Reserved for the Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked the 49th anniversary of ``Bloody Sunday.'' On Sunday, March 7, 1965, more than 600 civil rights demonstrators, including our beloved colleague, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, were brutally attacked by state and local police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in support of the right to vote.

``Bloody Sunday'' was a watershed moment in the history of Civil Rights Movement and of our country. It crystallized for the nation the necessity of enacting a strong and effective federal law protecting the right to vote of every American.

Nearly a half century later, I rise today to address the House on the continuing need for an effective Voting Rights Act. As a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, I strongly supported and worked for the successful reauthorization in 2006 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which proudly bears the name: Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Cesar E. Chavez, Barbara C. Jordan, William C. Velasquez, and Dr. Hector P. Garcia Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.

Mr. Speaker, in signing the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson said:

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by

man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible

walls which imprison men because they are different from

other men.

In answering the call of history and justice, great legislator- statesmen strongly supported the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and worked across the aisle and with President Johnson to ensure its passage. Men like Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana), Senate Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-Illinois), Speaker John McCormack (D-Massachusetts), House Majority Leader Hale Boggs (D-Louisiana), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler (D-New York), and House Minority Leader and former President Gerald Ford (R-Michigan).

Mr. Speaker, since its passage in 1965, and through four reauthorizations signed by Republican presidents (1970, 1975, 1982, 2006), more Americans, especially those in the communities we represent, have been empowered by the Voting Rights Act than any other single piece of legislation.

Section 5 of the Act requires covered jurisdictions to submit proposed changes to any voting law or procedure to the Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC for pre-approval, hence the term ``pre-clearance.'' Under Section 5, the submitting jurisdiction has the burden of proving that the proposed change(s) are not retrogressive, i.e. that they do not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.

In announcing his support for the 1982 extension of the Voting Rights Act, President Reagan said, ``the right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties.'' And Section 5 is the ``crown jewel'' of the Voting Rights Act.

But a terrible blow was dealt to the Voting Rights Act on June 25, 2013, when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b), the provision of the law determining which jurisdictions would be subject to Section 5 ``pre-clearance.''

In 2006, the City of Calera, Alabama, which lies within Shelby County, enacted a discriminatory redistricting plan without complying with Section 5, leading to the loss of the city's sole African-American councilman, Ernest Montgomery. In compliance with Section 5, however, Calera was required to draw a nondiscriminatory redistricting plan and conduct another election in which Mr. Montgomery regained his seat.

According to the Supreme Court majority, the reason for striking down Section 4(b) was that ``times have changed.'' Now, the Court was right; times have changed. But what the Court did not fully appreciate is that the positive changes it cited are due almost entirely to the existence and vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. And that is why the Voting Rights Act is still needed.

Let me put it this way: in the same way that the vaccine invented by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1953 eradicated the crippling effects but did not eliminate the cause of polio, the Voting Rights Act succeeded in stymying the practices that resulted in the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans and language minorities. But it did not eliminate them entirely. The Voting Rights Act is needed as much today to prevent another epidemic of voting disenfranchisement as Dr. Salk's vaccine is still needed to prevent another polio epidemic.

Many of us remember what it was like before the Voting Rights Act but for those too young to have lived through it, let us take a stroll down memory lane. Before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, the right to vote did not exist in practice for most African Americans. And until 1975, most American citizens who were not proficient in English faced significant obstacles to voting, because they could not understand the ballot.

Even though the Indian Citizenship Act gave Native Americans the right to vote in 1924, state law determined who could actually vote, which effectively excluded many Native Americans from political participation for decades.

Asian Americans and Asian immigrants also suffered systematic exclusion from the political process.

In 1964, the year before the Voting Rights Act became law, there were approximately 300 African-Americans in public office, including just three in Congress. Few, if any, black elected officials were elected anywhere in the South. Because of the Voting Rights Act, there are now more than 9,100 black elected officials, including 43 members of Congress, the largest number ever.

