H.Res. 97

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back on the House floor with the gentlewoman from Indiana. It is great to be with her, and so far, she is allowing me to actually speak and hasn't called for me to be silenced.

The last time we debated, I stated an uncomfortable fact about he who shall not be named and the gentlewoman had me silenced, had my words stricken from the Congressional Record.

You just have to love that, Mr. Speaker. The party of free speech that rails against woke this and cancel culture that, and calls us snowflakes, can't handle it when someone comes down here and tells the truth. They try to silence the people they disagree with. It is really quite stunning.

Here is more of the truth, and let's see if I am allowed to talk this time.

Mr. Speaker, under Republican control, the House of Representatives has become a place where trivial issues get debated passionately and important ones not at all. What we are dealing with today is a bunch of weird, whacky, poorly drafted culture war nonsense.

This is all just a waste of time. These bills aren't going anywhere. It is not even political theater. It is theater of the absurd.

The government shuts down in a few days, and instead of actually working with Democrats to keep the lights on, instead of actually doing something to fix the problems that the American people want us to fix, my Republican friends are doing nothing.

The roof is on fire, and instead of calling 911, they are sweeping the floors. I mean, it is beyond nuts.

Last night in the Rules Committee, during our hearing on this rule, I had some Republican Members telling me they didn't like my tone. They didn't like the fact that I said we don't share the same values.

I am sorry I hurt people's feelings, Mr. Speaker, but the truth is the truth. We don't all believe in the same things. When it comes to my friends on the other side of the aisle in this Chamber, we really don't share the same values. I know many of my friends on the Republican side are nice and good people, but their ideas are not nice and are not good.

Let me just give you a couple of examples.

Democrats want to make sure that our kids go to college and get a good education that prepares them for the workforce, and instead of working with us, Republicans go on and on about woke this and woke that in our schools.

Apparently, anyone who wants to teach facts is woke nowadays. They want colleges to stop being ``woke,'' even though they can't quite define what that even means. It is all political BS, Mr. Speaker.

Here is another example. Democrats actually want an economy that works for everyone, and thanks to the Biden-Harris administration, we are fighting to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, but not Republicans. They are talking about woke economic policies.

I don't even know what they are talking about or what they mean, but do you want to know what people back home talk to me about? They are asking me: Why are Republicans trying to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires? Why are Republicans trying to go after Social Security and Medicare?

Another example, Mr. Speaker, is that Democrats actually care about strengthening and protecting the Violence Against Women Act, but not Republicans. A majority of their Conference voted against extending the Violence Against Women Act. Let me say that again: A majority of their Conference voted against extending the Violence Against Women Act.

Now, they have the nerve to come down here and talk about violence against women and use it as part of their sick ploy to go after immigrants. Give me a break. Their bill is so poorly written that it could hurt survivors of domestic violence.

I could go right down the list. It is obvious to me that, at some point, the RNC talking points went out to everybody, and those talking points said woke, woke, woke. Now, we have to waste time on this trash.

It is just another week of the GOP circus. As I have said before, calling this a clown show is an insult to actual working clowns.

Most of all, it is an insult to the American people for Republicans to use these hallowed Halls and to spend hours and hours of time this week on these absurd, awful bills. Again, none of them are going anywhere.

The reason to be in Congress is to help people. That means putting people over politics. It means not caving in to the most extreme members of your party. It means getting stuff done, which is a radical idea.

None of these bills, as I said, are going anywhere. Yet, here we are, playing these absurd, ridiculous games.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the chairman of the Rules Committee, but let me just state for the record that nothing he talked about will be at all impacted by any of the stuff that we are talking about here today. None of these bills are going anywhere.

If you want to pass legislation to address some of the issues that were raised, maybe we ought to work in a bipartisan way. Maybe it ought not to be ``my way or the highway.''

These aren't serious pieces of legislation. These are press releases. Let's all be honest with the American people about that. This is not serious legislating. We haven't done serious legislating here in a long time.

Mr. Speaker, I will zoom in a little bit on this Congress in general. I just mentioned that this is the most dysfunctional Congress in history. If anyone wants proof, look no further than this resolution: five more closed rules that allow zero amendments to come to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, for folks who don't know, a closed rule means no amendments. It means: Take it or leave it. If you have a good idea and want to improve a bill, too bad.

This is how they govern in Russia and China, and that is what the Republicans are turning this place into.

With these five closed rules they are bringing to the floor today, Republicans are breaking their own record for shutting down debate. With today's vote, there will be 106 closed rules in this Congress-- 106. This is now officially the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, what gets me is that my friends on the other side have been totally fooled. They were tricked by their own leadership, first by Speaker McCarthy and now Speaker Johnson.

The gentlewoman from Indiana and her colleagues on the Rules Committee were promised a more open process. They were told the Rules Committee was going to be different, more open, would have more regular order and more amendments, and more debate.

Speaker McCarthy was even blackmailed into putting members of the Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee to guarantee a more open process, but apparently, it didn't matter because he totally broke his promise, and now Speaker Johnson is shredding it.

During the first 9 months under Speaker Johnson, we saw 64 closed rules, even more than the 42 closed rules we saw under Speaker McCarthy. They traded a bad Speaker for an even worse one. Republican leaders have blocked 5,799 amendments from even coming to the floor. Mr. Speaker, 5,799 amendments have been blocked from coming to the floor by the Republican majority.

By the way, they are not just Democratic amendments. They blocked Republican, bipartisan, and Democratic amendments. They blocked an amendment to disrupt the smuggling of U.S. firearms across the Mexican border. They blocked an amendment to combat fentanyl trafficking at ports of entry.

Holy hell, Mr. Speaker, they even blocked my amendment to protect food for seniors who participate in the Meals on Wheels program. They have even blocked over half of their own Republican Members' amendments.

Let me say that again. Most Republican amendments have been blocked by this Congress. These amendments have been prevented from even seeing the light of day or getting a debate on the House floor. There have been 98 amendments that Rules Committee Republicans had either authored or supported that have been blocked by their own majority.

When you are on the Rules Committee, you like to have a little juice, but 98 of your amendments, Republican amendments, have been blocked by your own party. That is almost 100 amendments, and that is just Rules Republicans.

I am sure they would have loved to have had the opportunity to debate their amendments on the floor. If Rules Committee Republicans can't get amendments, how the hell do you think the rest of us are doing?

Republicans said they wanted an open process in this Congress. They want an open process, my foot, Mr. Speaker.

Under this majority, the Rules Committee has become a place where democracy goes to die. Their Members should be outraged with the Speaker and this leadership just as much as Democrats should be. Again, 106 completely closed rules blocked all amendments--a shameful statistic, an all-time authoritarian high set under this Republican majority.

Let's look at the results. Look at what they have to show for it. Republicans had the most unproductive Congress in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, 26 days we went without a Speaker because they were fighting with each other. Weeks were wasted with failed rule votes while they argued among themselves instead of negotiating with Democrats.

There were broken promises on the appropriation process where they kicked the can down the road with another failed CR, bringing us to the brink of catastrophic debt default and then asking Democrats to bail them out. Mr. Speaker, 10 months of passing no legislation through the Rules Committee that ever became law.

I congratulate my friends. In addition to being the most incompetent, dysfunctional, unproductive Congress in American history, they now have also presided over the most closed Congress in American history. Well done, well done, and they are not done yet. We have to live through 3 more months of this. God help us.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I reiterate what the gentleman from South Carolina just said. We have different viewpoints and different values.

