Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio is absolutely correct. The assertion that it doesn't impact Title IX is completely false. It directly amends Title IV in the Civil Rights Act. It will have a direct impact on educational institutions and would, therefore, absolutely impact women's athletics. We all know that. Everybody gets the joke.

But as one of my colleagues said, it is 100 percent clear that the majority doesn't want to have the American people see what is in this bill. They don't want to have it go through committee. They don't want to spend time on it. They want to jam it through under the name of equality.

See, you put fancy names on bills in this building and suddenly people think it is about something that it isn't. And we know exactly what this bill is about. It is about power. This bill is about power and control.

This is about this institution being run by Democrats who want to tell the American people how to live their lives.

They want to tell people who disagree on these issues that they need to go to the corner and they need to hide; that they need to give up their closely held beliefs and their values and they need to bow down to the altar of the people here and the cultural elites in Washington, D.C., and do what they tell us to do.

It is an absolute abomination and flies in the face of the very principles upon which this Nation was founded. We know that. We see that. We can go through the list. We are all going through it.

The definition of sex in H.R. 5 inserts the right to abortion into the Civil

Rights Act. The Equality Act can be used to force a universal right to abortion until birth. It forces medical professionals to conduct or assist in performing abortions; forces medical professionals to perform certain surgeries and administer hormone blockers, even if it is against their medical advice; forces employers to cover sex reassignment surgeries; forces schools, churches, hospitals, and businesses to recognize a chosen gender.

I could go down the list. But this is about power and control. It is the same thing about having a fence with razor wire around the people's Congress, around this Capitol building. It is an absolute affront to who we are.

In the Declaration of Independence, where we are talking about rights, government is instituted among men to secure those rights.

And the House of Representatives, supposedly the people's House, is using the power of this body to step on the rights of the American people. And it is our obligation to defend those rights. And I can tell you this: We are going to stand up in defense of the Constitution, our liberties and the Bill of Rights, and the consent of the governed matters.

You do not have the consent of the governed, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. You don't. And you are pretending that you have got power that you do not have, and it will not end well if you pull this republic apart, thread by thread, and you have to look in the mirror and tell your kids and grandkids that this republic died on your watch.

It is not going to because we are going to stand on the wall, the same wall that our Founders stood on, the same wall that those men at the Alamo stood on, and we are going to defend this Constitution in the name of the Declaration of Independence and the Lord that gives us the rights that we protect.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), who, like me, served as a staffer for a Texas Senator in his career, the great John Tower.

Celebrating the Memory of Daisy Bates

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman for his commitment in being down here on the floor. We have this Special Order reserved tonight to talk about an issue that I think is fundamentally important to what we are seeing now today. And that is what I describe as the ideological cleansing of America, the silencing of dissent--cancel culture in common parlance today. It is a sickness that lies among us. It threatens to tear apart our Republic at the seams. It undermines our economic strength, our families, our schools, our churches, our culture at all levels, and even our military strength. That sickness is indeed the ideological cleansing of America.

We have witnessed in America in just a matter of months the shaming of Americans questioning COVID. They are not questioning its existence. They are questioning our response. They are questioning the fact that we have got people who are committing suicide, who are stuck, unable to see loved ones, or can't get cancer screenings. They are questioning why hydroxychloroquine is one day okay and one day not okay, and then suddenly okay again. They are inquiring about the efficacy of masks.

Do they work or not work?

How well do they work?

Where should we wear them?

They question the removal of Americans from social media, the coordinated effort of technology companies to block companies or threaten to pull down news media outlets.

We see examples of cancel culture in society are all around us.

Ryan Anderson is a good friend of mine. His book is behind me, titled ``When Harry Became Sally,'' responding to the transgender moment. It is an important work on civil rights and transgender policy. Well, it was deplatformed by Amazon and Apple without explanation this week. It has been on for 3 years. It is a good book, whether you agree with it or don't agree with it.

Are we really into book burning?

Is that where we are?

Is that what we have become as a country that supposedly values freedom and the free exchange of ideas?

A book written by a good man, a PhD, on a topic that matters, ``When Harry Became Sally.''

Am I going to get canceled?

Is C-SPAN going to cancel this?

Is Speaker Pelosi going to cancel this because this is somehow offensive?

It is a book with ideas researched and offered. That is where we are as a country.

Gina Carano was recently canceled by Disney for tweeting a comparison of Nazi Germany rounding up Jews for the current hate doxing and targeting of fellow Americans for political views.

Now, should she make that comparison?

I don't know. But we are a free country where people are supposed to have the free exchange of ideas. And if there is anything that should bind us together, it should be a unanimous belief that standing up against tyranny and standing up against this kind of cleansing is something that this body--all 435 of us--should agree to. We see it from college campuses to religious schools, to small businesses, to corporate boardrooms.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have more to say on this. I have some of my colleagues here who want to join. So I am going to yield first to my good friend from Texas, Michael Cloud.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my friend from Texas that I know he has a heart for immigrants who come to the United States of America. We both live in Texas. We both deal with an open border and we deal with the issue of immigration on a regular basis.