The Voting Rights Act opened the political process for many of the approximately 6,000 Latino public officials that have been elected and appointed nationwide, including 263 at the state or federal level, 27 of whom serve in Congress. Native Americans, Asians and others who have historically encountered harsh barriers to full political participation also have benefited greatly.

Aided by Section 5, the Voting Rights Act was successful in preventing the states with the worst and most egregious records of voter suppression and intimidation from disenfranchising minority voters. So successful was the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court apparently saw no harm in invalidating the provision that subjected those states to the federal supervision responsible for the success it celebrated.

Now to be sure, the Supreme Court did not invalidate the preclearance provisions of Section 5; it only invalidated Section 4(b). But that is like leaving the car undamaged but destroying the key that unlocks the doors and starts the engine.

According to the Court, the coverage formula in Section 4(b) had to be struck down because the data upon which it was based--registration rates and turn-out gaps--was too old and outdated. Like many others, I disagreed. I thought the Court got it wrong and said so in an op-ed published in the Forward Times of Houston, in which I wrote:

The Court majority confuses the symptom with the cause.

Congress' focus was not on voter registration or turnout

rates. Congress instead was focused on eliminating the causes

or at least eradicating the effects of racial discrimination

in voting in states that had a ``unique history of problems

with racial discrimination in voting.'' Shelby, 570 U.S. 193,

(Ginsburg, J., dissenting), slip op. at 19 (June 25, 2013).

I believe Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was exactly right when she wrote in her dissent that the question in 2006 was not which states were to be covered by Section 4(b) and thus subject to pre-clearance as was the case in 1965. Rather the question before Congress in 2006:

Was there still a sufficient basis to support continued

application of the preclearance remedy in each of those

already-identified places?

There were many commentators, pundits, and opponents of the Voting Rights Act who viewed the Court's Shelby decision as the death knell of the Act.

But they underestimated the resolve of men and women of good will across the country who revere the Voting Rights Act. They underestimated the determination of my colleagues in the House and Senate, on both sides of the aisle.

They discounted the commitment of persons like: Republican James Sensenbrenner and Democrat John Conyers, each a former Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; Congressman John Lewis, who shed his blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on ``Bloody Sunday''; Northern members of Congress like Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Republicans Steve Chabot of Ohio and Sean Duffy of Wisconsin; and Southern members like Spencer Bachus of Alabama, Robert ``Bobby'' Scott of Virginia and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas.

These members, joined by several of their colleagues, refused to let the Voting Rights Act die. They recognized and understood that for all the progress this nation has made in becoming a more inclusive, equitable, and pluralistic society, it is the Voting Rights Act ``that has brought us thus far along the way.'' And so we went to work. You know the saying: ``Don't cry about it, be about it.'' And so we were.

Led by Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, I was honored to be a member of the working group tasked with sharing ideas, making recommendations, and crafting and drafting the legislation that would repair the damage done to the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court decision and capable of winning majorities in the House and Senate and the signature of the President. After months of hard work, consultation, negotiation, and collaboration, we were able to produce a bill, H.R. 3899, ``Voting Rights Amendments Act of 2014,'' that can achieve these goals.

To be sure, this legislation is not perfect, no bill ever is. But-- and this is important--the bill represents an important step forward because it is responsive to the concern expressed by the Supreme Court and establishes a new coverage formula that is carefully tailored but sufficiently potent to protect the voting rights of all Americans.

First, H.R. 3899 specifies a new coverage formula that is based on current problems in voting and therefore directly responds to the Court's concern that the previous formula was outdated. The importance of this feature is hard to overestimate. Legislators and litigators understand that the likelihood of the Court upholding an amended statute that fails to correct the provision previously found to be defective is very low indeed.

H.R. 3899 replaces the old ``static'' coverage formula with a new dynamic coverage formula, or ``rolling trigger,'' which works as follows:

1. for states, it requires at least one finding of discrimination at the state level and at least four adverse findings by its sub- jurisdictions within the previous 15 years;

2. for political subdivisions, it requires at least three adverse findings within the previous 15 years; but

3. political subdivisions with ``persistent and extremely low minority voter turnout'' can also be covered if they have a single adverse finding of discrimination.

