Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017

Madam Speaker, today a lot of people are looking at Washington more perplexed than ever, thinking that nothing is getting done here. It is easy for them to think that because, when they turn on their televisions or listen to their radios and listen to news commentators, all they seem to be talking about is some very obscure idea. But something that dominates all the communication, or a great deal of communication, is that Russia in some way altered the outcome of the last election, perhaps--what they have been telling us--the Russians hacked into the system. This is the image we are being given.

All those emails that came out during the election from the Democratic

National Committee and the Hillary campaign, those emails were, in some way, a product of a Russian conspiracy with the Trump campaign. Over and over and over again, even though all of the experts who we have seen from the intelligence communities on down the line have said that that is bogus; that did not happen; there is no proof that that happened. And many people who are looking into this don't think that the Russians were involved with that hacking at all, much less their involvement in our campaigns in a way that differentiated from every other government in the world, including our own, being involved in trying to impact other people's elections in a light-handed way.

In this situation, the Russian Government has not--again, has not-- been proven or even the evidence seems to indicate that they were not involved in a way that actually affected the outcome of our last election. Yet that is all we hear about. That is the massive news coverage, and the American people's attention is being focused on that, or they are being told: Oh, but over in Washington, the Congress is so tied up because of this crisis. We have not been tied up. We have been doing great things here in the Nation's capital, and the Trump administration has been doing great things. We have not been frozen by this unrelenting attack trying to give the American people the idea that the last election was invalid.

This effort to distract us is a disgrace. And I do believe the American people see, when they hear this over and over repeated but there is no substance being told us that indicates the specific crime, the specific hacking incident that happened. No, we have no incidences where any type of Russian interference, in some way, determined the outcome of the last election.

But, of course, the distraction that is taking place is basically covering the fact that we have a group of people who lost the last election who have been disrupting, who have a plan, a program of resistance and disruption of those who did win the election. If there is anything more anti-American than that, I don't know what is. Talk about destroying democracy.

So with that said, what are we doing if we aren't tied up in this Russian problem? And let me note, there has been, even to the point after all the hearings that we had and there is no evidence of it, now some Republicans have gone along with this effort, and we have appointed what was called an independent or a special prosecutor. And now what we can expect is another 3 or 4 months of the headlines on all of the news media except one or two trying to divert our attention. Well, I would ask that the independent counsel and the special prosecutor, they are going to look into Russia, let them not just look into, did our Attorney General have two conversations or three conversations with the Ambassador from Russia to the United States in passing meetings, I might add, other people engaged, instead of asking questions like that and trying to find some way to charge our Attorney General with some sort of crime that he would have committed and maybe perjury even because he forgot about one conversation with someone over a year's time period where there were thousands of conversations with thousands of people, nobody hope--if they can go into detail like that, let us hope that the Clinton Foundation becomes a target of that investigation.

They want to find out what effect the Russians had on our elections. Let's find out what the millions of dollars that went into the Clinton Foundation did that might have helped Hillary's chances of being elected. Let's find out that. And let's find out how much money was actually put into the Clinton family's pockets when former President Clinton, speaking again before Russian oligarchs, was able to receive certain payments, exorbitant payments, from what I understand, we need to know exactly what they were, into his own pocket at the same time Russian oligarchs were putting millions, maybe tens of millions, into the Clinton Foundation.

So, okay, that needs to be looked at. But I would suggest that the American people need to go beyond this made-up crisis. The American people need to take a look at what we have been accomplishing here, and we have been accomplishing. A healthcare bill passed. And, yes, it is not a perfect healthcare bill, but now we have actually got a bill that is in the system. The Senate is going to have their bill. The system is now working, and there is a healthcare bill going through the system to improve our situation now instead of being stuck with ObamaCare that was so poorly written that people were being priced out of the market of having insurance. And we end up with millions of people who can't afford the health insurance because ObamaCare did what? ObamaCare basically said anybody with a preexisting condition, that risk will be paid for by other health insurance policyholders. And, thus, everybody else's health insurance went way up, and the amount of coverage they got went way down. Surprise. Surprise. No, that was not a good way to go, and the Republicans are trying to find a better method.

Let me just note that I have personally been involved with promoting another concept of how we should be dealing with preexisting conditions, and there is a bill circulating now, and hopefully it will be seriously considered. And as the healthcare bill goes through the House and the Senate, maybe we can get this in there, and that is you look at preexisting conditions and you say: okay, that person has a preexisting condition, and right now that preexisting condition puts them into the mix with all the other policyholders. And then everybody else, including that person, picks up the cost of insuring for that preexisting condition, which then prices everybody out. More people end up without insurance, or insurance that they can't cover, or what they are getting for their money is decreased.

