Border Crisis Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2019

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 431 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), 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.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, H.R. 431, providing for consideration of H.R. 2740, making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes, and H. Res. 430, authorizing the Committee on the Judiciary to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to enforce certain subpoenas and, also, for other purposes.

The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 2740 under a structured rule, self-executes Chairwoman Lowey's manager's amendment, and makes in order 106 different amendments.

The rule provides 1 hour of general debate, equally and divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, and provides that they may offer up to 15 pro forma amendments, each for the purposes of debate.

The chair of the Appropriations Committee may also offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments made in order by the rule and not earlier disposed of.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H. Res. 430 under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally and divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, this rule pairs two bills which demonstrate the commitment of the House majority both to making strong progress for the American people in the areas of health, labor, and education, at the same time that we defend the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law against the obstructionism and the lawlessness of the executive branch of government.

Let's start with H.R. 2740, which is designed to make government work for our people. It provides $189.9 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

It increases investment in the National Institutes of Health, our country's preeminent medical research agency, a national treasure, which is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in my district, to support research for Alzheimer's disease, HIV/Aids, breast cancer, colon cancer, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, childhood cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, mental health, suicide prevention, and the Cancer Moonshot initiative.

The people of NIH and their network of allied entities and agencies and supported universities and research labs across the country are making profound progress in the struggle to uplift the health of the people against all of the killer diseases of our time.

And for the first time in more than 20 years, this bill contains funding to support gun violence and firearm injury prevention research, and we are proud of that.

This legislation increases funding for Department of Education programs to help America's children succeed, providing critical resources for elementary and secondary schools, special ed programs, and Federal student aid. Importantly, the bill increases the maximum Pell grant to help America's college and graduate students keep pace with inflation and the high cost of living.

H.R. 2740 also provides $56.4 billion in funding for the State Department, USAID, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. We are making major strategic investments in diplomacy, global health, and international basic education, the crucial ingredients for maintaining peace and security around the world.

This legislation provides essential humanitarian assistance and critical funding to improve maternal and child health, to fight diseases like malaria, and to support women's reproductive health and literacy across the globe. We know that the key to improving social and economic development around the world is the education of women and the investment in family planning programs and literacy about procreation.

This legislation renews our Nation's commitment to addressing the climate crisis by investing in directives on adaption and renewable energy. It also prohibits the use of any government funds to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

Now, on the other legislation, which deals with contempt, Mr. Speaker, we know from Special Counsel Mueller's report that there was a sweeping and systematic assault on America's elections in 2016. There was a conscious effort and plan by Vladimir Putin and the GRU to undermine and destabilize the American elections by interfering and hacking into the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Hillary Clinton's offices to inject poisonous ideological propaganda into the body politic of America through Facebook, through Twitter, through YouTube and other social media entities and then to directly hack into the State boards of election.

The Department of Justice launched a special counsel inquiry. It was a Republican Attorney General who named a Republican special counsel, Mr. Mueller, to do it.

The President of the United States, according to Special Counsel Mueller's report, engaged in at least 10 different episodes of efforts to interfere with that investigation, to obstruct justice. We received that report a couple of months ago from the special counsel.

In the aftermath of it, President Trump said, ``We are fighting all subpoenas,'' and declared that there would be no cooperation from the executive branch with legislative branch subpoenas, with our demands for documents, with our demands for witnesses, with our demands for testimony from the executive branch. He said: ``I don't want people testifying,'' and, ``There is no reason to go any further.'' And since then, they have drawn a curtain down over the executive branch of government and defied the lawful orders of the Congress of the United States.

The Trump administration is stonewalling, from pillar to post, congressional investigations, defying validly issued congressional subpoenas. So, for example, Attorney General Barr is refusing to produce the full unredacted Mueller report and the related underlying evidence to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Every other independent special counsel had simply turned their report over to Congress and Congress did the redactions, but Attorney General Barr engaged in a series of games with the Congress of the United States and confused the American public, as Special Counsel Mueller complained in a letter that he sent to the Attorney General.

He is also defying a House Intelligence Committee subpoena directing him to turn over documents and materials related to Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, including all counterintelligence and foreign intelligence materials produced during the investigation.

Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, has defied a subpoena issued by the House Committee on the Judiciary without any substantial legal basis at all.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is defying a subpoena from the House Ways and Means Committee directing him to produce the President's tax returns under a statute that makes it crystal clear that Congress has a right to obtain the tax returns of the President or any other citizen of the United States.

Commerce Secretary Ross and Attorney General William Barr are refusing to comply with duly authorized bipartisan subpoenas from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the administration's shadowy and illicit efforts to add an illegitimate citizenship question to the 2020 Census completely outside of the Administrative Procedures Act process. Several District Courts have struck that down. But, in any event, the administration is refusing to turn over evidence, relevant evidence, to Congress about this effort to impose the citizenship question on the census.

The administration is refusing to turn over documents, witnesses, and testimony relating to the corruption of the security clearance process in the White House personnel office.

There were 25 different individuals who were denied a security clearance by the professional staff in the White House personnel office, who were then overruled by President Trump or political appointees. We are trying to get information as to what was the basis for the original denial. It was, likely, conflict with foreign governments or financial conflicts of interest. It might also have been drug or alcohol problems. But we want to get the details of each one, and then we want to know if there is any written documentation of why the President and his subordinates overturned those.

In all of these cases, Mr. Speaker, the executive branch of government has followed President Trump's orders to say, simply: We are not going to turn anything over to Congress.

Now, understand, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that it is an essential and integral aspect of legislative power to engage in investigation and factfinding. That is how the people's Representatives are able to legislate: We are able to get information. But if you shut down our ability to get information, we cannot engage in lawmaking. For that reason, we have begun to win in all of these Federal District Court cases where we are going out to try to get this information.

But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot tie up the floor of the House of Representatives every time the executive branch decides to follow the order of the President and simply deny us the information that we seek.

My friends across the aisle know from the Fast and Furious investigation, the Hillary Clinton email investigation, the Benghazi investigation it is Congress' right to investigate and to obtain the documents that it wants. They obtained millions of documents

in those investigations. We had a right to get them then, and we have a right to get all of these documents now.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation will give the power, first of all, to the Committee on the Judiciary to follow through on the subpoenas that it has issued. It will also empower and authorize each chair of the House of Representatives to enforce their lawful subpoenas that are being dishonored and violated by the executive branch of government.

So we are very proud to bring forward these two pieces of legislation, one which makes good on our commitment to the American people to continue to make progress in the fields of education, healthcare, labor, and scientific and medical research while, at the same time, we defend the Constitution, the rule of law, the prerogatives and powers of Congress against the lawlessness and the obstructionism of this administration.

We are the preeminent and primary branch of government. The very first sentence of the Constitution, Mr. Speaker: ``We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.''

The second sentence that follows is all legislative power is vested in the Congress of the United States.

The sovereign power of the people comes right through the preamble into Article I, establishing us as the representatives of the people. Then you get dozens of paragraphs setting forth all the powers of Congress: to declare war, to raise revenues, to write budgets, to impeach the President or other executive branch officials who commit high crimes and misdemeanors and to remove them in the Senate, to set up a post office, to govern the seat of government, and to establish a capital city. Those are the prerogatives and powers of Congress.

Then you get to Article II, and Article II fixes the powers of the President. What are the President's core responsibilities? To take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That is the President's job: to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

It is even in Article II that the President can be impeached, in Section 4.

Just to make it clear, the President works for the Congress; the Congress doesn't work for the President. And we, the Congress, work for the people.

That is what it means to have a representative democracy. We work for the people.

Now, we have a President who is in an unprecedented, wholesale, categorical defiance of the powers of Congress by denying us the information that we seek to obtain, which is our right and which is our need.

We are going to get it, and we are going to get it by empowering Congress to go to court to enforce our subpoenas.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear from my friend from Oklahoma about both of these bills. We were here together last night until around midnight, working on the rules for these bills.

On H.R. 2740, the appropriations package that we have together, we have authorized more than 100--I think the number is 112--bipartisan amendments. In fact, I think the first amendment is one that is from the gentleman from Oklahoma. We have made that first.

I won't be voting for it. I won't be supporting it, but he has the opportunity to make his case on the floor of the House of Representatives and to present it to colleagues.