I am sorry that he feels he lives in a wrecked country. I don't believe that. I think the United States of America is the greatest country on this planet, and I am proud to serve in Congress to try to help the people of this country. I would never refer to this country as a ``wrecked country.''

Again, the gentleman who just spoke, I thought when he was appointed to the Rules Committee, he was appointed to make sure that we had a more open process.

I regret to inform the gentleman that 106 closed rules slipped by him this Congress. I appreciate him standing in the breach.

By the way, when he refers to all the amendments that were rejected as being dumb, 50 percent of them were Republican amendments.

I think 27 of your amendments were denied. I wouldn't classify them as dumb, even though I may disagree with the intent.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a list of the 106 closed rules issued by the Republican majority in the 118th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, beneath all these statistics about closed rules are actual ideas that are being blocked from being debated on the House floor.

These are thoughtful proposals that Members have worked hard to develop, ideas to help actual people, and they deserved a debate in an up-or-down vote.

They are proposals like this: An amendment to disrupt the smuggling of U.S. guns across the Mexico border to help cartels, an amendment authorizing funding for DHS to combat fentanyl trafficking at our ports of entry, and an amendment to prevent cuts to Meals on Wheels.

Those are home-delivered meals to seniors, Mr. Speaker, and that was my amendment, by the way, so I can assure you that it was a very, very good idea.

They even blocked an amendment to provide postpartum mental health information to pregnant students, and that was a Republican amendment.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans haven't just blocked amendments by reporting out closed rules. Their structured rules, the rules that allowed a few amendments, have also continually blocked thoughtful, rule-complied amendments.

They seem especially focused on blocking Democratic ideas from a debate in an up-or-down vote on the floor. A quarter of their structured rules--get this--blocked all Democratic amendments.

Now, let me quickly just list a few ideas that Republicans were either too afraid to debate or couldn't spare 10 minutes for consideration on the House floor: An amendment to protect children from getting asthma; amendments to ensure the regulation of dark money in politics, and to prevent corrupt pay-to-play political donation deals with Federal contractors; and an amendment to provide cancer screenings to Federal firefighters as part of their DOD annual physicals, when we know they are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals as part of their jobs. There is simply no excuse for this, Mr. Speaker.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the gentlewoman from Minnesota, I was confused when she said, you don't offer alternatives. That is what amendments are. They are alternative ideas.

I just went through a list of some of the alternatives we wanted to offer dealing with firefighters and cancer screening, dealing with children with asthma, and dealing with making sure senior citizens have adequate access to nutrition. Those are alternatives. Those are ideas.

My friends, unfortunately, are in control of this place, so they get to bring the bills to the Rules Committee.

We try to present alternatives through the amendment process, but here is another alternative. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 16, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2023.

Mr. Speaker, the bigoted hatred that we are seeing directed at immigrants in Ohio and across the country is sickening. According to research done by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, there has been a rise in conspiracy theories that stigmatize minorities and promote hatred of ethnically diverse communities.

Get this. Politicians' use of bigoted rhetoric can also play a role in hate crime incidents. It is sad, but to be frank, we didn't need researchers to tell us this.

We can see and we can hear it from the Republican Party every single day, and it does a grave disservice to the Dreamers, to TPS holders, and to DACA recipients in this country who only know America as their home.

These are taxpayers, small business owners, educators, and critical parts of our communities. Dreamers were brought to the United States as children through no fault of their own, and it is past time to grant them the pathway to citizenship that they rightly deserve.

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to fix our broken immigration system and secure our border, but unlike the messaging bills before us this week, this is a bill that actually does something, and it is actually bipartisan. It sends the message that we are sick of the vitriol and hate crimes against this community and that we value their many contributions that make this country a better place.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Escobar), a great leader, to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia), who will also speak on the importance of defeating the previous question.

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

You have got to love when Republicans try to talk tough about immigration reform. I just want to remind my colleagues that one of the most conservative Senators in the United States Senate is from Oklahoma. He wrote a comprehensive immigration reform bill that has some very tough provisions in it. Their standard-bearer, the man who I cannot name on the floor for fear that my words will be taken down, told Republicans to not allow it to come to the floor for debate or a vote.

They would rather have a campaign issue than to solve a problem. I mean, let that sink in. Let that sink in.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the National Institute of Justice titled: ``Undocumented Immigrant Offending Rate Lower Than U.S.-born Citizen Rate.''

Mr. Speaker, all day long, Republicans spout hateful rhetoric about undocumented immigration and crime because they want us to be scared and they want to divide us, but their claims are simply not rooted in truth. In fact, undocumented immigrants are less likely, not more, than U.S.-born citizens to commit crimes, including violent crime.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article by the CATO Institute titled: ``Sanctuary Jurisdictions in Florida Do Not Have Higher Crime Rates.''

Mr. Speaker, there is no evidence, none, either in Florida or in the rest of the country that sanctuary cities result in more crime. There is none, zero. However, that won't matter to Republicans because they are unmoved by the facts.

Mr. Speaker, earlier I listed some examples of ideas that Republicans blocked from even being considered on the floor. Here are a few more. I just want people to appreciate this.

An amendment that would protect access to IVF for Federal employees, they blocked it.

They blocked an amendment to require a study for Tribal consultations before enactment of an oil and gas bill that could affect their subsistence resources.

An amendment to make critical targeted investments in small-town police departments for the recruitment, retention, mental health support, and training they need to protect themselves and their communities, they blocked that, too.

They blocked an amendment to ensure continued access to emergency care for pregnant servicewomen at military treatment facilities.

Maybe Republicans don't believe in IVF or any of these other ideas, but they can just vote ``no.'' Why block these ideas from even being debated unless they are afraid they would pass?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to close yet. There may be someone else.

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

I want to get back to this extraordinary closed House. I just want everybody to appreciate how awful this process is.

Here are yet more examples of ideas that were too scary, too revolutionary, too controversial to even be debated on the House floor, according to this Republican majority:

An amendment to provide grants to organizations that are helping to transition servicemembers to civilian life, including job recruitment training, they blocked that. I mean, what are they thinking? Who does that?

They blocked an amendment to ensure that students with dietary restrictions like lactose intolerance can have an alternative to whole milk at lunch. Is lactose intolerance now woke? I mean, I don't get it. That was blocked.

They blocked an amendment to ensure that a bill wouldn't cause our domestic energy prices to increase.

I ask, again, what is the majority afraid of? I mean, we have our differences. We ought to have substantive debate on the floor and then have votes. I am willing to bet there are some thoughtful Republicans who would support some of these amendments that I mentioned here.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 26, the second episode in the new miniseries where the House majority asks the United States Congress to act as a super city council of 535 members to make decisions for the people of Washington, D.C., which is a real city with a real city council and Mayor and which some of my colleagues apparently have never visited or had any real interaction with.

The people in Washington, D.C., want to make their decisions about democratic self-government for themselves. They don't want the Representatives of other Americans to come and make decisions for them.

President Biden was here this week for his great State of the Union Address, and, Mr. Speaker, when you could hear him over the heckling, he talked about the great progress we are making as a nation economically with 12 million new jobs.

In terms of support for Americans in their healthcare with the dramatic reduction in healthcare prescription drug costs, we have cut to $35 a month what people have to spend on their insulin shots if they have diabetes.