My daughter, for example, had leukemia a few years ago. She is 9 years old. And thank God that we got through that and she is now free of leukemia. But I am sure that somewhere along the line what we are going to have is an insurance company saying: Well, you had leukemia, you had a preexisting condition, thus we are going to charge you more money for health insurance. Maybe 10 years down the road this will happen to her, maybe 20. But the fact is that we don't need to have people around our country that are in that situation. My daughter is now cancer free. And if she has a preexisting condition, or anybody else in the country has a preexisting condition, what I am proposing-- and there is a bill making its way around, people are considering this as an alternative, and I hope they take it seriously, but we will see, at least we are trying, and the idea is the Federal Government will document all preexisting conditions. My daughter's leukemia would be on that list. And at any time from then on that someone with a preexisting condition has that preexisting condition, if leukemia comes back to her or anyone else who has a preexisting condition that is documented, it will be paid for by Medicare. Just as simple as that. That condition only. All the rest of her health insurance, however, need not be covered by the Federal Government or anybody else.

Now that the preexisting conditions have not put their amount way up in the cost to buy an insurance, now they will be charged just the same as anybody else who is healthy. But if they break their arm, they are in a car accident, if they have another disease that comes on, they now are insured from that, but they are not having to pay extra insurance because of that preexisting condition, and you just leave that to Medicare. It is a simple answer. It is not going to cost the taxpayers any more money by doing it any other way. Just let the government take care of those preexisting conditions. All the rest of their healthcare, however, will have to be paid for by that individual. Just the preexisting condition is covered.

So that is a type of reform that we can put into place, and people are talking about these ideas now here. That is why, when the Republican bill passed, it was launching a discussion, an honest discussion, of what we should do. The Senate is going to send us back something, and we will, this year, have a healthcare bill because we will have gone through all of these types of alternatives like the one I just suggested.

We also passed a financial reform bill. It was called the CHOICE Act. It was a financial reform bill that one of

the main parts of it actually repealed the Dodd-Frank bill which was so dramatically hard for our economy and was basically making it very difficult for businesses to function in our country, was a terrible burden, and was actually bringing our economy down. So we passed the elimination of the Dodd-Frank Act, and we have reformed our financial community, and that has passed the House. It is now over to the Senate.

We have passed dozens of notable bills, yet the impression we are given, of course, is the only thing happening here is the Russians were, in some way, engaged in the last election, and we must focus totally on that, even though all the committees that investigated this, all the people who came from the various intelligence agencies, no one said, here is the proof that they were colluding with the Trump campaign to defeat the Democratic candidate in the last election.

So people are only getting that story, but there are all kinds of bills that are being passed, legislation being passed here. Like, for example, there was a weather bill that passed. I mean, this is one example. Suzanne Bonamici was someone who had a bill that was attached to the weather bill. It was aimed specifically at trying to have a warning system for tsunami waves that might be created and come not only towards the United States but towards Japan and any other coastal area. That bill passed, and, as I say, it is part of the weather bill now.

And Suzanne Bonamici, of course, is a Democrat, and I am a Republican.

The other lie is that Republicans and Democrats can't work together. Well, that is just wrong. People are creating a false image, and I am glad to see, by the elections last night, that the American people aren't falling for the baloney they are being fed.

So was that a good bill, the tsunami bill? I think it was, and it has made it through.

We have other environmentally aimed bills that are making up for the excesses of the last administration that was basically pushing a radical, environmental, globalist approach to environment issues. I think it is a great thing that the President of the United States has withdrawn us from the Paris Agreement, which would have cost us billions of dollars that we would send to other countries and would put us under the jurisdiction of decisions made by international bodies, not by American-elected officials but by international bodies. That was a terrific move on the part of the President.

In fact, Trump has done a number of wonderful things that he is not getting credit for. Because all the media wants to talk about is how many conversations anybody associated with Trump had with any Russians in the last 2 years. Sorry. A lot of other things that are happening are important. Those people who are trying to distract us are not succeeding. The fact is that President Donald Trump had a triumphant trip overseas. His first visit was to the Middle East.

