Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Roy, for yielding.

The President's budget recommendation came over a month late yesterday, and there was one detail I read in The New York Times, so it must be true, although that is the only place I have had a chance to see it yet, and what immediately popped into my mind when I read this detail, is that Karine Jean-Pierre said last week--I can remember her saying it--that the President's economic plan is working for the American people. That popped back into my head, because the detail disclosed by The New York Times is that the administration predicts economic growth in this fiscal year not 3\1/2\ percent, not 4 percent certainly, not 2\1/2\ percent, not 1\1/2\ percent, but six-tenths of a percent.

You have to start talking about economic growth and what the economists call basis points, because it is so small. So if the economic plan of the Biden administration is working for the American people, that means 60 basis points of economic growth anticipated in the year.

And guess what the Biden administration says about that? We should do nothing different. We should keep doing the same thing that is producing six-tenths of a percent of economic growth, except one other thing: We should pile the burden of a lot more taxes on the economy, because apparently that is going to--because what do we need? Thirty basis points of economic growth? Republicans believe we need to change.

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

Mr. Chair, I am grateful that the chairman and lead sponsor will, I anticipate, lend his support to this amendment. It will close a loophole that would defeat the purpose of the bill. In fact, absent this amendment, the bill would inadvertently validate the very conduct this bill aims to stop.

Emerging evidence, most notably the Twitter files, depicts what one expert has termed the largest censorship program in U.S. Government history. On the pretext of protecting election infrastructure or enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act, personnel of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA; the Department of Homeland Security, DHS; the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the CIA; the Global Engagement Center from the State Department, which most Americans had never heard of; and even the CDC practically embedded themselves with operators of social media platforms and corporate media to manage and curate Americans' public discourse, to induce Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, et cetera, to take down lawful and First Amendment protected speech of Americans time and again and again.

In so doing, these omnipresent Federal agencies established working relationships with a small cadre of supposed internet research groups, affiliated in some cases with well-known universities and NGOs, but loaded with political partisans, who purported to create black-box analytical efforts to identify social media accounts that amplified content from Russia.

But these purported experts, like Hamilton 68, didn't identify Russian-amplifying bot networks, as they claimed, through some sophisticated algorithm. They just found a bunch of American Trump supporter accounts and labeled them that. And for months and months, as they became a trusted source for media that cited Hamilton 68, Twitter ``trust and safety executives'' like Yoel Roth stood quietly by knowing that Hamilton 68 was a fraud.

Guess what? Follow the money. Part of the working relationship between the agencies and the research groups was funding that flowed by the millions in government grants. Each day, it becomes clearer that between these three pillars--Federal security agencies, media operators, and internet analysts--a new Washington revolving door has emerged to facilitate the same people moving between them and profiting from the scam.

The base text of this bill would allow exactly this process to continue, but there is never a legitimate law enforcement purpose for Federal agents to take down speech that the First Amendment protects.

We have now seen agencies of the Federal Government once again targeting Americans for their political views. In the government's attempt to stop Russian misinformation, they have targeted and attacked Americans for simply voicing opinions that they disfavor. Their actions violate our First Amendment principles, and Congress must take this action to stop it.

The amendment will address the flaw in the bill, but it is odd to me that Democrats who used to so revere the First Amendment are no longer concerned about it. In Lamont v. Postmaster General in 1965, which Democrats lauded, the Court held that Americans have a right to receive communist propaganda from abroad. The Democrats loved it then. Now, they don't even want Americans to be able to post their views on social media. How abhorrent.

We will fix it. This bill will fix it. The amendment will fix the bill.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer).

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

Madam Speaker, right now, family and friends have gathered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to celebrate the life of a giant of North Carolina politics, Jim Broyhill, who passed away last week at 95.

Mr. Broyhill served in this House for 23 years and briefly as a Member of the United States Senate.

His story began in the town of Lenoir, where he was born the son of James Edgar and Satie Hunt Broyhill, whose Broyhill Furniture had become a thriving business and brand name known nationwide.

Ed Broyhill, Mr. Broyhill's father, despite living in a State where the Republican Party was almost extinct, was a Republican national committeeman. Jim Broyhill listened at the kitchen table as community and business leaders and politicians discussed current events with his father. It sparked Jim's interest.

He attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina, class of 1950, joined the family business, and emerged as a leader of the business community in his own right. He married Louise, and they started a family, raising three children.

Like his father, Mr. Broyhill was passionate about politics. He also believed fervently in competition. More than anything, he wanted to build in North Carolina a competitive two-party system. In 1962, he materially advanced that ball in a surprise election to Congress.

In the preceding districting process, the Democrat-dominated State legislature drew districts designed to eliminate the only North Carolina Republican in the State's congressional delegation, Charles Jonas of Charlotte, but the plan backfired and elected two Republicans to Congress, Mr. Jonas and Mr. Broyhill.

Once in Washington, Representative Broyhill formed relationships with members of both parties and learned how to be an effective Member. He served patiently his entire career in the minority as Democrats ran Congress, just as he patiently nursed political competition back home. He advocated for lower taxes and less regulation, but he set the gold standard in constituent service.

As a result, after that first bare win in 1962, he never again faced a serious challenge in reelection campaigns. Even now, North Carolina Members pay heed to the Broyhill model for serving constituent needs.

Mr. Broyhill worked across the aisle for more rational business regulation and served as a mentor to fellow Republicans in Congress, meeting one-on-one with freshman Members and instructing them on the importance of constituent service and attending local events in the district.

After his retirement, he briefly returned to Lenoir, and then served as secretary of commerce and chairman of the North Carolina Economic Development Commission. He worked hard to bring new business to the State and had a great deal of success.

Mr. Broyhill leaves behind his wife of 71 years, Louise; son Ed, who serves as a Republican national committeeman himself; daughter Marilyn; 6 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren. His son Phil passed away, sadly, in 2014. In addition, he leaves many friends and supporters, grateful constituents, loyal former staff, and Members of Congress who followed him into this Chamber.

Just 15 months ago, I had the privilege to meet Mr. and Mrs. Broyhill myself. It cemented for me the larger-than-life figure of Jim Broyhill, who has long since entered the pantheon of foremost North Carolina leaders.

For all the care he furnished to the Republican Party as it broke one-party dominance in North Carolina, his first priority was Louise, Ed, and Marilyn, his extended family whom he loved.

Jim Broyhill was a distinguished gentleman, a humble public servant, and a loyal husband, father, and friend. It is my honor to pay tribute to his memory today.

Jim Broyhill, rest in peace.

Madam Speaker, it is my honor to gather with other Members of the North Carolina delegation on the floor this evening to acknowledge the passing of a great North Carolinian, the Honorable Jim Broyhill, who passed away at the age of 95 last week.

Today, there was a gathering in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in celebration of his life, and my fellow Members and I have come to the floor this evening to ask the House to stand in a moment of silence in recognition of the service of this North Carolinian, who served 23 years in this House, served briefly in the United States Senate, and was substantially responsible for re-creating political competition and a revitalized Republican Party in the State of North Carolina.

On behalf of the North Carolina delegation, I ask the House do now observe a moment of silence in honor of Senator Jim Broyhill.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Colorado and my colleagues will show in this hour that censorship of conservative voices proliferates among social media and other tech companies, banks and other commercial service providers, and massive public companies and capital markets pursuing ESG policies.

As Mr. Buck suggested, it is worse than that because the leading and most insidious censors, whose predominant selection of conservatives to victimize, by the way, as only an aside, are the powerful and secretive agencies of Federal law enforcement and the so-called intelligence community.

In only the most recent example of this egregious wrongdoing, and solely due to the commendable voluntary disclosure by a social media company of the Twitter files, we now know that not only the FBI but also the ODNI, NSA, and CIA audaciously abused their power to coordinate Big Tech and Big Media to suppress from circulation information that was highly significant to the 2020 Presidential election; namely, the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story.

But even this jaw-dropping disclosure focusing on an isolated document brings home just how insidious, how brazen the conduct of these massive and unaccountable agencies has become.

Here is one. Twitter files Number 7, Tweet 15, by one of the reporters with integrity, Michael Shellenberger: My colleagues at the Fort had a query for you. This is from Elvis Chan at the FBI to Yoel Roth at Twitter.

My colleagues at the Fort is a reference to Fort Meade, the headquarters of the National Security Agency. He says that Twitter no longer provides their data feed, as they had in earlier years apparently, and asked if they would be willing to change it.

