Election Security Assistance Act

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Madam Speaker, we are here today on two very different pieces of legislation. Last night at the Rules Committee, I noted that these unrelated bills have only one thing in common, and that is their place in the Democratic majority's partisan, going-nowhere agenda. Unfortunately, I believe today's rule is only going to compound that recurring problem of the Democrats, frankly, not even trying to work with Republicans to actually legislate in divided government.

Our first bill today is H.R. 3351, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2020. This is the 10th of 12 appropriations bills to come to the floor. As we have worked through these bills, I have raised several concerns that are applicable to this bill as well.

Like the previous appropriations bills this Congress, H.R. 3351 is marked to a high allocation figure that has no basis in reality. Remember, the House and Senate have not agreed to an overall budget for fiscal year 2020, which the Congressional Budget Act mandates be done by April 15.

Without a budget agreement, the budget cap numbers contained in the Budget Control Act will automatically take effect, leading to an 11 percent cut in defense spending and a 9 percent cut in nondefense spending.

Instead of working with Republicans in the Senate to reach a deal before marking and reporting funding bills, the majority has, instead, gone ahead and pushed through their own partisan appropriations bills that are marked to fake and unrealistic numbers.

The 12 appropriations bills the majority has proposed have several flaws in common. They reflect the idea that any increase in defense spending must be matched by an even greater increase in nondefense spending, which simply isn't a realistic assessment of our national priorities.

What is worse, these bills actually underfund defense and homeland security, coming in below the numbers that the President requested in order to ensure our military can adequately defend our Nation.

The FSGG bill we are considering today contains an 8 percent increase over fiscal year 2019, which makes little sense when we are simultaneously underfunding our national security.

Like the previous bills brought by my Democratic friends, the Financial Services appropriations bill also contains several partisan provisions that must be removed before a bipartisan, bicameral agreement can be reached on spending.

The majority has removed longstanding pro-life protections, such as a rider that prohibits the District of Columbia from using government funds to provide for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or health of the mother.

The majority has also cut out a longstanding provision that I originally sponsored several years ago barring government contractors from being forced to disclose political campaign contributions. Since I originally sponsored this provision several years ago, I find it surprising that the majority would eliminate this provision, which provides important protections for government contractors and prevents contracts from being awarded on the basis of contributions.

Of course, there was an opportunity to work through and fix these problems through the amendment process. But instead of making things better, the majority has chosen, once again, to leave out minority voices.

I want to reiterate a point I made the last time I was on the floor for a rule. During the last Congress, when Republicans were in the majority, our record shows that we allowed more amendments sponsored solely by Democrats than we did amendments sponsored solely by Republicans.

The current majority has a much sorrier record. As of yesterday, of all amendments made in order this Congress, 67 percent were sponsored by Democrats, 19 percent by Republicans, and 13 percent were bipartisan.

Today's rule is right in line with that record. Sixty-seven percent of the amendments made in order are sponsored by Democrats, 24 percent by Republicans, and 9 percent are bipartisan.

Madam Speaker, this record of partisanship is a far cry from what the majority promised at the start of this Congress. There was an opportunity to move forward with fulfilling the majority's promises with today's rule. Instead, we see few Republican amendments and many Democratic amendments, resulting in a final product that will fail to achieve the bipartisan support needed to become law.

The second bill included in this rule is H.R. 2722, which the majority is promoting as a bill that provides security for elections. The reality is that this bill, like its partisan predecessor H.R. 1 that passed the House earlier this Congress, amounts to nothing less than a complete Federal takeover of elections.

Traditionally, elections are left to the States and local governments to conduct as they see fit. Localities can respond to local conditions; election officials can innovate; and elections can be operated in a way that best suits the unique needs of each community.

H.R. 2722 turns all that on its head. The bill will force all elections to be conducted using paper ballots, even if the local officials prefer more advanced technology. It will require costly recounts with no apparent purpose. It

will impose significant and wasteful spending on taxpayers.

Instead of affirming States as the laboratories of democracy, when it comes to elections, H.R. 2722 will impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory regime directed from Washington on communities across the country.

Madam Speaker, this state of affairs could and should have been avoided. Instead of pushing these partisan bills this week, the majority could have chosen to work with Republicans to craft bipartisan bills to address all of these problems.

Even if that did not come to pass, the majority at the Rules Committee still could have worked with the minority to make more minority amendments in order and give all Members the opportunity to fix these flawed bills on the floor. That they did not is yet another indication of where the majority's priorities lie: with pushing partisan bills to score political points and avoiding the bipartisan work of actually making law.

There is still a chance to change, Madam Speaker. In order to do so, the majority needs to decide whether they are here to score political points or if they are here to make law.

Before I conclude, I would be remiss if I did not highlight what is missing in today's rule. We should have been considering three bills today, not two. The missing bill is the supplemental appropriations bill providing funding for the humanitarian crisis on the southern border.

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

To be fair to the President, he has been asking Congress to do that since May 1. The failure to brin forward a supplemental appropriations bill for this purpose is a major failure of governance by the majority.

All of us here, Republicans and Democrats alike, agree that we need to provide funding for this crisis. Time is wasting while we wait.

Back in 2014, when President Obama asked us for $3.7 billion in supplemental resources for precisely the same purpose, the House acted to give him the resources he needed in 24 days. As of today, almost 2 months have gone by with the majority failing to act.

Many of my friends on the other side rightfully express concern that unaccompanied minors backing up at border stations is not appropriate nor in the best interests of the children. I couldn't agree more. The Border Patrol couldn't agree more.

By failing to bring forward a supplemental appropriations bill, the path the majority is taking us on leads only to this outcome: hurting the children I know we all want to help.

Congress has given HHS the mandate to care for unaccompanied minors. Congress now needs to write the check so that HHS can do what Congress has mandated.

I remind my friends across the aisle that Republicans are ready and willing to work with them to pass a bipartisan supplemental appropriations package that provides needed funding for housing, for the Department of Defense, and especially for children who find themselves in an unfathomable situation at the border.

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

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

I want to remind my friends that it took them weeks, if not longer, to even acknowledge there was a crisis at the border. As a matter of fact, they were accusing the President of manufacturing the crisis a few weeks ago. Now, fortunately, they have come around to the idea that hundreds of thousands of people arriving over a 3-month period of time is a crisis.

Secondly, I want to remind them, they have still yet to act in the face of the crisis. They have had the ability to pass legislation. The President asked for it almost 60 days ago. We still haven't seen anything in terms of legislation reaching this floor.

Madam Speaker, I also want to point out that, frankly, it shouldn't take this long to respond. We can disagree over a lot of things. And I have no doubt about the sincerity of my friends when it comes to being concerned about the well-being of these children; none whatsoever.