Too often when you talk about cancel culture, if I dare to say that we should have a secure border in the United States of America and that I believe that is pro-immigrant, that that undermines the power of cartels, that makes it less likely that immigrants are abused, also protects us, protects us from the dangers of fentanyl. That is the kind of canceling that we see every single day.

Oh, you want a secure border?

You hate Brown people.

It is as if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have some sort of monopoly on being able to say things about Brown people, and here I am trying to protect our border for the betterment of the United States and the immigrants who seek to come here, and somehow I am a bigot. The very structures put in place by the Obama-Biden administration are called cages for kids.

And now what has happened?

The Biden administration is having an uh-oh moment because their absurd policies of open borders are attracting people to come across our border. Now they are saying: Oh, no, what do we do with unaccompanied children?

Well, who the heck could have seen this coming?

Yet somehow we are canceled for believing in a secure border.

The gentleman from south Texas, who I know has a heart for immigrants--

And has a family who does as well, does the gentleman have thoughts on that?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud).

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. If you take that view, you are labeled a bigot. If you take the view that we want a secure border, you are labeled as someone who wants to keep people out of this country.

If you dare to say what you just said, which is that maybe we should think through how to make sure that Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are strong so that--by the way, the first lady of Guatemala was visiting and said something along the lines of: All of these caravans and all of the cartels are driving a lot of our people out of our country, and it is hurting our country.

I am told from the other side of the aisle that it is compassionate to have open borders, and then we are labeled as bigots.

I know the gentleman has somewhere to go. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and passion for this issue. May God bless the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert).

Well, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Colorado. I will tell you, you know, as I was thinking through the times we are in right now, the Book of Acts is my favorite book in the Bible.

And when you--you know, I look at the arrows that some are taking today for standing up for their beliefs and some of the things that are happening today; and then you remember that we are not in the middle of a circle yet, getting stoned.

You remember what those men did and what they faced in the early church, and it inspires us to know, to have the strength that we need to have. And this is true of all faiths. This is true of all Americans. It is instructive to stand up in faith when you believe something in your soul and in your heart.

And we, as Americans, when Patrick Henry gave his famous speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, in that famous speech, ``Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death,'' that is the founding building block of this Nation.

And it is that liberty, that liberty expressed in the First Amendment of the Constitution, which is under assault today on a bill voted on the floor of this body today in the so-called Equality Act, with a direct assault on the First Amendment of the United States, a direct assault on religious liberty, a direct assault, basically. It is the tyranny over the mind of man.

I am inspired by the Book of Acts, and I assume that the gentlewoman from Colorado agrees.

I appreciate the gentlewoman from Colorado, and I appreciate our joint commitment to the Lord Almighty and liberty in this country.

And I would just say before I yield, I think, to the gentleman from Georgia next, a couple of thoughts.

You know, we are talking today about cancel culture. We are talking about the silencing of dissent, the cleansing of ideology in the public square in America. It is truly an ideological cleansing, but it is always not direct.

I alluded to it when I was talking to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud) about immigration; that if we dare stand up for secure borders, we are a bigot. It happens all the time. You hate Brown people. You are a bigot.

Today, I stood up against the Equality Act. The first thing out of the indivisible crowd in Austin and San Antonio, you're a bigot. You're transphobic.

Dare stand up for what you believe. Oh, my gosh. The gentleman from Texas says that there is a man and woman. Bigot. All right?

I mean, this is where we are today. And you know, look, if you want your child to actually be educated in a school, then despite the science, you don't care about public health and you want teachers to die. Right?

All last year, running against an opponent in Austin, it was, oh, you want people to die. You don't care about the science.

If you want to keep your business open to keep your livelihood going, you just want to survive. You are a barber in Dallas, Texas, and you just want to stay working to pay for your kids and your family, put bread on the table.

Well, you are just greedy, and you hate science.

If you think Dr. Fauci is inconsistent--I mean, I am just going to be nice and say inconsistent--if you think Dr. Fauci is inconsistent, sometimes making stuff up, maybe to be on the front cover of a magazine, and maybe we ought to hear from 20 scientists instead of one, well, suddenly, you hate science.

If you say that COVID has been politicized, as I did last year, or question any aspect of it, not that it exists, not that people are getting sick--I have had it--not that you want to protect your family-- I canceled Thanksgiving because my dad is 78 and had polio--but if you question any of it, you are calling it a hoax.

If you want to go to church, you are reckless.

If you believe men are men and women are women, you are a bigot.

If you think it is wrong to let biological boys compete against your daughter in a sports competition, or you don't want your daughter to have to share a locker room with a male, you are a bigot.