Their data feed; comments, postings of 77 million Americans and more than 330 million people worldwide.

My colleagues, Mr. Chan says, are currently contracting with a vendor for an analytic tool for open-source intelligence. The commercial version of this tool includes the Twitter data feed. However, the feed was disabled because

the vendor said they did not want to violate their terms of service with Twitter.

My colleagues are wondering if Twitter would be open to revising its terms of service to allow this vendor to continue having access to the Twitter feed.

This representative of the FBI is asking for Twitter to reverse its policy to allow government agencies to conduct analytics on the discourse of the American people; mass surveillance of the public conversation; collection and preservation, so it can be searched at will by government bureaucrats for whatever purposes.

And note, he makes reference to the provision of this, not to the FBI, but ``to members of the IC,'' the intelligence community.

Bad enough if this were the FBI, but he is talking about the agencies who are supposed to direct their attention abroad for the sake of American security and, instead, they are seeking mass surveillance on Americans' utterances and those of unsuspecting people the world over.

A good Democrat, William Proxmire said, power always has to be kept in check. Power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.

Mr. Speaker, in the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, we will plumb the depths of powerful agencies gone rogue; and then this Congress must act to keep in check power exercised in secret.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to honor Donald Overcash, the longest-serving EMS employee in Rowan County. Donald selflessly served North Carolina as a paramedic and first responder for 36 years. During his tenure, he pioneered the county's shift to modern paramedicine in the 1970s and 80s. In fact, Donald is the longest-serving Rowan County EMS employee, breaking the previous mark of 34 years. He also served his country for 8 years as a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps.

Donald served North Carolinians in Rowan, Cabarrus, and Stanly County through many major weather events including Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the 1993 superstorm, known as the ``Storm of the Century'', and the North Carolina Ice Storm of 2002. He bravely served as a paramedic during the 2000 Lowes Motor Speedway Walkway Collapse and the 2008 Salisbury Millworks Fire. His leadership and service are greatly admired and will serve as an example for future first responders.

I thank Donald for his remarkable leadership and dedication to his fellow North Carolinians. From the people of North Carolina's 8th Congressional District, congratulations on a successful career. I wish him a long and happy retirement.

Madam Speaker, attacks on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers are unconscionable and un-American.

Thugs elevate their extreme political ideology over the most basic gift from God: Life. This phenomenon is fed from here.

We all recall Senator Schumer's threat to Supreme Court Justices that they ``will pay the price.'' Now we see the price: firebombing pro-life pregnancy centers and assassination attempts.

In my own State there is rhetoric amid the broken windows, red paint, and anarchist symbols. ``If abortions aren't safe, neither are you.'' That sentence is repeated over and over across this country. That is a threat. This is the death cult's echo of the KKK's burning cross on the lawn; brazen, violent intimidation. The Federal Government responded to the KKK.

Where is the Biden Justice Department amid this violent campaign of national scope?

Mr. President, it is time for action. Do your duty.

Mr. Speaker, with great power comes great responsibility. We entrust our Department of Justice, FBI, and intelligence community with great power to keep us safe. And yet, as long as these agencies have existed, they have violated everyday Americans' civil rights.

The security state believes itself to be above the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress, or perhaps the belief is only tacit. It is aware only of power, not authority--power.

The FBI spied on Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali because they were national security threats-- celebrities, but everyday Americans as to their constitutional rights.

The intelligence community abused their power to spy on Presidential candidates, a sitting President, and Members of Congress and their staffs.

The FBI continuously coordinated with social media companies to moderate social content, the public square. So contemptuous and out of touch are they that when confronted with this just weeks ago, they said: We were merely engaging with our community partners.

Leading up to the 2020 election, the FBI worked hand in hand with Twitter and Facebook to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story. Concealment from everyday Americans. They have continued to censor in silence criticism of COVID policies and vaccine mandates to the harm of everyday Americans.

In 2013, the former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, lied to Congress about the NSA collecting data on millions of Americans. Yet, he has escaped a reckoning.

The NSA spied on groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other NGOs. FBI contractors conducted thousands of searches on NSA databases. The intelligence community spied on journalists and political opponents in clear violation of the First Amendment.