The ``rolling trigger'' mechanism effectively gives the legislation nationwide reach because any state and any jurisdiction in any state potentially is subject to being covered if the requisite number of violations are found to have been committed.

Prior to Shelby County v. Holder, the Voting Rights Act covered 16 states in whole or in part, including most of the states in the Deep South. Those states originally covered in whole were:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original States Covered Applicable Date Fed. Register Date ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alabama........................... Nov. 1, 1964......... 30 FR 9897........... Aug. 7, 1965 Georgia........................... Nov. 1, 1964......... 30 FR 9897........... Aug. 7, 1965 Louisiana......................... Nov. 1, 1964......... 30 FR 9897........... Aug. 7, 1965 Mississippi....................... Nov. 1, 1964......... 30 FR 9897........... Aug. 7, 1965 South Carolina.................... Nov. 1, 1964......... 30 FR 9897........... Aug. 7, 1965 Virginia.......................... Nov. 1, 1964......... 30 FR 9897........... Aug. 7, 1965 Arizona........................... Nov. 1, 1972......... 40 FR 43746.......... Sept. 23, 1975 Texas............................. Nov. 1, 1972......... 40 FR 43746.......... Sept. 23, 1975 Alaska............................ Nov. 1, 1972......... 40 FR 49422.......... Oct. 22, 1975 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rolling trigger contained in H.R. 3899, however, does not cover all of these states. To compensate for the fact that fewer jurisdictions are covered, the bill also includes several key provisions that are consistent with the needs created by a narrower Section 5 trigger.

For example, H.R. 3899:

1. Expands judicial ``bail-in'' authority under Section 3 so that it applies to voting changes that result in discrimination (not just intentional discrimination);

2. Requires nationwide transparency of ``late breaking'' voting changes; allocation of poll place resources; and changes within the boundaries of voting districts;

3. Clarifies and expands the ability of plaintiffs to seek a preliminary injunction against voting discrimination; and

4. Clarifies and expands the Attorney General's authority to send election observers to protect against voting discrimination.

The right to vote, free from discrimination, is the capstone of full citizenship conferred by the Civil War Amendments. And it is a source of eternal pride to me that in pursuit of extending the full measure of citizenship to all Americans that in 1975, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who also represented the historic 18th Congressional District of Texas, introduced, and the Congress adopted, what are now Sections 4(f)(3) and 4(f)(4) of the Voting Rights Act, which extended the protections of Section 4

(a) and Section 5 to language minorities. Language minorities in emerging communities have distinct and particular interests that ought to be considered.

``Emerging communities'' are those located in states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, and South Carolina that historically were not home to large numbers of Hispanics or Asian-Pacific Americans but have in recent years experienced tremendous population growth which is expected to accelerate. The concern is that as these Hispanic and Asian-Pacific voters in these areas become more numerous in these states and capable of having

a tangible influence on electoral outcomes, some communities may respond by adopting measures that violate principles of fair and equal treatment.

Such measures may include:

1. Changes from single-member to at-large election districts;

2. Changes to jurisdictional boundaries through annexation; or

3. Changes to multilingual voting materials requirements.

I think we can all agree that language minorities and those residing in emerging communities deserve protection from any such retaliatory election changes. The question is how this can best be achieved consistent with the overriding goal of bringing to the floor a bill that can pass both houses of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is no ordinary piece of legislation. For millions of Americans, and many of us in Congress, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is sacred treasure, earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish extraordinary things. In 2006, during the floor debate on the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, I said:

With our vote today on H.R. 9, each of us will earn a place

in history.

Therefore, the question before the House is whether our

vote on the Voting Rights Act will mark this moment in

history as a ``day of infamy,'' in FDR's immortal words, or

will commend us to and through future generations as the

great defenders of the right to vote, the most precious of

rights because it is preservative of all other rights.