I mean, when are we going to sit down, roll our sleeves up and actually do the work of the American people, instead of sitting here firing shots across everybody and saying, well, you are a bigot.

I yield to my good friend from Georgia, Mr. Hice.

Yeah. There is no question. In my view, what we are seeing today is the assertion of power over the mind of America, right? And it is just happening as we see it.

We have got a fence with razor wire around the Capitol. We were all horrified, sitting right here, all of us here in the body who were here on January 6. We all want to protect each other.

But we also have a duty to lead. We also have a duty to have a Capitol that is open; to figure out a way to secure the body without sending signals to the world that somehow this is a military state.

You walk around the Capitol and there are people in camouflage. There is a fence. I can't even walk around D.C. We are harming business. We are telling the American people that, nope, sorry, you can't come here, all in the name of a virus or then what happened on January 6.

That is all about power. That is all about message. Okay?

I do not believe for a minute, with all due respect, that that is about actual security of this building and this complex. That is about projecting a message to the American people. That is what the magnetometers are for. That is not to keep us safe. It is not.

It is not the highest and best use of the Capitol Police to be having 20 people around this floor every day; literally having Members of Congress duly elected by the people to have to go through magnetometers. You have got to go through security to get in the building. It is all a show. And that is all a projection of power. And that is what the Equality Act was today.

And the last thing I will say is my point about immigration earlier. That whole point is: It makes no sense to be yelling about kids in cages, when any rational human being knows you are trying to figure out what to do with this child, a child that could be being abused by this guy who claims to be his or her uncle, and you are trying to keep him or her safe. You can't just let him go. You have got to do something with them.

I mean, I am sorry we don't have four-star resorts up and down the Rio Grande to put these children into, but go down and work at Border Patrol--who, by the way, are majority Hispanic--dealing with immigrants coming here through policies that attract them.

That is all about power. Kids in cages. Republicans are evil. Republicans are bigots. They hate Brown people. It is all about power.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask how much time we have left in our Special Order. Sorry for surprising the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Georgia that I could not agree more, and I have spoken a little bit about the Equality Act. The only thing I would add to it--and I said this earlier on the floor about the Equality Act--my wife and I, products of public school, K through law school, undergrad, law school, we currently send our kids to a private Christian school, not an easy thing for us to afford. We are fine, we are blessed, but it is a lot of work to make that happen. Why do we do that? It is because, unfortunately, increasingly those with beliefs and values that they want to be able to have their children experience, we are being forced into the corner.

We are being forced to kind of be shoved back away from mainstream society. I mean, forget just saying Merry Christmas. I mean, it is just hostile to our values, hostile to our beliefs, teaching our children something different than that there is one man and one woman. These are the things that are happening every day across America.

To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I would say whatever frustrations you have about the previous President, just understand this: President Trump represents a large number of men and women across this country who are feeling exactly what we are saying right here. They are frustrated and angry about what is happening to their country. They are scared. They believe the power of government will be used against them, and in many cases, we have seen evidence of it.

The point of this is not to just rant about it. It is that we should be having a debate and a dialogue, and we need to come together as a Congress and do our job to do what is right for the people of this country. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia very much.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Georgia (Mrs. Greene), your colleague.

Yes. One of the things that you made me think of is how much cancel culture is now getting rooted in government and, in fact, the institution in which we are currently standing. The gentlewoman is well aware that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stripped you of your ability to serve and sit on committees, in an unprecedented action, for things that you said before the election, that you have addressed on the floor of this House. That is canceling.

We are in a situation right now where this body is now refusing to work. Democrats are refusing to work with Republicans. They are threatening to hold up and block their legislation because they dared to object to the electors, a proposition, by the way, that I disagreed with, on my side of the aisle. I spoke right there. I stated my disagreement with my Republican colleagues.

But it is perfectly normal speech and debate under the Constitution and the laws, under an act passed in 1887, one that my Democrat colleagues have engaged in themselves: Ms. Waters from California, for sure, Mr. Raskin from Maryland, others who have objected.

Now, Democrats in this body want to cancel my Republican colleagues. That is how bad it has gotten. Cancel culture is now in this body.

I have a couple more colleagues here, Mrs. Greene, but do you have a closing thought?

I am going to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I would ask the Speaker how much time we have remaining.

I thank the Speaker. Right before I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I want to appreciate his service, his service to the country, both in the military and now in Congress. I know he has a passion for this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.

Will the gentleman yield?

I also have a quote here I was going to close with from Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn because it is so on point. I am going to go ahead and do it now rather than closing with it because you just went there.