We are proud of the fact that there are more than 100 amendments. In fact, I think we are meeting again this afternoon, and we might adopt dozens more amendments, for the consideration of the full House.

But on the question of H. Res. 430, which is to empower the Judiciary Committee and the other committees in Congress to enforce our right to obtain information that we seek, I think that this should be an overriding, bipartisan commitment within the Article I branch, within the Congress of the United States.

We simply cannot tolerate a posture from the President of the United States--and it is hard for me to think of any other Congress that would tolerate it from any other President--of noncooperation and absolute, comprehensive, and wholesale defiance of the will of Congress in trying to seek information.

My good friend from Oklahoma says that the President does not work to enforce the laws of Congress; he works for the people. Well, we all work for the people. That was my point. His job is to take care that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed. We work directly for the people.

At least until we get a national popular vote for President, the President is not elected by the people, as we know from the 2016 election itself where the popular vote winner, who gained several million more votes than Donald Trump did, lost the election because of the workings of the electoral college.

The Presidency was set up as an indirect mechanism, and that is something that I think that we should be replacing. But I think it is not appropriate to claim a popular mandate for the President when the President emerges from the electoral college.

In any event, the President's job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and also to be the Commander in Chief in times of actual conflict, but it is up to Congress to legislate. That is what we do. That is why it is so problematic when the President of the United States says:

I will not accept a bipartisan congressional rejection of

billions of dollars in funding for my border wall; I am going

to declare a national emergency and then reprogram money from

other lawfully appropriated purposes.

That is a violation of the spending power of the Congress of the United States. It is just like the President rejecting a bipartisan repudiation of his involvement with the Saudi Government in the Yemeni civil war. We have not declared war with Saudi Arabia against Iran or anybody else in the Yemeni conflict, and so we don't want to be involved in it. We don't want our money going to that bloody humanitarian catastrophe, and yet the President simply rejects the majority will of both Houses of Congress. That is a decisive rejection in defiance of Congress' power to declare war.

Now what we are getting is this complete defiance of our ability to get the information that we need. The President said it very clearly. He basically said: No subpoenas, no witnesses--enough--and no do-overs.

So he is not going to allow us to investigate the compromised security

clearance process and the White House is not going to allow us to investigate the completely suspect corruption and distortion of the constitutional mandate for a Census which we have got to do by virtue of the Constitution every 10 years, and he is not going to cooperate with any investigation into the matters that were covered by Special Counsel Mueller; the organized, systematic comprehensive, sweeping attack on our elections by the GRU and Russian agents or the more than 100 contacts they had with the Trump campaign or the 10 different episodes of Presidential obstruction of justice that were set forth by Special Counsel Mueller in his report.

We can't accept that. So this legislation in H.R. 430 will give us the opportunity to go to court right away to enforce our subpoenas against this unprecedented defiance of congressional power by the President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, all of us, of course, embrace and uphold the First Amendment and the rights of religious freedom, the right to not have government establish a religion and to participate in the free exercise of religion and to worship or to not worship exactly as you please. There is nothing in any of our legislation that would interfere with anybody's right to exercise precisely their religious preference to worship exactly as they please and to belong to whatever religious faith or denomination they want.

I am not quite sure exactly what the gentleman was referring to. We know that the idea of a religious freedom to discriminate has been asserted ever since the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 where the hotel and motel, lunch counter and department store owners said that they had a religious right to only serve the customers that they wanted and that it violated their religious faith to have interracial parties seated in restaurants or at the lunch counter. Our Supreme Court rejected that, and this Congress has rejected that.

There have been similar efforts to say we have a constitutional right not to serve gay and lesbian customers. That has been rejected, and I hope that this Congress will also reject it.

We passed the Equality Act very proudly to add protection for LGBT people to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and I hope that the Senate will go along with it.

In any event, there is nothing in any of the legislation before us and none has been cited which violates any of the free exercise rights of the people. So with that, unless I hear anything further, I am not moved by how anybody is affected by this appropriation negatively.

My other good friend from Oklahoma referenced the phrase checks and balances, and that does appear in the Federalist Papers. I think it is in Federalist 51. It actually refers to the relationship between the House and the Senate. That was the design of the Framers of the Constitution that the House and the Senate would check and balance each other. But the Framers were very clear that we were overthrowing monarchy. We didn't want monarchy. That is why we got rid of the king. The revolutionaries and the rebels who gave us America and who wrote the Constitution were trying to institute a new form of government representing We the People. That is why we are so proud to be able to serve in the people's House here along with our friends in the Senate.

But the President's core job is to take care that our laws are faithfully executed. We have no kings here; we have no monarchs here. That is why we have the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution which says that none of us who serves in Washington can accept any present-- any emoluments, which just means a payment--any office or title from a prince, a king, or a foreign government without the consent of Congress.

That is a cardinal principle in the Constitution. It is our original anti-corruption principle because the Framers did not want the President or Members of Congress selling out the country. They wanted complete, undivided loyalty by those of us who come to Washington, who aspire and obtain the public office to have complete, undivided loyalty to the American people and not to lobbyists for foreign governments, agents, and saboteurs.

So that is another real problem that this President seems not to recognize. That provision obligates him whenever he receives any money from a foreign government through his hotel or his office towers or any of his going businesses that he has kept going in the course of his tenure, whenever he receives any of that money, he has got to come to Congress to ask for our permission and for our consent.

Mr. Speaker, we can show you records from lots of prior Presidents who came to Congress to ask for a consent because they received a Persian rug, or a shawl, or cufflinks. Yet--at least according to court reports and media reports--this President has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars from foreign governments. In fact, the President I think made a voluntary deposit he said of the profits from foreign government receipts of $350,000 to the U.S. Treasury without any accounting to us, without any receipts, and without asking for our consent.

So even if the Constitution says that you can't accept the profits from foreign payments, which it doesn't, it says you can't accept foreign payments. That would be insufficient because Congress has got to offer its consent.

Look, we need to lay down the law about all of these matters. When we ask for a document, we want the document. When we issue a subpoena from the United States Congress, you comply with the subpoena. When we ask for

a witness, the witness arrives. That is what H.R. 430 is all about. We have got to empower Congress to enforce its will.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I still have not heard a single instance offered from anybody whose religious freedoms under the Constitution of the United States are threatened by any of the legislation here.

I do know that the ultimate logic of the argument that we just heard here is to support legislation like what was just passed in the State of Alabama. In Alabama today--please read an article in the Washington Post this morning, Mr. Speaker--in Alabama today if this legislation is signed into law, a 15-year-old girl who is raped by her step-uncle not only would not be able to obtain an abortion, because there is no exception for rape or incest in the ban that the legislature just passed, but she would be compelled to have him involved in the raising of the child because Alabama protects the paternity rights of the rapist. So it is one of only two States in the country where a rapist continues to have parenthood rights in the child.

So get this straight. If what we are hearing is actually enacted into law--and I understand my colleagues to be encouraging legislation like this around the country, like the law in Alabama--we will have a situation where girls who are 15 or 14 or 13 or 16 years old who are raped by their stepfathers or step-uncles must carry a child to term, have the baby, and in some States be forced to raise the baby with the rapist.

So I don't think that is where we are today in America under Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade, and certainly the majority is going to stand very strong for healthcare for women and reproductive freedom for women and men to make their own decisions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

It is a pleasure to work with the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) on H.R. 2740 and H.R. 4340, and I do urge all of our colleagues to support this rule for this legislation.

I do hope my friend from Oklahoma will tutor some of his colleagues, like the last speaker, who referred to the ``Democrat majority.'' Democrat is the noun. Democratic is the adjective for our party, and I think that would be a basic gesture of interparty civility if they would follow that fairly easy grammatical device.

Mr. Speaker, one of the other Members from the other side, I think from Oklahoma, talked about some education matters, so I want to go to some statistics that actually mean something to the American people. I think we can refute all of the statistics that were advanced by my friend from Oklahoma, as I said.

There are more than 100 amendments that we are going to be bringing up today, and we are going to be adding more of them, and we certainly don't want to endure lectures from people who belong to the caucus that ran the most closed Congress in the history of the United States.