I am a former speech writer for President Reagan. I didn't write the speech, but I was there when he gave that speech in Berlin telling Gorbachev to ``tear down this wall,'' a speech that made history, not just reflected it but is now seen as a pivotal moment in changing the direction of what was going on with the Cold War.

I might say, I didn't write it, but I did make sure that I was one of the people who smuggled that speech into the President's hands. After the President was given that speech and said he was going to say that, all of his senior advisers tried to convince him not to say, ``tear down this wall.'' And ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'' was a phrase in history that made history. And Ronald Reagan stood up against all of the people on the left who were attacking him and even all of his own advisers. That made a huge difference in the world that we live in.

Now, let me just note this. We have a President now, President Donald Trump, who went to Saudi Arabia and went to a meeting with the leaders of that part of the world. He talked to them--and these were Muslims, of course. And he said to the Muslim world that, if there is going to be peace with the United States, drive the terrorists out of your mosque; drive the terrorists out of your country.

I haven't been as proud of any President since I was with Ronald Reagan when he said ``tear down this wall'' than I was proud of our President, President Donald Trump, for telling the Islamic world that they have got to disassociate themselves, they have got to drive the terrorists out of their families and out of their relationships with good and decent Muslims, who are the vast majority of the Muslims in the world.

So, with that said, I think there is a lot going on that is good. There are good things. This is a good report. I hope the American people pay attention.

There are a lot of creative ideas that are going on. These I just told you about, healthcare and finance reform, these are really important things. And the fact that we are not putting everything in the hands of the United Nations or some unelected government to tell us what we have to do in the name of the environment, that is good, too.

Well, I have got a few creative ideas that I have actually presented. I thought I would just let my colleagues know, let my constituents know, and let the rest of the country know, these are some issues on the table that I have personally put on.

I think I have a good chance, for example, of getting into the tax bill a provision that is now written out in H.R. 1792, the Expanding Employee Ownership Act.

What my bill suggests is that we should have more involvement by working people in their own companies. Let them own part of their companies so that the bosses and the laborers work together as a team rather than looking at each other as adversaries.

My bill, H.R. 1792, is being considered for the tax bill that we are putting together. What it says, very simply, is that, if an employer gives to his employees--it has to be a general distribution--stock in that company, the employees don't have to pay income tax on it. And if they keep that stock for 10 years, they don't have to pay capital gains tax.

So what we have now is a major boost of people keeping their good employees, a better working relationship, more productivity, and management more concerned about their laborers because now their laborers own stock in the company--maybe even 10 or 20 percent of the stock at some point. What we have is a bill that has a chance, and it is being considered. That is the type of thing that is going on here.

People are talking about new ideas. For example, I talked about the idea of a new healthcare reform bill and my approach and what I am doing to promote that price for people with preexisting conditions. That is another example, ideas that are being discussed, legislation that is going through, and people are trying to mold it. That is part of the legislative process.

Also, when you talk about Republicans and Democrats working together, we are being told we don't work together. Well, we do. Republicans and Democrats work together, just like I did on the tsunami bill. We actually have a good relationship--many of us do.

Nowhere is that more evident than in my leadership of H.R. 975, which is a bill that is entitled, Respect State Marijuana Laws. What this bill does is--over the years, in the last 6 years, I have been joined with a Democrat. It is Mr. Blumenauer now, and it used to be Congressman Farr when he was with us. We were able to put into the appropriations bill for the Department of Justice a provision, an amendment to the bill that said: No money in this bill can be used by the Department of Justice to supersede the State laws on medical marijuana in those States that have legalized the use of medical marijuana.

So, for the last 5 and 6 years, that has been a totally bipartisan effort. I am a Republican, obviously, and I have been joined by Mr. Farr and, now, Mr. Blumenauer. We have actually created a situation where we now have people who are getting involved in researching medical marijuana.

By the way, did you know that Israel now, finally, has stepped forward and has done research in the last 10 years? We haven't. The United States hasn't. In fact, for 100 years, when we should

have been trying to find the medical uses of marijuana, it has been virtually outlawed. And now Israel has found wonderful applications for medical marijuana.

They also, by the way, when they were studying the effects of marijuana, have legalized it for personal use, for adult use of marijuana, as well as medical marijuana.

Well, what does that tell you? That tells you that some of the people who have been telling us, ``oh, we can't do this because it is going to have a serious impact,'' Israel studies this closely, especially when it might have a military implication. This would not destroy their military; otherwise, they would not have passed this major reform in their country.