He said this in another part of that book:

What was drummed in our ears as political courses, we have

now internalized. Live comfortably and all will be well ever

after. We lie to ourselves to preserve our peace of mind. It

is not they who should be blamed, but ourselves. One can

object but cannot imagine what to do. Gags have been stuffed

into our mouths. Nobody wants to listen to us, and nobody

asks our opinion. How can we force them to listen to us? It

is impossible to change their minds. Some will lose their

jobs, but there are no loopholes for anybody who wants to be

honest.

Now, that may sound like a diatribe from a conservative talk radio host today, but it wasn't. It was him.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I know that is true and I know your heart for service, and I know wearing the uniform of the military of the United States meant a lot to you and that your service here means a lot.

Mr. Speaker, as I get ready to yield to my friend from West Virginia, I would add that my colleagues across the other side of the aisle are effectively canceling Congress. I mean, it is pretty extraordinary when the members of a body essentially act to cancel its own institution.

Proxy voting. Half of my Democratic colleagues are never here. About half of the time I look over there and you look at the number of people there, and they are voting from home. By the way, the rules suggest that is supposed to be directly tied to the pandemic. But do you know how many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--and maybe increasingly a few on my side of the aisle--have been here voting and then submit the proxy form and then fly home?

It happens.

We are turning this institution on its head. We have remote hearings that are halfway functional, where you sit there for an hour trying to hear each other. We have no regular schedule. It is come and go. It takes hours to vote. We have no regular order. We have massive bills. We have things being done in smoke-filled rooms. We never get to amend. We never get to debate. We never get to actually have an actual discussion on the floor of the House. And we have fence and razor wire around the Capitol.

Tell me how Democrats are not canceling Congress. You might as well just say Speaker Pelosi can just pass a bill by herself.

I know my friend from West Virginia is going to talk a little bit about spending, and the only thing that I will add to my point here about order is that we are going to be passing a $2 trillion monstrosity of a bill in the next week with no actual debate or amendment on the floor of this body; no real review by the members of this body. That is an absolute travesty.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mooney).

Sanctity of Human Life and the Unborn

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from West Virginia for his remarks. And I would echo that--and I think the gentleman would agree--that I believe that, of the $2 trillion, only 9 percent is directed to COVID relief.

And I really just can't believe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can really market this as a COVID relief bill when, by the way, we have $1 trillion remaining from the $4 trillion last year and only 9 percent of it is directed to COVID.

Does the gentleman agree?

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the gentleman from West Virginia, and I appreciate his comments.

I have 1 minute left and I will simply just say this: This chart showing debt is not just about the big number. It is not just about the $30 trillion of debt. This is about tyranny.

That money, that debt that we owe to our kids and grandkids is being used to fund an education system that teaches our kids that America is evil.

It is being used to fund an education system that won't even put teachers back to work.

It is being used to fund a DHS that won't secure the border and is turning it into a catch-and-release agency.

It is being used to fund the very institutions that are coming after our precious Bill of Rights.

And I would just say to the Speaker and my friends on the other side of the aisle: It is time that we come together and protect the rights given to us by our Creator, that are reflected and defended in the Constitution of the United States.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

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

Mr. Speaker, about a month ago, 3 weeks ago, I suspended my social media accounts, my personal social media accounts. I did so because social media is pretty much consuming the way we govern.

And I will just say, why are we governing by sound bite? Why are we governing by looking back at what somebody said on Twitter or Facebook?

This is a body that is called under the Constitution to meet on the floor of the United States House of Representatives--not by proxy, by the

way--and to sit here and debate, and to debate the important issues of the day.

A few weeks ago, I was proud to stand with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to condemn what occurred on January 6. I joined with some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to disagree on the issue of objections.

And then to have a Member on the other side of the aisle attack my former boss and friend, Senator Ted Cruz, and basically accuse him of being an attempted murderer? I asked that that statement be stricken and there be an apology for it. I didn't ask that somebody be stripped from their committeeships. I didn't ask that they be censured. I tried to engage with that colleague--have and will. And then this last weekend, I had a statement directed at me, accusing me of the worst kind of horrific act.

Where is this body going to go, ladies and gentlemen? Now, we are here in the first few weeks of this Congress attacking a freshman Member, who is addressing the concerns of statements that I take issue with, that a number of my colleagues on this side of the aisle take issue with, and you are going to unilaterally strip her of a committee assignment.

This is not the people's House anymore. I made this statement yesterday on the budget reconciliation.

I had a great conversation with the distinguished majority leader today about our need to restore regular order. And I would just ask my colleagues that we remove this.

I made a motion to adjourn because we shouldn't be wasting the time of this body attacking a Member of this body. This will not end well.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for leading this effort. It is so critically important, obviously, to my great home State of Texas, but also to so many States particularly out West and, let's be honest, to all 50 States of the Union. This is so fundamental to who we are as Americans.

Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are attacking the very natural resources and the very great strength that the United States of America has to set us apart from the rest of the world to be independent. We were blessed by the good Lord with unbelievable resources, resources that we can use for the betterment of mankind--our own people, the people in this country--for jobs, for affordable energy, and for prosperity, and to lead the world doing that.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a massive attack literally in the first few weeks of the new administration: 28 executive orders. A huge number of which are obviously targeted at oil and natural gas, targeted at the lifeblood of our energy in this country.

Madam Speaker, look at what we have been able to do with clean- burning natural gas as a result of fracking. We have CO2 levels that are down at 1990 levels. We have vastly exceeded what my leftist friends on the other side of the aisle want to follow, the social welfare state of Europeans down the road of fancy gatherings in Davos, and they fly in their expensive jets to go preach to the world about global warming.

Spare me your preaching as you are riding around in these jets spewing out CO2 when we, through innovation in the great State of Texas and in our country, are creating clean-burning natural gas. We are creating jobs powering the world.

And now the Democrat administration wants to come in and destroy jobs, destroy our leadership in the world, turn us over to Russia and Iran, and, oh, by the way, empower China to roll

right over us while they spew out whatever they want to spew out because darn if they are going to actually do anything like agree to whatever is in the Paris Agreement.

It is an absolute joke. It is a laughingstock what the Democratic Party is doing, saying they are standing up for the little guy in this country when they are going to drive up the price of energy, increase CO2, empower China, empower Iran, empower Russia, and harm jobs. They are going to kill hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country even as we are coming out of the negative effect of the pandemic.

We have an expression in Texas: Come and take it. It goes back to our history, our founding as a republic in Texas and Gonzalez, when Santa Anna wanted his cannon back, and we said: Come and take it.

Well, my message to my Democratic colleagues is: We are going to drill and we are going to frack. Texas is going to continue to lead the world.

And to my Democratic colleagues: Come and take it.

We are going to stand up for this world being able to flourish. Not just America, not just Texas, but the world. We are exporting liquified natural gas around the world, making the world better.

If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so concerned about CO2, why would they undermine the very energy policies that are giving us the ability to drive the CO2 level down?

It makes absolutely no sense.

So I would just say to the gentleman, I greatly appreciate his giving us the opportunity here to highlight this. But this is just the beginning to my friends on the other side of the aisle.

You roll in here with a new administration, roll in here thinking that we are going to just fundamentally alter our entire economy through executive order?

We are going to say. No. We are going to say, Come and take it. That is what we are doing. That is what I am here to say.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Missouri for yielding. I enjoyed working with him on the Budget Committee the last 2 years. I wish I was this time. Maybe we will do it in a couple of years.

I enjoy working with the distinguished chairman from Kentucky, but I find it interesting that after 2 years on the Budget Committee I am finally seeing a budget resolution, because I sure didn't see one for the last 2 years.

But here we are. We are on the floor of the House of Representatives, allegedly the people's House.

Do I get to offer an amendment? Do I get to say a single word about what is in this $2 trillion bill?

No, because this is fake.

The American people are looking at the people's House. They are asking: What are we doing?

We are surrounded by fences and razor wire. We are going through magnetometers. I am sitting here on the floor of the House with a $2 trillion bill larded up for political purposes that I never had a chance to amend, debate or have any discussion about besides 2 minutes or 3 minutes here with a prepackaged bill done in smoke-filled rooms, brought to the floor, and I am told to vote ``yes'' or ``no,'' push the green button, push the red button.

That is what we have taken the people's House and reduced it to.

We have $4 trillion that we have spent on COVID relief. With all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are saying go big, we have spent $4 trillion.

I have worked on a bipartisan basis with my friend, Dean Phillips, to pass the PPP Flexibility Act. We are all working hard to help the American people, but this resolution is a sham.

When are we going to get in committee and vote and debate and roll our sleeves up and offer amendments? When are we going to do the work that we were sent here to do?

The distinguished leader from Maryland has been here a while, respectfully. This place has changed. The gentleman from Maryland and I have talked about this.

When are we going to offer amendments? When are we going to debate and vote on those amendments?

That is what bipartisanship is, not throwing a $2 trillion reconciliation measure to use as pressure with the Senate to play games so that you can try to force the hand of the Senate to get the 60 votes, and then come down here and say: Oh, yeah, we have done something great with some budget reconciliation.

Have we had any debate down here about what is actually affecting the people of this country? Or do we have a bunch of show speeches?

When are we going to turn this body back into the people's House? When are we going to turn this into something the American people can be proud about, that we are sitting here debating something serious?

Should we have $300 billion for local governments? Should we have some help for small businesses? Should we have something?

Let's debate this out. No one over here wants to see their people suffer in the States that they represent. But we want businesses open. We want economic growth and opportunity. We don't want to point fingers. We have 30-something million vaccines distributed. Let's not point fingers. Let's take the work that has been done by the previous administration, by this body on a bipartisan basis, and let's move forward and get this country working again.

China is about to roll right over us if we don't do our job, Mr. Speaker.

Will the gentleman yield?

I am no longer on the Budget Committee. So will I have the ability to offer amendments?

Will the gentleman yield?

I would just ask if we might be able to at least meet in private and have discussions about how to restore regular order and offer amendments on the floor because to the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee that is great to debate it in committee, but I am no longer on the Budget Committee, so I would love to have the ability to debate on the floor and have regular order. And I just think if we could just have a conversation, sit in a room and figure out how we can do that going forward, no matter who is in charge of the Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, out of an abundance of caution, I decided to remain home due to several days of persistent symtoms. I could not get on a plane to vote on H.R. 335. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 18.

Madam Speaker, today, I want to pay tribute to the members of the Customs and Border Protection who keep our nation safe, and in particular, their leader for the last 18 months, Commissioner Mark Morgan.

As a Texan, I have spent countless hours with the courageous men and women of the Border Patrol who have confronted often insurmountable odds on a southwest border forsaken by Washington politicians and left to be operationally controlled by dangerous Mexican cartels.

Mark has been an extraordinary leader of CBP--fearlessly standing up against those cartels, condemning reckless open border policies, guarding the American people from the various threats posed by China, and relentlessly fighting to defend our national security and with the patriotism and dedication appropriate for a career law enforcement officer.

America is a safer, stronger, and better country because of his service, and I am honored to call him a friend.

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

The President of the United States deserves universal condemnation for what was clearly, in my opinion, impeachable conduct, pressuring the Vice President to violate his oath to the Constitution to count the electors.

His open and public pressure, courageously rejected by the Vice President, purposefully seeded the false belief among the President's supporters, including those assembled on January 6, that there was a legal path for the President to stay in power. It was foreseeable and reckless to sow such a false belief that could lead to violence and rioting by loyal supporters whipped into a frenzy.

Unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues drafted an article that I believe is flawed and unsupportable, focusing on the legal terms of incitement and insurrection.

Even noting impeachment does not require meeting a certain legal standard--the danger for open speech and debate in this body and for the Republic is high--if the House approves the article as written.

The language will be used to target Members of this body under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It will be used to suggest that any statements we make are subject to review by our colleagues and to send us down a perilous path of cleansing political speech in the public square.

Madam Speaker, we must end this. Let us condemn that which must be condemned, and do so loudly. But let us do it the right way, with deliberation and without disastrous side effects. We must end tearing apart our Nation by social media and sound bites. Let us stop. Let us debate. Let us sit down and lead this Nation together.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the objection.

Madam Speaker, today, the people's House was attacked, which is an attack on the Republic itself. There is no excuse for it. A women died. And people need to go to jail. And the President should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be.

I applaud House leadership of both parties for bringing us back to do our job, which is to count the electors and no more.

The problem we face, though, is even bigger. We are deeply divided. We are divided about even life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The words which used to bind us together now, at times, tear us apart because we disagree about what they even mean.

My constituents at home in Texas are genuinely upset. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we have a constant barrage of those who wish to remake America into a socialist welfare State, efforts to attack our institutions, tear down statues, erase our history, defund our police. We have seen the debasing of our language. We teach our children that America is evil. We destroy our sovereignty, empower cartels. We attack our Second Amendment. We destroy small businesses through lockdowns. We divide ourselves by race. We can't even agree that there is man and woman. We extinguish the unborn before they even have a chance to see daylight.

But at the heart of our path forward lies the essence of our Republic, its cornerstone. That we are a union of States bound together for common defense and economic strength, and more

so bound together through federalism in which we may live together peacefully as citizens in this vast land agreeing to disagree, free to live according to our own beliefs and according to the dictates of our conscience.

Now, many of my colleagues were poised this afternoon to vote to insert Congress into the constitutionally prescribed decisionmaking of the States by rejecting the sole official electors sent to us by each of the States of the Union. I hope they will reconsider.

I can tell you that I was not going to, and I will not be voting to reject the electors. And that vote may well sign my political death warrant, but so be it. I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and I will not bend its words into contortions for personal political expediency.

Number one, rejecting the electors certified to Congress by sovereign States violates the 12th Amendment and the entirety of the Constitution it amends, notwithstanding claims that you must read certain sections first. It is clear, it is black and white, we count. It is ministerial. And our only job is to count the electors before us. We have only one slate of electors per State sent to us under color of law, and no more.

Number two, to the extent you believe we do have constitutional authority to reject, we are arguing using incomplete and often misleading data points to prove it. I am not afforded time to go point by point, but there are more misleading claims than legitimate ones.

Three, rejecting the electors ignores the Founder's specific admonition that Congress not choose the President, as articulated in Federalist No. 68.

Four, indeed, the Founders drafted the inclusion of a phrase specifically putting Congress into the manner of the election process then specifically rejected it.

Five, if more than a trivial bloc of this body votes to reject a sovereign State's electors, it will irrevocably empower Congress to take over the selection of Presidential electors, and doing so will almost certainly guarantee future Houses will vote to reject the electors of Texas or any of our States for whatever reason.

Six, voting to reject the electors is not remotely consistent with our vote on Sunday, a vote I forced to highlight the very hypocrisy: to accept the outcome of the election of ourselves through elections conducted under the same rules, by procedures put in place by the same executive branch officials, impacted by rulings from the same judges, State and Federal. To do so is entirely inexplicable on its face.

Seven, the argument for rejection most given by my colleagues is based on the allegations of systemic election abuse by executive or judicial branch officials interfering with the ``legislatures thereof'' in Article II.

Many States made poor policy decisions. Whether these poor policy decisions violate State laws is a contested matter and a matter for the States to resolve for themselves.

More, five of the six legislatures are controlled by Republicans. Not one body has sent separate electors. Not one body has sent us even a letter by a majority of its whole body. The only body, the Pennsylvania Senate, who managed to come up with a majority of Republicans to complain only did so yesterday in an eleventh-hour face-saving political statement. Not one GOP statewide official has formally called on us to change. Not one law enforcement organization, State or Federal, has presented a case of malfeasance.

History will judge this moment.

Let us not turn the last firewall for liberty we have remaining on its head in a fit of populist rage for political expediency when there is plenty of looking into the mirror for Republicans to do for destroying our election systems with expansion of mail-in ballots.

I may well get attacked for this, but I will not abandon my oath to the Constitution. And I will make clear that I am standing up in defense of that Constitution to protect our federalist order and the electoral college, which empowers the very States we represent to stand athwart the long arm of this Federal Government by its very design.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Madam Speaker, I rise to say that we had this great speech by the leader of the Democrat Party about debates and about what we should do in debating on this floor. When will we debate? That is the question. When will we actually debate?

The leader made good points about previous rules, about closed debate. We haven't had an open debate on an amendment on this floor since May 2016, where I can come down as a Republican Member or as a Democratic Member and offer an amendment.

We have no debates on amendments anymore, Mr. Leader. You know this is true. You have been here. You have seen the change in this body. And I would just suggest--that I address my remarks to the Chair--I would just suggest that we should have debate. That is what we are here to do.

Madam Speaker, I reject this rules package. I have problems with it for the reasons my colleagues already articulated, but I think we should engage in colloquy. Let's actually have a debate about setting up rules so this body is filled with Members offering amendments and doing what the people want us to do. This rules package, respectfully, does not do that.

Mr. Chair, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 403, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 404, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 405, and ``nay'' on rollcall No. 406.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership here on the floor today.

Is there a crisis?

I think there is, and I am glad that we are here today where our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are finally acknowledging that there is a crisis.

Not that long ago, the Speaker of the House called the situation a fake crisis at the border. Senate Minority Leader Schumer called it a crisis that does not exist. The House majority leader said that there is no crisis at the border. The House Democratic Caucus chairman, Hakeem Jeffries, said that there is no crisis at the border. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Engel called the situation a fake crisis at the border. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said that there is no crisis at the border. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that we don't have a border crisis.

I could go on and on and on of statements on the record, in the news media, in this building, and in this Chamber saying that there is no border crisis. Now, either that is putting your head in the sand and ignoring the facts in front of you, or it was very purposeful. It was very purposeful to try to hide the fact that there is, in fact, a crisis for some sort of cynical political gain.

The fact of the matter is, in May of this year, there were 84,000 families that attempted to enter the country and that were apprehended--84,000, which is more than all of 2014. Anybody with eyes, anybody who has gone to the border has seen that there has been a crisis for months on end, and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle were willfully ignoring it.

President Obama, in 2014, put forward a bill, legislation, that was introduced by Senator Mikulski that added $762 million in it for ICE to deal with unaccompanied children at the time, which, today, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say we cannot do. President Obama was asking for money for ICE, and today we are told, no, you can't have any money for ICE.

But if the majority doesn't provide resources to ICE, where are they going to put the children whom they say they want to take care of? Where are they going to put the families? Where are they going to put the people they are detaining at the border?

When the majority creates a tent facility at CBP to process people at the border, as this bill suggests doing, they have no resources in there for DOD; they have no resources in there for ICE in any significant way; and they have no place to put the people they say they want to take care of in this bill.

What are they asking CBP and what are they asking our people at the border to do?

Then the majority has the audacity to point at ICE and CBP and tell them they are failing to do their jobs when, for months on end, we have not provided the resources necessary for them to do their job.

The American people sent us here to solve problems, and one of those is to secure the border of the United States and to ensure those people who seek to come here can do so safely, yet we bury our head in the sand for political gain and ignore the facts on the ground.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation falls short. This legislation that the House leadership has put forward has been late, does not address the problem, and will, in fact, make the problem worse by binding the hands of Border Patrol and binding the hands of the people whom we have asked to do their job.

We should reject this legislation. We should work together to provide legislation that would actually solve the problem and stop enriching cartels on the backs of human beings because the strongest nation in the history of the world refuses to acknowledge the problem that cartels are exploiting asylum laws and human beings for profit.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her leadership on this issue and dealing with this important legislation.

Madam Speaker, I am always perplexed when listening to the arguments on this topic that we are not talking about the actual problem. So when we are talking about the facilities that need to have more supplies and more dollars for support, I agree. I don't think anybody in this room disagrees at all. But nothing we are going to do today is going to actually solve the problem.

I have got an exchange here with a group of Border Patrol agents who texted me to say, about this legislation: This does nothing but perpetuate the catch-and-release magnet.

While there are some good pieces to the bill, why are we not increasing ICE beds? Why are we providing taxpayer funding to educate border crossers on the asylum process?

Why do we keep providing money to let people go that violate our immigration laws? This just provides more incentives for people to cross the border illegally.

If this were to pass, why would anyone stop crossing?

They said, this is what I refer to as completing the human smuggling cycle. Cartels drop off people at our borders, UACs, family units. Border Patrol takes them, then delivers them, engages with the NGOs. The NGOs aid these folks who are here, so they can reach their family members that are in the United States waiting for them. So the family members in the U.S. are the ones paying the cartels their smuggling fees.

And the NGOs are then reimbursed, and the whole process, it is completing the entire cycle.

This legislation will perpetuate the problem because we are not actually going to address the situation with ICE beds. We are not going to do anything to stop the flow, and we are going to empower the cartels who have operational control of our border, full operational control of our border.

If you talk to anybody on the border who knows what is actually going on--we should reject this legislation in favor of legislation that will actually solve the problem.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding.

In 2016, HUD published a final rule, the Equal Access in Accordance with an Individual's Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs rule requiring Community Planning and Development- funded single-sex projects ``to provide all individuals, including transgender individuals and other individuals who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth, with access to programs, benefits, services, and accommodations in accordance with their gender identity without being subjected to intrusive questioning or being asked to provide documentation.''

This rule prohibits a HUD-funded shelter from providing for single- sex facilities based on an individual's gender at birth. There are other rules that were put in place in the Obama administration, similarly. None of these rules recognize that housing programs, particularly faith-based facilities, ability to distinguish between genders and an individual's marital status; both rules placing vulnerable women at risk.

This administration announced a proposed rule that ``permits shelter providers to consider a range of factors in making such determinations, including: privacy, safety, practical concerns, religious beliefs, any relevant considerations under civil rights and nondiscrimination authorities . . . `' I could go on. It is a commonsense rule.

Yet, now, we are sitting here in an appropriations bill when we are supposed to be figuring out how to fund the important, ailing infrastructure of this country, housing and urban development, figure out how to solve the problems in this country, while we have got a border that is being overwhelmed every single day--yes, I am coming back to that because it is the crisis of our day--and now we are turning this into a gender-identity game.

The gentleman from South Carolina is properly trying to protect the ability

of this administration to have a commonsense rule to ensure that people are safe when we have got facilities in place and the Federal Government has something to do it with. I applaud him for doing so.

I would ask my Democrat colleagues why we are not getting back to the business of the day, making sure that we have strong infrastructure, strong border security, and doing the job the American people actually sent us to do instead of manufacturing social engineering and gender identities.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding, and I want to thank the gentlewoman from Missouri for her comments. I can't expound upon her eloquent comments much more or the gentleman from South Carolina about the concerns that we have with what has been put in this appropriations bill and why I support the gentleman from South Carolina's amendment to make sure that the Secretary of HUD has the ability to do his job and to do the right thing.

I notice that my friend on the other side of the aisle mentioned the Equality Act. Well, what I am hearing from my constituents in Texas is they are concerned. They are concerned that were the Equality Act to be passed out of the Senate, it would undermine the ability of their daughters to compete. What we are seeing around the country is boys who decide to declare themselves females run in races and make it impossible for girls to compete. This is happening. We see it. It is happening in real time.

I just wonder what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think is being accomplished with an Equality Act that turns on its head the very idea and the very notion of what we have got with respect to the differences between men and women and the ability to recognize that, embrace it, and be able to have women compete in sports.

Here we are in this false name of equality blowing up the ability of secretaries and people in the administration to make commonsense determinations about how to house people, to make tough choices, and to be able to figure out what to do. Heaven forbid they rely upon biological sex to make that determination.

This is why my wife and I, who have been products of public schools K through law school, have our children in a private school because we keep getting our values blown to heck and common sense blown to heck in schools where bathrooms suddenly become social engineering experiments.

That is what we see happening as a result of what is happening in the body and what is happening in an appropriations bill.