Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 1.

This is my fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and I can say, without reservation or equivocation, H.R. 1 is the single worst, most unsound, unconstitutional legislation that I have seen in my 6\1/2\ years in Congress.

The bill federalizes elections in violation of basic constitutional principles, usurping States' primary authority over the conduct of elections, including Federal elections.

The bill effectively legalizes voter fraud, and destroys the integrity of elections by degrading the accuracy of registration lists, ensuring duplicate registration and registration of ineligible voters.

The bill unconstitutionally rations core free speech protected by the First Amendment by empowering a powerful partisan bureaucracy to impose onerous legal and administrative compliance burdens and costs on candidates, citizens, civic groups, and nonprofit organizations. These provisions violate the First Amendment; they protect incumbents; and they diminish the accountability of politicians to the public.

And finally, worst of all, the bill gives welfare to politicians, coercing Americans to support candidates with whom they fundamentally disagree. This doesn't enhance democracy, the idea that we, the people establish a government based on the consent of the government. It corrupts democracy by taking away the fundamental right of the people to choose their own representatives, and giving it to a partisan election bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Chairman, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin once famously said:

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election; the

people who count the votes do.

H.R. 1 would ``Stalinize'' American elections by legalizing voter fraud, giving partisan election bureaucrats the power to ration free speech, and by coercing Americans to support candidates and causes with whom they fundamentally disagree.

I urge everyone, for the sake of the First Amendment and for our Constitution, vote ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a special man, Justice Bill Cunningham. Cunningham retired on February 1 from the Kentucky Supreme Court. He is among the two longest serving justices in Kentucky history.

Justice Cunningham is from Lyon County, Kentucky. He is a graduate of Murray State University and the University Of Kentucky College Of Law. Cunningham began his career in public service in 1974 as the city attorney for Eddyville, KY, where he served until 1991. He also served as the Public Defender for the Kentucky State Penitentiary from 1974 to 1976. He went on to serve as the Commonwealth's Attorney for the 56th Judicial District from 1976 to 1988, where his peers voted him as Outstanding Commonwealth Attorney of Kentucky. In 1991, he was elected to the Circuit Court. While he was Circuit Judge, he requested and set up a makeshift courtroom in the Eddyville Penitentiary, avoiding the risk of escape when transporting prisoners and saving money for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. On one occasion while doing his courtroom duties, an inmate charged him and physically assaulted him. In 2006, Cunningham was elected to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

In addition to being a lawyer, judge, and justice, Cunningham was a prolific author and published several books, mostly on Kentucky history. One of his books details the history of the state penitentiary at Eddyville, including the major prison riot at Eddyville in the 1920's in which several people were kilIed, including one of Cunningham's ancestors. He also wrote a book on the tobacco wars of West Kentucky in the 1920's.

Justice Cunningham is married to Paula and they have five sons. Cunningham is a veteran of the United States Army, serving on deployments to Germany, Vietnam, and Korea. I thank him for his service in uniform. I also thank him for his long career in the courtroom, fighting for justice and serving with integrity. After years of service, Justice Cunningham has earned a well-deserved retirement I join other Kentuckians in wishing him all the best.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Joshua Lau, a Kentucky entrepreneur. Mr. Lau is a first generation Asian-American from Lexington, Kentucky. His company, Nymbl Systems, has been selected as a Top 10 Small Business in the United States by America's Small Business Development Centers and is the first Kentucky business to receive this prestigious recognition.

Mr. Lau is a 2012 graduate of the University of Kentucky. Following graduation, he entered the field of information technology. One of his first clients was an independently owned prosthetic and orthotic provider that serves a large veteran patient population. Working for them led Lau to fill an important need for an improved medical records software platform. The innovation and efficiency he brought to his client allowed them to spend time better serving their patients.

Josh Lau and Chad Feinberg co-founded Nymbl Systems in April of 2017. They provide a cloud-based, monthly subscription application that schedules appointments, keeps patient records, and bills insurance companies. Since their founding, they have raised approximately $2.8 million in revenue. They exemplify the entrepreneurs that are the very engine of economic growth in America. Small businesses such as Nymbl Systems are at the heart of our nation's economy and I commend Mr. Lau and his colleagues for their business success and their recognition by the Small Business Development Center.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago, we adopted, by a recorded vote, a commonsense amendment offered by Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill from New Jersey. Congresswoman Sherrill's amendment would prohibit a childcare center, agency, or provider from caring for the children of our Nation's veterans as authorized by this bill if they employ an individual who has been convicted of a sex crime, a violent crime, a drug felony, or another offense the VA considers appropriate.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud Congresswoman Sherrill for offering her amendment, which I was pleased to join my colleagues in supporting on a bipartisan basis. However, Ms. Sherrill's amendment failed to address another troubling situation, a situation that, if this bill had gone through regular order, may have been identified.

Specifically, Federal law allows but does not require a childcare facility operated by a Federal agency or under contract with a Federal agency to suspend a childcare worker if they have been charged with a sex crime, an offense involving a child victim, a violent crime, or a drug felony, but whose charge is still pending.