We just passed a record investment in climate preparedness to deal with the extreme climate emergency and all of the extreme weather events that people in the United States are experiencing across the country.

That is a national agenda. That is a real national agenda.

Now, my friends across the aisle want to spend this week instead superintending and reviewing the bills that are being passed by the D.C. Council for 713,000 American citizens who live in Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, it was about voting rights. Today, it is about criminal justice reform. I am sure down the road, just as in the past, it is going to be their gun safety laws, and it is going to be their laws allowing for Medicaid funded abortions for poor women. Then they will go after their LGBTQ laws and so on. There will be a parade of attacks on local democratic self-government in Washington, D.C.

Now, I believe that the people of Washington should be treated like all other American citizens. Right now what they have asked for is admission to the Union as a State.

Now, most of the Members of this body represent States that were admitted after the original 13. Thirty-seven States came in afterwards with Congress' exercise of its Article IV powers to admit new States. That was very much the design of the Constitution and the Founders' plan. Go back and read some Thomas Jefferson about that.

We were not set up as a country where certain people would make decisions for other people but people, instead, would be able to govern themselves. In fact, the basis of our attack on British rule over America was our rejecting the idea of virtual representation: that some people could make decisions for other people. No. The whole premise of American democracy is that people make decisions for themselves.

So the 713,000 taxpaying, draftable citizens of Washington, D.C.-- whose population has participated in every war America has ever fought from the point of the American Revolution to the Civil War and all the way up through the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq--those people are asking for admission to the Union.

This House of Representatives in the 117th and the 116th Congresses voted to give it to them. It didn't quite make it through the Senate, which is always slower on these things, but that is the trajectory that the people of D.C. are on.

Instead of trying to join President Biden and all of the great national economic progress, infrastructure progress, and healthcare progress we are making, the House majority decides instead to usurp the role of the D.C. Council and to begin to micromanage their government and finger paint all over their laws. That is what they are doing today.

Now, we don't have time to compare the laws of D.C. with the laws of each of the other States, but I just want my colleagues to be on notice that I have got the laws of the other States, and I can do those direct head-to-head comparisons.

I don't think we should go down this road. I don't think it is a healthy thing for us to be doing as a Congress because we should be respecting the democratic self-government rights of the people of Washington, D.C.

Nobody is more interested in public safety in Washington than the people of Washington.

Nobody is more interested in the processes of democratic self- government in Washington than the people of Washington.

Nobody is more interested in their healthcare policies and in their housing policies than them.

I invite any of my colleagues who have actually been to a meeting of the D.C. Council or their local advisory neighborhood commission to rise and tell us about the experience.

But if they haven't, then they should leave democratic self- government and local self-government of Washington to the people of Washington, D.C.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia says he is in favor of the resolution because he cares about Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), someone else who cares about Washington, D.C.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have put some stuff on the floor, and I will answer it.

The distinguished gentleman from Georgia invoked a couple of crimes in Washington, D.C., including one in the Metro. He didn't talk about the hundreds of crimes that were committed here at the Capitol, in Congress, in Washington, D.C., because he viewed

the events of January 6 as akin to a ``normal tourist visit.''

Now he dares to lecture the people of Washington, D.C., about keeping Washington, D.C., safe. He seeks to associate Washington, D.C., with crime. Indeed, he and his colleagues constantly try to link images of crime to what they call Democrat-controlled cities.

I did some research last night just to clarify matters. The seven States with the highest murder rates in 2020 all were States that were majority for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The murder rate in the States that voted for Trump was higher in aggregate than the murder rate in the States that voted for Biden in each year from 2000 to 2020. I invite the gentleman not to lecture the people of Washington, D.C., about crime rates because the murder rate is worse in the red States than it is in the blue States.

Five of the ten cities with the highest murder rate through the first half of last year were in States that voted for Donald Trump in 2020. All those cities have higher murder rates than Washington, D.C. Among the top 10 is a city in the State represented by the sponsor of the disapproval resolution, Mr. Clyde.

Now, the Speaker rose to talk about both yesterday's resolution and today's resolution. He also gave the people of Washington, D.C., a lecture about diluting the vote when he rejects their admission to the Union as a State.

In other words, he is trying to squelch and nullify their statehood drive that would give them real political equality in the country, and then he says the people of Washington, D.C., are diluting the vote. Well, he is blockading the vote. He is preventing the vote for people in Washington, D.C.

Then he joins the chorus denouncing crime in Washington, D.C., which is suddenly of concern to them. I had not heard them mention that before. Well, it turns out that Bakersfield, California, has one of the highest crime rates in America, recently described as one of the top 10 deadliest cities in America for its size, and its crime rate is higher than that of Washington, D.C.

However, we are going to take this opportunity to kick around the people of Washington, D.C. Why? Because they are vulnerable, because they don't have voting representation in the House, and they have no voting representation or voice in the U.S. Senate. That is a scandal from the standpoint of democracy.

Instead of trying to solve that problem, my colleagues, instead, want to use the people of Washington, D.C., as a whipping post, as a pinata, something to kick around. I just think that that is outrageous, and it is wrong.

On January 6, when we were attacked at the Capitol and in this Chamber, there were hundreds of residents of Washington, D.C., who work for the Capitol Police, who work for the Metropolitan Police Department, who work for other police forces who came here to defend us. They came to defend the Congress that they are excluded from. You talk about patriotism, that is patriotism.

These people have a real grievance, a valid grievance, not an imaginary, fake, counterfeit grievance like a Presidential election which they still claim Donald Trump won, even though their arguments were rejected in more than 60 Federal and State courts.

Trump lost that election by more than 7 million votes, 306-232 in the electoral college. I am glad they are nodding over on that side of the aisle because these facts are indisputable, yet, still, they indulge the follies and the fantasies and the pathologies of Donald Trump.

That is what they do instead. They try to kick around the people of Washington, D.C., who defended us as patriots on that day.

There are veterans in Washington, D.C., and we will submit these for the Record, who have demanded their voting rights and demanded admission as a State. Yet, they dare to lecture the people of Washington, D.C., about what to do with their democratic rights.

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

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

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

The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia has just made a very powerful point, which is that on a whole range of offenses under the newly revised D.C. act that they want to overthrow, the criminal law is tougher in Washington, D.C., than it is in the distinguished chairman's home State of Kentucky.

On carjacking, on first degree murder, on involuntary manslaughter, the people of D.C. have chosen tougher penalties, but the gentlewoman didn't arrive to denounce Kentucky as soft on crime or weak on crime and say the whole United States Congress has to turn itself into a superlegislature for Kentucky and strike their laws down. That is up to the people of Kentucky. They don't even have a carjacking statute. You have to use armed robbery there, which gets you up to 20 years in prison. In the District of Columbia, they have a specific carjacking statute that could get you 24 years in prison.

That is the beauty of the Federal system, which I thought our colleagues supported, the idea that people decide at the local level whether they want tougher laws, as in the District of Columbia, or weaker laws, as in Kentucky. That is up to the people of the States to go offense by offense.

I am afraid that my friend and colleague, Ms. Norton, is taking them a bit too seriously because they are not really interested in scrutinizing the actual criminal justice policy. They just want to kick the people of Washington, D.C., around. They want to lord it over them.

