
| You can have criminal background checks to make sure that only the right people are getting guns and not the wrong people are getting guns. | ||
| There are things we can do to improve public safety and to assist police officers, and we should be working on those. | ||
| And with that, I'm happy to yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman yields. | ||
| The gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| And I want to thank the distinguished ranking member for his argument and advocacy today. | ||
| And I would just point out to the body that while my distinguished colleague speaks with his usual passion on many subjects, the only subject before us today is whether or not this body is going to pass to an act to approve H.R. 2243, the Leosa Reform Act. | ||
| That is the sole question in front of us. | ||
| That measure is critically important to the safety of many law enforcement officers, retired to many law enforcement officers off duty. | ||
| The bad guys don't stop looking for them just because a cop's out of uniform and at a restaurant, or taking his family to a national park, or otherwise visiting a location where today the law may preclude him or her from carrying the means of defending himself, his family, his colleagues, or the stranger standing next to him. | ||
| We trust those officers to do exactly that while they are on duty and in service, and we should trust them to do exactly that under the reasonably expanded scope contemplated by this bill. | ||
| And with that, I would urge all of our colleagues in both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of this bill and to send it to the Senate. | ||
| And with nothing further, Mr. Speaker, I would yield back. | ||
| All time for debate has expired. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 405, the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended. | ||
| The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| Third reading. | ||
| A bill to amend Title 18, United States Code to Improve the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act and provisions relating to the carrying of concealed weapons by law enforcement officers and for other purposes. | ||
| The question is on passage of the bill. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The bill is passed. | ||
| This is the gentleman from Maryland rise. | ||
| To request the ayes and the nays. | ||
| The yeas and nays are requested. | ||
| Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| Pursuant to Clause 8 of Rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. | ||
| Pursuant to Clause 8 of Rule 20, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered or votes objected to under Clause 6 of Rule 20. | ||
| The house will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. | ||
| For what purposes the gentleman from Kansas seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass House Resolution 352. | |
| The clerk will report the title of the resolution. | ||
| House Resolution 352, resolution calling on elected officials and civil society leaders to counter anti-Semitism and educate the public on the contributions of the Jewish American community. | ||
| Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Schmidt, and the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, each will control 20 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on House Resolution 352. | |
| Without objection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield myself such time as I may consume. | |
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| This month, we celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month. | ||
| First proclaimed by President George W. Bush and by each president since, this month recognizes the contributions of the Jewish community to our country. | ||
| We celebrate this month amidst a persistent increase in anti-Semitism in our country. | ||
| Since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel, incidents of anti-Semitic attacks and harassment have skyrocketed. | ||
| The American Jewish Committee found that 77% of American Jews say they feel less safe in the United States since the October 7th attacks. | ||
| Hillel International found that 83% of Jewish college students have experienced or witnessed some form of anti-Semitism since the October 7th attacks. | ||
| In April, Harvard released a report examining anti-Semitism on its campus with stark findings. | ||
| One Israeli student said, quote, my friend has been told that others would not attend social gatherings if I were present, as they couldn't risk the social consequences of being seen with an Israeli, unquote. | ||
| Another student said, quote, I am tired of fighting. | ||
| It's the same group of students whose sole objective seems to be to harass and intimidate Jewish students. | ||
| Despite reaching out to every office, everyone says it's not their problem, unquote. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. | ||
| It is all of our problem, and it cannot continue. | ||
| This House, elected officials at the state and local level, faith leaders, community leaders, and university administrators all have an obligation to confront anti-Semitism. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Maryland is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I'm going to yield five minutes to my distinguished colleague from Florida, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. | ||
| Gentlelady from Florida is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding and for his stalwart and unyielding support for the Jewish community, for his leadership as a member of the Jewish community and for his decades of work to support Jewish community values. | ||
| And I rise in strong support of my resolution, HRES 352, to recognize Jewish American Heritage Month and highlight the enduring contributions of Jewish Americans to our country. | ||
| I proudly sponsored this bill when I was a freshman member of Congress, and it was the first piece of legislation that I passed as a freshman 20 years ago. | ||