For my part, I stand with Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks

and Coretta Scott King, great Americans who gave all and

risked all to help America live up to the promise of its

creed.

I will vote to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act for the

next 25 years.

I am as committed to the preservation of the Voting Rights Act today as I was then and will not rest until the job is done. As I stated during the historic 2006 debate:

I stand today an heir of the Civil Rights Movement, a

beneficiary of the Voting Rights Act. I would be breaking

faith with those who risked all and gave all to secure for my

generation the right to vote if I did not do all I can to

strengthen the Voting Rights Act so that it will forever keep

open doors that shut out so many for so long.

This is why I intend to work with my colleagues and others as H.R. 3899 works its way forward and to do all I can to protect the voting rights of all Americans.

Less than 7 years ago, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives joined together to reauthorize key expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We explained and documented our findings that this landmark civil rights law was still needed because of continuing discrimination and to preserve the progress that had been made. Because of this extensive record and the acceptance of the Voting Rights Act's importance in our country, our 2006 reauthorization of this crucial law was marked by Members of Congress from both parties and from every corner of the Nation coming together to renew one of the cornerstones of American Democracy.

It is a sad irony that on the same day we will be honoring Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks by unveiling her statue in the U.S. Capitol, the first full statue of an African American to stand in the halls of Congress, across the street the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments from those challenging the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization named in part for her. In the pending case, the challengers seek to strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act even though that critical section has protected constitutional guarantees against discrimination in voting where 100 years of prior civil rights laws failed. The Supreme Court got it right four years ago when it upheld the constitutional authority of Congress to reauthorize Section 5 against a similar challenge. Neither the words of the Constitution nor the importance of these critical provisions for protecting the right to vote has changed in the last four years. Under the specific words of the 14th and 15th Amendments, Congress has the power to remedy discrimination and enforce the Amendments by enacting laws that address racial discrimination in connection with voting. That is what we did nearly unanimously less than 7 years ago. And over the past year lower courts have repeatedly upheld both its constitutionality and its protections. In light of the lengthy court findings from just the last year, there can be no doubt that the operation of the Voting Rights Act is continuing to protect American voters from discrimination.

In his historic ``I Have a Dream'' speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed: ``When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.'' The Voting Rights Act is one of our most important means for enforcing this promise and upholding the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights and equal protection of the law. Reauthorizing and restoring the Voting Rights Act was the right thing to do, not only for those who fought and bled for its passage but also for those who come after us--our children and our grandchildren. We owe it to them to continue our commitment to this vital Act. No one's right to vote should be abridged, suppressed or denied in the United States of America.

As we celebrate Black History Month and the significant progress we have made as a Nation, let us not forget the promissory note to future generations and the continuing need for civil rights laws such as the Voting Rights Act.

Our Nation has grown stronger since its Founding as more Americans have been able to exercise their right to vote. The actions taken by previous generations--through a Civil War, through Constitutional amendments, and through the long struggles of the civil rights movement--have worked to break down barriers that stood in the way of all Americans participating in our Democracy.

It has not been an easy road. The pervasive discriminatory tactics that led to the original Voting Rights Act were deeply rooted. As a nation, this effort to ensure equal protection dates back more than 140 years to the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, the last of the post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments. Yet, it took 95 years from the passage of the 15th Amendment and a historic struggle for civil rights for people of all races to begin the effective exercise of the rights guaranteed by that Amendment. The struggle reached a crucial turning point on March 7, 1965, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL, when state troopers brutally attacked John Lewis and his fellow civil rights marchers who were trying to exercise their civil rights. The events of that day, now known as ``Bloody Sunday,'' were a catalyst to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act, which finally ensured a century after the enactment of the Civil War amendments that the Constitution's guarantees of equal access to the political process, regardless of race, would not be undermined by discriminatory practices.