That is not just all illegal, it is un- American, and it cannot continue. The government's massive surveillance apparatus is well-documented, but there is still much more that we do not know. We owe it to the American people to reveal the rot within our Federal Government and cut it out so that it can no longer harm everyday Americans.

Mr. Speaker, today we are putting the deep state on notice: We are coming for you on behalf of everyday Americans.

Madam Clerk, I rise to place in nomination the name of Byron Donalds of Florida.

I will begin by saying how much I have anticipated the arrival of the gentleman from Michigan, Congressman James, in this House; not in the Senate, not in the old, staid, unchanging

Senate, but in the House where we make change. Yesterday, we could have elected the first Black Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Hear me clearly. Had the cascade of votes begun, it would have extended to every Member of this body. It could begin today.

Last night, I sat within feet of Mr. Donalds as the tweet of another Member-elect appeared on the screen. That Member-elect wrote and sent out to America that Byron Donalds is a prop. I have spent a good bit of time with Mr. Donalds, especially lately. He ain't no prop. If he were a prop, he wouldn't be sitting where he is sitting. This is the tired, old, grotesquely racist rhetoric that we have seen far too long.

Today, a Member-elect quote tweeted a FOX News story that incorrectly reported that I said that if I don't prevail on the question before the House, I will resign. That Member-elect quote tweeted that incorrect story for his own political purposes after the story had been corrected and the actual statement contradicting that report had been provided. This is the old trafficking in lies from Washington that the American people know far too well.

And, by the way, I am not leaving.

Kevin McCarthy released to the public on New Year's Eve a document entitled: ``Restoring the People's House and Ending Business as Usual.'' To his great credit, Mr. McCarthy made a statement of huge significance to the country. The nominal leader of a major party acknowledged publicly that this institution is broken, and he committed to make changes to fix it.

So let me help my colleagues in the majority understand. We are doing the people's business. That is what these 3 days have been about. We are committed to make changes to this institution that has lost its way. It is epitomized in the $1.7 trillion omnibus rammed through this institution just 2 weeks ago.

I say to my colleagues that I came to fix this broken system.

America has seen that problem for a very long time, too. The commitment to change it is new. The genesis of the prospect of changing it emerges from this moment and those, since June, that led, at long last, to the New Year's Eve statement of Mr. McCarthy and to these 3 days on the floor.

America needs men and women of courage to do something new in Congress so that Congress can serve the American people. The Lord said, Behold, I do a new thing.

We need more Byron Donalds. I know Byron. He is not a prop. He is a man of personal conviction. He arrived at his convictions through authentic and genuine life experience.

People ask me, what is the endgame? How does this end?

The answer to this question is that this is a dynamic process. All of the decisions on this floor result from the coming together of minds, one way or another.

This is the people's business. We will resolve the people's business, and when we do, we will go to the mat for the American people because we will be led by people of conviction, like the gentleman from Florida, Byron Donalds.

Mr. Speaker, in the hearing on this bill in the markup in April before the Committee on the Judiciary, I raised an amendment or proposed an amendment that we protect the United States, if this bill were to pass, by providing that the Chinese Communist Party not be allowed to abuse it.

I submitted for the record evidence that Chinese technicians under H- 1B visas had been part of the censorship routine at Facebook, that H-1B visa holders were involved in the Confucius Institutes in colleges and universities across the country.

We ought to, at a minimum, provide that the Chinese Communist Party does not use our immigration tools as a means to impair American national security and favor inculcation of the Chinese Communist Party's influence in the United States.

In response to the amendment, the bill's sponsor argued that the Immigration and Naturalization Act already provided for defense against this threat. In fact, she gave a particular section of the code, section 212(a)(3)(D), which already fully took care of this problem. Except in further debate on the amendment, it became apparent after a while that, no, section

212(a)(3)(D) only addressed risks involving aliens, not immigrants. That was finally conceded, but the problem was not addressed in the markup.

Now, as the bill comes to the floor today, it comes with a manager's amendment, not vetted in the Committee on the Judiciary as it should have been that day, and it doesn't do the job. It is loaded with exceptions that raise subjective questions that may be circumvented by agents of the Chinese Communist Party to come into the United States exploiting this greater latitude for these visas.