We have President Biden here this week inviting both parties to work together for a continued acceleration of this great economic rebound we are in with 12 million new jobs, with us finally addressing climate change, with us finally getting prescription drug benefits to the people of America. He invited us to participate in a bipartisan national renewal, and what does the majority come back with? They want 535 Members of the United States Congress to act like a super-city council lording over the people of Washington, D.C.

It is unjust and unfair to the people of Washington, and it is beneath our dignity as a democratic Congress to be acting in this way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. If you google carjacking in Kentucky, what will come up is, just a few months ago, two people were carjacked in different incidents at gunpoint in Louisville, which I think is in the State of Kentucky. Since we are talking about State laws, that is what should be relevant. Carjacking is, obviously, a problem across the country.

The conceit of the other side seems to be that they care more about crime and public safety in Washington, D.C., than people who live in Washington, D.C. We just got lectures from two different Members from New York about the terrible conditions in New York. Well, if that is what their concern is, then they should run for the New York State Legislature and change the laws that are involved if they can persuade their fellow citizens that they have it right. If they can't, then maybe they should reconsider what their agenda is.

In any event, if you want to micromanage the laws of Washington, D.C., and rewrite this 275-page act that was passed to revise the criminal code, which they hadn't revised in a century, with the input of Federal and local judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and the D.C. Council, then move to Washington, D.C., and run for D.C. Council.

These resolutions of disapproval come to the House floor without the benefit of a single hearing in the Oversight Committee.

They have not had a hearing where the Members of Congress could be heard on this, where we could have a single witness, where we could have a single fact introduced, much less have the members of the D.C. Council--who sent a letter petitioning for respect for democratic self- government in D.C.--had the right to be heard, much less if the Mayor had the right to be heard.

They keep invoking the name of the Mayor of the District of Columbia who said she does not want Congress to be overturning the laws of the District of Columbia, even if she opposes those laws.

Well, that is a principled position in favor of democratic self- government. I dare say, most of the Members of this body would say even if they disagreed with a law passed by their State legislature in their State and signed by the Governor that Congress should not selectively overturn that law. But that is precisely what they are proposing to do to the people of the District of Columbia.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, if we were actually to pass this resolution of disapproval against Washington, D.C., at this point, I wonder what my colleagues think we do at that point.

Sitting as the super council for the District of Columbia, would we rewrite the law?

In other words, would we then conduct hearings on each of the offenses that the gentlewoman has just invoked?

Are we going to have hearings about involuntary manslaughter and first degree murder and carjacking and so on in the District of Columbia?

They don't even want to have a hearing on their disapproval resolution, much less do we want to have a hearing on each of these bills and take over the governance of the District of Columbia.

Let's respect the Home Rule Act that was adopted in 1973. Home rule operates here just like it operates in all of our States, which is local matters are decided locally. Let's leave it at that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am ready to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to correct just a few of the major distortions that we just heard from the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana.

First of all, carjacking, as I understand it from this act, and I am willing to stand corrected, is not legal in the District of Columbia. On the contrary, it could be punished by up to 24 years.

I think the gentleman from Louisiana misunderstood my colloquy with the chairman of the committee because it is in Kentucky where carjacking is not a statutory offense.

If you were to charge the people who were committing carjackings recently in Louisville, you would have to charge them under armed robbery because there is not a carjacking statute.

Washington, D.C., has one, and it has a penalty of up to 24 years, which is more than you could get in Kentucky for armed robbery.

The second point is he said that crime was out of control in Washington, D.C. Well, the crime rate is higher in Bakersfield, California, which is represented by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

A major city, New Orleans, in the gentleman's home State, in this quote from FOX News ``New Orleans closes 2022 with sky-high homicide rate not seen in decades: `Horrific'.'' New Orleans was given the grim distinction of murder capital of the U.S. in September.

But we don't need to have some kind of race to the bottom Olympics in terms of which State or which city has the worst crime rate.

We should get together to deal with the problem of gun violence, which is why I invite our colleagues to join us and more than 90 percent of the American people who support a universal violent criminal background check, but they oppose it.

They are locked in the stranglehold of the NRA, and they won't back this, despite the fact that all the police unions they cited today about D.C. support a universal violent criminal background check.

Why don't they do something about semiautomatic assault weapons on the streets of our cities and towns across America?

They won't do it. No, they would rather use crime simply as a political club to try to take away other people's democratic rights.

Mr. Speaker, it is scandalous, the way the majority purports to stand up for local self-government and home rule when they want to trample all of the democratic rights of the people of Washington, D.C.

Let's not sit as a super city council of 535 Members doing the municipal minutiae of the people of Washington. Let them govern themselves.

We should be on the pathway to statehood for them, but at the very least, respect their right to home rule. Nobody cares more about public safety in D.C. than the people of D.C.

Nobody cares more about the condition of their communities than the

people who live in them. That is a basic precept of democratic ideals.

I hope my colleagues will respect that, and I hope everyone will vote to reject this continuing series of disapproval resolutions against the people of Washington.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 24, which seeks to nullify the duly enacted laws of the District of Columbia and violates the principle of local, democratic self-government, which is at the heart of the home rule charter for Washington, D.C., and also violates the equal protection and democratic principles that animate our Constitution.

I would like to begin just by observing a striking juxtaposition in contrast between the address we heard last night, the State of the Union Address from the President, and the lecture that we just received now from the floor leader.

President Biden appeared here with a message of unity under the powerful economic growth that we are experiencing as a country--12 million new jobs added, record progress that we are making on climate change, massive investment in the American people in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, the $1.2 trillion investment in the roads, highways, bridges, ports, and airports.

We are dramatically reducing healthcare costs for people in the Medicare program, reducing to $35 a month what diabetics have to pay for their insulin shots.

We are making progress for America. So, what do our good friends across the aisle come back with today, the day after this great statement of national purpose and progress? They want us to become the supercouncil for the District of Columbia and begin to micromanage the bills that are being passed by the representatives locally of 713,000 people.

With no national agenda, with no plans for getting on board with American progress, what do they have? Well, they are going to bring us a whole series of these disapproval resolutions for the people of Washington, D.C.

They don't want to vote in Washington, D.C. They don't want to live in D.C. They can move to D.C. and run for D.C. Council if that is their interest, but no, they just want to lord it over the people of Washington.

They don't like the District of Columbia's voting rules, and they don't like the criminal justice reform they just engaged in for a period of a decade with judges and lawyers, the D.C. Bar, and the people participating. They don't have a hearing on any of it. They just want to decree that they are going to strike it down.

Just you wait, they will be coming back with gun safety laws that will appear in Congress from the people in D.C. because there is that part of the home rule charter that gives us this opportunity if we want to micromanage their policies.

We will see gun safety laws; we will see abortion legislation; we will see equal rights for the LGBTQ population--all of these things the Republican minority used to do a long time ago. They have brought back the worst possible instincts.

They don't want to have a hearing on it. We didn't have a single hearing in the Oversight and Accountability Committee about any of this legislation. None of it.

Did they go to the D.C. Council when it was debated? No, they didn't do that.

Did they invite the Mayor or the D.C. Council to come here? No, they didn't do that.

They just decided they are going to slap around the local population. None of us would accept it for the localities that we represent.

Now, it so happens that people in Washington, D.C., are not just a locality and municipality. The people in Washington are involved right now in a petition for statehood admission to the Union.

In fact, in the 116th Congress and the 117th Congress, this body voted to approve their petition for statehood, but our friends across the aisle opposed that.