My motion to recommit, Mr. Speaker, is very simple. It would remove that discretion and affirmatively prohibit the VA from paying a childcare provider if they employ an individual who has been charged with a sex offense, an offense involving a child victim, a violent crime, a drug felony, or other offense that the Secretary determines appropriate unless the childcare provider has suspended that individual from having any contact with any children while on the job until the case has been resolved.

It can take a considerable amount of time for some cases to proceed through our criminal justice system. For example, in 2013, a nursing assistant at the Alexandria VA Healthcare System in

Pineville, Louisiana, was charged with negligent homicide after a physical altercation with a veteran patient who later died. In 2018, 5 years later, that case finally came to a resolution when the nursing assistant pleaded no contest.

During those intervening 5 years, that nursing assistant remained as a VA employee. He was suspended for some time, but eventually was brought back to work while the charge was still pending. Imagine if this individual had been caring for children.

This case illustrates the length of time the judicial process can take and, regrettably, the need to remove the manager's discretion in these situations.

Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker. This motion does not presuppose the guilt of anyone who is charged with one of these crimes; rather, it acknowledges, like we all did with Ms. Sherrill's amendment, that we have an obligation to ensure the safety and the well-being of children who will be cared for under this program.

Congress creates and oversees Federal agencies and the rules by which they and their employees operate. Just as Congress created existing guidelines giving agencies the discretion to deny employment for convicted or charged sex offenders, so, too, can Congress remove that discretion.

I am not willing to gamble with the safety of my own children, nor am I willing to gamble with the safety of our veterans' children either.

Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, any Member here today who votes against this motion to recommit is voting to potentially expose children to the care of an individual who has been charged with a serious crime, including a sex crime against a child.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues for their support of this commonsense motion to protect the children of the men and women who have bravely served in uniform.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania indicated that the effect of this motion to recommit would kill this bill. We would like a ruling on that, that the motion to recommit would not kill the bill, that it would send the bill back to committee to rectify this problem that jeopardizes the safety and well-being of the children of our veterans.

Is that true, Mr. Speaker?

I thank the Chair for the clarification, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 840, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act.

Let me just first say to my good friend, the ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I appreciate the opportunity and the privilege and the responsibility to serve in this Congress on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee so we can continue to advocate for the veterans of the Sixth Congressional District of Kentucky and throughout the Nation.

This amendment would require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to conduct a study on the effects of childcare assistance provided in the underlying bill on access to healthcare services and compliance with treatment protocols. While I certainly support the underlying bill, this amendment is a commonsense measure that would improve the legislation.

We should always be willing to evaluate and assess whether or not the policies we enact are actually producing their intended result; and this amendment, by requiring the Secretary to conduct a study after 1 year of the effects of the childcare assistance on the actual access to the covered healthcare services and the requirement to report the findings of that study after 18 months to Congress, will ensure that the policies we implement are actually successful in increasing veterans' access to care.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. David P. Roe), the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the chairman's kind words, and I appreciate the chairman's support of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Article II, Section 1:

``The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

``Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office or Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

``The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President.''

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Eric Landis, who is stepping down as my Senior Defense and Homeland Security Advisor to take on a new role with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Eric serves our nation proudly as a member of the Kentucky Air National Guard. In 2010, he was deployed to Europe in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and to Iraq for a 10 month tour in support of Operation New Dawn. On behalf of a grateful nation, I thank him for his service and patriotism.

I first became acquainted with Eric Landis when we worked together in the administration of Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher. Eric later took the Constitutional Law Courses I taught at the University of Kentucky. He subsequently worked on my congressional campaign, and after I was elected to Congress in 2012, Eric moved to Washington D.C. and became a crucial member of my staff. He understands issues that are important to the people of Kentucky's Sixth District, particularly matters dealing with national security, our military, and veterans' affairs. Eric's patriotism shines through every day and his love of country is evident to all who meet him.

Eric Landis brought infectious enthusiasm and unwavering optimism to his daily work. He treated each of my constituents with the utmost respect and was able to diffuse any contentious situation. Eric's dedication to the people of Kentucky's Sixth District is unparalleled and unwavering. He leaves a lasting legacy as a servant leader.

I am honored to call Eric Landis a loyal and trusted friend. I wish him all the best as he leaves to take on a new opportunity. I thank Eric Landis for his friendship, his tireless work on behalf of the people of the Sixth District, and his outstanding service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, during a meeting in the White House, our newly elected Speaker of the House interrupted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was reciting statistics relating to the border.

``I reject your facts,'' Ms. Pelosi said.

Well, here are the facts:

Fact: Last year, 17,000 people with prior criminal convictions were stopped trying to cross our southern border.

Fact: The recent 8,000-plus caravan that attempted to breach our southern border contained over 600 confirmed criminal migrants.

Fact: Approximately 90 percent of the heroin seized by Customs and Border Protection is interdicted along the southwest border of the United States at and between the ports of entry, and Mexico continues to be the primary supplier of heroin to the United States.

Fact: The Department of Homeland Security reports a 73 percent surge in the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl interdicted at the southern border over the last 2 years.

Fact: Over 72,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose last year.

Fact: In my home State of Kentucky, we suffer from the fifth highest opioid overdose rate in America.