But we know that part of this crisis is created because we haven't given the President the emergency funds he needs to quickly move people out of facilities where they were never designed to be, into influx facilities that we are trying to stand up, literally, right now. One of these is going to be in my district.

We dealt with this, by the way, in 2014. We did it with President Obama; supported it; gave him the funds he needed; a Republican House, a Democratic Senate, and the President. He got that money in 24 days. One of those facilities was set up in my district.

Again, we don't like using military bases in this way; don't approve of it; but we understand that President Obama faced an emergency situation, and we gave him the tools and the resources he needed to deal with that. That needs to happen now.

Frankly, what we are seeing in the House is quite a contrast to the Senate, which has a bill in the Appropriations Committee that was reported out 30-1. It is bipartisan. It is a bill the President has expressed a willingness to sign. We ought to be working with that vehicle, if my friends can't get something to the floor to deal with this urgent crisis now.

Madam Speaker, I would also, if I may, like to inform the Chair that if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately bring up Congressman Davis' Election Security Assistance Act for consideration under an open rule.

This bill provides targeted and crucially needed resources to State and local election administrators to help secure America's voting infrastructure. Unlike the majority's partisan bill that takes over all election operations and replaces local authority with a one-size-fits- all mandate from Washington, the Republican alternative provides needed resources without stepping on the toes of State and local election administrators.

It provides grants to States to update aging and at-risk election infrastructure; provides security clearances to election officials to facilitate the sharing of information about threats with frontline officials; increases resources available to States and local governments; and provides for hands-on assistance, as needed.

Madam Speaker, we all agree that our elections need to be protected, and we all agree that more resources and more assets are necessary to accomplish that goal. But rather than pushing a complicated mandate from Washington that wastes taxpayer dollars and eliminates the tradition of State and local control over the election operations, we can do better by providing resources for security improvements and reinforcements for local officials with the minimum additional regulation.

Madam 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.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), my good friend, the author of the legislation in question.

Madam Speaker, to quote my friend, ``give me a break.'' The last Republican Congress appropriated roughly $300 million for election security, point 1.

Point 2, we have no evidence anybody hacked any election machines, as my friend, Mr. Davis pointed out in 2016 or 2018. If you want to respond to the Russians, you probably ought to respond to what they did, not to what they didn't do or didn't succeed in doing.

I would actually argue this administration did a lot more than the last administration. You have got a larger military today, partly because of what the Russians did. You have a reinvigorated NATO today. You have a President who actually sent lethal aid to Ukraine today.

You want to get the Russians' attention? That is the way you get it. When you lay down a red line in Syria, you enforce the red line. This administration has been a lot tougher on Russia than the last administration, which, by the way, knew this was going on, did almost nothing to alert anybody or to stop anybody; and now, are trying to blame it on the person that was actually involved in the election, our current President, for their lapse when they were actually in power in the executive branch.

So this idea that nobody wants to defend our elections is not true. And, frankly, I will take some offense because I have never said that the Russians didn't matter, or that our elections weren't serious or weren't threatened. I used to be a State election board secretary. I used to sit on the Board of Directors for the election board secretaries around the country, and the oldest public body that there is, or the oldest association of public officials there is in this country; very bipartisan, by the way, extraordinarily well-run. They don't agree with this bill.

I would just ask every Member to call their local Secretary of State or election administrator, whatever they have, and go through the bill and say, did you want to cede this much authority to the Congress of the United States; or do you think you do a pretty good job of running your own election?

I know in my State, we do a very good job of running our elections, and that has been true under Democrats and true under Republicans. I think that is true around the country.

The other thing is if you want to actually do something before the 2020 election, then whether you like it or not, you are going to have to do something that is bipartisan, because this will not get through the Senate and this will not become law, and that makes it a rather pointless exercise.

Sometimes in the legislative process, you sit down, and in Mr. Davis, I will tell you, you have a willing partner and a person who has a reputation in this body that I think is exceptionally bipartisan and who is working, I think, in good faith on this very problem, and you work through the problem.

But if it is going to be a partisan my-way-or-the-highway approach-- remember, this is coming under a closed rule, there is not even an amendment made in order here--then it is not likely to get out of this Chamber.

So if you are serious about trying to protect the elections, you would. You may not get everything you want, but

in divided government, you have to work together to get things done.

That is the problem with almost every major initiative that our Democratic friends have brought to the floor since they have been in the majority.

Sorry. The Constitution is pretty clear. The Senate gets to decide whether or not they are going to accept what we do over here or do something different. The President has a part in this process.

We had to endure this when we first became the majority. We had a Republican House, we had a Democratic Senate, we had a Democratic President.

I don't have any problem with my friends bringing their agenda to the floor. I applaud them for doing it. They ran on it. It is perfectly appropriate.

A lot of times we bring that agenda to the floor knowing we can get it across this Chamber, but we are not going to probably get it all the way through the process unless we change it some.

What we haven't seen yet is any evidence that the new majority has any ability to work with the current majority or the current President. And if that is what they want to do for 18 months, score political points as opposed to actually legislate something in a compromise manner, they are free to do that, too, but it is not going to work.

If the aim here is to make our elections more secure, then I wouldn't bring a bill with a closed rule. I would work with the other side, knowing that their very concerns are probably going to be similar to the concerns expressed in the United States Senate and by the President of the United States.

So, you know, that is an unsolicited piece of personal and political advice to my friends, but I think if they follow it, they will actually have some success legislatively and will actually get some things done.

We are going to disagree about a lot of things. The American people will sort that out in rather short order, about 18 months, but we ought to try to get the things we can do today done.

This is an area I think we could work together in if we approached it in a different manner.

I would also hope we could do the same thing on the southern border, Madam Speaker. That is an impending emergency right now. We are going to run out of money right now. So let's get that at least taken care of while we sort out our differences in other areas.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to make a quick point, and then I want to move to my friend from Illinois.

Madam Speaker, I don't argue about constitutional power, but I argue about process.

Look, I seriously doubt my friends have spent very much time talking to election board secretaries and election administration officials around the country. Had they done so, they would have heard, I am sure, uniformly that they don't want a one-size-fits-all made system from Washington, D.C. They don't want to throw away equipment that they think is better than what we are offering them or that they have already invested millions of dollars in.

They are happy to work with us. They are happy to inform us and testify. That is not what is happening here.

This is the idea: all wisdom is in this Chamber, evidently, because it is not going to get through the Senate, it is not going to get signed by the President. We haven't talked to the people that actually are the front-line people in defending us in this process, and that is the folks at the State and the local level.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

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

Madam Speaker, could I inquire, I am prepared to close whenever my friend is. If he has additional speakers, I will just reserve.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by just submitting for the Record the views of the National Disability Rights Network, which actually came out against this legislation because they believe it will make it more difficult for people with physical impairments to actually get to the polls and vote. I know that is not the intention of my friend on the other side, but that is the effect of one-size-fits-all voting.