But here are some figures that actually mean something to the American people. Our bill provides a total of $75.9 billion in appropriations for the Education Department, which is $4.5 billion above the 2019-enacted level, and $11.9 billion beyond what the President asked for. So that means dramatic increases in everything from IDEA special education spending, to education, innovation, and research programs, to spending for teacher professional development evidence-based models and so on.

We are also increasing money for student financial assistance for Pell Grants for higher education, because it has become too difficult for our young people to make their way through college, and they are graduating, basically, with a mortgage of 100 or $150,000, but they don't have a house to go with it. So this majority is committed to alleviating the burden on America's college students.

Mr. Speaker, we are trying to make progress, under very difficult circumstances with this President, for the American people in the realm of education, healthcare, scientific and medical research. We are making that progress, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 445 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), 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.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I will be asking unanimous consent to make a technical correction to the rule. The page containing the text of an uncontroversial amendment, No. 64, to division B was inadvertently omitted from our 645-page report.

Modification Offered by Mr. McGovern

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment I have placed at the desk be considered as though printed as amendment No. 123 in part B of House Report 116-119, if offered by Representative Lee from Nevada or her designee, and that the amendment be debatable for 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent.

The Speaker pro tempore. The Clerk will report the amendment.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his kindness.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 445. It provides for consideration of H.R. 3055 under a structured rule that makes 290 amendments in order. It also provides for 1 hour of general debate controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Madam Speaker, this appropriations process represents a clean break from the way the Republicans ran this place. They furthered an agenda that was like Robin Hood in reverse, giving to the rich by stealing from the poor.

This Democratic majority has a radical idea that the people's House should, instead, work for the people, not the wealthy and the well- connected, but all Americans. You can see these values in the underlying appropriations measure.

We support SNAP, our Nation's premier anti-hunger program, by providing both stable funding and investments in the SNAP reserve fund. This will give a helping hand to many of the 40 million Americans who are struggling to put food on the table in America today.

That includes a lot of working families. It includes veterans. It includes seniors. It includes those who are disabled. Because the truth is, there is no plan B for many people who have fallen on hard times. Food pantries are important, but many are already stretched too thin and can't meet the demand.

We need to invest in SNAP. This program is a lifeline as families work to get back on their feet.

For the life of me, Madam Speaker, I don't understand why investing in SNAP has been a controversial subject for many of my colleagues on the other side, why some have demonized the poor and traded in stereotypes year after year.

On average, and I think it is important to make this clear for my colleagues, SNAP households receive about $259 a month. The average SNAP benefit per person is about $128 per month, which works out to just $1.40 per person per meal.

Madam Speaker, $1.40 can hardly buy a cup of coffee for someone, let alone a healthy, nutritious meal. That is what we are asking people to live on, and it is a shame. I hope, in the future, we can find a way to expand the SNAP benefit for those who are in need.

This bill also provides major funding to help stem the tide of opioid abuse, which is ravaging communities across the country, through grant programs that we know work, things like prescription drug monitoring, overdose-reversal drugs, and at-risk youth programs.

We are not waiting around for this administration's long-delayed transportation plan. The President has been rolling it out 2 weeks from now for the last 2 years. We have an infrastructure emergency in our country today. I have bridges in my district that are old enough to qualify for Medicare. Others are older than some of the other States in this country. It is the same old story all across the country.

That is why the American Society of Civil Engineers has given our Nation's infrastructure a D-plus. This is appalling, Madam Speaker. We owe a lot to those who built our roads and bridges a century ago, but we cannot expect them to last forever. H.R. 3055 would provide real funding now to rebuild crumbling infrastructure.

There are also badly needed investments here in our Nation's digital infrastructure because the sad reality is that in America today, 25 million people in rural communities don't have access to high-speed internet. Some are in my State.

Massachusetts has made significant strides in bringing high-speed internet to the rural parts of western and central Massachusetts, but there are still pockets where connectivity is still a problem.

This bill would fund an expansion of rural broadband services that would allow more kids to do homework at home, expand economic opportunities, and improve health outcomes. Affordable broadband should be available to everyone, regardless of their ZIP Codes.

This bill also helps combat the gun violence epidemic by increasing resources for programs that help reduce crime. This includes things like fully funding the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, making schools safer, and investing in mentoring programs for at-risk youth.

This follows language in last week's minibus appropriations bill that provided funding to research deaths and injuries caused by gun violence for the first time in more than 20 years because this majority isn't afraid to stand up to the NRA to protect the people we represent. We know the will of the American people is stronger than the might of the gun lobby.

There is also language in this bill that prohibits President Trump from

diverting important military construction projects to build his unnecessary border wall. This is a wall, by the way, that the President claimed time and time again that Mexico would pay for. Now he is using a bait-and-switch to force taxpayers to foot the bill.

This wall was preposterous when it was just a campaign talking point. It is even more absurd as an actual policy paid for by the taxpayers of this country.

These are just a few of our priorities in the bill. We are delivering on our promise to invest in the things that matter to people.

Chairwoman Lowey, Ranking Member Granger, the entire Appropriations Committee, and their staffs have done an extraordinary job. Their work deserves a great deal of praise by both the Democrats and Republicans. They are trying to fund our government in a timely way.

I don't know what the Senate is going to do on appropriations. They haven't done much of anything on anything so far.

But I do know this: These bills are an investment in our future. They are tailored toward providing opportunity for all Americans and delivering on our pledge to make this place work for them again.

Fixing our infrastructure, reducing gun violence, providing economic opportunity for small businesses, ending hunger, these are the kinds of things our constituents want us to address.

I urge all of my colleagues to show the American people that we are listening by voting for this rule. Let's keep bringing forward appropriations measures that truly represent the will of the taxpayer.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I enjoy listening to the gentleman engage in debate, but I will say this, that when I look at this rule and all the amendments in order, I think I want to waive this rule because there are so many amendments that we are making in order here.

The gentleman, I appreciate his praise saying that we made a lot of good ideas in order, but I would say to the gentleman that he also made some bad ideas in order. The gentleman referred to his amendment, which I disagree with. But we also made amendments from other Republicans; I am looking at the rule here: Mr. Burgess, Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Scalise, Mr. King, Mr. Posey, Mr. Walberg, Mr. Gosar, Mr. McKinley, Mr. Hudson, and Mrs. Walorski. I could go right through this and continue to read the Republican amendments that we made in order.

In the Rules Committee last night during the markup, my friends offered a number of amendments. Of the amendments they offered, nearly half of them violated House rules or were duplicative.

When people draft amendments in a way that legislate on appropriations bills or violate any of the House rules, it has been customary for Democrats and Republicans to not make them in order. We try to work with them to fix them, but last night, many of the amendments, including a Democratic amendment that the minority offered we could not vote for because it was not complying with the House rules.

I am sorry that that is the case, but people need to know that, when you are amending appropriations bills, you need to draft them in a way that is compliant with the House rules.

A lot of the amendments that were offered by my friends were the oldies but goodies. We have wall amendments, abortion amendments, and stuff that we have voted on time and time and time and time again; and I appreciate they want more time to vote on it, but we need to get our work done here.

As the gentleman referred to, there is a Member on the other side who has decided to have a little bit of a temper tantrum and call for a vote on every single amendment and try to invoke every single procedural measure so that everything is dragged out and moves at a snail's pace. That is his right. I don't think it is a particularly effective tactic, but if it makes him happy, he can do whatever he wants. He has that right to do that on the House floor.

I was in the minority in the last session, and I lived through the most closed Congress in the history of our country when the Republicans brought more bills to the floor that were completely closed and that were unamendable. Nobody could offer an idea. They did that more than any other Congress in history. So we are trying to do this better. I think we are, in many respects, doing it better, and we are going to continue in that spirit.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree), who is a distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Maine an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, let me just address the issue of the Endangered Species Act that the gentleman referred to. It is not a ``Washington knows best'' and is certainly not a ``politicians know best'' approach. It is based on science, on available science, not on a special interest that is trying to get a different outcome.

If you don't believe in the direction of the act, if you don't believe that it should be adhered to, then the remedy is to introduce an alternative law. I would certainly vote against it, but the gentleman has a right to do that.

The Endangered Species Act already ensures there is public notice and public participation. There is an opportunity to comment on listing and delisting decisions.