Fact: The administration's request to Congress is not funding for a sea-to-sea

concrete wall, as some falsely claim. It is a commonsense request for a sophisticated border wall system, including strategically placed 30- foot steel barriers, technology, lights, cameras, sensors, and other infrastructure.

Fact: Currently, there are 700 miles of physical barriers on our southern border, a measure 90 Democrats, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, and Chuck Schumer supported in 2006.

Speaker Pelosi, it is interesting you claim walls are ``immoral,'' when many of the leading voices in your party have a previous record of supporting physical barriers on our southern border. Do you consider them immoral?

Fact: Border walls work. The Department of Homeland Security reports that, where a wall was built, illegal crossings have dropped by 90 percent or more. For example, apprehensions of illegal aliens crossing the border in El Paso, Texas, dropped 72 percent in 1 year and 95 percent over 22 years. And veteran Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez, a Hispanic American, not a political appointee, a career professional with the Border Patrol agency, has said that the newly constructed border wall in her El Centro Sector of California has already reduced illegal border crossings.

Speaker Pelosi, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. I certainly agree with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who say we must end this government shutdown and pay our Federal employees. It is wrong that these workers are missing paychecks, especially essential government workers who are required to work.

After all, many of these people are corrections officers, air traffic controllers, Federal court personnel, and Border Patrol agents. These are the very people who are charged with the responsibility of keeping the American people safe. That is why I cosponsor the No Work Without Pay Act, which would require us to pay these essential Federal workers during the pendency of a shutdown.

But as important as it is that we timely fund these patriotic Americans' paychecks, it is equally important, and perhaps more important, that we fund their mission. So by all means, we must end this government shutdown, but that objective won't happen when the Speaker of the House refuses to accept basic, irrefutable facts. It won't happen until both parties sit down and offer a proposal, and a compromise, and a counterproposal, something that the Speaker of the House refuses to do.

So my other friends on the other side of the aisle, many of them who I know are equally committed to protecting the American people, to Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Schumer: Stop the partisan games. Do your job. Protect the American people from drugs and criminals. End this shutdown, and fund commonsense border security.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a group of veterans who have come together to found the nonprofit American Freedom Fund.

These three patriots--Petty Officer Gabriel Stecker, Major Rob Miller, and Lieutenant Donald Bramer, a fellow Kentuckian--have selflessly taken on an issue that faces many of our veterans when separated from service or returned home from operations abroad, to include loneliness and void of community, preventable circumstances that magnify wounds both seen and unseen.

Through the American Freedom Fund's mission of athletics, education, and advocacy, their programs have brought hundreds of Active Reserve and veteran servicemembers together to play softball, enjoy sporting events, find that next career, or, more importantly, know that they are never alone.

It is with great pleasure and pride that I commend these patriots and the troops of volunteers that make up the American Freedom Fund for their dedication and continued service to this Nation and its heroes.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's vote against commonsense border security is a sad commentary on the misguided priorities of the new majority in Congress.

Instead of working in good faith to achieve a bipartisan compromise to end the partial government shutdown and address the very real crisis at our southern border, the new Democrat House leadership signaled that all they really want to do is to continue their fight with this President.

By totally dismissing what career professionals at the Department of Homeland Security have said, that they actually need to impede the flow of criminals, gangs, human traffickers, and drug dealers into our country, the new leadership has signaled to the country that the new majority has been co-opted by the most extreme and hyperpartisan voices of the far left who are so far outside the mainstream and are so blinded by their animosity toward this President that they have become willing to place the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of the American people.

They would rather turn a blind eye to lawlessness. They would rather compromise public safety and allow criminal gangs and drugs to flood across our borders than even negotiate with this President.

In their meeting with the White House earlier this week, the Democrats refused to even listen to a briefing of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security about the threats we face from an unsecured border.

This is a matter of national security. It is time for Congress to put the safety of the American people over open borders and political games.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my legislation, the Forever GI Bill Housing Payment Fulfillment Act, which will hold the Department of Veterans Affairs accountable for properly and retroactively paying student veterans the educational housing benefits they have earned.

This legislation, introduced in response to the VA's failure to comply with the reimbursement rates set by the Forever GI Bill, requires the VA to correct all delayed payments and underpayments no later than January 1, 2020.

The Forever GI Bill provides housing benefits to thousands of Kentucky's active military reservists and veterans as they pursue higher education.

Our Nation's veterans deserve better than to face financial distress, or even eviction, as a result of inaccurate or late payments. This legislation will remedy this undue hardship placed on veteran students and provide oversight and accountability to ensure these payments are made in a timely manner in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation to provide relief and certainty to our Nation's veterans, and I look forward to its swift passage.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Financial Services be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 2315) to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to each of Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, J. Christopher Stevens, and Sean Smith in recognition of their contributions to the Nation, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on House Administration be discharged from further consideration of the bill (S. 1050) to award a Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the Chinese-American Veterans of World War II, in recognition of their dedicated service during World War II, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Financial Services be discharged from further consideration of the bill (S. 2101) to award a Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the crew of the USS Indianapolis, in recognition of their perseverance, bravery, and service to the United States, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow.