Providing for a joint session of Congress to receive a message from the President.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 330 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), 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 within which to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, today the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 330, providing for three measures.

First, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, under a closed rule. It provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform and provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1333, the NO BAN Act, and H.R. 1573, the Access to Counsel Act of 2021, both under closed rules. The rule provides an hour of debate on each bill equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary and provides one motion to recommit on each bill.

The rule deems as passed H.R. 316, providing for the expenses of certain committees, and H. Con. Res. 30, providing for a joint session of Congress to receive a message from the President of the United States. The rule also restricts former Members' access to the House floor during the joint session.

Additionally, the rule provides authority through April 22 for the majority leader or his designee to move to en bloc postponed votes on any suspension bill considered on April 19 or 20 on which the yeas and nays were ordered.

Finally, the rule provides for recess instructions, same day, and suspension authority through May 20.

Madam Speaker, Tocqueville wrote in ``Democracy in America'' that in our country voting rights and democracy are always either contracting and retreating and shriveling away or voting rights and democracy are growing and expanding.

What a proud day for the United States Congress when we get to keep the trajectory of American democracy moving forward by voting to admit a new State to our beloved Union.

America began with 13 original States, and we in Congress have exercised our powers under Article IV, Section 3 37 different times to admit 37 new States to the Union, which means that nearly 75 percent of the States in America today were admitted after the original 13.

Today, we can keep the dynamics of democratic political growth and inclusion going in America by beginning the process of admitting Washington, Douglass Commonwealth to the Union by passing H.R. 51.

We have the opportunity to do something that hasn't happened here since 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in January and in August of that year.

We can vote to admit a new State to the Union, and what a State it will be: A community of 712,000 taxable, draftable, law-abiding American citizens who actually pay more Federal taxes per capita now than do the people of any State, more in hard dollars than the people of 22 States combined. It is a community of people who have fought in every war that the Union has ever fought, going all the way back to the American Revolution.

And it was a community, significantly, that came to the aid of democracy, that came to the aid of the Union, that came to the aid of this Congress when we called on January 6, 2021.

More than 850 officers in the Metropolitan Police Department came and fought shoulder to shoulder with our Capitol officers in what has been described as waves of medieval violence by insurrectionists and Fascists attacking them with bats and sticks and American flagpoles and Confederate flagpoles and Trump flagpoles. They sent more than 150 National Guardsmen from Washington, D.C., 154 D.C. National Guard, 850 Metropolitan Police Department to come and defend a democracy that they are not yet a part of.

Now think about that. We had people who came and stormed the Capitol, laid siege to the Congress of the United States with fictionalized claims about a denial of their right to vote, and right in this city there are 712,000 American citizens who we know have their voting rights denied every single day, their rights to representation denied every single day, and they came to defend us against those who would have torn down the very citadel of democracy.

Think about that when we are deciding how to vote on H.R. 51.

The current status of the people in Washington, D.C., subjects them to two different forms of political domination and exclusion.

On the one hand, all of their locally adopted laws ultimately can be overturned by a Congress which they are excluded from, and it has happened many times throughout the history of the District of Columbia, as Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting Delegate, will tell you. Congress has tampered with the laws of adoption, laws of marriage, criminal justice laws, and voting laws in the District of Columbia.

But it is not just that. It is not just that the rights of democratic self-government are subject to the will of other people. It is also that this community of taxpaying, draftable American citizens is excluded from participating in Federal legislation because they don't have voting representatives in the House and in the Senate.

That means on matters relating to war and peace, the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justices and other Federal judges, the development of Federal budgets, the regulation of commerce domestically and internationally, Federal criminal law, and Federal civil law, the people of Washington, D.C., are dealt out. They are excluded. And they want in. They want to enter the Union.

Most of us in Congress represent communities that were not part of the original 13 but then came in later. Now, I come from Maryland, which was one of the original 13, but most of the people in Congress represent States that came in later.

So, this is an act of fundamental democratic and civic self-respect on their part to be asking for equality and inclusion, and it is a matter of basic constitutional patriotism and democratic respect that we vote to admit them today.

I am very happy that we are kicking this process off by bringing this rule to the floor.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me address a couple of the specious constitutional objections that have been raised by our colleagues on the other side.

To begin with, it would be unconstitutional to turn the District of Columbia into a State. It would almost certainly be that, but that is not what the proposal is. The proposal is to redraw the boundaries of the District of Columbia to cede the residential lands to the new State to admit it. For that, there is both sound constitutional and historical precedent.