National Disability

Rights Network,

June 25, 2019.

Hon. Zoe Lofgren,

Chairwoman, House Administration Committee, Washington, DC.

Hon. Rodney Davis,

Ranking Member, House Administration Committee, Washington,

Madam Speaker, my friend is not impressed, and that is a fair statement, and I don't question my friend ever, but I am not impressed with legislation that can't become law because it is futile. We come down here with a lot of sound and fury, but we don't get anything done.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to this rule. This rule will make in order for consideration two bills: H.R. 3351 and H.R. 2722.

The first is a partisan appropriations bill that is marked to an unrealistic number that does not reflect agreement with Republicans or the Senate and that includes partisan policy riders that must come out before this bill can become law.

Not to be outdone, H.R. 2722 is even more partisan, throwing out the traditional ability of States and localities to manage their own election procedures and, instead, imposing a one-size-fits-all regulatory regime direct from Washington, D.C. like H.R. 1 before it, this bill was produced without Republican input and, instead, reflects only the partisan motivations of the current majority.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the rule, and ``no'' on the underlying measures.

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

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

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

Madam Speaker, in the 2016 election, we saw a very real threat to our Nation when Russia interfered in our elections by using a misinformation campaign through social media and attacking voter registration databases. While this interference from Russia is unacceptable, I feel it is necessary to point out that there is no evidence that any voting machines were hacked in the 2016 or even in the 2018 elections.

However, this does not mean that there isn't a need for election and cybersecurity improvements for State election systems. On this point, I know my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including the distinguished chairperson of our Committee on House Administration, we all agree that no one--and I mean, no one--should interfere with our elections. Every Americans' vote should be counted and protected.

Last Congress $380 million were appropriated to States to upgrade their election security. Also, election infrastructure was designated as critical infrastructure in response to the U.S. Intelligence Community's reports that the Russian Government attacked.

This allowed the Department of Homeland Security to begin providing additional cybersecurity assistance to State and local election officials.

Work has been done to help States improve their election security, and more work must be done. This is why our committee Republicans, all of us on the House Administration Committee, introduced H.R. 3412, the Election Security Assistance Act, to assist States in their election security strengthening efforts.

This realistic legislation provides $380 million in Federal grants to States to update their aging and at-risk election infrastructure, while also requiring State and local officials to have some skin in the game. We require a 25 percent match to ensure that they understand they are getting the best equipment that is going to protect their voters' rights to have their votes counted and protected.

In addition, our bill is the only bill that creates the first ever Election Cyber Assistance Unit, aimed at connecting our State and local election officials with leading election administration and cybersecurity experts from across the country.

Our bill also empowers State officials by providing security clearances to our election officials to better facilitate the sharing of information and requiring the Department of Homeland Security to notify State election officials of cyberattacks and any foreign threats within the State.

It is common sense that if there is an attempt to hack a State election, the State election official should be notified, but they are currently not able to let a State know if it has been attacked. If DHS is the one that sees this attack from a foreign country, they can't notify State election officials because, in many cases, they don't have security clearance.

Our bill clears this up. Those State officials deserve the right to know who is trying to attack their elections in each State in this great Nation.

My good friend, Congresswoman Torres, stated at the Rules Committee hearing on Monday night that she doesn't trust her State election officials in California to have security clearances. Personally, I don't feel that way, and I think other Members of Congress may agree with me.

State officials should know if there is a threat to their election system, and DHS should be the one telling them.

To sum up the Election Security Assistance Act, our solution provides much-needed election security improvements and reinforcements for local election officials, without overstepping the States' authority to determine and maintain their own elections.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the bill we are voting on today.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to

the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird).

Madam Speaker, I certainly hope my good friend from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) changes his mind and wants more Republican governments, but I don't think that is going to happen, even today, on the House floor.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Waltz), another good friend of mine from the great State of Florida.

Madam Speaker, look, I respect and agree with my good friend from Illinois (Mr. Casten), my colleague. We want to protect our home State. We saw intrusion into our Illinois State Board of Elections voter registration system. It is something that had to be addressed.

I am happy to report, after talking with the State Board of Election officials, they have been given resources already appropriated by a Republican majority Congress, Republicans in the Senate, and President Trump last year to effectively ensure that that information is not vulnerable again.

What we are debating here today is a bill that will put more unfunded and underfunded mandates on States like Illinois. That is not what our local election officials in my district asked for.

The reason Illinois was able to protect itself and ensure that it didn't happen again in the extremely high, historic turnout of the 2018 midterm election was because they were given the flexibility to spend the HAVA funds that Republicans in Congress ensured that the State of Illinois had, leading to a Democratic majority in the midterm elections.

No one is questioning the safety and security of our midterm elections. No one has told me that any foreign entity hacked into any institution, voter registration system, or machines. Maybe DHS hasn't called me, even though I think I have a security clearance, so they could.

But they can't call our local election officials, under this bill, if it happens again because they don't have security clearance. That is why our bill is a better choice.

The one that is on the floor today does not address the concerns of States like mine, and it certainly does not address the concerns of States like California.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk), my fellow House Administration Committee Republican and one of my good friends here in Congress.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer), our Republican Policy Committee chair.

I yield the gentleman from Alabama an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I might consume.

Madam Speaker, I agree with my good friend from Maryland. We as Republicans and Democrats need to do the patriotic thing and make sure that our elections are protected.

And I do agree that the Russians tried to interfere in our election process with misinformation campaigns. But I also want to ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if their concentration on election security happened the day after the 2016 election, why in the world didn't the administration who was in the White House at the time when the intelligence analysts were talking about how other foreign entities, including Russia, were wanting to interfere in our elections, why didn't they do something about it?

Why are we here today?

Why didn't it happen before the 2016 election, when our intelligence analysts said nefarious activity was moving against the United States of America?

They did nothing. The Obama administration did nothing. They let it go.

Now we are here watching the new Democrat majority that was elected in 2018, after explosive turnout in our midterm elections, their first bill, H.R. 1, that every member of the Democratic majority cosponsored and supported, that is the solution?

The solution is to add millions of taxpayer dollars and then the first ever corporate dollars into their own congressional campaign accounts?

No one has ever said that is the solution to too much money in politics or

to election security. Not one time have I had a constituent say that to me.

Now, we have got to come together and do what is right.

We have yet to address any of the issues that were laid out in the Mueller report. This bill we are debating today does not address any of them. This is a discussion about what happened in 2016 without a discussion of what is needed in our States and local election authorities.

That is what is wrong with this bill, too. It is hypocrisy at its greatest.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I agree with my distinguished colleague from California that we do need to have the ability for the Department of Homeland Security

and our intelligence officials to notify our State and local election officials if they see nefarious activity, but right now under the bill we are debating today, that would not be the case, because in many cases, DHS won't talk to local election officials or State election officials because they don't have security clearances.