It is our view that Congress should not interfere in the process outlined by the Endangered Species Act because it then becomes about politics--not science, but politics--and it should be science that determines the survival of a species.

I know science is a tough subject for my friends on the other side to deal with, because so many of them don't even believe that we have a climate crisis. But, in any event, I just wanted to respond.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Madam Speaker, I would point out to the gentleman that this legislation contains the largest increase to combat Asian carp in years.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Morelle), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman from Iowa that we made in order last night one of his amendments related to the census question. And I strongly disagree with him on that. I hope we can defeat the amendment with a strong bipartisan vote.

But, nonetheless, we made his amendment in order, and I look forward to the debate on the floor and, again, look forward to voting ``no'' on it.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for the constructive way that he has brought his concerns to the floor. I am very sympathetic to what he is trying to do. The Appropriations Committee believes that the funding level in the bill will support hiring the maximum number of immigration judges who can be brought on board in a single year. Nonetheless, we are going to have to invest significantly more because there is a backlog.

I think the problem with his amendment, and we talked about this last night, was the offset. He wanted, basically, to take $71 million from the general legal activities, which funds Justice Department divisions such as the Civil Rights Division; the Civil Division, which includes funding for cases involving consumer and elder fraud; the Criminal Division, which includes mutual legal assistance reform; and the Environment and Natural Resources Division. These litigation components do a great deal of important work.

I think the conversation should continue, and we should, hopefully, be able to build consensus around an offset that doesn't rob Peter to pay Paul.

I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio very much.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the fact that the gentleman appreciates the staff who have been forced to remain here late into the night and into the early morning while he has insisted on vote after vote after vote. I am willing to venture a guess that the staff doesn't appreciate him very much.

I appreciate that the gentleman wants to do something about the here and now, about what is happening right this second. I wish the gentleman had that same attitude before he voted to delay the implementation of the emergency supplemental bill to deal with the disasters that hit Texas and a number of other States.

Let me assure the gentleman that we are very concerned about the humanitarian crisis at the border, and we are

engaged in negotiations with the Senate and the White House, trying to resolve this.

There are serious humanitarian needs at the border, many of which have been exacerbated by the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies. I mean, House Democrats understand these urgent needs. We want to address them, and negotiations continue.

Appropriators are continuing to have important conversations about how best to balance funding to address the humanitarian needs of the border with the imperative to hold this administration accountable.

If Republicans work with us, I am told that, by July 4th recess, we can pass a bicameral, bipartisan bill to provide humanitarian funding and protect the rights and the dignity of migrants.

It is hard for me to accept that the heart of what this administration is doing has anything to do with being humanitarian, with caring about the plight of these migrants. I have seen the separation of children from their parents, the cruel separation of children from their parents at the border. I have listened to this President go on a rampage, diminishing the plight of these refugees, in many cases, fleeing for their lives.

We are working, hopefully, in a bipartisan, bicameral way to get this done. But I would say this: If we care about doing what is right from a humanitarian perspective, it is not embracing the policies of this President.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), who is my friend, and all those who participated in the debate here today.

Let me just make one observation about the previous question and this debate on the border crisis. I am looking at a Politico column that just appeared at 12:58 p.m. It says:

House inches toward 11th hour deal on funding the border

crisis.

We probably would have reached a deal already, because the negotiations have been ongoing, but instead, Members have had to spend an inordinate amount of time on the House floor voting on amendment after amendment that passed almost unanimously.

One of the things I have learned about this place is that we have a lot of people who like to embrace the theater of Washington, and sometimes it becomes the theater of the absurd, people who know that issues are about to be solved, but who then stand up and demand that it gets solved so that when it gets solved, they can take a bow and take credit.

The bottom line is what has gone on on this House floor has delayed, I think, a solution here that we all want, and my hope is that Politico is correct and that we will get to this resolution soon and that there will be a big, strong, bipartisan support of whatever the agreement is, but I assure you about one thing, no deal is coming to a conclusion because of the theatrics that have happened on this House floor with demanding vote after vote after vote.

It really has become silly, it has become absurd, and I think we are better than that.

If people want to solve issues, they ought to support the negotiators of both parties that are trying to work

out a deal, and that is the way this place should operate. When it doesn't, it becomes silly, and that is what has been going on here.

Madam Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question.

I would also say that there is no such thing as a perfect rule or perfect bill, but this is it. There are 290 amendments that are going to be debated on this. That is not clamping down on the process. There are 290 amendments.

There are a lot of amendments here. I started reading some of the Republican amendments that have been made in order. I have got to be honest with you, a lot of them, I think, are really terrible ideas, and I am going to fight like hell to try to defeat them because they are so bad. But they are going to have their day on the floor and they are going to be able to debate them.

That is not counting all the bipartisan amendments that have been made in order where Democrats and Republicans actually came together and forged a collaboration and a coalition to try to get stuff done for the good of our country.

Now, Madam Speaker, I understand that some watching this debate might find the appropriations process to be a little arcane, but it is actually incredibly important.

It is about whether Congress is going to make investments that give everyone in this country a shot at a better life. That is even more important today, especially with this administration in power.

Republicans have claimed for years to want a government so small that they could drown it in a bathtub. Well, this administration is taking it one step further, and wants a government small enough to leave millions of poor and working Americans with nowhere to turn. That is why it has released one extreme proposal after the next that would cut government spending to the bone for hardworking families, all while the wealthy get a windfall.

I have heard from so many in my district that are rightly frustrated by this approach. They want to see investments made in our communities that help all Americans, and that is what this does.

Let me say it again. The Appropriations Committee, the Democrats and the Republicans on the Appropriations Committee and their staffs, deserve bipartisan praise for the incredible amount of work they have put into this.

If you want to grow our economy and you want to combat gun violence, you want to rebuild our infrastructure, and more, then you should support this bill.

My friends on the other side who talked about wanting to debate more Republican ideas on the House floor should also support this bill, because, again, we are making 290 amendments in order for this bill. Again, some of them I agree with, some of them I plan to vote against, but they are all going to be debated.

Madam Speaker, I will conclude by saying, in addition to thanking the Appropriations Committee and their staff, I want to thank the Rules Committee, the Democrats and the Republicans, and our staffs, for all the time that they have put in during, not only this week but last week as well. It is like final exam week. These are all-nighters for the staff, and oftentimes that gets overlooked, so I want to thank them for their patience and for their diligent work.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' on the previous question, ``yes'' on this rule and on the underlying resolution.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for yielding me the time.

We finished up in the Rules Committee, I think, before 10 p.m. last night. I was optimistic that we finished up that early.

It is not the Members you need to worry about, Mr. Speaker. It is the staff of the Rules Committee you need to worry about, because they had hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of amendments submitted that they were going through all weekend long, trying to sort out what are those amendments that could be made in order, what are those amendments that would need waivers of the rules, what are those amendments that could be considered on the floor and not be repetitive.

It is an amazing burden on the staff to have to go through all those amendments, Mr. Speaker, and it is an unnecessary burden.

You weren't here at the time, Mr. Speaker, but I am looking right down here below me at the gentleman from Kentucky. He used to be the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee the last time we came to the House floor under regular order, as my friend from California suggests, and we allowed every Member of this institution--everyone who had been elected by their constituents back home, everyone who has a voting card--to come and offer any idea that they had to improve upon the underlying bill.

I don't take issue with much of what my friend from California said about many of the good things in this bill. There are many good things in this bill.

But what I love about the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Speaker, different from the Rules Committee, is they come to the House year after year and say we have done an amazing job working together in a bipartisan way in the Appropriations Committee, but the other Members of the House who don't serve on that committee, if they have some expertise that they think can improve the bill, bring it on. Bring it on. Let's go down to that House floor. Let's have that festival of democracy. Let's test those ideas, and let's send the best product that we can to the President's desk.

My friend from California says that this is a good bill and that it should absolutely be signed by the President. She could be right. I would probably disagree with her, Mr. Speaker, but she could be right.

The fact of the matter is, the law of the land, as it exists today, won't let us implement this bill. This bill spends above those caps, the statutory spending caps passed by the Congress and signed by the President.

This bill cannot become law at these levels. If it were to, we would have an automatic sequester that brings the levels down.

That is a terrible way to govern. We have learned that lesson over the past 10 years together.