For one thing, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 says that Congress shall ``exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever'' over the district that is to become the seat of government, meaning that Congress has the authority to modify the boundaries of the District of Columbia, which it has done.

It did that, actually, in 1791. Not long after the original boundaries were set, James Madison and 13 other Founders themselves voted to alter the boundaries. But our colleagues seem to believe that the boundaries of the District can't be altered by Congress.

In 1846, most significantly, Congress gave one-third of the District of Columbia to the Commonwealth of Virginia at the behest of slave masters, who correctly anticipated that the slave traffic would be abolished within the District of Columbia. It was given back, demonstrating that the authority of Congress to change the boundaries of the District exists.

If Congress can alter the boundaries of the District of Columbia in 1846 in order to serve the slave masters and to protect their institution, surely the Congress in 2021 can modify the boundaries of the District of Columbia in order to admit a new State and empower hundreds of thousands of people to live in political equality in the country.

My distinguished colleague from Pennsylvania invites us to believe that the 23rd Amendment is a constitutional impediment to adopting statehood for Washington, D.C. He doesn't explain why it is unconstitutional. He just asserts it would be unconstitutional.

The 23rd Amendment was adopted in order to give people living within the seat of government the possibility of voting for President and to have electoral college votes in a manner decided by Congress and then, in Section 2, requiring Congress to act in order to organize the electoral college in the manner of a State legislature organizing the electoral college for the State.

As I understand H.R. 51, introduced by Congresswoman Norton, this problem is taken care of at the moment of statehood admission because it repeals the statute which organizes the electoral college for the District of Columbia.

In other words, the moment the new State comes into being, the current statute that organizes the Presidential electors is repealed, so there is nothing to worry about. I agree that there is a certain kind of messiness in still having the 23rd Amendment on the books, but Congresswoman Norton has said she will be the first to introduce a formal constitutional amendment to repeal the 23rd, and who would oppose it?

Our colleagues have not been able to find a single person who would oppose it. Everybody would agree it would be simply nonsensical to keep it within the Constitution once the 712,000 people have negotiated an exodus from the Federal seat of government in order to become their own State.

So, I think that that is a red herring. It is an irrelevant distraction to this journey toward statehood and political equality that we are on.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia an additional 1 minute.

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

I thank the gentlewoman very much for her comments, and I want to reemphasize the point that she made at the end, which is that Congress has the exclusive authority to admit new States.

Congress has admitted 37 new States. None of them have ever been struck down by a court, despite serious constitutional objections being raised against almost every State.

Everyone knew that Hawaii and Alaska could not be admitted because they were not contiguous. Everyone knew that Texas couldn't be admitted because it was a separate republic, and there was no authority to admit a republic to the Union. It was said Utah couldn't be admitted because they were practicing polygamy there. And so on.

There have always been constitutional objections made, but the courts have always deemed this to be a political question, which means that, in the juridical context, it is up to Congress to decide. And Congress has always been guided, in the final analysis, by the overriding dynamic of American political history, which is democracy has to govern for people who live here.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to say a word in response to my colleague about the national political logic of statehood.

There is both powerful constitutional principle and national political logic that infuses every statehood admission going back to the very beginning of the Republic.

The constitutional principle is simply that of no taxation without representation and the consent of the governed. People who are part of the American Nation should be able to participate equally as complete citizens.

That is why Thomas Jefferson set out in the Northwest Ordinance that once a community got to be of a certain size--60,000, which, of course, is less than 10 percent of the size of Washington, D.C., today--that it would be eligible to come into statehood, to petition for statehood. The only real constitutional prerequisite is a republican form of government, that is the Republican Guarantee Clause.

That is the high-minded political ideal of constitutional principle, but it is also the case, as I have tried to argue with my colleagues across the aisle, that there is a hardcore political logic that is operated, and we see it in their arguments that they don't want to admit two Democratic Senators to the Republic, which is what former President Trump said in objection to D.C. statehood. He said there is no way we would accept two new Democrat Senators.

Actually, although I consider it a degradation of the process and a sort of tawdry form of argument, nonetheless, it has been very much part of American political history, which is why States have tended to enter the Union in pairs, like animals boarding Noah's Ark together.

That was the situation with Kansas and Nebraska, in the Kansas- Nebraska Act; that was the situation of Missouri and Maine in the Missouri Compromise; that was Vermont and Kentucky; that was Alaska and Hawaii back in 1959.

So, I say to my friends, okay, they don't see the problem of taxation without representation in Washington. They don't see the problem of governance without representation. They don't see the irony or the paradox or the contradiction of people putting their lives on the line to defend this Congress, this Union, on January 6 who don't get to vote for voting representatives in Congress.

They don't want to see that, fine. But they can at least see this: It has been in the Republican platform since 1940 that Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. Every 4 years, they have said that the millions of people, American citizens, who live in Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. It was in the platform in 2016. It would have been in 2020 if they had had a platform. They decided not to have a platform for the American people in 2020. But in any event, they have taken a very strong position--Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, you name it.

In fact, the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico is a Republican who has introduced statehood legislation in this Congress, who is fighting for statehood.

So, fine, there is the basis for common ground. Let's get together. The Democrats have been arguing for statehood for Washington, D.C., for a long time. The Republicans have been arguing for statehood for Puerto Rico for a long time. I assume everybody means it. Let's get together and do it the way this has happened periodically, systematically, throughout American history. That is the national political logic of allowing both of these states to come in together.

Not everybody gets everything that they want, and I do think that it is antithetical to the democratic form of government to say you don't want people to be represented because you don't like the way they are going to vote because they disagree with you on issues. I think that is fundamentally undemocratic and un-American.

Madam Speaker, in any event, we have the grounds for a compromise, and I am still looking for some colleagues across the aisle to stand up and say they will stand for the position

that they have embraced for decades, to say these two states should come in together.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon).

Madam Speaker, the gentlewoman invites us to return the District of Columbia to Maryland, which, of course, debunks the argument that Congress cannot modify the boundaries of the District of Columbia.

But, in any event, that is not what the people of Washington, D.C. have asked for. They have used their rights as American citizens under the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution to organize a new State and to petition Congress for admission to the Union. Neither has the Maryland General Assembly asked for a return of the land to Maryland. So that certainly answers a set of political conditions that don't exist in the real world.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time to close.

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

Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the majority leader hardly needs me to defend him, but I know that he was a strong supporter of the D.C. voting rights constitutional amendment where there was actually bipartisan support.

In those days, Republicans understood the grievous injustice being perpetrated against the people of Washington, D.C., and they supported granting people in D.C. two Senators, or what my colleague would call two ultraliberal Senators, as well as the Representatives in the House to which they were due.

There were certainly people who were saying there were other ways of accomplishing it. Now, unfortunately, that bipartisan consensus collapsed even though it passed the Senate and the House back in the day. I don't hear any of my colleagues saying they are for it now.

Mr. Hoyer, the majority leader, is supporting the only viable vehicle for getting equal rights for people in Washington, D.C., that exists today, which is statehood, which is how 37 new States entered the Union with Congress' exercise of its powers under Article IV of the Constitution.

The gentleman waxed eloquent about the vision of a great Capital City, but being a strict textualist, I assume that he wants to pay some attention to the text of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, the District Clause, sets a maximum, a ceiling that the District may be no more than 10 miles square, but there is no minimum there. It didn't say it must be at least 6 miles square or 2 miles square or 3 miles. No, that is up to Congress. In other words, it is a political question within congressional power, our plenary power, over the District of Columbia.

Finally, the gentleman, I suppose, gets to the heart of the matter when he says that, for him, it is all about two ultraliberal Senators. I would ask every Member of this body to think about that for a second, reflect on that. In America, I don't think we deny people voting rights based on how they are going to vote. I don't think we deny entire States and political communities representation based on predictions of who they might elect.

In fact, there is a Supreme Court case about that called Carrington v. Rash. When armed services members in Texas were disenfranchised because it was suggested they would vote in a way more identified with the national government than with local cultural values in Texas, the Supreme Court struck it down and said that, in American democracy, we do not allow government to disenfranchise people based on predictions of how they are going to vote or who they are going to elect.

That is precisely what the gentleman invites us to do here, to deny 712,000 taxpaying, draftable U.S. citizens, who came to our aid on January 6, to deny them their equal rights under the Union, under the flag, because he predicts that they are going to elect people whose policy views are contrary to his own.

Madam Speaker, I would suggest that is totally antithetical to the meaning of American constitutional democracy. Everyone should take a walk around Washington. You will see flags in the yards of all the people here, yards that we pass by every day when we come to Washington, and they say, ``D.C. 51.'' They want their statehood. Let's listen to the people of Washington.

If you can't quite stomach that, then read the Republican Party platform itself, which calls for Puerto Rican statehood, and let's see if we can do it together. Let's bring in millions of disenfranchised people in America.

Still, I get radio silence from my colleagues on that. Not a single one will opine about whether or not the people of Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State.

Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and the previous question.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Reschenthaler is as follows:

Amendment to House Resolution 330

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 8. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the

House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

2321) to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to

establish a plan to respond to irregular migration surges at

the border, to establish an irregular migration surge border

response fund, and for other purposes. The first reading of

the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against

consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be

confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally

divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority

member of the Committee on Homeland Security. After general

debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the

five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in

the bill are waived. When the committee rises and reports the

bill back to the House with a recommendation that the bill do

pass, the previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without

intervening motion except one motion to recommit. If the

Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to

no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day

the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of

business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the

Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec. 9. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H.R. 2321.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, the rule before us today provides for consideration of three pieces of legislation.

The first bill, H.R. 1333, limits the President's existing authority to restrict entry of foreigners into the United States.

Border Patrol is encountering more than 5,500 individuals per day at our southern border. Let me say that again. They are encountering 5,500 individuals per day at the southern border.

Over the weekend, President Biden finally acknowledged the situation for what it is--not a challenge but a crisis. Yet, House Democrats are moving forward with a bill that does nothing to stop the surge of migrants at the southern border and, instead, actually weakens our national security.

Along the same lines, House Resolution 330 provides for consideration of H.R. 1573, which requires access to counsel for all travelers referred to a secondary inspection at airports and other ports of entry.

Again, this bill does nothing to address the Biden border crisis. It would

actually complicate the job of Border Patrol agents while costing taxpayers $825 million over the next 5 years.

With a 233 percent increase in fentanyl seizures at our southern border, it is a shame that my liberal colleagues across the aisle are actually creating more work for Border Patrol. Instead, we should provide these brave men and women with much-needed resources to address the national security and public health consequences of the Biden border crisis.

Lastly, this resolution makes in order H.R. 51, legislation admitting the present District of Columbia as the 51st State and authorizing special elections for two Senators and one Representative.

This is nothing more than an unconstitutional power grab by Democrats to gain two ultraprogressive D.C. Senate seats and force radical, far- left policies on the American people.

Our Founding Fathers never intended for D.C. to become a State. In Federalist No. 43, James Madison argued that if the Capital City were situated within a State, the Federal Government would be subject to undue influence by the host State. As such, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution establishes a neutral district for our Nation's representatives to meet and vote on equal ground.

Further, the 23rd Amendment grants three Presidential electors specifically for the District. The original meaning of the ``district'' in the Constitution, and the necessary repeal of the 23rd Amendment, requires an amendment to the Constitution in order for D.C. to even become a State.

Just don't take my word for it, though. Since 1963, every Justice Department, Republican and Democrat, that has addressed the issue of D.C. statehood has concluded that Congress does not have the authority to alter the status of the city legislatively.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy thought it was inconceivable that D.C. would be granted statehood without repealing the 23rd Amendment and that the result would ``produce an absurdity.'' Again, those are the words of RFK.

Finally, the legislation before us today does nothing to address the financial implications of D.C. statehood. According to a 2020 study, D.C. ranked 150th out of 150 of the largest cities for its lack of operating efficiency--150 out of 150.

The Federal Government provides billions of dollars to D.C. each year for everything from the judicial system to the pension system. Yet, House Democrats are so desperate to jam this measure through that, under H.R. 51, the Federal Government will remain responsible for funding many of the new State's functions.

There is absolutely no incentive for the new State to work toward financial self-sufficiency, meaning Americans in other States would be forced to fund D.C. Democrats' priorities.

Again, House Democrats are pushing ahead to admit a new State to the Union purely for partisan gain while ignoring the constitutional, practical, and legal challenges in doing so. That is why I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague may have said that these are merely my assertions. They are certainly my arguments, but they are also supported by others, particularly well-known members of the liberal party.

The former Mayor of D.C. himself, Mayor Walter Washington, said: ``I would have problems with statehood in terms of exacting from it some enclaves, or little enclaves all around the city. Ultimately, it seems to me that would erode the very fabric of the city itself and the viability of the city.''

Again, that was the former Mayor of Washington, D.C., who was talking about the enclaves that are being called for in this bill.

Additionally, the former D.C. Delegate Walter Fauntroy himself said that a bill like this would be in direct defiance of the prescription of the Founding Fathers.

As far as the constitutional argument, it is not just me making the assertion that this would be unconstitutional because there is an issue, and that is the 23rd Amendment. Don't take it from me. Look at the Carter administration DOJ. They said that to provide statehood for the District would have to be by constitutional amendment. Otherwise, it would ignore the Framer's intent.

John Harmon, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Carter administration, said that this would have to be accomplished through constitutional amendment.

Further, RFK, Robert Kennedy, said that Congress likely did not have the authority under Article I, Section 8, clause 17 to shrink the Federal district to essentially the same size that is being discussed.

The argument that the Federal district constituting the seat of government is a permanent part of our constitutional system is substantially strengthened by the adoption of the 23rd Amendment. Thinking that we can merely repeal an amendment through legislative action, that is not how the Constitution works; otherwise, you wouldn't have had the 21st Amendment, which was needed to repeal the 18th Amendment. We could have just merely repealed it.

Additionally, there are talks about this not being a political exercise. My colleague has been quoted, actually, in The Washington Post saying that ``there is a national political logic for it''--``it'' being D.C. statehood. Because the Senate has become the principal obstacle to social progress on a whole range of issues--not my words; my colleague's words--this issue is all about a power grab.

We are talking about another issue that is on this rule, immigration.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately consider H.R. 2321, the Border Surge Response and Resilience Act. For far too long, Democrats denied the crisis caused by Biden's open-border rhetoric. This bipartisan bill will ensure that DHS develops a plan and has the resources it needs to address migrant surges and secure our border. Something is clearly missing from the current administration.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Katko), the lead Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, my good friend and colleague, here to explain the amendment.

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

Madam Speaker, we hear a lot about no taxation without representation. But there is representation. We forget that D.C. has three electoral votes. That is the 23rd Amendment. They have a Delegate in Congress. They also have local government and a mayor. They have the Home Rule Act.

But taxation does bring up a serious issue because D.C. would need to raise taxes if it were to become a State. It simply is not self- sufficient economically. In fact, D.C. takes more from the Federal Government than any other area in the United States; $73,000 per capita, to be exact. That is astronomical when you think about it. The second highest State is Virginia at $16,000 per capita, followed by Maryland at $15,000 per capita. Again, D.C. takes $73,000 per capita.

If this were to go through, D.C. would need to raise revenue. Because of the massive amount of Federal land in the District, you would then have to have more taxation, presumably through two ways: One, a commuter tax, taxing people that come into the District from other areas; or, two, you would have to have tolling of roads leading into the District. Both of these are incredibly problematic.

The first one, a commuter tax, would actually create the problem my liberal colleagues are saying exists in the first place, no taxation without representation, because you would have the District of Columbia taxing people from, presumably, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, where have you, for commuting into the District. They wouldn't have representation here. That is actually taxation without representation.

Further, if you were to toll roads leading into the District, you would infringe upon people's constitutional rights to petition the government. Imagine how much a tour bus would have to pay if they wanted to come here in the District.

But I was talking about the Home Rule Act and I was talking about the 23rd Amendment, and it reminded me that there was an allegation that Republicans somehow don't care about this issue. It is actually the opposite. Republicans are the ones who have advanced more rights for the District of Columbia. Think about it.

It was actually the Kennedy and the Carter administrations, both their Departments of Justice concluded that, for D.C. to be a State, it would require a constitutional amendment. They were on our side of this argument. Historically, it was President Eisenhower who pushed through the 23rd Amendment to get D.C. three electoral votes. And just a side note, it was Republican, Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush, who was instrumental in passing the 23rd Amendment. They were both Republicans. And it was President Nixon who signed the Home Rule Act into law. This has been Republican-led since the very beginning.

There was also an argument about D.C. residents, that this is somehow a civil rights issue. Civil rights, that is an actual term of art. Civil rights is a violation when the rights are denied because a person is who the person is. D.C. residents don't have a lack of representation in Congress because of who they are, but, instead, of where they choose to live.

And this isn't just me making this argument. The late Democrat, Representative John Dingell, made a similar argument, and I will quote the late Representative Dingell: ``I have supported every single civil rights measure that has passed this Congress since 1955, but we have to look at the facts before us. No citizen in Washington, D.C., is chained to the pillars of the U.S. Capitol. They can leave any time they want. To say this is somehow a civil rights violation is insulting to actual civil rights violations.''

Then let's go back to the three electoral votes issue. If we do follow this course of action and not repeal the 23rd Amendment before enacting D.C. statehood, you are going to have, as my colleague from Maryland just admitted, a sloppy and messy situation where the new State gets three electoral votes, and then the Federal enclave gets three electoral votes.

Well, who lives in the Federal enclave?

It would be the First Family.

So you would, presumably, give the incumbent three electoral votes in the election, and then D.C. itself three electoral votes.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

Madam Speaker, there was talk about retrocession. There can be arguments that the former retrocession was actually unconstitutional. In fact, the House of Representatives tried to pass a bill to say just that. It passed, and it, unfortunately, sat in the Senate Judiciary Committee without passing and challenges to the Supreme Court were dismissed on procedural grounds.