Our bill, pushed by the Republicans on the House Administration Committee, would allow the communication to take place.

You know, we hear a lot of talk about patriotism coming up on the Fourth of July. I believe we are all patriots in this institution, but I believe, also, we have to govern together.

We were working on a bipartisan solution to election security, and all of the sudden, we were told no more negotiations. That is not how I thought this institution worked. I thought we could work together.

Well, I do want to respond to a couple of comments that my colleague from California made. She may have mentioned H.R. 1. H.R. 1 was the Democrats' attempt to address not only too much money in politics, they said; they also wanted to address election security.

Clearly, what H.R. 1 did was do nothing to affect the money that is coming into politics, and it is not doing enough to ensure that our elections are not impacted by foreign entities with nefarious intentions.

Our bill today that we hoped could have been debated but was voted down on a party-line vote in the House Administration Committee earlier this week, just a few days ago, we hoped we could have come up with that, that is a bipartisan solution that would have worked. What works, our last speaker said, was this. Clearly, that is not what works.

What works isn't voting for a bill like H.R. 1 that votes to put the first ever corporate money directly into every Member of Congress' campaign accounts. What works, clearly, is not taxpayer money to fix that problem when there are not enough corporate malfeasance funds. That is not what the American people wanted.

And what would have worked would have been the last administration, the Obama administration, listening to their intelligence agencies and doing something about nefarious activities before the 2016 election, not the day after, when Democrats decided to take this issue on.

And then all I ever hear is they are going to blame Mitch McConnell. Well, I had no idea, before 2016, that the Obama administration ceded Presidential authority to the Senate majority leader. I had no idea that happened.

Everything is Mitch McConnell's fault, right? He is the one who told the intelligence agencies to stand down. Are you kidding me?

And now we hear we should have done something. You are darn right we should have done something. You are darn right the Obama administration should have done something. You are darn right they should have done it when they first heard about it before the 2016 election, and now here we are to fix it.

And today's bill is clearly not a fix.

We have got some issues, and it is really interesting to see my colleagues from California come up and not want to address a practice like ballot harvesting that is illegal in the State of North Carolina, where a Republican who did it is likely to go to jail for it, but the same process is legal in the State of California--disastrous.

You want to talk about trying to determine the outcome of elections? We have put forth amendment after amendment to address ballot harvesting, with complete party-line votes against making sure the process that is illegal in North Carolina that a Republican operative will likely go to jail for is completely legal in States like California.

And you want to talk about determining the outcome of an election? Come on.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk), my good friend.

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

Madam Speaker, I really respect my colleague from North Carolina, and I do want to correct him a little bit.

I am from Illinois, not Ohio. I would never mistake the gentleman from North Carolina as being from someplace like South Carolina. But the gentleman from North Carolina is a good friend.

Look, we all have disagreements on this House floor, but that doesn't mean we are disagreeable when it comes to having good friendships, and I thank him for his courtesies and thank him for his friendship.

The State of North Carolina is a great example of why we need to do better, why we ought to go back to the drawing board.

Let's take this bill off the floor. Let's get back to bipartisan negotiations, because in States like North Carolina and States like Illinois where local election officials have bought machines, they bought machines, maybe they have current optical scan machines, but the requirement in this bill, as the Oklahoma secretary of state said, the requirement of this bill to have recycled paper through ballots, many of the already purchased optical scan machines that would be required for every local and State election official to purchase after the year 2022 may not be able to read the ballots on recycled paper. So you are going to have to reinvest hard-earned tax dollars where many local communities in our great States have already invested in updating their election security with the most secure election equipment that they felt was going to protect them.

Washington should not be telling our local officials what to buy, especially when there are provisions in this bill that make equipment that would fit

those guidelines illegal to use or are inoperable even if they have purchased it. We have got to do better.

We all want to protect this great Nation. We all want free and fair elections so that every vote is counted and protected. Let's do it together. Let's do it right.

Let's make sure we address some DHS concerns. Let's put a cybersecurity assistance unit together like we have tried to do.

Let's outlaw ballot harvesting, because I know we have got bipartisan support in working together on that issue, especially with my good friend from North Carolina, Mr. Butterfield. I look forward to working with him on this. I know he and I both have concerns about this process, and I thank him for his willingness to sit down and talk.

We can do better. The bill on the floor today is not better. Let's do it. Let's work together. Pull this bill off the floor. We have got a lot of other issues to debate today.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, how much time do I have left?

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

Madam Speaker, well, clearly the timekeeper is wrong. I obviously thought I had more, but I am not able to debate that today. I will go ahead and close.

I do want to thank my colleague from California and also the members of the House Administration Committee, where we have an opportunity to come together, but this bill is just simply another partisan bill by the majority aimed at federally mandating election standards, like mandating that States exclusively use paper ballots, effectively banning any type of digital recording device that would have even a verified paper backup.

The committee even had one hearing on this issue with Commissioners from the EAC--remember, that agency that one speaker earlier said was getting a pittance of dollars, small amounts of dollars over the last few years. Only in this institution is $380 million given by the Republican majority here in the House in the last Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States, only in this institution is $380 million a little bit. A lot of that money still hasn't even been spent by our local election officials.

So here we are today debating a bill that is going to basically commit 1.3 billion taxpayer dollars toward so-called election security. We still have not addressed the problem that if DHS, if our same intelligence officials who told the Obama administration that there was foreign interference in our 2016 elections and the Obama administration did nothing about it--because, why? Because of Mitch McConnell. It is Mitch McConnell's fault.

Seriously, come on. Get real here. We are legislators. We are an equal branch of government. There is absolutely no way any administration cedes authority to anybody in this legislative institution.

The Obama administration failed to address the problem of election interference in 2016, and here we are today trying to make sure that we fix it. This attempt to fix it is a partisan attempt at ensuring that our elections authorities and our States and our local election officials have a top-down, federally mandated approach that is going to potentially cost them millions of taxpayer dollars that they have already inserted into their own budgets over the last few years.

Our local officials have told us they want flexibility. Cybersecurity concerns are where they have invested much of the $380 million that we put forth in the last Congress.

Let's make sure we spend the money that we have already appropriated; let's make sure we take a commonsense approach; and let's give our election officials, Republicans and Democrats from throughout this great Nation, the ability to address the concerns they know are weakest in their own system. Let's not have some bureaucrat out here in a concrete building determining what is going to work best in the State of Texas, in the State of Illinois, in the State of California, or anywhere else.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 460 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, 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

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

Madam Speaker, on Monday night, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 460. It provides for consideration of H.R. 3351 under a structured rule that makes 46 amendments in order, with 1 hour of general debate controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.