Mr. Speaker, I wish I didn't have to point to the gentleman from Kentucky and say remember the days when

everybody's voice mattered in this institution. Remember those days. That day should be today. It is not an easy pathway to get back to.

I remember when we were trying to do open rules on the Republican side. My Democratic colleagues would come to the floor and offer amendments that they knew would pass with a minority of Republican votes and a lot of Democratic votes. Then they would vote in favor of that amendment to change the bill, but they would vote against the final bill, knowing it would not be able to pass without their support.

That is a great strategy, and it has been used by both sides, if my colleagues want to be in the business of making a point. It is an awful strategy if my colleagues want to be in the business of making a difference. If Members came to this institution to govern instead of to get the next sound bite, that is a terrible path to be on.

Mr. Speaker, if Members went through those hundreds of amendments the way that the Rules Committee staff went through them over the weekend, they would see good idea after good idea after good idea that has been turned away before it could be considered on the floor of this House. I don't know whether those amendments would have passed or failed. I know some of them would have passed; I know some of them would have failed.

There was a time in this institution when we let the votes decide, when we let the membership decide.

Mr. Speaker, we have changed those rules. It is now 13 men and women who sit on the Rules Committee who decide.

I value my friend from California's suggestion that we get back to regular order, and I know it is not an easy path to follow. This bill is the most open we have had so far this year, and yet, it still denies Member after Member, on both sides of the aisle, an opportunity to have their constituents' voices heard.

Mr. Speaker, we can do better. If we speak with one voice in this body and reject this rule, we will do better. All it takes is the courage of our convictions to do that.

I hope my Members will stand with me in aspiring to do better today than we did yesterday and better still tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), a colleague of mine on the bipartisan Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), a gentleman who offered a germane amendment that was rejected.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Spano).

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask my friend if she would like to change her last statement.

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague well, and I thoroughly enjoy working with her on the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am reserving the right to object.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California. I do not object.

Mr. Speaker, while we have many champions of life in this institution on both sides of the aisle, none is stronger than the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), a tireless fighter for life.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds just to remind the Chamber that we tried to offer an amendment last night in committee that would have addressed this funding.

The Rules Committee rejected the consideration by the whole House of a measure that would provide what we all agree is urgently needed funding. We are seeing some of that passion here at this moment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko), one of my colleagues on the Rules Committee, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say when we had this conversation in the Rules Committee yesterday--again, my friend from California is on the Appropriations Committee--and she said we talked about bringing forward an emergency funding bill that is more comprehensive. We are working on expediting that.

I would say to my friend, agreeing to one of these unanimous consent requests would be the absolute fastest way to expedite that if she would like to reconsider her position.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to my neighbor from the great State of Georgia (Mr. Hice).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cline).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will amend the rule to bring H.R. 3056 immediately to the floor under an open rule.

I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, we spent a great deal of time today talking about the humanitarian crisis on the border, and that is because, despite all of the very positive things that are in this bill that my friend from California has mentioned, what is not in this bill is one single penny to go to the border today. There is not a Member of this institution who does not know that we need that money going to the border today.

I am not talking about contentious issues like border security, though that shouldn't be a contentious issue. That should be an issue of agreement, as well. I am talking about an issue on which we are unanimous, which is taking care of those people who are in the

custody of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3056 would provide $4.5 billion. Mr. Speaker, as a fiscal conservative, I don't say that lightly--$4.5 billion. That is not $4.5 billion to get us through another year, Mr. Speaker. That is not $4.5 billion to start in October and run us through the next fiscal year. That is $4.5 billion today to address needs that exist today, to fill shortfalls that are happening today, to solve problems that demand solutions today.

There is not one word in this bill to provide a single solution anywhere in America today. But if we defeat the previous question and amend the rule as I have suggested, we can provide those solutions today, and we can do it in a partnership way that will make America proud.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would advise my friend that I do not see any speakers remaining, and when the gentlewoman has exhausted her speakers, I will be prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about two kinds of issues down here today. When I listen to my friend from California talk about all the wonderful things that are in the underlying bill, I can't tell you how much I wanted to stand up and celebrate with her that appropriations season is often that way.

Mr. Speaker, you haven't seen it in your time, but there was a time in this institution where the way we spent America's money reflected America's priorities, and it turned out--you wouldn't know it by reading the newspaper, Mr. Speaker, but it turned out those priorities didn't hinge on whether you had an R or a D behind your name. It didn't hinge on whether you came from the Deep South or the Northwest.

It turned out, when we started voting on issues one dollar at a time, we began to find that we had agreements with one another that had not yet been explored. We began to find, Mr. Speaker, that we could celebrate achievements together in ways that had not yet been explored.

Mr. Speaker, the year I came to Congress, and many of my other colleagues here came that very same year, you may remember the appropriations process hadn't been finished by the Democrats. When Republicans took over, the young freshman class of which I was a part said we need to get down there, and we need to finish that job. It was a Tuesday, Mr. Speaker. We brought up the entire Federal discretionary budget.

Now, that is a lousy way to do business. It is a lousy way to do business. We used to bring up bills one appropriations bill at a time.

There are 12 bills, Mr. Speaker. We have gotten in a bad habit of omnibus bills. As you know, what we switched to last year and what the Democratic majority is continuing this year is bringing up groups of four or five bills together.

But at that time, in the spring of 2011, Mr. Speaker, we brought them all up. We brought them all up together. And do you know what we said, Mr. Speaker, the brand-new Republican majority?

You know how it is when majorities change, Mr. Speaker. Folks have gotten their feelings hurt. They feel like they were a little wronged by the previous majority. My friend from California knows what I am talking about.

You might have expected the Republican majority to say, ``We are going to jam our priorities through, diversity of ideas be damned,'' but we didn't. It was Speaker John Boehner at that time, Mr. Speaker, and he said we are bringing up the entire Federal discretionary budget, and any Member, Mr. Speaker, any Member from either side of the aisle who has an idea about how to make it better, their ideas are welcome here on the floor of the House.

Oh, you want to talk about a festival of democracy, Mr. Speaker? We started on a Tuesday. We thought we were going to be done by a Thursday. We ended up going 24 hours a day, finishing in the early hours of Saturday morning.

And by ``finishing,'' Mr. Speaker, I mean we allowed every single Member's voice in this body be heard on every single issue that their constituents sent them here to address. Every Member of this institution left tired, Mr. Speaker, but every Member of this institution left feeling like they had had a chance to represent their constituents the way the United States Constitution intended.

It doesn't always work that way, Mr. Speaker. I sit on the Rules Committee. We decide what amendments are made in order and what amendments aren't.

In the last Congress, when the Republicans controlled this institution, we didn't make every amendment in order. We did not make every amendment in order, Mr. Speaker.

But what we did do is we made more Democratic amendments in order than Republican amendments. We did. But because, for obvious reasons, when you are in the leadership, it is easier to push your agenda. When you have opportunity not to be in the leadership, it is harder to push your agenda. We made more Democratic amendments in order last Congress, Mr. Speaker, than Republican amendments in an effort to bring a diversity of ideas.

This Congress, Mr. Speaker, when Republicans are in the minority and the Democratic majority is writing the rules, 70 percent of all amendments that have been made in order have been Democratic amendments. Eighteen percent of the amendments have come to Republicans. Five times more amendments were given to the majority than to the minority. Again, we gave more to the minority than the majority.

I see my friends from Minnesota down here saying, ``I had an amendment. It was a good idea. My constituents asked me to offer it. It is germane to the underlying bill. I just want my day on the floor to vote.'' That day has been denied, Mr. Speaker, for amendment after amendment after amendment after amendment. Hundreds of amendments. Good ideas, bipartisan ideas.

My friend from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus, had an amendment, Mr. Speaker, that required that we fund nuclear waste disposal licensing. Nuclear waste is

spread out all across this country. I don't know if it is in your district, Mr. Speaker, but I have got it right next door to me. It is stored as best we can across the Nation. We are trying to license a national repository. We have spent billions as a nation preparing for that. All he wanted was a vote on an amendment that has wide and deep bipartisan support. I think it would have won, but we will never know because the powers that be denied him even the chance to discuss it.

The question isn't, is there something good in this underlying bill? The question is, do you believe any of the rest of us have anything to add to make it better?