Additionally, we have to remember the many reasons why the District is just that, a district. It is because the Founding Fathers did not want to create an imperial State that would have too much influence and control over the Capitol.

My colleague from Maryland actually wrote about this in 1990 in a law review article published in the Catholic University Law Review. ``The Representatives from the new State, likely living minutes from their offices, will theoretically devote more time to institutional and committee politics and less to constant travel back and forth across the country, increasing their importance and influence on Capitol Hill.''

That was my colleague from Maryland. That is not my assertion.

If D.C. does become a State, Madam Speaker, you will create almost by definition a super Congressman in this body and two super Senators that yield much more influence than others who have to travel back and forth to their district.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).

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

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to hear my colleague from Maryland's newfound positions because, in the 1990s, I believe the majority leader actually had the opposite viewpoint and took the opposite vote. But then again, things can change, and so can opinions.

It is also interesting to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle use D.C.'s population as some justification for D.C. statehood. We know that the Founding Fathers knew that D.C. would grow into a large metropolis.

George Washington, when he was laying out the land use of the city, he actually used Paris as the example for the city, which was at the time 800,000 residents. They used one of the biggest cities in Europe as an example of the city because they knew the District of Columbia would grow into a thriving metropolis. Yet, they still wanted to carve out D.C. as an independent district, not as a State. The argument that there are now some 700,000 residents of D.C. is a nonstarter if you are going back to the historical intent of the Founding Fathers.

But let's talk about the border crisis. There has been a 400 percent increase in illegal border crossings compared to March 2020. Yet, today, we are considering a rule bringing up two immigration bills that do absolutely nothing to address this crisis.

Again, we are calling up a rule on H.R. 51 that is the Democrat's unconstitutional attempt to ram through D.C. statehood for their own political gain. What is that gain? It is very simple. It is bringing in two ultraliberal Senators. D.C. is the most liberal city, second only to San Francisco, and this bill bringing two ultraliberal Senators into the Senate with the idea of abolishing the filibuster is to what end? To pack the Supreme Court to ram through a far-left, radical agenda.

For those reasons, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the underlying measure. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to moving the previous question so that we can consider the bipartisan legislation I introduced, along with several of my colleagues, to address a crisis along the southwest border and provide resources for the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security who are serving on the front lines of this security and humanitarian nightmare created by the policies of this administration.

Madam Speaker, the Border Surge Response and Resilience Act is a commonsense approach for preparing for future migrant surges and is a direct response to a recommendation of the bipartisan and effective Homeland Security Advisory Council, which I hope will be reconstituted by the current administration.

I often hear from my friends on the other side of the aisle accusing Republicans of complaining about problems rather than offering solutions. Well, today, we are providing the opportunity to vote on a commonsense, bipartisan, and thoughtful solution.

I just returned from my second trip to the border in recent weeks. Any of us who have traveled there recently can observe what is happening and can attest to just how bad the crisis on the ground really is.

At the border itself, it is wide open. The wall construction has stopped. Border Patrol agents have told us if the wall is constructed, 80 percent of the drug-trafficking activity is focused and funneled to other areas where they can easily interdict the drug traffickers.

Madam Speaker, I was a Federal organized crime prosecutor for 20 years before coming to Congress, and I worked on the border as a Federal organized crime prosecutor going after cartels. I can tell you that they own the border.

If someone wants to cross the border, they have to pay. Chinese are paying $50,000 to $70,000 per person. Mexicans and Central Americans are paying $4,000 a person to come across.

Every single day that this crisis goes on, the cartels are being enriched to the tune of at least $15 million a day. In the last month, it is highly likely they were probably enriched to the tune of close to $1 billion in a month.

The Border Patrol agents are despondent. They are being pulled off the line, at least 40 to 50 percent at a time, in the Rio Grande sector alone to deal with the crisis. The drug traffickers

are smart enough to know: If I throw 100 people across the border over here, all the agents have to come off and deal with them. And then that place that they came off from, we are going to go right across there with the drugs.

In the Rio Grande Valley sector alone is a 2,000 percent increase in fentanyl coming across the border. Fentanyl is killing our kids all over this country. It is mixed with heroin; it is killing our kids. That is what the Border Patrol agents are telling us because all they want to do is to be able to enforce the laws on the books and to have the ability to do so. They do not have the ability to do so because of the administration's change of policies on January 22. They say there is a direct correlation.