Prior to the Voting Rights Act, minorities of all races faced major barriers to participation in the political process, through the use of such devices as poll taxes, exclusionary primaries, intimidation by voting officials, language barriers, and systematic vote dilution. Section 5 provides a remedy for unconstitutional discrimination in voting by requiring certain jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to ``pre-clear'' all voting changes with either the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. This remedy combats the practice of covered jurisdictions shifting from one invalidated discriminatory voting tactic to another, which had undermined efforts to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment for nearly a century.

In 2006, congressional leadership stood together on the steps of the Capitol to introduce a bill to reauthorize and reinvigorate the Voting Rights Act--an historic announcement in an era of intense partisanship. We came together in recognition that there are few things as critical to our Nation, and to American citizenship, as voting. In sharp contrast to the tremendous resistance and bitter politics which met the initial enactment of the Voting Rights Act, our efforts in 2006 overcame objections through discussions, the hearing process and by developing an overwhelming record of justification for extension of the expiring provisions. The legislation contained specific findings about the need for reauthorization and concluded that without reauthorization the gains we have made would be undermined. Our efforts reached completion when President Bush signed the bill into law after a unanimous vote in the Senate and nearly unanimous vote in the House.

At that time, I was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the lead Democratic Senate sponsor of the reauthorization. Over the course of 19 hearings, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees developed a comprehensive record supporting the continuing need for a reauthorized and reinvigorated Voting Rights Act. In the Senate Judiciary Committee alone we received testimony from 46 witnesses, including a

range of constitutional scholars, voting rights advocates, and Supreme Court practitioners, regarding the need for reauthorization of the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In addition, the Committee gathered and considered thousands of pages of testimony, articles, letters, and other evidence from these witnesses and other sources discussing these issues. This evidence, along with voluminous evidence gathered in the House--under the leadership of then-Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, Mel Watt, John Conyers and John Lewis-- provided an overwhelming demonstration that Section 5 continues to be an effective and necessary tool for protecting minority voting rights.

At the time the Senate voted, we had before us the House Committee Report, the full debate from the floor of the House of Representatives, including debate surrounding four substantive amendments to H.R. 9 that were all rejected, leading up to final passage of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization. Before we voted, I also provided the Senate with some of the extensive evidence received over several months of hearings in the Judiciary Committee about the persistence of discriminatory practices in Section 5 covered jurisdictions.

The record gathered by the Judiciary Committee included three categories of evidence supporting the continuation of Section 5. First, we found evidence that even with Section 5 in place, covered jurisdictions continued to engage in recurring discriminatory tactics, often in subtle forms that play on racially polarized voting to deny the effectiveness of the votes cast by members of a particular race. Second, we found evidence that Section 5 provides an effective deterrent against bad practices in covered jurisdictions. Finally, we found evidence that Section 5 plays a vital role in securing the gains minority voters have achieved against the risk of backsliding.

Most importantly, of course, at the time we voted, all Senators had before them the detailed findings in Section 2 of the legislation based on the record and all Senators endorsed those findings with their votes. For example, those findings explicitly include:

Evidence of continued discrimination includ[ing] . . . the

hundreds of objections interposed, requests for more

information submitted followed by voting changes withdrawn

from consideration by jurisdictions covered by the Voting

Rights Act of 1965, and section 5 enforcement actions

undertaken by the Department of Justice in covered

jurisdictions since 1982 that prevented election practices,

such as annexation, at-large voting, and the use of multi-

member districts, from being enacted to dilute minority

voting strength; . . . the number of requests for declaratory

judgments denied by the United States District Court for the

District of Columbia; [and] . . . the continued filing of

section 2 cases that originated in covered jurisdiction . . .

By passing the legislation, Congress adopted and reaffirmed these detailed findings, including Congress' determination that:

[t]he continued evidence of racially polarized voting in

each of the jurisdictions covered by the expiring provisions

of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 demonstrates that racial and

language minorities remain politically vulnerable, warranting

the continued protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Now some suggest that Section 5 should be a victim of its success. In my view abandoning a successful deterrent just because it works defies logic and common sense. When Congress finds an effective and constitutional way to prevent violations of the law, the courts must uphold it. In fact, since 1966, whenever the Supreme Court has reviewed or even cited to the Voting Rights Act, it has affirmed the Act as a valid exercise of congressional authority. That is what the Court rightly did again in 2009.