My friends made in order some Republican amendments. I told you that so far this year there have been five times more Democratic amendments made in order than Republican amendments. This bill today is better. It is only twice as many Democratic amendments than Republican amendments. It is still nowhere close to fair, it is still not representative, but this is where we are.

There is not one dollar, Mr. Speaker, for the humanitarian crisis on the border. The New York Times in an editorial on Sunday said, ``The financial reality is that this agency is overwhelmed.'' Talking about the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

``So far this fiscal year, it has taken charge of nearly 41,000 unaccompanied children, a 57 percent increase over last year. The entire program could run out of funding by the end of June.''

There is not one dollar in this bill for that. That is what my colleagues came to ask unanimous consent to do. That is what defeating the previous question would do.

We all agree there is a crisis at the border.

The editorial goes on for the New York Times, Mr. Speaker.

``There should be no ambivalence about the urgency of addressing the humanitarian needs. While lawmakers wring their hands and drag their feet, tens of thousands of migrant children are suffering.

``Congress needs to get serious about dealing with that suffering.''

There is no bill on its way to the floor, Mr. Speaker, except for the one you heard my colleague ask Member after Member after Member for unanimous consent to bring. And you heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle deny that. I understand. We don't usually get unanimous consent requests to prove during Rules Committee debate.

I don't fault my colleague for objecting. But if we defeat the previous question as I am proposing, Mr. Speaker, and we add an amendment to the rule, we will continue to consider the bill that my friend from California is so proud of. But we will also consider the bill that provides immediate funding to the men and women serving us on the border as they seek to address this humanitarian crisis.

It gives me no pleasure to bring it up during Rules Committee debate, Mr. Speaker, because I don't think we disagree on this. I think we are together on this. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle is saying no and no and no and no to doing something that they know needs to be done. I do not understand it.

But I know this. Here, on Wednesday, we have got one shot to fix it: one. Not two, not three. There aren't a dozen different options. We have got one shot to fix it.

Defeat this previous question, add an amendment to the rule, and bring up this emergency funding supplemental. Do what we all know needs to be done. If it stretches from the editorial page of the New York Times to a conservative Republican from the deep south, Mr. Speaker, you know it has broad bipartisan appeal.

We get so used to saying no in this Chamber. We get so used to running each other out in politics. Let's take yes for an answer. Let's do something we all know needs to be done. Let's take a shot at doing better today than we did yesterday. Maybe we will come back and do better still tomorrow.

Defeat the previous question. Add this amendment to the bill. In the absence of that, I will have to ask that we oppose that rule, Mr. Speaker, and give us a chance to go back to the drawing board one more time.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, reserving the right to object, my friend on the Rules Committee has made a commitment this year, which he has been following through on, to try to bring order to an otherwise fairly chaotic process up there.

This is clearly just a clerical error, and it is one that we all worked through together last night, so I have no objection to the gentleman's amendment request.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. We just came out of a long night in the Rules Committee. I say ``we'' from the Member side. We were out of there by midnight. I have not yet asked the Rules Committee staff when they got out of there last night because I really didn't want to know the answer to that.

When we meet in the Rules Committee on appropriations bills, we are in for long nights. My first year in Congress, Madam Speaker--the gentlewoman may have been following it at the time--it was when the big Republican majority came in as the new Democratic majority has come in now. The appropriations season hadn't been finished, so the first order of business when we came in as a new majority was to take on the appropriations challenge.

It seemed crazy at the time--this is a minibus, a group of four bills together--what we decided to do was to take the entire discretionary account of the entire United States of America, bring it down here to the House floor, and consider it under an open rule.

I brought a copy of that rule down with me, Madam Speaker. It was House Resolution 92. We heard the Reading Clerk read this morning. It took Joseph a while to get through that.

We are only considering a small fraction of the budget today. Back then, we were considering the entire Federal budget, and it was right here in three pages. The truth is, the part that dealt with the appropriations bill is only one of these sections. The other two were housekeeping business.

We allowed the entire body to bring their ideas to the table to see what might stick. I say it was a radical idea because I had just gotten to Congress. I went back and looked at the numbers, historically. It turned out, it didn't use to be a radical idea. We have made it a radical idea to let all the amendments come to the floor.

Again, my friend from Massachusetts has a very hard job as chairman of the Rules Committee. I introduced an amendment last night, Madam Speaker, barely before the committee ended, after I had had a chance to question the cardinals who were responsible for that language, and my friend from Massachusetts made it in order. He is doing everything he can to try to make the process more open than it has been in the most recent past.

But if we go back a little bit further, if we think about how to change the culture in this institution, it hasn't always been this divided.

Do you remember the first year that Speaker Pelosi sat in the chair that you are sitting in right now, Madam Speaker? She was the first, as you recall, Democratic Speaker since 1994 and the first woman to ever lead this institution. When she sat in that chair for the very first time, we had an open appropriations process. There were about 110 Democratic amendments that were offered and about 300 Republican amendments because, when you are in the minority, it is harder to get your agenda in the underlying bill.

When you run the show, as Mr. McGovern does, you are able to get all your good ideas in the bill. I have no doubt that every one of Mr. McGovern's good ideas is contained in the underlying bill. That is the privilege of leadership. When you sit on the outside, as I do and as Mr. Stauber does, it is harder to get your ideas in.

So, historically, as Speaker Pelosi did in 2007, more amendments are made in order for the minority party than are made in order for the majority party because the minority party hasn't gotten a chance to influence the process.

I am proud, over the 8 years that I was a part of the majority party here and had the privilege of sitting on the Rules Committee, more than half of the amendments, on average, across all the bills, were given to the minority party. But in this bill, Madam Speaker, again, despite the chairman's best efforts, the minority party received less than one- quarter of the amendments that are available.

What I am saying is, when Republicans were doing this from their leadership spot and we were giving more amendments to the other side, now the majority party is giving not 100 percent more amendments to their side, not 200 percent more but, more than 200 percent more.

By my statistics, since last time around, we have moved in the right direction. It used to be 300 percent more amendments given to the majority party.

Madam Speaker, I don't say that to grouse about sour grapes. Again, I say it with sincerity when I tell you that what Chairman McGovern is doing on the Rules Committee he is doing out of a real love of this institution, trying to reopen the process, but we have got to find a way to trust ourselves.

Most of what you heard the Reading Clerk read had nothing to do with the amendments of the bill we are talking about. It had to do with closing down the process, in many ways for the very first time in my congressional career, because the minority party, Republicans, are frustrated that we haven't been able to fund humanitarian needs on the border.

Now, I know talking about the border is a dog whistle to many folks in this institution. They think, as you heard the gentleman from Massachusetts mention, that it is about the wall and it is about immigration and it is about all sorts of things that it is not.

What we are talking about are children who are in the custody of the United States of America. Rightly or wrongly, like it or not, that is where we are today. And we can either fund the needs of those children, we can either fund the healthcare of those children, we can either fund the education of those children, or we cannot.

What we have heard from this administration is the same thing we have heard from the Obama administration when we had this very same crisis in 2014, and that is that we don't have enough resources to provide for the flood of folks who have been taken into U.S. custody.

The White House made this request 6 weeks ago, knowing that we were going to run out of money this month, and the House has taken no action on that request.

When we had the very same Rules Committee hearing last week, Madam Speaker, that we had this week, my friend, the chairman, talked about his sincere desire to move this kind of legislation, but it hasn't moved.

My friend from California who sits on the majority side of the Rules Committee and serves on the Appropriations Committee talked about the meeting they had in the Appropriations Committee that day to move this in an expedited way, and yet it has not yet moved.

The reason the rule considers these measures to close down the parliamentary process here is because folks are rightfully frustrated with the flow of the floor. We have serious work that we need to do, and when you are in procedural nonsense, you don't get any of that work done. But that procedural nonsense comes from a very sincere frustration that we have very real needs that are shared needs, very real passions that are shared passions, and that the consequences of failure affect us all. It affects who we are in our individual districts; it affects who we are as a nation; and for the life of me, I cannot understand why it is that this issue is receiving the neglect that it is from the leadership party.

We are going to talk about that in our previous question amendment. If we defeat the previous question, we will bring up an amendment to add to the rule language that will allow us to have this important debate and provide these important funds. I will reserve the time to talk about that, Madam Speaker.