Yes, there are problems in Central America. They have been there for 20 to 30 years; they haven't changed. If I had kids down there, I would bring them up to the border, too. But there is a right way to do things, and there is a wrong way. Running across the border and creating this crisis is the wrong way.

Madam Speaker, let me tell you what I saw at the detention centers like Donna.

People are put in pens, for lack of a better term. Thirty, forty people are supposed to be in there. I saw hundreds. I sent a picture to my wife. There are so many kids. They were all wrapped up in aluminum blankets. You couldn't see anything other than the aluminum blankets. They were literally stacked next to each other like cordwood.

Not a single child was tested. They are released from that facility because they just can't keep them there, and they are released without being tested.

When we were at the border, we encountered a couple of people at the border at midnight. The next morning, on a flight to Dallas-Forth Worth, they were on that flight. No ID. No idea who they were.

They put them on a plane without identification. They put them on a plane highly likely without testing because they said they are not testing right away. But when they do test, they know that 10 to 15 percent of these kids test positive for COVID.

They are putting people in our communities all across this country, not telling those communities that they are coming, and they are coming. They are oftentimes not being tested for COVID and, obviously, probably positive.

That is what is going on. In the Donna facility alone, we are spending millions of dollars a day to deal with this. There is nothing more tragic than seeing an 11-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted on her way up to the border and who is pregnant there.

That is what is going on. That is the reality of the situation, and it is an unforced error that we didn't need to have.

The administration, candidly, was caught short. But candidly, too, previous administrations were caught short with border surges.

So, I am not here to complain about the situation. I am here to offer a solution, and the solution is our bill, which I mentioned.

In addition to ensuring future preparedness along the border, this provision will create a $1 billion fund to be made available in support of our frontline enforcement personnel. It requires transparent metrics that were triggered when certain events happened, and it supports border security and law enforcement professionals. This funding would help prevent a humanitarian crisis from spiraling out of control, as it has on this one and on others before it, candidly.

If you don't know this, I will tell you: The money that is being spent to deal with this crisis now is being taken away from the funds set aside for the salaries of our law enforcement professionals on the border. That is a fact. We are going to need a massive supplement just to make sure that our Border Patrol agents can get paid.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues, in a bipartisan fashion, to support the security of the United States. This is not about arguing over what President Biden did on January 20. This is about saying, going forward, when we have these crises--and they will occur again-- that we are ready next time, that there is money set aside, that there is a plan, and that when certain things happen, the money kicks in and we are ready to go.

That is what I am asking my colleagues, to support the frontline men and women by supporting this provision.

Madam Speaker, first of all, I rise in strong support of this resolution. It makes in order that we will not discriminate against people based upon their religion or the State from which they come or the nation from which they come. It says not at our cost, but at their cost they have the right to consult counsel. That seems to me to be a basic premise in America.

Then, thirdly, which we hear so much lamentation about, it gives to 700,000-plus people in the District of Columbia equal status with the 500,000 people in Wyoming. How terrible. Now, perhaps if my friends from the other side of the aisle, Madam Speaker, thought that there were going to be two Republican Senators elected, they would be for it. I say perhaps, but I believe there is no doubt about that.

I am proud to be a strong supporter of that legislation, and I will tell my Republican friends who talk about human rights around the world so often--properly so--that Washington, D.C., is the only capital in the free world whose residents do not have a representative in the parliament of their country--the only one.

There is no reason why the gentlewoman who sits in front of me, Eleanor Holmes Norton--who is an extraordinary American and an extraordinary patriot who serves her Nation so incredibly well and is elected by those 700,000 people--why she is less than we because Eleanor Holmes Norton cannot vote on final passage of a bill.

Now, I did, as the majority leader, at least give her the respect and the respect to others who are representatives of their particular areas--Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands--the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole to let them know at least in that small way we wanted to give voice to the folks they represent.

So I rise in strong support of this rule. We have passed these bills before. Republicans opposed them before, and they will oppose them again. I am not surprised.

Madam Speaker, before I sit, however, I want to speak about another issue. We are expecting the Republican leader to offer a privileged resolution at the conclusion of the debate on this rule. I am disappointed at that news. His resolution is being used by Republicans to posit a moral equivalence between a comment by the gentlewoman from California about standing up for justice and peaceful protest and remarks by Representative Greene who directly threatened violence by retweeting a tweet. I understand it was not her words, but she retweeted those words which said that if you want to shut Pelosi up, a bullet to the head will accomplish that objective. She didn't say it. I want to make that clear. She retweeted a tweet that said that.