It passed the House. If the Senate had approved it, well, then the people of D.C., or whatever their local system is, would be able to decide these things on their own, just like the people in New York City or Albany or any other town in New York would be able to decide for themselves.

I thought that our friends over there were interested in local self- government. I thought they supported home rule, but apparently not when it comes to the people of Washington, D.C.

We reject this throwback attempt at micromanaging the affairs of the people of Washington. They don't need lectures about voting rights. They need voting rights. They are the only population of taxpaying, draftable American citizens in the country who don't have equal voting rights in Congress.

When January 6 came and people stormed this Chamber and waged violence against the Capitol Police, against the Metropolitan Police Department, against hundreds of people who live in Washington, as well as in Maryland and Virginia, the people of Washington stood with democracy. They stood with Congress.

They have a legitimate grievance, not a phony, counterfeit grievance. They are not claiming to have won an election they didn't win. All they are asking for is equal rights.

Let's grant them their statehood. If you can't stomach the idea that they would be a State, at least allow them their home rule rights to decide for themselves who is going to vote in Washington, D.C., what their criminal laws are going to be, what their laws on abortion are going to be, and what their civil rights and civil liberties practices are going to be in the District of Columbia.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a couple of corrections.

First of all, the D.C. legislation that would be disapproved by this resolution allows only for voting in local elections--school board elections, Advisory Neighborhood Commission elections, council elections. It does not allow voting in Federal elections for noncitizens.

The Constitution, contrary to what the gentlewoman said, permits noncitizen voting at the local level, and there are a number of jurisdictions that do that.

Mr. Speaker, yield 5 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

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

Mr. Speaker, I was just reviewing some materials that showed that both the States that the gentlewoman from Colorado and the gentleman from New York represent had noncitizen voting in the 18th, 19th, and, in the case of Colorado, up to the 20th century. So I think if they are talking about giving away the sacred right to vote, their States have done that before.

It has got a kind of interesting history to it. To me, it is basically irrelevant because it is not our decision to be making. It is up to the people of D.C., just like it is up to the voters of Colorado and it is up to the voters in New York.

But the history of it is intriguing because when the country started--as I am sure the gentlewoman is aware--there were race qualifications for voting and there were gender qualifications for voting. It was only through social struggle that these were removed. But at the beginning of the Republic, all that mattered was the property qualification--the wealth and property qualification--for White men. If you were a White man, regardless of your citizenship status, you had the right to vote.

That lasted basically up to the Civil War. But it became a bone of contention between the North and the South because the Northern States were continuing to defend alien suffrage and the Southern States opposed it. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you look at Article I of the Confederate Constitution, the very first thing it does, it says that you must be a citizen of the Confederacy in order to vote there.

They didn't want noncitizens voting.

Why?

Because the immigrants were overwhelmingly antislavery.

It was very clear in the debates in Congress about this that the Southern States wanted to get rid of it, which is why the Confederacy banned it. After the Civil War, noncitizen voting spread around the country.

But the point is that when we are talking about local noncitizen voting--who is going to vote in your school board or town council elections--that should be decided locally.

My colleagues who are the ones determined not to make the District of Columbia a State should be the first ones to say that if it is just a local government, then let them decide on who is going to vote on matters of garbage collection and who their teachers are going to be. The jurisdictions that have done this, like Los Angeles, have wanted to make sure that parents in local public schools get the right to vote regardless of their citizenship status.

Most of the noncitizens, of course, are lawful residents, people with green cards, and permanent residents, and they want them to be engaged and involved.

In any event, if my friends really support home rule and local self- determination, they will allow the people of Washington, D.C., to decide.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume just to respond to the gentleman before he goes, perhaps.

When I said that they were returning to their worst possible instincts, that was actually a bipartisan comment because in the old days it was Democrats, racist Dixiecrats on the House District Committee who lorded over the District of Columbia and denied the people of Washington their rights. They are returning us to those days where Congress will micromanage the affairs of Washington, D.C., and not allow the people their own self-government.

He said you don't need to be a Republican or a Democrat to understand the issue. It would actually help to know your Abraham Lincoln because, of course, Lincoln was a major defender of noncitizen voting to the extent you guys want to act like a super D.C. Council and get into the merits of it.

In fact, when he was elected, his Southern opponents said he was elected on the strength of the noncitizen vote in New York, as a matter of fact, and in Illinois and other States where they had so-called declarant alien suffrage, which means if you are on the pathway to citizenship you are allowed to vote, which is a policy that makes a lot of sense, but different jurisdictions have different policies according to home rule and self-government.

When Lincoln was here, his major legislative initiative, interestingly enough, was to abolish the slave traffic in the District of Columbia because he felt that freedom and democracy should obtain in the Nation's Capital. That is something that our colleagues should also think about in terms of defining an agenda of their party. I know they are careening from this issue to that issue, but if you are thinking about D.C., think about what Abraham Lincoln did.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado boasts that her State is number one in auto thefts, number one in bank robberies, and number two in fentanyl, as I understand it. It sounds like they have got their hands full with their own problems, and I don't know that they should be spending their time dictating to the people of Washington, D.C., what their voting rights policy is going to be.

Now both the gentlewoman from Colorado and the gentleman from New York invite the question of would it actually be administratively possible for a jurisdiction to have two separate voting lists for those who are eligible to vote just in local elections and those who are eligible to vote in both local and Federal elections?

Well, that is a great question that you could have posed at a hearing within the Oversight Committee if we had one, but we didn't have it. I actually happen to have researched this question, and there are a number of jurisdictions around the country which permit noncitizen voting at the local level, and they have one list for that. If you are a noncitizen when you enter, your name is checked off that list, and you get one ballot which is just for your school board elections and the local elections. Then if you are a citizen, you get a complete ballot that includes local, State, and Federal elections, so there actually is an answer, and it is working in multiple jurisdictions around the country, including several in my home State of Maryland. I think the same thing used to be able to work in New York State as well; so that is something that would be easily researchable, and it is something also that we could have answered if we had followed regular order and actually had so much as one hearing on this subject before deciding to jump in like King Kong and squash the people of Washington,

Mr. Speaker, I should say that none of those jurisdictions have been overrun with fentanyl or illegal aliens. All of those jurisdictions are functioning democratic self-governmental units, just as the jurisdictions in New York and Colorado that had the same practice were.

This really isn't about noncitizen voting, Mr. Speaker. This is about democratic self-government and allowing local jurisdictions to make home rule decisions for themselves because this isn't the end of it. It is just the beginning.

Tomorrow, I think we are going to be considering a resolution of disapproval for the District of Columbia's criminal justice reform that they have engaged in over the last 9 or 10 years involving Federal judges, local judges, council members, the D.C. Bar, and so on. We didn't know anything about that. We didn't have a hearing. Yet, someone is going to pick something out.

What the good chairman of our committee talked about in the Rules Committee was a carjacking law where I guess the minimum sentence changed. Well, we looked up Kentucky. Kentucky doesn't even have a carjacking law. You would have to use armed robbery, which can only get you 20 years. The District of Columbia would treat carjacking with up to a 24-year sentence.

These are the kinds of measurements we are going to have to go through with everybody's State and everybody's jurisdiction if we are really going to turn ourselves into the super-D.C. Council and try to get to know the people of Washington and what their concerns are and what they are into.