It also provides for consideration of H.R. 2722 under a closed rule with 1 hour of general debate provided, controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on House Administration. It also provides same-day authority through the legislative day of Thursday, June 27, 2019, relating to appropriations measures.

Madam Speaker, this underlying package of bills is proof that this Democratic majority is committed to getting its work done both for routine matters like appropriations and emergency priorities facing our Nation.

Take the first measure, H.R. 3351, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act. This builds on our efforts to fund the government for fiscal year 2020 in a timely way. Instead of hollowing out important investments like past Republican majorities have done, this Democratic majority is investing in our future.

This legislation not only ensures both the executive and judicial branches can continue to operate for the American people, there is also language here to protect consumers from dangerous products and help small businesses thrive, especially in distressed communities.

Most notably, Madam Speaker, this bill provides hundreds of millions in grants to strengthen the integrity of our election system. This is especially important since, if left to his own devices, I don't think our President would even acknowledge that there is a crisis of confidence in our elections following Russia's meddling in 2016, let alone act so it never happens again. He seems content to welcome future interference rather than prevent it, so it is especially important that this Congress takes the lead to protect our democracy.

That is why we are also moving here to consider H.R. 2722, the Securing America's Federal Elections Act. The Mueller report made clear that Russia waged an all-out attack on our elections. Putin put his thumb on the scale for President Trump, and intelligence officials have made clear that he and others are trying to attack us again in the next election.

I want to repeat that, Madam Speaker, in case the President happens to be watching. Our very democracy is under attack. No troops have been sent into combat. No guns have been fired, but a foreign adversary is turning the internet and the ballot box into battlefields with the integrity of the vote at stake.

It is beyond me why this President has not acted as if this is a national emergency. Instead, he said the other day that he thinks he would take campaign dirt about an opponent from a foreign government. You can't make this stuff up, Madam Speaker. That is like leaving the front door wide open when you know there is a burglar in town. He is not preventing future acts, he is encouraging them.

Before my friends on the other side chalk this up to a slip of the tongue, let me remind them that his own former communications director, Hope Hicks, testified recently that she believes he is serious about accepting information from a foreign source.

This President may not be stepping up to secure our elections, but this Democratic majority is. This bill would enact things like verified paper ballots, cybersecurity upgrades, and State grants to secure voting systems.

This majority passed H.R. 1 in the opening months of this Congress. That package includes reforms to fix our democracy. But under Leader McConnell, the Senate did with it what it seems to do best: nothing.

He refused to even bring H.R. 1 up for a vote. Now, I don't know why Leader McConnell is ignoring the warnings from our intelligence officials or why he seems content with weaknesses in our election systems. Maybe he is unwilling to ever break from Donald Trump on anything, even something this important, which really is quite sad. But I hope this time he will try something radical for the Senate: have a vote. Bring this bill up so the American people can see whose side you are on.

Lastly, Madam Speaker, this bill also gives us flexibility to deal with an emergency of a different kind--the one this President is creating on our southern border. President Trump's policies have led to children sleeping on concrete floors, dirty and hungry with no access to soap or even a toothbrush, sometimes left to be cared for by children just a few years older than they are. It is hard to believe that this is happening in the United States of America today.

This House will act, and I hope the Senate does the same thing. I encourage all my colleagues to vote for this rule and the underlying legislation, so we can do our jobs and act on these important issues.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I would like to say for the record that when it comes to this piece of legislation, the Financial Services appropriations bill, Democrats actually did much better than the Republicans did when they were in charge.

In fact, we made more amendments in order. We made more minority amendments in order than the Republicans did when they were in charge. In fact, there is a 57 percent increase, in terms of minority amendments being made in order compared to what they did.

Let me also point out for the record that my Republican friends, I think, tend to be a little redundant in the amendments that they offer.

For example, I think they submitted three amendments on the wall. We make one amendment. Do we have to debate the wall three different times?

On spending reductions, four amendments were submitted. We make two in order, which is probably two too many. We should have made one in order.

The bottom line is, there is a habit of just offering the same old, same old, again and again and again. Quite frankly, the minority will get its opportunity to debate these issues but not over and over and over again.

Let's also get to the substance here. The gentleman said these are two unrelated bills. Well, I disagree. The Financial Services appropriations bill actually funds the Election Assistance Commission, and the other bill we are considering, the SAFE Act, authorizes the Election Assistance Commission at the same amount that is in the appropriations bill. They are very much intertwined.

Let me also say, I expect that, before the day is out, we will do a supplemental emergency bill to deal with the crisis that this President has created at the border.

Let me also be clear that what we want to make sure is that, when we provide the funding, this cruel treatment of children at the border comes to an end.

This administration's deliberate policy of separating children from their parents, of allowing children, almost infants, to sleep on cold floors, to be denied basic necessities like soap and toothpaste and toothbrushes, I mean, it is child abuse. It is unconscionable, so we want to demand that this administration stop it.

This is the United States of America. I think the American people are horrified at the inhumanity that they are reading about that is occurring to these little children at our border.

It is unbelievable. I never thought that we would ever be on the House floor talking about how children who have fled some of the worst conditions imaginable are being so mistreated at the border.

So, yes, we will have a supplemental appropriations bill to deal with it, but we are going to demand that the cruel policies of this administration stop and stop now.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

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

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

I always enjoy listening to my Republican colleagues debate on the floor. And I always love listening to the gentleman from Illinois when he is on the House floor.

But I can't help but think of the fact that the Russians attacked our elections in 2016. The 2 years after that, the House was controlled by Republicans. The Senate was controlled by Republicans. Donald Trump, a Republican, was in the White House. They had a unified government; the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

And all of our intelligence agencies said that Russia interfered in our elections; they attacked our democracy; not only the Obama administration's intelligence officials, but the Trump administration's intelligence officials.

And what did my Republican friends do in the aftermath of this attack on our democracy by a foreign adversary? Nothing. Nothing.

We hear all these great ideas, but while they had a unified government, while they were in control of everything, they did nothing. In fact, I recall sitting here on the House floor and listening to Republican after Republican after Republican basically say that this was much ado about nothing; in fact, trying to deny that Russia attacked our elections.

Now the evidence is so overwhelming you can't deny it anymore. But yet, they had this opportunity. And now they say we all want to protect our elections.

Well, 2 years prior to this, I don't know where you were, but you weren't working trying to protect our elections. People were working, instead, to try to cover up for what a foreign adversary did to our elections.

So here we are, coming forward with a bill that we believe will provide security for our elections so that people believe that the elections have integrity, they believe the results. And we are told well, we disagree with you, and we have better ideas; on and on and on.

Bottom line is we are acting. My friends had 2 years to act. They did nothing.

Our Democratic majority went through regular order on this. The Committee on House Administration held three hearings on election security. In case anyone forgot, they were on February 14, May 8, and May 21.