But I do want to say we had ample opportunity in the Rules Committee to make the process wide open, and that decision, candidly, is above the chairman's pay grade, and the process was not allowed to be an open process.

So then we also had ample opportunity to close the process down completely. That is completely within the chairman's pay grade. He rejected that idea and made the effort to take some very important steps forward to returning us to regular order, and for that I am grateful.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), who is one of our young leaders.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I find my friend from Virginia is almost always right about everything, so the fact that he is so wrong on this makes it worthy of commenting.

We are not here night after night voting because the Rules Committee opened up the process. We are here night after night voting because what we would ordinarily have done by voice vote, through the comity that this institution, sadly, is losing some of every day, we are demanding recorded votes, because we can't get a vote on funding the humanitarian crisis that is at the

border, a crisis that my friend from Virginia cares about, my friend from Massachusetts cares about, my friends from Tennessee and Iowa care about. You go right across this institution. It does not matter your ideological position; you care about this issue.

We are voting night after night to draw attention to the fact that we cannot get our voices heard, not because our voices are heard in volumes never before seen.

In fact, an interesting sidebar, Madam Speaker: If you go back to the days of open rules, you will actually find the committee made more amendments in order on almost every division than we would have ordinarily had if we just had an open rule. When we clamp down on the process, that steam drives the amendments up. These conversations should be had in committee, not on the floor of the House.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Kustoff), my neighbor to the north, a leader on these issues.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say to my friend from New York that he is one of the bright spots on the Rules Committee. We are doing a lot of things differently this cycle than we have done them in years past, and he has been a real partner and a leader on that, Madam Speaker.

If you ever think that it is nothing but partisan nonsense--which you could imagine in a 9-to-4 committee, that that kind of thing could break out--I encourage you to come see Mr. McGovern and Mr. Morelle in action. You might be surprised with what you find.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), a good friend and a leader.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers), a classmate of mine and a perennial leader in this institution.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to remind folks that we can defeat the previous question today and get on with the business of providing for the families and children along the border.

This is something that everyone in this institution cares about. For whatever reason, we can't move legislation forward. Everybody is talking about it. Nobody is doing anything about it.

There is no Member of this institution who is more frustrated with that than the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy). If we defeat the previous question, we will bring up H.R. 3056, the bill to fund that crisis management at the border.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) to discuss that underlying bill.

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

I want to begin where my friend from Massachusetts left off. I have not enjoyed coming down to vote on things we could have voice-voted either. I have not enjoyed being here until midnight on votes when I knew how they were going to come out, when we could have been working together on issues where I didn't know how they were going to come out and where we were trying to be agents of change.

But when we are in the minority, it is the only tool that we have to draw attention. The reason we have been here night after night is not because Mr. Roy is trying to inconvenience anyone. It is because he went to the Rules Committee and offered an amendment to do something that everybody in this Chamber knows ought to be done, and he didn't even get a vote. Folks wouldn't even let him bring his idea. Here we are, in the people's House, on an issue that is a bipartisan issue, and he did not even get a vote.

He is not here to say it is his way or the highway. He is here to say that he thought this was a place where ideas were debated and agreed to or defeated. On that, I think he is absolutely right. He is absolutely right.

My friend from Massachusetts is right, Madam Speaker, when he says that he has opened up this process more than it was the last cycle under Republicans. It is true.

But we have heard Member after Member who said: ``I have a good bipartisan idea. I have a good bipartisan idea, but the Rules Committee didn't allow it to be heard.''

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 92 from 2011, conveniently offered by Mr. Woodall, me, that was the festival of democracy in February to March 2011, where we didn't just have an open rule on one appropriations bill, or two, three, or four. We opened up the entire Federal budget and allowed every Member's voice to be heard. From the most liberal Republican to the most conservative, from the most conservative Democrat to the most liberal, everybody had a say.

Madam Speaker, the problem we are having, I tell the gentleman from Massachusetts, is not that we are opening up the process and so that is why we are having all of these delays. The problem is that the process is still too closed. That is why we are having delays.

I can understand it if you beat me when I am trying to represent the views of my constituents. But when you shut me down, I think it offends each and every one of us.

Appropriations bills have been that loan vestige of openness in this institution. Democrats shut them down before I got here. Republicans didn't improve much on that model, save this resolution from 2011. There is still much room for improvement on both sides.

Madam Speaker, let's start that improvement, start that improvement by defeating the previous question.

Let's go back to where this whole disagreement started. Let's give the gentleman from Texas an opportunity to be heard on the bill from the gentleman from Alabama. Let's fund this crisis that we all agree needs to be funded.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of my amendment be inserted in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I will close with the words from the chairman of the Rules Committee last week:

I take a back seat to no one on this issue. We will deal

with this issue. We will come up with something quick, and I

look forward to working with you. We need to move this bill

expeditiously.

I believe every word that he said. But it has been 7 days and the sole result of those meaningful words is nothing. We might have the luxury of another day. We might have the luxury of another 2. But that luxury is fast eroding, Madam Speaker.

My friend from Massachusetts does take a back seat to no one when it comes to caring for children, which is why we are all counting on his leadership to move this issue forward with the seriousness that every Member of this institution believes it deserves.

Madam Speaker, I urge my friends: Defeat the previous question. Let's have this conversation today, not tomorrow, not the next day. Let's fix today what we can fix today.

Madam Speaker, success has an amazing way of making people feel better about themselves. Doing things that matter has an amazing way of making people feel better. It turns out, in this institution, Madam Speaker, success is incremental.

We do something well together today, we do something even bigger together tomorrow.

Defeat this previous question. Take up this issue of families and their care, and then we will move on with the rest of the appropriations business exactly, flawed or not, as my friend from Massachusetts has crafted.

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

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I hadn't had this in the opening, but I want to disagree with my friend right off the top. The President of the United States does not work for the Congress of the United States. He works for the American people, and he heads up a branch of government that is a coequal branch of government. So, on that, we will have a long discussion.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a very eventful week in the Rules Committee, and it is only Tuesday. Last night, the committee met and reported out a rule that covers two drastically different measures. H.R. 2740 is an appropriations package that covered first 5 and then 4 of the 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2020. We also considered H. Res. 430, a resolution that gives authority to the Office of the General Counsel of the House of Representatives to seek to enforce certain subpoenas for documents through litigation.

Shortly after we finish here, the committee will again convene to consider the remainder of the appropriations package, which will be on the floor as part of a separate rule tomorrow.

Meanwhile, our Members will attempt the miracle of being in two places at once as we continue to debate H. Res. 430, which falls into our original jurisdiction here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 430 comes from a dispute over documents relating to the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. The dispute also stems from the inherent oversight authority of Congress and our ability to perform oversight functions over the executive branch. It falls into the fuzzy boundaries between the branches of governments as to when and how we may compel the executive branch to turn over documents to the legislative branch.

I lay out that framework because there is an important point here that is being lost. The Democratic majority clearly wants to make this dispute entirely about this President, this Attorney General, this White House counsel, this investigation, this subpoena of documents. The Democrats want to focus attention there because they think it helps them politically to do so. But this dispute really shouldn't be about just that. It should, rather, be about the difficult and thorny questions that emerge in a system like ours with three branches of government with checks and balances.

In a sense, what the majority is seeking to do here today is completely unprecedented, both in its intent and in its execution. Consider the only other times the House has filed a lawsuit to seek to enforce a subpoena for documents. It has happened twice before, Mr. Speaker, once in 2007, to seek documents from former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, and again in 2012, to seek documents from then- Attorney General Eric Holder as a result of the congressional investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal.

In both of these cases, the House had already voted to hold both Miers and Holder in contempt of Congress before filing suit, which has not yet happened in this case. In the Miers case, 138 days elapsed from the first document request to the Judiciary Committee voting to hold her in contempt. In the Holder case, it was significantly longer, in that 464 days elapsed from the first document request to the committee voting to hold him in contempt. That was well over a year.

Here, the majority is forcing us to rush forward at a much faster pace. Just 44 days elapsed from the date of the first document request to the Attorney General until the Judiciary Committee voted to hold him in contempt. James Holzhauer has been champion of ``Jeopardy!'' for longer than that.