The whole reason we went to home rule in 1973 was so that Congress could spend its time on national policy issues, the kind that President Biden was talking about last night. We just added 12 million new jobs to the American economy. We passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan to invest in the ports, airports, bridges, roads, and highways all across America, not just in the District of Columbia, no insult intended. That is a very tiny part of the jurisdiction of Congress, and they want to turn us basically into an appellate legislative division over the District of Columbia.

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

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

This legislation promises to be the first of many. I think tomorrow criminal justice reform comes up. I know that the MAGA wing of the Republican Party doesn't like Medicaid-funded abortions in Washington, D.C. They don't like the stricter gun safety laws that the people of Washington, D.C., have passed. They don't like their progressive legislation protective of the LGBTQ community and so on.

We are headed now for a mini culture war between the dominant MAGA wing of the Republican Conference today and the people of the District of Columbia, who find themselves in an odd situation because they want to be admitted to the Union the way 37 States have been admitted to the Union after the original 13 were.

That means, by the way, that three-quarters of the States, nearly 75 percent of the States, came in after the original 13. They appealed to Congress to use our powers under Article IV of the Constitution to admit new States. They had exercised their powers under the First Amendment, under the Ninth Amendment, and under the 10th Amendment to organize a new statehood constitution and to petition for admission to the Union.

Our muscle memory is weak here because it hasn't happened since Hawaii and Alaska, but Thomas Jefferson thought that this was the destiny of communities under the United States of America. We would not be a colonial power that would continue to lord over people perpetually. On the contrary, when he talked about the Northwest Ordinance, he said as sufficient population formed and as commitment to democratic principles were realized, these new communities would be admitted as States.

I think, as a matter of basic civic respect and self-respect, we owe the people of Washington our attention when they are asking for admission to the Union. These are people who pay more per capita in Federal taxes than anybody in the country, more in hard dollars, I believe, than the people of 18 or 20 States. They have served in every war that America has ever fought. They are subject to the military draft.

It is just that when Eleanor Holmes Norton, the distinguished professor of constitutional law from Georgetown University, comes to this floor, she comes as a nonvoting Delegate. There is no representation and no voice over in the Senate. That is an offense to basic democratic principles that we teach children in second grade.

We should be passing statehood again in the 118th Congress the way we passed it in the 117th, the way we passed it in the 116th, and we should get the Senate to focus on it. Short of that, the very last thing we should be doing is rolling back the limited rights the people of Washington have to exercise home rule powers.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy) for yielding the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, here we are, 6 weeks into a new Congress, and the Republican majority has yet to bring substantive, serious legislation to the floor that does anything to address the serious issues confronting our great Nation.

Instead, we have seen Republican leadership buckle under time and again to the demands of a rightwing minority that seems more interested in stoking controversy and conspiracy theories than crafting actual legislation or governing.

Instead of delivering for the American people, we have seen precious time and taxpayer dollars wasted in power struggles and political stunts, rather than doing the people's business.

True to that pattern, today's rule provides for the consideration of three deeply problematic measures, measures that further the objectives of that extremist minority, measures that stoke division, that undermine government institutions, and that threaten fundamental American freedoms when they don't align with the radical right's ideology.

By caving to these fringe forces, Republican leadership is squandering precious time and taxpayer dollars that would be better spent working together on the issues most Americans want us to address lowering prices; housing, healthcare, and education needs; making our communities safer; and protecting our planet.

The first two resolutions under consideration today would nullify legislation recently passed by the democratically elected D.C. Council and, in the process, would undermine the fundamental right of citizens of Washington, D.C., to political self-determination.

H.J. Res. 24 would overrule the Local Resident Voting Rights Act, which was recently passed by the D.C. Council.

With this measure, the citizens of D.C. decided to join other municipalities around the country in allowing noncitizen residents to vote in local D.C. elections.

H.J. Res. 26 would nullify the Revised Criminal Code Act, the RCCA, which reformed D.C.'s criminal code. That code has not been comprehensively revised since it was first enacted in 1901.

The American people expect their Members of Congress to prioritize their most pressing kitchen table issues, but instead of focusing on lowering costs or creating better-paying jobs, we are here today to interfere with legislation duly enacted by the citizens of D.C. and their government.

Not only is that not what our constituents sent us to do, it is distinctly antidemocratic to substitute our policy judgment for the local policy judgment of D.C.'s elected officials.

The nearly 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia, a majority of whom are Black and Brown, are worthy and capable of self-government.

Instead of seeking to undo the work of that democratically elected body, we should be holding hearings and considering whether it is finally time to address the issue of D.C. statehood.

As my colleague, Mr. Raskin, said in the Rules Committee yesterday, if my Republican colleagues insist on acting as a colonial overseer of the District of Columbia, the least they can do is hear from the people of D.C.

Those promoting these resolutions should have called a hearing or at least attempted to engage the D.C. Council and community leaders in some way.

If my colleagues think they have the best interests of the people of D.C. at heart, let's hear from the D.C. residents.

I believe they have made it quite clear they don't appreciate being made a pawn in national political battles.

We owe it to the people of D.C. to enact statehood, not this radical attempt to interfere with the district's Democratic process.

The subject of these disapproval resolutions, the Revised Criminal Code Act and Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, should be irrelevant.

But just so we are clear, let's look at the legislative history of those two acts that our colleagues across the aisle want to overturn.

Under the D.C. Home Rule Act, which is a Federal statute, the democratically elected 13-member D.C. Council is required to enact a new law twice, with at least 13 days intervening between each vote, in order to pass legislation.

Legislation passed by the council and affirmed by the Mayor or with a veto override is then transmitted to Congress for a review period.

The legislation takes effect at the expiration of the review period unless Congress intervenes by passing a resolution of disapproval.

Congress has only overturned duly elected D.C. laws three times before the misguided efforts that we are forced to consider today.

Now, the D.C. Council passed the Revised Criminal Code Act by votes of 12-0 and 13-0. While the Mayor vetoed it, the council voted to override that veto by a vote of 12-1.

The Revised Criminal Code Act is the culmination of a 5-year process to revise and update D.C.'s criminal code, which, as mentioned previously, has not happened since it was first created over a century ago.

Everyone in the D.C. legal system, from prosecutors to judges to defense attorneys to scholars, agrees that this revision is long overdue.

Our colleagues across the aisle object to the revised criminal code that has been crafted with so much care to meet local conditions because they don't like some sentencing provisions that seek to match up the law with current standards.

They posit that harsher penalties would be a greater deterrent to the criminal conduct that they want to target when, in fact, the data shows that harsher penalties in some of the States that they represent does not, in fact, deter that conduct.

So think about this: Republican politicians from Georgia and Kentucky and Texas, who haven't bothered to take the time to hold a hearing or study this issue, have decided to parachute in and dictate to the 700,000 residents of D.C. that they know better than those residents and their elected Representatives how to run their city.

Can you imagine how those politicians would react if the D.C. Council tried to tell them how to run the jails in Athens, Georgia; Lexington, Kentucky; or Buffalo, New York?

What is particularly infuriating is that our Republican colleagues claim that they want to block the D.C. law because they want to be tougher on crime. But, once again, this is empty rhetoric. Overturning the D.C. criminal code will do nothing to increase public safety in D.C. or anywhere else.

As I mentioned at the outset, we are 6 weeks into the new Congress, and the Republican majority has not brought forward any legislation to address crime in America.

They won't consider legislation to block the flood of unregulated guns into American communities, they won't ban the weapons of war that take innocent lives in horrifying and predictably regular mass shootings, and they haven't taken any action to address the societal issues that produce violence.