In addition to those hearings, the Subcommittee on Elections conducted field hearings in six States, while the Committees on Oversight, Homeland Security, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held hearings on the subject.

So experts testified. People offered their viewpoints. And after all of that, the House Administration Committee marked up this bill last Friday, on June 21, and here we are on the House floor.

So, I mean, give me a break. I get it. Some of my Republicans friends may be ``Johnny-come-latelies'' when it comes to the issue of election security. We welcome you on board, because our elections are important, and we need to protect them from interference from foreign adversaries like Russia.

But you had 2 years of unified government in which my friends did nothing, nothing.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, the gentleman was talking about appropriations that were approved in the last Congress.

A lot of the ideas that we are talking about here today, including some of the ideas that Mr. Davis raised, are authorizations, and so they can't be taken care of in an appropriations bill, and that is why we are doing a separate bill in addition to the appropriations bill.

The gentleman talks about the $300 million that were approved under the previous leadership. Well, we are asking for $600 million. We are doubling that because we know how serious it is.

And just forgive us if we are a little bit concerned, because we have a President who continues not to acknowledge that the Russians interfered in our election. He continues to refer it to as a Russian hoax. He took Vladimir Putin's word for it rather than the word of our intelligence agencies.

So when we express concern about our election process and about the lack of attention given to this, we are responding to what the President of the United States, Donald Trump, says on a weekly, if not daily basis.

The fact of the matter is Russia interfered in our election. Everybody knows that. The only person who is in denial is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. So we need to respond, and we need to respond appropriately.

Madam Speaker, I say this to my friend again, that we expect, hopefully today, to bring up a supplemental appropriations bill to be able to deal with what I would call the Donald Trump-created crisis on the border.

And, by the way, as we provide funding, which I believe we will do to deal with some of the issues on the border, let us be clear: there is absolutely no excuse at all for how this administration has allowed children to be treated in such an inhumane fashion under our custody, children being denied soap, children being denied toothpaste or toothbrushes, children so young and separated from any adult who are being cared for by children only a couple of years older.

I mean, everybody should be horrified by that. There is no excuse, none at all, for that to be happening.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman trying to articulate the best he can all that the Republicans did on this issue when they were in the majority, but I will be very honest with him: I am unimpressed, and so are the American people.

The bottom line is my friends had unified government, Republican control of the House, Senate, and the White House for 2 years, and basically they did nothing.

The President, the leader of their party, routinely and continues to do so today, refers to Russian interference in our election as a Russian hoax. The leader of our country says that it is a hoax.

So I understand why there was inaction for the previous 2 years, but that ends because Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people of all political persuasions deserve to have an election system that has some integrity.

I look forward to passing this bill, and I am urging the Senate to do the same.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close.

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

Madam Speaker, I urge, obviously, support for this rule and the underlying bills that will be debated.

As we are sitting here debating, we just got some news that Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Agency John Sanders has submitted his resignation. I guess the public pressure is so great that it is untenable for him to continue in that position, and I am sure the President will replace him with somebody else.

The problem is the President keeps on replacing individuals with people who continue to enforce policies that are cruel, policies that separate children from their parents at the border, and policies that treat children worse than animals in our custody, but I thought it would be interesting for my colleagues to note this breaking news.

Madam Speaker, it is true that we have an ambitious agenda before us this week, and we believe in doing our job and holding the administration accountable. We aren't going to leave the threat of another shutdown for another day. Maybe that is what my Republican friends did when they were in charge, but that is how we ended up in one shutdown after another.

And, yes, we wish we had an agreement on the caps, but it is not for lack of trying. We have been trying to negotiate with the Senate since we took control of the House of Representatives. We have been trying to negotiate with the President since we took control of the House of Representatives. But every time we sit down with the President, he has a temper tantrum or he behaves in an erratic way and leaves the room. We can't wait, so we are going to lead, and hopefully they will follow.

And we are not going to ignore the threats posed by Russia and others to our elections. The President wants to cozy up to Putin instead of defending this Nation, but this majority doesn't believe in prioritizing the egos of dictators. We believe in accountability and restoring the integrity of the vote.

My friend says, well, this isn't going anywhere. Well, look, we are happy to negotiate with Republicans in the Senate, but where is their bill? Basically, the Republicans in the Senate are following the lead of the Republicans in the House and the previous Congress in doing nothing.

We don't believe in doing nothing. We think our elections are important, that they are worth defending, so we are acting. These are serious matters, Madam Speaker, and this is why we

were sent here, and this is what we intend to tackle.

I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question. I urge them to vote ``yes'' on the rule and the underlying legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 460, I call up the bill (H.R. 2722) to protect elections for public office by providing financial support and enhanced security for the infrastructure used to carry out such elections, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 2722.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2722. The SAFE Act is critical legislation to invest in and upgrade the machinery of American democracy. It will help us combat the national emergency facing our country. It will improve the resilience of election infrastructure used in Federal elections.

Aging equipment, under-resourced jurisdictions, and interference by foreign entities or non-state actors leaves the system vulnerable to exploitation that can undermine confidence in election outcomes. Ineffective and vulnerable equipment can also discourage participation in Federal elections.

It comes to the floor after the Committee on House Administration held three hearings in the first 6 months of this year that addressed the integrity of our elections. In February the committee held the ``For the People: Our American Democracy'' hearing, where the integrity of our democracy--including critical steps to improve the security and reliability of our election infrastructure--was addressed.

On May 8 the committee held an election security hearing where we heard testimony about the urgent need to upgrade our election infrastructure and the lack of ongoing investment in the wake of new threats.

And on May 21 the committee held an oversight hearing of the Election Assistance Commission, an agency that plays a central role in supporting election administration in this country.

I will remind this House that earlier this year, the Director of National Intelligence published a report stating that our adversaries and strategic competitors ``probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests.

``They may also use cyber means to `directly manipulate or disrupt elections systems--such as by tampering with voter registration or disrupting the vote tallying process--either to alter data or to call into question our voting process.'''

Last year he said that ``the warning lights are blinking red''. . . .

Special Counsel Robert Mueller noted in Volume One of his report that the Russian military ``targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. Victims included U.S. State and local entities, such as State boards of elections, secretaries of State, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. The GRU also targeted private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.''

In April, FBI Director Christopher Wray called Russia's interference efforts a ``significant counterintelligence threat,'' and said that the 2018 midterms were a ``dress rehearsal for the big show'' of the 2020 Presidential elections.

Early voters in Georgia in 2018 saw machines deleting votes and switching them to other candidates. The machines where voters saw this occur were purchased in 2002. During early voting in Texas in 2018 some electronic voting machines deleted votes and switched them between candidates. The machines were used in 78 of 254 Texas counties.