Nothing we have seen in the time since Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 2006 or since the Supreme Court again upheld Section 5 in 2009 has invalidated Congress' determination to reauthorize that critical remedy for racial discrimination in voting. In fact, the events of last year's election only serve to remind us anew of the continuing need for Section 5. Last year, panels of judges appointed by presidents of both parties found that Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters in redistricting, and that Texas failed to demonstrate that its voter ID law does not impose greater burdens on minority voters. A separate panel of three Federal judges approved South Carolina's voter identification law under Section 5 starting this year, with judges appointed by Republican and Democratic Presidents noting that South Carolina legislators passed a less restrictive law than they desired specifically in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Without Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, worse laws would be in place and the fundamental rights of many Americans would be diminished.

The Voting Rights Act is one of the most important laws ever passed by Congress, transforming America by ushering the nation out of a history of discrimination into an era of greater inclusion. The Act has been a tremendous source of protection for the voting rights of those long discriminated against and a great deterrent against discriminatory efforts cropping up anew. As we celebrate Black History Month, we should reflect not only on how far we have come, but how far we still must travel to truly secure the guarantees of the Constitution for all Americans.

Ensuring that all Americans are able to vote and have their vote counted should be an issue of concern to Democrats and Republicans, and a matter of conscience for all of us regardless of political party. That is how it was in 2006, when members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, stood together on the Capitol steps to reaffirm our commitment to full democratic participation by reauthorizing the key expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I am confident that this week when the Justices review the substantial record relied upon by America's elected representatives in Congress, they will again do the right thing. Congress is at the height of its power when giving enforceable meaning to the 14th and the 15th amendments. That is what Congress did when passing the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and what we did when we voted nearly unanimously to extend the vital remedies of Section 5 in 2006. Now the Supreme Court is called upon to respect the role of Congress by upholding this vital civil rights legislation as it rightly did in 2009.

There are few things as critical to our Nation, and to American citizenship, as voting. Like the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the right to vote is foundational because it secures the effective exercise of all other rights. As people are able to register, vote, and elect candidates of their choice, their interests and rights get attention. The very legitimacy of our government is dependent on the access all Americans have to the political process. Our democracy and our Nation have been better and richer for the protection of the Voting Rights Act. Now is no time for backsliding. Now is the time to renew our commitment to the right to vote for all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition H.R. 249, the Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act.

Failure to pay taxes is a serious offense and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, this bill is not a serious attempt to address that very complicated issue. Instead of being a good faith effort, this bill is being used as a political stunt and appears to be an attack on public employees.

During Oversight and Government Reform Committee markup on this bill, a series of questions were raised about the Internal Revenue Service procedures related to tax delinquency. These questions include what steps may be taken to resolve a delinquency, when enforced collection action may be used, how repayment schedules are established, among others. Addressing these types of questions and concerns is what the Committee process is for. Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Cummings wrote a letter to Steven Miller, Acting Commissioner at the IRS, to better understand these processes. The majority pledged to consider these responses and to amend this measure accordingly. Instead of waiting even two weeks for a reply, H.R. 9 was brought to the floor without amendment. The Chairman refused to wait for the answer to his own letter.

I am also concerned that this bill does not make sufficient allowances for the dispute process to do its work. Americans have the right to appeal IRS collection actions. While exemptions are provided when a hearing has been scheduled under Collection Due Process, appeals to that ruling or under the Collection Appeals Program are not. Punishing anyone while they are still in the process of pursuing the normal IRS dispute process is wrong.

Americans around the country are paying their taxes today. None of them should be fired while pursuing their legal rights to appeal or dispute IRS action. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 249.