I believe the bill sponsor spoke to it in her opening comments, that there is an exception. Yeah, okay, the Chinese Communist Party can't take advantage of this. But if somebody is an involuntary member in the Chinese Communist Party or they accept membership in the Chinese Communist Party for the purpose of obtaining employment, well, they are not going to be excluded.

Well, who won't say that is what happened? And who is to decide now who was an involuntary member or one who was eager to participate? There are exceptions for close family members and exceptions for past membership.

We will offer a motion to recommit that will eliminate those exceptions. The motion to recommit would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from issuing an H-1B visa to anyone who is or was a member of a communist party or totalitarian party. It is just that simple.

Why, if this is harmless and helpful, is the Democratic Party so reluctant to provide for the most elemental of protections for the American people, that it not be exploited by the Chinese Communist Party, the most notorious adversary of the United States in the world, and to be done simply and completely so that, above all, we protect America in the course of doing this?

Mr. Speaker, if we adopt the motion to recommit, we will instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to consider my amendment to H.R. 3648 to provide real safeguards against Chinese Communist Party influence and espionage.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the motion to recommit.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I want to say about Louie Gohmert is that Louie is a hero to many, many Americans, and he is a hero to me.

One of the pretty heady things about walking onto the floor of the United States House of Representatives is that you meet these people you have seen on your television screens across the country that you have heard from who have spoken the words that you wish you could have spoken.

Louie was one of the first heroes I met. You meet some people who are not necessarily heroes, too, here. But Louie was a hero that I met maybe my first day walking on the floor.

Another thing about this place is sometimes everything has been said, not everybody said it, but there are moments when having the opportunity to join the chorus is as important as anything I can think of.

To Louie Gohmert, I say thank you for being a hero. Thank you for always being a loyal fighter for freedom.

All of us seem to fail, and sometimes at the moment when most needed, Louie, you have never failed. You have persisted.

While sometimes I am uncertain how to fill up the time, you will stand on this floor and you will rely on your inner substance, and you can lay it out as long as you need to go to communicate to the American people, to communicate on their behalf, to say what matters. I don't know what we will do without you.

God bless you, Louie Gohmert.

Madam Speaker, I thank the future chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Ohio. I think whatever else voters said a week ago, they said, don't go too far. That is the reason the gentleman to my right will be the Judiciary Committee chairman and the gentleman far to my left will no longer be.

This goes too far. In the chairman's comments in support of the bill, he gave the pieces of information that help us to detect why that is. One, he made reference to a bill, H.R. 4445, Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, and he said, appropriately so, that that bill had bipartisan support, including mine. It made it so that women who suffer sexual harassment, anyone who suffers sexual harassment is no longer limited if they have entered into a contract forcing arbitration; for mandatory arbitration of a dispute of that nature, they can bring it to court. Court is public in the United States.

That bill was supported on a bipartisan basis because it is fair and equitable. The other thing the chairman said is that this bill, the one we are talking about now, will empower survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault, but it also will empower nonsurvivors. That is to say, anyone who wishes to bring a nonmeritorious claim of sexual harassment forward in order to destroy someone's life also will be empowered by this to ignore any contract to do otherwise.

``A Rape on Campus'' is a retracted defamatory Rolling Stone magazine article written by Sabrina Erdely and originally published on November 19, 2014, that describes a purported group sexual assault at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Rolling Stone retracted the story in its entirety on April 5, 2015.

The article claimed that a UVA student, Jackie, had been taken to a party hosted by UVA's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity by a fellow student. At the party, Jackie alleged in the article, her date led her to a bedroom where she was gang-raped by several fraternity members as part of a fraternity initiation ritual.

Jackie's account generated much media attention, and UVA President Teresa Sullivan suspended all fraternities. After other journalists investigated the article's claims and found significant discrepancies, Rolling Stone issued multiple apologies for the story.

It has since been reported that Jackie may have invented portions of the story in an unsuccessful attempt to win the affections of a fellow student in whom she had a romantic interest. In a deposition given in 2016, Jackie stated that she believed her story at the time.

On January 12, 2015, Charlottesville police officials told UVA that an investigation had failed to find any evidence confirming the events in the Rolling Stone article. UVA President Teresa Sullivan acknowledged that the story was discredited.