In June of 2016 the Russian GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting a vulnerability in their website. They gained access to a database with information on millions of Illinois voters and extracted data on thousands before the activity was detected.

H.R. 2722 responds to this emergency that we find ourselves in as a nation. We ought to be doing everything we can to bolster the security and integrity of our elections from interference and hacking.

The bill's section 102 requires that States transition to voting systems that use individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballots, which means a paper ballot marked by the voter by hand or through the use of a non-tabulating ballot marking device or system. Voter-verified paper ballots are the best way to ensure that a voter's ballot accurately reflects their choices and is counted as cast. Paper can be audited. In the last Presidential election, approximately 20 percent of registered voters cast their ballot on voting machines that do not have any kind of paper backup.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that paperless systems ``should be removed from service as soon as possible.''

In at least 40 States, elections are carried out using machines that are at least a decade old. And like any technology, they are susceptible to increasing failure with age. One witness at our election security hearing, Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, explained that some State officials have ``had to turn to eBay to find critical components like dot-matrix printer ribbons, decades old storage devices, and analog modems.'' Aging systems also frequently rely on unsupported software like Windows XP and 2000, which may not receive regular security patches and are thus more vulnerable to the latest methods of cyberattack.

This bill addresses many other cybersecurity best practices besides paper-based systems.

The bill in section 111 authorizes a $600 million Election Assistance Commission grant program to assist States in securing election infrastructure. States may use the money to replace their aging equipment with voter-verified paper ballot voting systems, but also ongoing maintenance of election infrastructure, enhanced cybersecurity and operations of IT infrastructure, and enhanced cybersecurity of voter registration systems.

Originally, the bill, as introduced, would have authorized $1 billion for this initial round of surge funding; however, during the Committee on House Administration's markup, the committee approved an amendment in the nature of a substitute that authorized $600 million instead. Combined with the $380 million that Congress appropriated last year in election security grants, this funding reaches the $1 billion that experts have said is necessary to implement these necessary protections.

The bill also provides in section 111 $175 million in biennial maintenance funding. Cybersecurity threats will not dissipate, they will only evolve. State election officials have told us repeatedly they need more funding and a sustainable source of funding.

Section 103 of the SAFE Act fosters innovation for voters living with disabilities. It provides grant funding for the study, development, and testing of accessible paper ballot voting, verification, and casting mechanisms. It expressly requires States to ensure that individuals with disabilities and others are given an equivalent opportunity to vote, including with privacy and independence, in a manner that produces voter-verified paper ballots as for other voters.

The bill fosters accountability for election technology vendors. It would create a qualified election infrastructure vendor designation where the Election Assistance Commission, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, would craft criteria that vendors would follow to receive the qualified designation. This would include reporting any known or suspected cybersecurity incidents involving election infrastructure to both the EAC and DHS, as well as affected election agencies.

The bill in sections 201 and 203 also includes open-source provisions, requiring use of software and hardware for which information is disclosed by manufacturers. This will allow cybersecurity experts and the public to vet the security of election systems regardless of the technology used.

As amended in the committee, the bill in section 121 requires States to adopt risk-limiting audits. Risk-limiting audits are the gold standard of post-election audits. They involve hand counting a certain number of ballots using advanced statistical methods to determine with a high degree of confidence that the reported election outcome is accurate. The SAFE Act requires States to implement risk-limiting audits because they go hand in hand with paper ballots. We need audits to ensure that ballot marking devices or optical scanners were not hacked and that the reported results are accurate.

Second, as amended in committee, the bill in section 201 includes specific cybersecurity standards to apply to optical scanner voting systems and another set of standards to apply to ballot marking devices. These will apply equally to current and future technology. For example, H.R. 2722 prohibits the use of wireless communications devices and internet connectivity in voting systems upon which ballots are marked by voters or that otherwise mark and tabulate ballots.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 2722 is an essential step forward in shoring up our election infrastructure and investing in secure elections. I ask the House to pass this legislation and bolster the trust and confidence in our system that all Americans expect and deserve.

Every American--no matter what their choice in politics--should know that their vote will be counted as cast.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), a member of the House Administration Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), a member of the House Administration Committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), a new Member of Congress.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. Wexton).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my colleague from the House Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security Committee.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on each side.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield), a valued member of the House Administration Committee.

Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers, so if the gentleman would like to yield back, I will close.

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

I think it is important to address a few of the issues that have been raised in the course of this debate.

First, we are moving forward with the SAFE Act because of a sense of urgency that we have about the 2020 election. That sense of urgency was fueled by the Director of National Intelligence, and it was fueled by the Director of the FBI who told us that red lights, warning lights were flashing and that the 2016 election was just a prelude to what the Russians were going to do in the 2020 election. We feel a sense of urgency.

As has been mentioned by others, H.R. 1 included provisions about ballot security. But I introduced this bill, the SAFE Act, on May 14 because it was specifically addressing election security, and, also, we made some additional enhancements to H.R. 1 relative to cybersecurity and the like.

We drafted the bill with the assistance of the Parliamentarian so that it was entirely within the jurisdiction of the House Administration Committee, with one exception. There was a line on page 11 of the committee mark that authorized a study by the NSF. The Science, Space, and Technology Committee waived jurisdiction on markup because it was just a study, and that was very clear.

This bill has proceeded in the regular order. It has been noticed according to our rules. And it brings us here today to test whether we are going to meet the challenge that faces us in ballot security: whether we are going to allow the Russians to attack our country by trying to steal our election next year or not.

Mention has been made about the need for bipartisanship. I work often on a bipartisan basis with Members of the other party. I will say that we have tried in vain to have the Republican Members buy into the need to require best practices for next year's election, and we couldn't reach agreement.

We decided that it is our responsibility to move forward, and that is why we are here today.

Just a mention on unfunded mandates, we are authorizing about $1 billion. $380 million was appropriated last year, and as the Speaker mentioned, we are appropriating this year an additional $600 million for ballot security.

This bill authorizes the $600 million that we are appropriating, and we think it is important that that money flow to the States to harden our systems so the election cannot be stolen by our enemies. It is ironic that some on the other side of the aisle have complained about unfunded mandates at the same time they tried to impose a 25 percent match requirement on States for receiving these funds that they need to get to harden our system.

Just a comment on DREs, DREs are not as unsafe as pure electronic voting, but they are not best practices.

Much has been mentioned about the State of Georgia. It is worth noting that the Georgia legislature ignored the advice they got from computer scientists that what they were doing did not meet best practices for ballot security.

A study published by Georgia Tech indicated that most voters did not actually look at the receipt when it was printed. They also point out that even though printed ballots, when voters do look at them, include the names of candidates, votes will be encoded in barcodes that humans can't authenticate and that are subject to hacking.

``There's nothing speculative about these vulnerabilities,'' said a Georgia Tech computer professor and former chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard. ``If exploited, it would affect the result of the election. It's not a secure system.''