| And I want to thank my co-leads, Representative Troy Carter, Congresswoman Miller Meeks, Congressman Fitzpatrick, for joining me in co-leading this resolution. | ||
| It is a resolution that highlights the enduring contributions of Jewish Americans to our country. | ||
| Every May, we come together to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month, also known as JAM, and the generations of Jewish Americans who were integral parts of the rich mosaic of people and the heritages that make up these great United States. | ||
| While we joyfully celebrate this month, it's the second JAM that we commemorate under the shadow of Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel. | ||
| This was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. | ||
| And since that fateful day, the United States has witnessed a historic rise in anti-Semitism, which was already explosive prior to October 7th, with an absolute explosion of online hate. | ||
| In 2024, the ADL tracked 9,354 anti-Semitic incidents across America. | ||
| That marked a 344 percent increase over the past five years, and it was the highest number on record since these instances of hate were first tracked in 1979. | ||
| It is so disheartening that every year a new record is set of anti-Jewish incidents, but it also demonstrates that we have a lot of work to do together. | ||
| According to the American Jewish Committee in 2024, one-third of American Jews had been the personal target of anti-Semitism over the past year. | ||
| And sadly, one-third of Jewish college students felt uncomfortable or unsafe on campus due to their Jewish identity. | ||
| While we must take steps to protect Jewish students on college campuses, we cannot allow anti-Semitism to be used as a vehicle to take away the rights of others. | ||
| Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a canary in the coal mine, and attacks on Jewish students in any school setting is unacceptable, and there should be serious consequences. | ||
| By investing in policies that protect Jewish students, like fully funding the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights to fund investigations and hold colleges and universities, and quite frankly, schools across the country in secondary schools, tolerating anti-Semitism accountable, we can support all students' ability to live and study in places that value and respect their heritage. | ||
| While there is no simple solution to end this extremist hate, we all can take steps to end this violence. | ||
| In the Biden administration's national strategy to counter anti-Semitism, the U.S.'s first ever blueprint, it called on all aspects of society to commemorate JAM and use it as a tool to fight hate. | ||
| That's because we need Jews and non-Jews alike to learn about all the remarkable Jewish Americans who served in government, the military, or who won Nobel Prizes, for example, and how Jewish Americans lead universities and make life-saving medical discoveries that we all count on today. | ||
| However, the significant contributions Jewish Americans have made and continue to make towards America's success are not widely known. | ||
| So today's resolution highlights Jewish American inventors who created services and products that all Americans rely on each and every day. | ||
| For instance, Mr. Speaker, Irving Maxson invented the slow cooker. | ||
| He took inspiration from Jewish cooking traditions in Europe to allow Jewish communities to have fresh and hot meals on Shabbat. | ||
| Sylvan Goldman invented the shopping cart, transforming the ease at which people are able to shop for their families. | ||
| When Hedi Lamar, the famous actress, famous and accomplished actress, was not acting in films, she invented the concept of frequency hopping, which opened the door to a wide range of wireless communications technologies, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. | ||
| And there are a whole lot of gamers who would love that Ralph Baer invented the Brown Box, a prototype for the first multiplayer, multi-programmed video game system. | ||
| These are just a few of the innovative contributions that American Jews brought to all of our lives. | ||
| As Jews, we have a long-standing commitment to Tikkun Alam, a commitment to repair the world, and we take great pride regarding the impact we have made on so many generations of Americans. | ||
| As we celebrate the 20th year of Jewish American Heritage Month, we've made progress towards the goals of JAM to educate Americans by celebrating Jewish contributions which promote understanding and reduces bigotry. | ||
| So thank you to everyone on both sides of the aisle for helping shine a light on this important moment in time. | ||
|
Martin's Defense Against Anti-Semitism
00:15:48
|
||
| And I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| And I want to thank the gentlelady for her eloquence and lucidity in those remarks and for sponsoring this legislation. | ||
| And I will reserve. | ||
| Gentleman in Reserves, the gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| We have no further speakers on our side, so I would reserve and be prepared to close. | ||
| Gentlemen in Reserves, the gentleman from Maryland is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Look, I want to speak very strongly in favor of Ms. Wasserman-Schultz's resolution, which recognizes Jewish American Heritage Month and the important contributions that Jewish Americans have made to our country. | ||
| And I want to thank her for her continuing leadership within Congress and also within the American Jewish community. | ||
| The resolution calls on elected officials, faith leaders, and civil society leaders to condemn and counter all acts of anti-Semitism. | ||
| And I also want to salute Mr. Schmidt, the distinguished member from Kansas, for his powerful endorsement of this idea. | ||
| The resolution also goes on to urge the House to take, quote, all possible steps to ensure the safety, security, and dignity of American Jews in all aspects of their lives. | ||
| So we are called upon to condemn anti-Semitism and to ensure the safety of the Jewish community along with everyone else. | ||
| And the appeal is appropriate and timely. | ||
| We've got to do everything in our power to counter the poison of anti-Semitism and racism and other forms of bigotry, which are really the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy in our country. | ||
| But that obligation means fighting anti-Semitism even when, perhaps especially when, it's expressed and endorsed by officials of the United States government. | ||
| Last week, President Trump finally withdrew the nomination of Ed Martin to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. | ||
| Mr. Martin's confirmation in the Senate faced many insuperable obstacles. | ||
| It was doomed. | ||
| First of all, he had no prosecutorial experience and no administrative experience running a prosecutor's office. | ||
| Secondly, he had shown an extraordinary devotion to the extremists who participated in the violent insurrection against the Capitol and against Congress on January 6, 2021. | ||
| He represented many of them as a defense lawyer, but he championed the cause of a great number more in not just legal, but in political and civil contexts. | ||
| He also failed to disclose that he had appeared more than 150 times on Russian state propaganda networks like Russia Today and Sputnik when he was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. | ||
| And these are networks that were forced to register as foreign agents of Vladimir Putin's government. | ||
| So the truth is that his nomination was doomed regardless. | ||
| But I would say that all of these disqualifications by themselves pale in comparison to Mr. Martin's long and troubling relationship with a Hitler-loving neo-Nazi named Timothy Hale Kusinelli, who was sentenced to four years in prison for breaching the Capitol during the January 6th attack. | ||
| Hale Kousinelli is an outspoken anti-Semite who proudly wears a Hitler mustache, advocates killing the disabled at birth, and he told co-workers that Hitler should have finished the job. | ||
| At his sentencing, a Trump-appointed federal judge warned him that his actions and statements make everyone, including Jewish people, less safe in our country. | ||
| Well, how did Ed Martin, President Trump's pick for one of the most important jobs in the American criminal justice system, react to all of the extraordinary statements and the lawless actions of Mr. Hale Kusinelli? | ||
| Well, he invited him to go on his podcast multiple times to spout his fascist propaganda. | ||
| He presented him with an award before a big audience. | ||
| He praised him as an extraordinary man and an extraordinary leader. | ||
| By attending President Trump's inauguration with his good friend, he continued to promote him in establishment political circles, and he headlined a fundraiser together with Mr. Hale Kousinelli in Florida last year. | ||
| By pretending not to know that he was a vicious anti-Semite, even after he clearly had evidence that he was, Mr. Martin continued to legitimize and validate the views of this man. | ||
| Mr. Martin's weak protests that he didn't know anything about what his views really were were debunked not only by national public radio, but by the record of Martin's involvement with other extremists. | ||
| For example, Mr. Martin has also praised Jack Pozabik, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist with links to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and several other white nationalist organizations. | ||
| Mr. Martin frequently praises Mr. Pozabik online and calls his anti-Semitic insights valuable and incredible. | ||
| Mr. Martin's own views are saturated with deranged analogies that dilute the meaning of Nazism and fascism. | ||
| In one episode about the 2024 election, he compared President Joe Biden to Adolf Hitler, which either means that Biden committed genocide or that Hitler was just a regular old politician. | ||
| In another episode about the election, he repeated the defamatory lie that Jewish people who vote for Democrats are somehow less Jewish than those who vote for Donald Trump. | ||
| So how did President Trump treat this disturbed individual after his nomination just collapsed across the hallway in the U.S. Senate in the face of this mountain of evidence of his extremism? | ||
| Not by cutting him loose, as he should have, but by appointing him to serve in a senior role in the Department of Justice, which does not require confirmation by the U.S. Senate. | ||
| He named him to be the U.S. pardon attorney, and he named him to be director of a task force on the weaponization of government. | ||
| A perfect assignment, perhaps, for a man who writes vituperative threat letters to Democrats when he hears them say things that he doesn't like. | ||
| Well, it makes me wonder why President Trump would put up with this and would insist upon placing him in a position of such critical importance in the Department of Justice. | ||
| We know President Trump saw very fine people on both sides of the anti-Semitic riot that took place in Charlottesville. | ||
| We know that he had to his house Nicholas Fuentes, another neo-Nazi Holocaust revisionist. | ||
| Look, I believe that this is a matter of fundamental importance that both Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate demand that Ed Martin not have a role in the U.S. government, | ||
| given his close association with all these extremists and his very damning statements in the past, not to mention the fact that he had more than 150 appearances on Russian propaganda state networks. | ||
| We should be rejecting anti-Semitism wherever it appears, on the left, on the right, in the center. | ||
| It doesn't matter what you call yourself. | ||
| If you align with hatred against any group, you are a danger to American constitutional democracy and we should not allow it to gain a foothold in the government of the United States of America. | ||
| So let us adhere to the spirit of President George Washington, who said in his famous letter in 1790 to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, that the government of the United States gives no bigotry, gives to bigotry no sanction, gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, to bigotry no sanction, to persecution, no assistance. | ||
| If these words are to mean something in our day in the 21st century, we must insist that men like Ed Martin and his anti-Semitic associates and friends have no place representing the people of the United States in our government. | ||
| We must pay more than lip service to the idea of fighting anti-Semitism. | ||
| We must fight anti-Semitism when we see it in the government of the United States itself and even amongst our friends. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and let's put the words and the spirit of this resolution into practice. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Maryland Reserves, the gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | |
| We do have another colleague on our side who now seeks recognition, and so I would yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And I was not intending to speak. | ||
| I had the privilege of just standing in the Speaker's roster a few minutes ago and witnessing this debate on an issue that's been important to me ever since I got into public service. | ||
| I think it is no small coincidence as I was able to wear my kippah up there, something I'm not sure whether has happened before as a debate like this happened. | ||
| And I thank Representative Wasserman Schultz for bringing this forward and saying that we should stand together on anti-Semitism. | ||
| But a resolution like this, and I recognize that I'm new, but a resolution like this that says that people should care about these issues is not the time for people to go and make partisan pot shots about anti-Semitism. | ||
| It is not productive. | ||
| It is divisive. | ||
| It is not helpful, particularly in a world where folks on our side could go through a long list and a litany of problems on the other side of the aisle, including with people who actually serve in this room. | ||
| This is a problem that while I appreciate that you want to work on and while I appreciate that you want to help on it, I can tell you from personal experience that the folks that are on my side, President Trump on down, are committed. | ||
| Now, are there bad people? | ||
| Something I often say in Florida. | ||
| And as you work with me, you will find this. | ||
| Anti-Semitism doesn't have a monopoly on either party. | ||
| Both have it. | ||
| My side does too. | ||
| But where we fight together to take it on and not to take shots, we actually begin to solve the problem. | ||
| Commentary like that about President Trump is just not helpful because I can tell you I have seen it in my state where we don't have many of the problems that we find in other parts of the country because we have tackled these issues largely in a bipartisan way, including with people who serve here in Congress on the Democratic side. | ||
| So I would just say moving forward, while I am grateful at the desire and the belief to tackle anti-Semitism, there is a time and a place for those kinds of arguments. | ||
| This was not one. | ||
| I thank you for the resolution and let us focus on the importance of celebrating achievements that I was not aware of. | ||
| And I will now share with my family where the slow cooker came from. | ||
| I didn't know. | ||
| It makes sense given the kind of food that we eat at home. | ||
| But I ask us as we tackle this issue to be focused on solving the problem and not making it worse by trying to come up with things that will divide us all. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Kansas Reserves. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from Maryland is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I've not had the good fortune to meet our new colleague from Florida, and I will be sure to come over to introduce myself right after. | ||
| And I'm glad that he's in support of the resolution. | ||
| The very first sentence of it says, the House of Representatives calls on elected officials, which presumably includes us, faith leaders and civil society leaders, to condemn and counter all acts of anti-Semitism. | ||
| And if a discussion of anti-Semitism and the contributions of Jewish Americans is not an appropriate time to talk about anti-Semitism in the government, I wonder what is. | ||
| But I would be very happy to pursue with my new colleague the subject of Ed Martin. | ||
| I don't know exactly where he stands on Ed Martin, whether he opposed the president's withdrawal of his nomination after it came out of his close association with the neo-Nazi. | ||
| And, you know, the story behind it, if you really are interested in it, is national public radio confronted him with all of the evidence of Hale Kusinelli's Nazi statements, including Hitler should have finished the job, and statements like he was right about disabled people and when babies are born disabled, they should be put to death immediately, and so on. | ||
| They presented him with a complete litany of it, and Ed Martin's response to that was: National Public Radio is a propaganda network paid for by the government. | ||
| And he had nothing of substance to say about his good friends, this extraordinary leader's anti-Semitic remarks. | ||
| So it seems for some people there's never an opportunity to actually repudiate and denounce anti-Semitism when it actually appears. | ||
| Now, when it came out that he did know about it, they were forced to withdraw the nomination. | ||
| But imagine everyone's surprise when Donald Trump decided to then make him the United States pardon attorney overseeing a large office of people considering pardon applications from across the country. | ||
| Now, is that someone that I think can be trusted to deal fairly in terms of minority groups, Jewish Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| I'm sorry the gentleman doesn't think it's appropriate to talk about anti-Semitism when we see it. | ||
| We just have an honest difference of opinion about that. | ||