Now, why is it that marijuana is an important issue and it brings Republicans and Democrats together? We have limited resources here. The idea that we are going to spend billions of dollars not on protecting Americans from terrorists, not from trying to get bad guys--rapists and murderers--in our local area; no, we are going to spend billions of dollars on police, on jailers, on lawyers, on judges, and on prisons. And then we are going to take people out of the workforce. We are spending billions of dollars so somebody will not smoke a weed in their backyard.

And what is even worse, we are telling them we are going to spend billions of dollars to prevent you. If you find that there is a medical use for marijuana, like for senior citizens who have lost their appetites after a major operation--which happened to my mother, by the way. I did not give her marijuana, but I knew when I was feeding her that she had lost her appetite after a major operation. I said to myself: Why can't she have cannabis here? Well, now people know about that.

There is no reason for us to prevent our seniors from having some euphoria when they are 85 years old in a senior citizens home, especially if it brings back their appetite and they feel better because of it rather than drinking. Do they want to have them all drinking?

Well, this is not just for seniors. This is for people who have medical problems. It has been documented to have important uses. And again, no one has ever overdosed with marijuana, ever.

In terms of what we need to do and what we need to focus on are drugs that are harmful. We have an opioid addiction problem now. Doctors have been giving prescriptions for this. We need to confront that and confront other challenges in crime rather than billions of dollars to try to prevent someone from hurting themselves.

If an adult wants to consume cannabis--an adult--it is their business. For the government to intrude, especially the Federal Government, after a State has legalized it, this is tyranny. Our Founding Fathers did not believe that we should have police forces and criminal justice operating at the State--they believed it should happen at the State and local level, not the Federal level.

These current restrictions that we have, we have people, unfortunately, again, that are living in the past. All they can remember is the sixties when hippies were smoking dope, and it was just literally a counterculture--counter our culture. And I say ``our culture'' because I have more of a conservative family background.

Although I lived a life in my past and I had too much to drink at times, and maybe even when I was younger, maybe I tried cannabis a couple of times, but I have had an adulthood since I was 23 that I think meets the approval of my parents and, in particular, my dad, who was a lieutenant colonel in the Marines.

So with that said, had I been arrested, let's say, where some of my friends or something were consuming marijuana when I was around, what would have happened to my life? And what is happening to the lives of all of these people, especially in our less affluent areas, who can't afford the legal protections of hiring a lawyer right away?

It is destroying their ability to function in our society. We should not be taking people who are involved in an activity like consuming a weed. Adults should be able to make that decision for themselves. Sending police for someone like that or expending billions of dollars or ruining the life of that young person who can't afford, whether Black, Chicano, or Caucasian, who can't afford a lawyer to get them off and expunge their record, it is going to affect them the rest of their life. We can't be doing that. It is a waste of money.

We have a chance now, with bipartisan support, to pass this amendment again, perhaps. We are trying to get that onto the appropriations bill for the Department of Justice, which would then keep in place those restrictions on the Federal Government.

But I have a bill, again, with bipartisan support, that would make that across the board. It just says that every State that has legalized the use of marijuana, that none of the departments and agencies of the Federal Government should supersede. They should be treated just like someone selling alcohol or whatever. And, in fact, if they do, they will be asking for ID cards from people to make sure that they are not selling to juniors, to people who are minors, rather than to adults, just like beer.

Unfortunately, when it is illegal, it is easier to get marijuana than it is--for someone who is not 18 or 21, it is easier for them to get marijuana than beer because they don't have to show their ID card at the liquor store.

So with that said, there is bipartisan support for my bill. I am hoping that we can get it passed this year or next year, at least in this session of Congress.

And then, finally, we have lots of things going on here. I just discussed several creative things that are being discussed around town. And we have got a President of the United States who is opening the door which was guarded by basically a very far-leftwing philosophy for the last 8 years. The door of government in this country now is open to working people, where this President has committed himself to trade policies and others that are aimed at creating jobs for the American people, ordinary jobs.

One of the things that he has promised us to protect the American people and our American workers is to stop the massive flow of illegals into our country. The massive flow of illegals into our country is bringing down the standard of living of working people.

There is one idea that I have presented. When he wants to build a wall, we have the means to provide the resources to build that wall in a very creative way. It wouldn't cost the American people anything.

So I would hope that those who are listening who like some of these ideas don't get depressed about what they are hearing in the news. Good things are happening in Washington, and a lot of new creative ideas are being discussed.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.