Charlottesville police officially suspended their 4-month investigation on March 23, 2015, based on lack of credible evidence.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism audited the editorial processes that culminated in the article being published. On April 5, 2015, Rolling Stone retracted the article and published the independent report on the publication's history, and so forth.

Everyone remembers the Duke lacrosse incident in Durham, North Carolina. Everyone remembers the lives destroyed by these and other false allegations. They do happen.

The balance that we brought to the law by ensuring that every victim of sexual assault or harassment could come forward and sue, and if it is a suit against a public figure or against someone notorious or against someone rich or powerful, I have got to tell you, that will get publicity.

But it also is a system that has balance. People are subjected to discovery as to their motives. You have tools to find out and test the veracity of each side's views, each side's story.

This bill gives the green light to the false accuser. This bill says resume speed. It is a resume speed sign to those who would make false accusations. We brought balance to the law with the participation of Republicans and Democrats.

I grant you that that was a great bill. I congratulate you on bringing forward that bill, which I joined and voted for. This one is unfair and unbalanced. It goes too far.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor the life of Reverend Evert Locklear of Maxton, North Carolina. Evert was the oldest known Lumbee elder when he passed away on October 8th, at the age of 103. Evert will be remembered as a pillar of the Lumbee tribe, a dedicated pastor, and a World War II veteran.

In 1943, Evert answered the call to serve our nation in the United States Navy. Not long after joining the Navy, Evert was deployed to Pearl Harbor on the USS Kay Perchwell. Following that stint, Evert spent the duration of the war stationed in the Philippines where his unit specialized in automotive repair. In August 1945, he returned home to his family in North Carolina.

Back home in North Carolina, Evert was among the Lumbee Tribe members who famously opposed the Ku Klux Klan in what is now known as the Battle of Hayes Pond. He also served his community as the beloved pastor at Community Holiness Church of Rennert for 15 years. Evert loved fixing cars and trucks, working as an auto body repairman until age 95. His dedication to the Lumbee Tribe and his community will always be admired and remembered.

Evert leaves behind 12 children and many grandchildren and great- grandchildren to cherish his memory. I will be praying for the Lumbee and for Evert's family as they reflect on his impactful life and remarkable legacy.

Madam Speaker, today, I rise to honor J.R. Rowell, an exemplary public servant in North Carolina. J.R. is retiring after 36 years of dedicated service to his community as a state trooper and the Union County Superior Court Clerk. J.R. began his career as a state trooper in the N.C. State Highway Patrol. He then continued to bravely serve North Carolinians as a 1st Sergeant for 20 years. Following his law enforcement career, J.R. was elected to serve as the Union County Superior Court Clerk in 2006. Since assuming this position, he's sworn in nearly every elected official and judge in Union County over the past 16 years.

J.R. is a Union County native and Parkwood High School alumnus. He studied social science and criminal justice at Gardner-Webb University before completing a master's degree in organizational management at Pfeiffer University. He's used these skills to help make Union County a truly great place to live and work.

I thank J.R. for his many years of selfless service to Union County and the state of North Carolina. I wish him a long and happy retirement spent with his two children, Kane and Melody, and three grandchildren. Once again, congratulations to him on his successful career.

Madam Speaker, today, I rise to honor John Dodd, an exemplary leader in North Carolina. John retired in 2020 after serving for 26 years as President of The Jesse Helms Center based in Wingate, North Carolina. As President, John organized a $5 million campaign to fund the Center's current headquarters, museum, and archives. John dedicated the headquarters building in 2001 alongside the former British Prime Minister, Lady Margaret Thatcher, and Senator and Mrs. Helms.

John is also the Founder of The Helms Center's nationally acclaimed Free Enterprise Leadership Challenge, an educational program for high school students to further entrepreneurship and freedom. To date, the program has served more than 11,000 graduates around the world. Beyond North Carolina, John worked with government and education leaders in Mexico to introduce The John Templeton Foundation's Laws of Life character education program. He also co-authored a book, And The World Came His Way: Jesse Helms' Contributions to Freedom.

John also maintains another important role in his local community: lacrosse coach. He's led three teams, from both the college and high school ranks, to national and state championships. I hope John is truly able to enjoy his retirement with his wife, Teresa, and children, Katie and Mary.

I congratulate John on his successful career, and thank him for his remarkable leadership and dedication to his fellow North Carolinians. I wish him a long and happy retirement.