The second resolution under consideration would vacate the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, which the D.C. Council passed by votes of 12-1 and 12-0 after holding hearings and soliciting public comment.

This act would allow otherwise qualified D.C. residents who are not U.S. citizens to vote in local D.C. elections.

Qualified noncitizen residents could vote in races for Mayor, council, attorney general, neighborhood commissioners, school district, and local referenda.

Of course, this does not apply to Federal elections. Our colleagues are trying to paint this legislation as some radical new idea, but there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution--which I understand was read here on the floor today, so we could check--that prohibits noncitizens from voting in local, State, or Federal elections.

In fact, there is a long history in the U.S. of noncitizens being allowed to vote in those elections, and they have done so since at least 1704 in what would later become the U.S. At various points, 40 States have permitted noncitizens to vote. Congress only first prohibited noncitizens from voting in Federal elections in 1996.

Currently, there are at least 15 municipalities that permit noncitizens to vote in local elections. They do so in recognition of the fact that noncitizens, who are allowed to vote under such local laws, pay a variety of State, local, and Federal taxes, and they have an inherent interest in helping to shape policies in the communities where they live.

I strongly encourage all of my colleagues to oppose these profoundly undemocratic and paternalistic resolutions.

Now, today's rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 185, which would terminate the CDC requirement for proof of COVID-19 vaccination for foreign travelers to enter the U.S.

The CDC order was put in place to open the world back up and allow vaccinated foreign travelers to visit the U.S. while keeping our community safe.

Revising or revoking the COVID-19 public health guidance should be at the behest of public health experts with understanding and knowledge of global case trends, up-to-date data, and real-time safety information about emerging infections and COVID-19 epidemiology, not partisan politicians looking to settle political scores or curry favor with the disgraced former President and his base.

This bill would upend our current COVID-19 travel protocol, and worse, tie the hands of our public health experts by prohibiting any future order to require COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of entering the United States.

As I said last week when the majority brought several bills to the floor attacking COVID-19 emergency declarations and vaccines, we shouldn't jeopardize our progress in fighting COVID with political stunts.

This is just the latest bill inspired by anti-vax conspiracy theories that has been rushed to the floor, uninformed by any hearings or any scientific evidence.

It is dangerous to repeatedly mislead the public about the efficacy of these vaccines that are proven to save lives.

This bill increases the risk of spreading new variants, just as hospitals and public health infrastructure are trying to rebuild.

Once again, an extremist fringe is putting politics over science and undermining public health experts at the expense of the American people, and Republican leadership is letting them get away with it.

We need Republican leaders to embrace science and promote the public

good, instead of undermining them to score political points.

I am disappointed that my colleagues continue to waste this body's time and taxpayer dollars on frivolous bills and resolutions.

Mr. Speaker, the resolutions and bill we are considering today do not address the issues we were elected to address for the American people.

We have now been in this Congress for over a month and have yet to take up any serious legislation. I hope my colleagues can work in a bipartisan manner to address the problems our constituents sent us here to solve.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from The Sentencing Project advocacy group, which is signed by over a dozen civil rights organizations opposing the Republican efforts to obstruct the enactment of the District of Columbia's Revised Criminal Code Act.

It states: ``Washingtonians know best how to address criminal justice policies in their community and deserve the right to determine their own laws. Local leaders are better positioned and retain more expertise to address safety and justice issues in the District than Congress.''

The Sentencing Project,

February 6, 2023.

Re Oppose efforts to obstruct the District of Columbia's

Revised Criminal Code Act.

Hon. Kevin McCarthy,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Chairman Jim Jordan,

Judiciary Committee, House of Representatives, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), our esteemed colleague.

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

I am afraid we have to dig into the weeds a little bit with Rules Committee process right now.

Earlier, the gentleman from New York said that with this rule, the new majority has tied the number of times that more minority amendments were made in order than majority amendments.

While I am certainly supportive of minority amendments, that sounded wrong, so we asked our staff to check. They haven't had much time while we have been speaking, but they have already found at least two times that the Democratic majority did this in the last Congress, H.R. 302 and H.R. 963. Perhaps our colleagues need to check their facts.

What I do know is that this rule contains the 18th and 19th closed rules of this new Congress. That is already over 30 percent of what we did during the first year of the Democratic majority. So it is more like a return to Republican habits, just like they ran the most-closed Congress in history last time they had control.

I am also astonished to learn that it was the possibility of family separation that inspired our colleagues to introduce H.R. 185, when the issue of family separation due to our outmoded, broken immigration system has not served to inspire any urgency to reform that system.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to ensure that H.R. 185 does not take effect unless it is certified that it won't decrease Social Security benefits.

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

Mr. Speaker, Social Security is the bedrock of our Nation's social safety net. Since its inception, it has lifted millions of our seniors out of poverty. Protecting the benefits that Social Security provides should be a priority for this Congress, for everyone in this Congress, as my Republican colleagues demand reckless cuts in exchange for paying our Nation's bills.

Democrats are going to continue to push to ensure that these vital benefits are protected and will continue to give Republicans every opportunity to ease the American people's anxiety by demonstrating with their votes, including on this measure, that they do not intend to cut Social Security.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer).

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

Mr. Speaker, these measures today do nothing to address the important issues facing American families. These resolutions are misguided and unserious at best and deeply undemocratic at their core. House Republicans continue to waste precious time and taxpayer dollars on power struggles and political stunts.

Republican leadership's acquiescence to the fringe forces in their party is a disservice to the American public. With all of the challenges this Congress should contend with, an extremist overreach to nullify democratically passed legislation and rolling back lifesaving COVID protections is a waste of precious time and resources.

My Democratic colleagues and I are here to work on behalf of the American people and are ready to do the serious work of delivering for them, fighting for better jobs and safer communities. We will oppose extremist attempts to stoke division, to undermine government institutions, and to threaten fundamental American freedoms.

I invite my colleagues to work across the aisle, to work together on the issues that matter to all of our constituents: lowering prices; addressing housing, healthcare, and education needs; making our communities safer; and protecting our environment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

I rise in opposition to H.R. 185, which once again prioritizes politics over science at the expense of the health of the American people.

To date, COVID-19 has killed more than 1 million of our fellow Americans. Families have been changed forever. Fortunately, today we have vaccines, tests, and treatments that have put the darkest days of the pandemic behind us, but we can't forget that COVID still kills 500 Americans every day.

Variants of concern continue to emerge, and therefore we must be vigilant and data driven in monitoring any uptick in cases. We must follow the science and the guidance of our public health experts.

We are not done with COVID; or, rather, COVID is not done with us. Ending all of our protections and public health measures without a reasoned discussion is downright dangerous. Unfortunately, that is exactly what House Republicans continue to do week after week, bringing bills to the floor that are nothing but political stunts that put politics over science. This is the latest dangerous stunt.

H.R. 185 would terminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's order that requires proof of COVID-19 vaccination for foreign air passengers entering the United States.

Vaccination is protective against severe illness and death from COVID-19. It reduces the impact of COVID-19 on our healthcare infrastructure, including hospital capacity and healthcare provider staffing. That is why the CDC order was put in place and why I continue to believe that our public health experts are best positioned to make these kinds of determinations.