Even more egregiously, it is being used to twist reality to suggest that somehow Congresswoman Waters' remark is as condemnable a remark as rhetoric that incites a violent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States on January 6, an action that Republicans refuse to condemn. There is no equivalence.

Chairwoman Waters' remarks reflect the very profound anger and sense of hopelessness that she and so many others--myself included--feel when we see African Americans being killed during encounters with our law enforcement and their families not seeing justice.

It is my understanding we are going to get a ruling almost perhaps any minute. We will see.

It is, however, irresponsible to take Chairwoman Waters' remarks out of context just to hold a gotcha partisan vote, particularly when no action was taken by her party regarding Mrs. Greene's remarks.

It is, frankly, exploiting the pain of so many families and communities to turn Chairwoman Waters' concern for justice into a partisan cudgel.

As my friend, the dearly departed Elijah Cummings used to say and would surely say now, ``We are better than this.''

So when the minority leader offers his motion, I will offer a motion to table and urge all my colleagues to support that motion.

I urge all of my colleagues to pick up their dictionary, turn to the Cs, and look up confront. Confront is to face the facts. Confront is to face the truth. Confront is to face the challenges that we have, and that is what Ms. Waters urged.

I would suggest to my friend, the minority leader, Madam Speaker, that if confrontation is subject to sanction, then we are going to have a lot of people on his side of the aisle who we believe are confrontational every day.

Confront is not violence. Confront is not waving guns and some groups' biggest fear. Confront is not to say to be violent in confronting the facts, the truth, the opportunities, and the challenges, and, yes, the alternatives that we all take.

So if one of us stands up and says that we need to confront this and we need to be confrontational and we need to get up in people's faces and say: This is the truth and we need to act and that would be subject to admonition, then I suggest to my friend, Madam Speaker, and my friends in this House, that we all confront.

We came here to represent people and to confront their needs, to confront their fears, and to confront their wants. Now, yes, you could say, well, that is advocacy. Of course, it is. So I ask my friends not only to vote for this rule, but to vote for the motion to table my friend's motion that I anticipate.

We could spend all our time here, Madam Speaker. We have been on this side of the aisle, as my friend, the leader knows, and we haven't had all the resolutions that have been introduced on my side of the aisle. This makes it harder, however, not to proceed on numerous resolutions on my side of the aisle. Let us table this resolution on behalf of this institution and every Member in it.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the combined rule and to the underlying measures, including H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act.

Once again, our friends across the aisle are making an attempt to gain more control in Congress, this time in the Senate, by trying to hide behind the guise that residents of the District of Columbia do not have the means for adequate representation in Congress.

While Americans deserve full voting representation from their national government, our forefathers never intended for the Federal seat of government to serve as a State. The Founders intended the Capitol to be a neutral ground for equal sovereign States to work together to conduct the Nation's business.

This bill does not at all follow what our forefathers envisioned. H.R. 51 overlooks the U.S. Constitution in which Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 designated Washington as a Federal district, not a State. That alone should make this legislation unconstitutional.

Because the District of Columbia's status is spelled out, it would take a constitutional amendment to grant permission for this Democratic power play. There have been several alternative proposals and amendments put

forward by Republicans, none of which have been heard.

My colleague, Representative Dusty Johnson from South Dakota, has proposed the District of Columbia-Maryland Reunion Act, which I have cosponsored, that would revert the majority of D.C. residential areas back to the State of Maryland. The National Mall and other Federal buildings would remain as the District of Columbia. Before we create a new State, we should return D.C.'s residential areas back to the original State they were served.

With H.R. 51, Democrats have yet again failed to examine the consequences of their rushed actions to gain more control in Congress. The District of Columbia has received billions of dollars from the Federal Government to fund its entire judicial branch of government, among other things, which would end under statehood.

But Democrats weren't thinking about how to make D.C. a State before proposing H.R. 51. The only thought in their minds was two more Senate seats, more control of the government, more control of the American taxpayer dollars, more out-of-control spending, more Federal overreach into the lives of everyday Americans.

We have been down this path many times in Congress, voting yet again on a bill that has had no input from Republicans, nor has had much chance of receiving any Republican support on the floor.

President Biden was elected on the premise of working together with Republicans, extending a hand across the aisle to do what is best for the American people. I have struggled to find many examples of that bipartisanship to share with my constituents in Oklahoma. But what I do have are plenty of examples of Democratic power plays, an unwillingness to let the voices of Republicans be heard, and H.R. 51 stands as a prime example of both.

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to oppose the combined rule and to oppose H.R. 51.