I don't understand the majority's haste here. Without exhausting all other options--continuing negotiation, discussion, compromise, and turning to a vote on contempt as the last resort--the majority is, instead, pushing this forward into litigation with the executive branch. In doing so, they may well be placing the House in a position that causes significant long-term damage to the institution.

When this matter goes before the courts, it will do so as a case of first impression and under an untested legal theory. In both the Miers and Holder cases, the House previously voted to hold those two individuals in contempt of Congress. Nothing like that has been done here. Using untested tactics like this could set a dangerous precedent that harms us all, Republicans and Democrats, in the long run.

Finally, I would also note that it is not clear what this resolution will ultimately accomplish. Since the House has not yet exercised all the tools in its tool kit, and since it is not clear that the negotiations with the Justice Department and the White House over the documents at issue are at an end, this whole thing may be nothing more than sound and fury. Indeed, given how quickly the majority is rushing into things, it seems unlikely that the only course of action left in the House is to file a lawsuit.

I strongly urge the majority to continue working with the Justice Department and the White House to find a resolution to these issues without resorting to knee-jerk lawsuits that may ultimately damage the House as an institution.

Today, we are also beginning consideration of H.R. 2740, an appropriations package covering 5 of 12 appropriations bills: Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; Legislative Branch; Defense; State and Foreign Operations; and Energy and Water Development. These five bills cover over 70 percent of our total discretionary spending for fiscal year 2020.

To be precise, Mr. Speaker, we were to do five bills. At the last moment, the majority pulled the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. I will let them explain why at their leisure.

As a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee, I am pleased that we are beginning to move the appropriations bills to the floor. Unfortunately, the bills before us have numerous flaws, most notably that they are marked to allocation levels that aren't realistic.

As we move forward through the appropriations process, I think we need to be clear about the challenges we face this year.

At the end of September, fiscal year 2019 expires, and sequestration cuts contained in the Budget Control Act of 2011 will automatically take effect for fiscal year 2020. In order to prevent that, we need to come to a bipartisan, bicameral budget deal that the House, the Senate, and the President can all agree on. If we don't, then it doesn't really matter what fake number the House marks to. Sequestration will hit, and our defense budget will automatically be slashed by 11 percent and our nondefense budget by 9 percent below the allocations of 2019.

The spending levels in these appropriations bills are not just ambitious; they are unrealistic. Not only are the funding levels for many of these bills too high, so high that the Senate and the President will never agree to them, but the allocations the Appropriations Committee used reflect the misguided notion that any increase in defense spending must be matched by an increase in nondefense spending that is more than twice as high.

That is simply not a realistic assessment of our national priorities or the fiscal limitations imposed on us by our rising national debt. The defense provision of this bill, for example, comes in at $8 billion less than the President told us was needed to adequately fund the military, maintain readiness, and be prepared to confront international threats.

After years of severe underfunding of our Armed Forces and at a time when threats are emerging everywhere around the globe, spending less than the administration asks for on defense in order to push more money into domestic programs is not a wise course of action.

I am disappointed that the majority chose to strip out pro-life provisions that have been carried in appropriations bills for years. Instead, they added controversial pro-abortion riders that virtually guarantee no Republican support whatsoever for this package.

As the former chair and current ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I am familiar with the need for compromise on that particular piece of legislation. But by pushing forward with blatantly partisan riders like these, the majority is guaranteeing the outcome of these bills: dead on arrival in a Republican-led Senate and no chance of getting a Republican President's signature.

In the coming months, I hope we work through these problems, as we did last year, frankly. If the majority intends to move forward with unrealistic spending levels and insists on maintaining partisan riders, then we are simply guaranteeing a failed appropriations process.

Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, our failure has consequences. A best- case scenario is a yearlong continuing resolution that funds the government at the exact same level as the current year. That is the best scenario if we fail. The worst-case scenario is another government shutdown or sequestration that automatically cuts all government funding levels. Neither of these is a good outcome for the House as an institution, for the Federal Government, or more importantly, for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, although I cannot support either bill before us today, I am hopeful that, eventually, we will reach a bipartisan, bicameral compromise on spending that the vast majority of Members in this House can support. That requires realistic funding levels and elimination of partisan riders from this package. The spending package before us today may be a worthy starting point, but it will take hard work and compromise to move the final bill that can become law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Oklahoma (Mr. Kevin Hern).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). My good friend is the most eloquent advocate for life in this Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gonzalez).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule immediately to bring up H.R. 3056 for consideration under an open rule.

The bill provides $4.5 billion of funding to address the immediate humanitarian crisis on the southern border. This is a crisis of significant proportions, Mr. Speaker.

Our facilities for holding new arrivals, particularly children and the vulnerable unaccompanied minors, are already at the breaking point. Simply put, we need more resources, and we need them today.

This is not the first time we have needed to provide supplemental appropriations for this purpose. Back in 2014, then-President Barack Obama asked us for $3.7 billion in supplemental resources for precisely the same purpose. He got it. At the time, we had 60,000 unaccompanied minors who arrived in 2014. We face a similar and, frankly, larger humanitarian crisis today.

President Obama was right to request supplemental funds to deal with the crisis then. We would be right to appropriate supplemental funds to address that similar crisis now.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, my friend made reference a little bit earlier to amendments. He talked about the total number of amendments, but he left out the distribution of amendments. So, as the House considers this rule, I think we ought to take a look at how the Rules Committee has handled making amendments in order so far this Congress.

The rule on the floor today is making 106 amendments in order, out of 540 submitted, with hopefully more to come with tomorrow's rule.

Today's rule includes 22 amendments sponsored solely by Republicans. Sadly, this is considered an improvement over the majority's previous efforts.

With today's rule, in total, this Congress, 73 percent of all amendments made in order have been sponsored solely by Democrats--73 percent. Just 16 percent are sponsored by Republicans, with 11 percent bipartisan.

How does this compare with the last Congress? When Republicans were the majority party, 45 percent of all amendments made in order were sponsored solely by Democrats. Only 38 percent were sponsored solely by Republicans, with another 17 percent being bipartisan.

At the beginning of this Congress, the Democratic majority repeatedly promised a new, robust, and open process at the Rules Committee. They pledged that good ideas would be welcomed, no matter where they came from, and that thoughtful amendments would not be blocked.

Unfortunately, they have a long way to go to keep that promise. I think the numbers speak volumes.

We are 5 months into the 116th Congress. Should we expect this trend of shutting out minority party ideas to continue? Should we expect the same course of action in our rule tomorrow and in our rule on the second appropriations package next week and in

other rules in the weeks and months to come?

When will the promises made by the Democratic majority be kept? If not now, when?

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to the rule. The rule will make in order two measures: H. Res. 430 and H.R. 2740.

H. Res. 430 is a premature and ineffective resolution that will push the House forward into untested and ill-timed litigation with the executive branch over the subpoena of documents. While the House has an important oversight role to play, we must be careful to exercise that role wisely and carefully, lest we cause long-term damage to the institution.

H.R. 2740 is a package of 5 of the 12 outstanding appropriations bills that use unrealistic allocation levels and eliminate longstanding pro-life protections that must be restored before these bills can garner any Republican support.

I actually look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and the Senate as we move forward in the appropriations process, and I urge the majority to compromise with the Senate and the White House in order to achieve a final spending deal that avoids drastic sequestration cuts or, worse yet, another government shutdown.

I think that is actually the great lesson of the appropriations process, Mr. Speaker. We know we can do this. We did it last year, and we did it pretty well together.

But my friends have to get past the idea that they can impose their will on a Republican Senate and a Republican President. They are simply not going to be able to do that. They are going to have to bargain to a middle ground and compromise.

In the Appropriations Committee, as a rule, we do that, and we do it pretty well. I am hopeful that we can continue going forward on that front.

I am concerned, however, that the vitriol, if you will, that we see in the investigative and oversight efforts of our friends will spill into that process and lead us into a very difficult situation in September.

So, as we move forward on the appropriations front, again, I hope all of us relearn the virtues of compromise, understand that we were all sent here by the American people, that we have to work with one another to accomplish something, and that none of us can impose their will on the other.

With that, I look forward to working with my friend and with his colleagues and, certainly, through the appropriations process to making sure that the government is appropriately funded and well governed.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.