This bill would permit unvaccinated individuals to freely enter the United States, even as variants continue to emerge around the world, potentially increasing the risk of circulating new variants of concern. This could potentially stretch our healthcare resources just as our hospitals, providers, and public health infrastructure try to rebuild.

In addition, H.R. 185 would also prohibit the CDC from issuing any successor or subsequent orders to require COVID-19 vaccination for foreign travelers in the future as well. This is dangerous and ties the hands of our public

health experts to the political whims of the most ideologically extreme in a way that makes our Nation less safe and more vulnerable in the future.

Imagine if a dangerous new variant that was highly contagious appeared somewhere in the world. This Republican bill would prevent the CDC from restricting people from entering the Nation who are not vaccinated. This simply defies logic, but it is, unfortunately, what happens when you have an extreme Republican majority that is more interested in rushing these bills to the floor as political stunts without any consideration of the implications.

There have been no committee hearings to hear from experts on what this bill could mean for the American people, and without any input from Democratic Members, who remain willing to have reasoned discussions about moving beyond the immediate emergency of COVID-19.

This is also the second bill in just 2 weeks in which Republicans have sought to question the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines, despite the unequivocal scientific consensus that COVID-19 vaccination is protective against severe illness and death.

Mr. Chairman, I have now sat through two Rules Committee debates and two floor debates in the House of Representatives where some Republicans have sought to undermine vaccine confidence and contend that vaccines aren't safe and effective. This is extremely dangerous.

It is also deeply disappointing that we have to continue to have these discussions instead of coming together to encourage all Americans to get their vaccinations to protect themselves and their loved ones against severe illness.

That is why I am also disappointed that the Rules Committee and its Republican majority barred consideration of an amendment by the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano) which would have made clear that nothing in this bill shall be construed to cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. This would have sent a strong message for us to come together on a bipartisan basis and make clear that this bill is not intended to disparage vaccines and that the House of Representatives stands in support of science and reason.

It is telling that the Rules Committee decided not to make this amendment in order. It is a sad sign that my Republican colleagues continue to cater to the most extremist members of their Conference who would rather spread COVID misinformation than come together to encourage vaccination as our best path out of this pandemic.

Mr. Chairman, Democrats understand that we are entering a new phase of our response to COVID-19 and believe it is reasonable to reconsider some of the pandemic-related policies and whether they are still necessary.

Instead of rushing partisan bills like this to the floor, we are willing to have bipartisan conversations on a path forward. However, we will never--and I stress never--call into question the safety and efficacy of vaccines. We will not undermine the expertise of our public health officials or put politics over science.

Unfortunately, this bill does just that. For that reason, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chair, again, I am not surprised, I guess, but when the gentleman from Kentucky talks about human rights and then he gives the lists of the countries that don't mandate vaccines that include Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, and China, these are not countries that care much about human rights.

As I said before in the Rules Committee, Republicans always talk about America first. We have the best healthcare and public health experts in the world, in my opinion. The CDC is so much better than any of the healthcare organizations, in my opinion, certainly better than our adversaries like Russia, Cuba, or China, but even for the other countries that are mentioned.

I understand the World Health Organization is out there, but I think we should be listening to the public health experts in our country and not worrying about some of these other countries that are adversaries.

I would be very concerned about people coming from places like Russia, China, and Cuba not being vaccinated because of the lack of attention to public health in those countries.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier), a member of our Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, again, the previous Republican speaker said that we are confusing the public, and I think it is they that are, in fact, confusing the public.

We are hearing all kinds of anti-vaccine misinformation on the floor and in Rules, and I just think it is important to note that CDC, FDA, and nearly all health professionals are near unanimous in recommending that people get vaccinated and that vaccines are safe and effective.

I just think it is very damaging for the public to constantly hear from Members on the other side of the aisle about potential problems with vaccination because then people think that they shouldn't get vaccinated.

I know what your position is, that you don't want it to be mandated which, of course, I disagree with because of what public health experts say for foreign travelers, but please don't continue to give misinformation.

There are over 500 people that die every day from COVID. COVID is still here. COVID continues to spread. The variants could come up and spread at any moment, so we should not give the impression that people should not take vaccines.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania--let me just make it clear. I have not used the word ``conspiracy.'' I am not suggesting there is a conspiracy on the other side of the aisle.

What I just resent is the fact that I do not hear any of my colleagues on the other side, on the Republican side, get up and say that vaccines are safe and effective, and people should take them.

We had an amendment by Mr. Takano before the Rules Committee, which would have made it clear that nothing in this bill shall be construed to cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

This would send a strong message to us that we should come together on a bipartisan basis and make clear that this bill is not intended to disparage vaccines and that the House of Representatives stands in support of science and reason, but my colleagues refuse to say that.

It is not a question of a conspiracy. It is a question of I believe it is your obligation to tell the American people that they should be vaccinated or at least that the vaccines are safe and effective in most cases, but you don't do that.

So the misconception is out there. It is not a conspiracy, but it is a misconception that vaccines are not safe.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Again, this is the third in a series of bills over the last 2 weeks that tries to roll back the protections that the Federal Government has put in place to try to stop the pandemic.

Now, granted, the pandemic--we have had a lot of success. I mean, President Biden for the last 2 years in terms of promoting vaccines and testing and all kinds of public health protections, COVID is on the wane. The number of people dying, the number of people hospitalized, all that is on the wane. He has said that he is planning on May 11 to lift the public health emergency.

But all I have been saying, and all the Democrats have been saying for the last 2 weeks on all these bills, is let's go by the science.

Let's be reasonable about this. Let's not assume that we can let foreign travelers in and them not be vaccinated.

Let's not assume that it is a good thing for public health workers to be unvaccinated. Let's not make a decision to end the public health emergency immediately.

Let's leave it up to the agencies and the experts, which again, I believe, are the best in the world. I am not interested in what Russia does or Cuba does or some of these other countries that are mentioned because we have the best experts in the world. If anybody denies that I will prove it to them that we do.

The bottom line is that as Democrats, we understand that the pandemic is on the wane, but we don't want to rush to make decisions or force decisions, if you will, on our public health experts that could be detrimental or make it difficult and tie their hands.

One of the things that is in this bill--and there are going to be a series of amendments now to deal with this--is to say that not only is this vaccine mandate eliminated but that the CDC can't even make any other types of mandates like that in the future.

That is very dangerous to tie their hands when we don't know exactly where COVID and the variants are going to be going in the next few months or the next few years. It is a mistake to do that.

So we will hear about some of these amendments that I think are really important, but the bottom line is this is a bad bill.

It continues this policy of basically eliminating the protections that we have been trying to put in place, that we have had in place, and that have helped us get beyond the COVID pandemic, for the most part.

I urge my colleagues, you know, for the sake of science, for the sake of helping people, for the sake of public health to vote ``no'' on this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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

The reason I am opposed to the amendment is because I don't think it is necessary or is even helpful to the issue at hand. It talks about a report on the number of visitors denied entry under this policy.

The fact of the matter is that, on the Democratic side, what we are concerned about is the public health. If the gentlewoman wanted to have an amendment that said there would be a report that provides us with public health data to justify lifting the mandate, I could see something like that because the bottom line here is we are concerned about the science.

The CDC says that this mandate is necessary to protect Americans, to reduce the COVID cases, to make sure that people don't get sick and that more people are hospitalized and be taxing on our public health system. So I don't see how this amendment that talks about the number of visitors gets to any of that.

Mr. Chair, I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.