We need to fix these things not because it is partisan but because we need to protect America.

The idea that we would allow this just to be decided at a local level is

wrongheaded. If the Russians launched missiles at the counties of the United States, we wouldn't say, well, that is just a local issue. We would say, no, that is an attack on the United States of America.

We need to harden our systems and protect our country.

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge the adoption of this measure.

I would like to read from a letter that we received just yesterday from the NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. In their last paragraph, the Catholics say:

In a secular democracy, elections are the closest thing we

have to a sacrament. We know that nefarious foreign and

domestic actors continue to meddle in our democratic systems,

and we have been put on notice that previous efforts were

only trial runs, presumably for our next election in 2020.

The NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice considers our

elections to be sacrosanct and that Congress must pass the

SAFE Act to protect them.

This bill is supported by a broad sector of civil rights groups, including the NAACP and Common Cause. It deserves all of our support.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2722 to ensure the security of our Nation's election infrastructure.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so the House may consider election security legislation that actually has a chance at becoming law.

As I explained last night during debate of H.R. 2722 at the Rules Committee, there is no place for partisanship when it comes to securing our elections.

H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act, is simply another partisan bill by the majority aimed at federally mandating election standards; like mandating that States exclusively use paper ballots, effectively banning any type of direct recording electronic voting machines which have been proven safe and efficient.

Madam Speaker, keep this in mind; that if this legislation passes, if one of our local election officials had just worked to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars purchasing new, digital electronic machines with a paper backup, those machines and that investment of their hard- earned tax dollars would be obsolete in the year 2022, 3 years from now. That is not right.

Mandating the exclusive use of paper ballots will create longer lines at polling places, and can be lost, destroyed, or manipulated far easier than electronic voting machines with a paper trail backup.

I want to highlight the fact that there is no evidence of voting machines being hacked in 2016, 2018, or ever. So why are we forcing States to get rid of what they have deemed as safe technology?

We should work together to safeguard technology. Safeguard technology not abandon it. We don't know in this institution what technology is going to look like when it comes to voting machines in the next five to 10 years. Why are we requiring a certain type of ballot process that is only going to be processed by five companies that maybe produce it today? That is not what we should be doing here in Washington.

Additionally, the SAFE Act federally mandates han recounts, which will result in drawn-out elections that will become unnecessarily expensive.

The majority's bill also contains irresponsible funding commitments. The funding of elections is the primary responsibility of our States. Democrats are committing $1.3 billion over 10 years, with zero funding match requirements from States.

Congress has a responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Funds should be given based on need, not a guess of what might be needed a decade down the road.

I want the record to be clear. Many of the provisions in the SAFE Act are inconsistent with what we have heard from experts in election administration. But the majority is ignoring their requests.

As my colleagues across the aisle know, I believe there are areas on election security where Republicans and Democrats can find and have found common ground. There is a role for Congress in election security, which is why, me and my fellow members on the House Administration Committee, introduced H.R. 3412, the Election Security Assistance Act.

I want to thank my colleagues on the committee, Mark Walker and Barry Loudermilk, for joining me in this effort, and the others who have cosponsored it since its introduction. This realistic legislation provides $380 million in Federal grants to States to update their aging and at-risk election infrastructure, while requiring a 25 percent match from States.

If it is good for transportation projects; if it is good for DHS projects, DOJ projects, USDA projects, why don't we have locals and States have some skin in the game?

In addition, our bill creates the first-ever Election Cyber Assistance Unit. It is aimed at connecting State and local election officials with leading election administration and cybersecurity experts from across the Nation.

Our bill empowers State officials by providing security clearances to election officials to better facilitate the sharing of information and requiring the Department of Homeland Security to notify State election officials of cyberattacks and any foreign threats within the State. Keep in mind, the majority bill does not address this.

If DHS hacked a local election official's election system, if they saw a hack in, let's say, central Nevada, DHS would not be able to notify your local election official because he or she may not have security clearance. The majority bill doesn't address this. Our bill does.

To sum it up, our solution provides much-needed election security improvements and reinforcements for local election officials without overstepping the State's authority to maintain their elections. The Election Security Assistance Act, our bill, is the only proposal being discussed today that has a realistic chance of becoming law.

If the previous question is defeated, it will be the first step in putting forth election security legislation that has a chance of helping States improve their security ahead of the 2020 election.

I thank Ranking Member Cole for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of this important issue.

Madam Speaker, I am always glad to be here with my good friend from the House Administration Committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin). And he was right in committee during the markup of this bill that was posted late last week, and we marked it up earlier this week after the rules notice was already posted. It just shows you how rushed this process is.

The gentleman erroneously, and I know, because I had made a quick joke about it afterwards, mentioned we ought to have a mandated republican government or something like that. I said, ``You know what? That is one mandate I can be for in our State and local authorities,'' but I knew what he was talking about.

He knows what he is talking about when it comes to what we all have the same interest in doing, and that is protecting our election security.

My colleague mentioned about standing together. Well, we were trying to stand together, Madam Speaker. We were working in a bipartisan way to put together a bipartisan election security bill, and the Democrat majority walked away. They forced this vote.

These are areas that we can come together and find common ground.

I have been asked, what did the Republicans do when we were in the majority? Well, we not only did $300 million in election security upgrades and cybersecurity protections, we did $380 million. And what was great was we were working over the last 2 years with DHS officials and our local election officials to ensure that 2018 did not suffer the same consequences as 2016. And it worked, even in an extensively high midterm turnout.

Then they said, well, what else did you do over the 2 years? Well, you know what we did? We waited for the $35-million Mueller report to come out and tell us what else we could do.

Now we are here today. We are here today to ensure that we put together an election security bill, not one that the Democrats want, not one that is going to be a top-down approach. It is not what our local secretaries of state want, it is not what our local election officials want, and they are on the ground. Let's listen to them, but let's make sure that we don't take away our ability to address cybersecurity concerns.

It has been mentioned that the Russians used social media to strike at our election process in this country. That is true. This bill does nothing to address that problem. The majority's bill does absolutely nothing to address this problem. That is something that we still need to take care of in Congress.

Let's not confuse the issue, and let's not listen to the 30,000-foot rhetoric that somehow one party over the other is more defensive or wants to be more offensive against nefarious actors. We are all Americans. We are all elected to serve this great country and this great institution.

None of us, Republicans or Democrats, want anyone to attack this country, let alone attack our election process, but the answer to making sure that our elections are safe are in our bill, the previous question.

We are the ones who ensure that DHS can talk to local election officials. Their bill does not do that.

We are the ones that make sure that we create a cybersecurity unit and the ability to address ongoing threats. Their bill does not do that.

That is why I would urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. Let's come back to the table. Let's get something done.