| But if he's interested in pursuing it some other time, I would love to discuss it with him. | ||
| And I think you'll come to find that we use the floor of the House of Representatives to talk about a lot of things going on, and you might be able to stick narrowly to one particular topic. | ||
| Good for you if that's what you'd like to do. | ||
| But we like to talk about all of our legislation in context here. | ||
|
Closing Remarks
00:04:33
|
||
| And this is a matter that is actually called for directly in the very first sentence of the resolution that we're all about to approve. | ||
| I'll reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Maryland Reserves. | |
| The gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I reserve. | ||
| I believe we are ready to close on our side. | ||
| The gentleman from Kansas Reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Maryland is recognized. | ||
| We have no more speakers. | ||
| I want to again thank Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the distinguished representative from Florida, for being such a great leader in opposing not just anti-Semitism, but all forms of racism and bigotry and anti-Semitism. | ||
| You could say was the original form of racism. | ||
| It goes back millennia. | ||
| And it mutates and it appears in different guises and different forms at different periods in history. | ||
| But anti-Semitism and racism are the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy. | ||
| And so we need to recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of Jewish Americans along with the extraordinary accomplishments of members of other groups and to fight and resist bigotry of all forms, as George Washington talked about. | ||
| So let us continue to fight for an America that's going to be open to the contributions of everybody. | ||
| And we appreciate Ms. Watson-Schultz's ability to bring before us again the Jewish American Heritage Month resolution, and we are delighted to support it. | ||
| We urge all members of the body to vote for it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
From Maryland yields back. | |
| The gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | ||
| We closed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you done? | |
| Are you second? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Kansas is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I just want to thank all of our colleagues who have engaged in this discussion today on both sides of the aisle. | ||
| This is an issue that, although we do from time to time go off on particulars where we strongly disagree, at its core, it's an issue where all of us agree as Americans, regardless of our philosophy, regardless of our faith, regardless of our geography, that there is no space for anti-Semitism in American public life. | ||
| I come from the state of Kansas. | ||
| It was one of our favorite sons, Dwight Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Allied Commander at the end of the Second World War, who entered the camps, saw the horrors, and ordered that videographers record what was seen so that people would believe. | ||
| Because I was sure that it was so far beyond the pale and experience of most people what had occurred in the camps and had occurred to the Jewish people and others during the war at the hands of the Nazi regime that without seeing they would not believe. | ||
| You can actually still find those films on some of the streaming services. | ||
| I would commend it to those who have an interest in seeing that moment in history and perhaps feeling just a little piece of what those who saw it in person understood. | ||
| There are still, I think it's true, I know it was a few years ago, there are still fewer Jewish people alive today than there were at the start of the Holocaust. | ||
| That the six million who were killed roughly, it's taken all this time to sort of get back numerically to that starting line. | ||
| So this is not just another issue. | ||
| And when we hear people, and nobody's done it here today, but when we hear people out and about who will compare our current politics to the Nazis or to Hitler, I hope we all will remind them that it is not the same. | ||
| There are moments to have vigorous debates, but it is not the same. | ||
| And it perhaps, when those terms are used, cheapens a bit of the experience that some of our fellow Americans live through. | ||
|
Yays and Nays Requested
00:01:38
|
||
|
unidentified
|
I want to thank everybody for joining together on this. | |
| I encourage all of our colleagues on both sides to support this resolution, and I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman from Kansas yields back. | ||
| The question is, will the House suspend the rules and agree to House Resolution 352? | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, say no. | ||
| Those opposed, say no. | ||
| Okay, in the opinion of the chair, two-thirds being in the affirmative. | ||
| Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentlewoman speak? | |
| With that, I ask for the yays and nays. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, the yays and nays are requested. | |
| All those in favor of taking this vote by the yays and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. | ||
| Okay, a sufficient number having risen. | ||
| The yays and nays are ordered pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20. | ||
| Further proceedings on the question will be postponed. | ||
| Turn to the second floor. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the House in recess subject to the call of the chair. | ||
| It is National Police Week all this week, and in the U.S. House, members are working on law enforcement-related bills. | ||
| They're also considering a measure aiming to educate the public on how to counter anti-Semitism and whether to table or kill Congressman Sri Tanadar's impeachment resolution against President Trump. | ||
| Off the floor, committees continue working on tax and spending legislation to further President Trump's agenda. | ||