Mr. Speaker, today, I rise with a sense of awe and gratitude that God and the voters have permitted me to be a Member of this body, the House of Representatives, for the last 30 years. At least for me, my time here has permitted me the…
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise with a sense of awe and gratitude that God and the voters have permitted me to be a Member of this body, the House of Representatives, for the last 30 years. At least for me, my time here has permitted me the opportunity to earn a living by advocating policies and programs that I believed would improve the well-being of the American people and would be consistent with the ideals and principles of our country, the United States of America.
I came here after spending 7 years as a senior speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan as well as 2 years of that in the Reagan White House as a special assistant to the President. My experiences in the Reagan White House gave me valuable understandings of many issues of the day as well as contacts that, over the years, I put to good use. The longer I have been here in Washington, the more appreciative I am for the leadership and policies of President Ronald Reagan.
When he left office 30 years ago, our economy was strong; the Cold War was ending as the Soviet Union disintegrated; and Ronald Reagan handed over to our generation, a new generation of Americans, a country with an upward trajectory and with tremendous potential. He restored to America that sense of optimism that is so much a part of our character.
It was an honor to have served at his side in the White House, and, yes, I am
proud to have served with the men and women in this Congress from all over our country who represented both America's diversity and dedication to high values.
Yes, looking back, I am disappointed that our government while I have been here did not achieve all that was possible. But at the same time, I think both Republicans and Democrats in this House of Representatives can be proud of what has been accomplished both nationally, and, yes, what they have accomplished back home in trying to meet the needs of their people, trying to make sure that their own citizens were served, thus making America a better place not just from the top down here in Washington but from the bottom up as well. I know many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle care deeply about their own constituents and have spent so much time, when they could have been with their own families, helping the families who have elected them to come to Congress.
I cannot think of a life I would rather have lived, the highs and the lows; the idealism and the pragmatism; the courage and the weakness; the disappointments, and, yes, the joyous outcomes that I have seen here as part of this living institution in its 230 years of legislative service to the people of the United States.
Since our country's government was established back in 1789, fewer than 11,000 individuals have served in the United States House of Representatives.
Davy Crockett was one of them, memorialized as a fierce frontiersman who later died a heroic death battling for Texas independence at the Alamo. I found his courage under fire here as a Member of Congress to be much more inspiring than his accomplishments on the battlefield.
Yes, we should look at Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett and what happened between those two. The fact is, Davy Crockett was elected to Congress as a supporter of Andrew Jackson when he ran for President. In fact, as a fierce Indian fighter, he was expected to be at Andrew Jackson's side. Jackson was a man who had won many military battles, and many of those military battles were fought and his victories were brought on by the fact that he had a large number of American Indians as part of his battle group, part of his Army.
He promised those Indians who had fought with him at the various battles, against other Indian tribes and against the British at the Battle of New Orleans, that they, too, would be part of our country. Davy Crockett was there when those promises were made.
Later, when Davy Crockett came here to this body, to this Congress, and Andrew Jackson betrayed those men and women--those Americans who happened to be American Indians--when he betrayed them, Davy Crockett would have nothing to do with it. Davy Crockett stood firm, and, yes, it was memorialized in the Walt Disney series. As we were young, we saw that. But that did not capture the essence of what happened at that time.
David Crockett, the man who was the Indian fighter, elected there by the people of his State to come here and support President Jackson, stood against that President, and he stood for integrity, honor, courage, and truthfulness. He got up before the Congress and opposed the Indian Exclusion Act that had been supported by Andrew Jackson.
For that, one would think, that tremendous show of courage, people would admire David Crockett and say: Look, what a great thing. He is standing up against a very powerful man with powerful interest groups even in his own district.
Yes, there were powerful interest groups in his own district who wanted to steal the land of the American Indians who lived there. David Crockett, thus, in his next election, was defeated.
Then David Crockett, of course, having been defeated in Congress, having his own people turned against him and not willing to stand up with him, went on to Texas where he then, through acts of physical courage, not just the ones that he exemplified on the floor of the House, showed the physical courage at the Battle of the Alamo.
As I say, we Americans should take at least as much pride, if not more pride, in that stand that he took in Congress against the Indian Exclusion Act, which was a betrayal of the American Indians.
When I got to Congress, I looked for the speech that David Crockett gave. I could not find it in the Congressional Record. I could not find it anywhere. Apparently, Andrew Jackson or some powerful person had actually pushed that aside so people wouldn't be able to find it.
I had my staff look for it and finally found a copy in the Library of Congress. I had my staff give that to me. It was a rendition of that speech that Davy Crockett gave, and I had that put into the Congressional Record.
During my time here in the people's House, as we like to call ourselves, I am proud that I, too, have stood against the tide when it was sweeping in the wrong direction. Yes, when you stand against the tide, when you stand against a direction in which people are making a profit, sometimes people whose egos are at stake on certain issues, you make enemies.
But I have always thought, and I believe even to this day, Members of Congress should not be afraid to make enemies, because if you are making an enemy, yes, you may have to suffer some personal consequences. But if you aren't making some people, even powerful people, mad at you, you are not doing your job. You are not going to change things.
It is much better for people to stand up and take that punishment, because what the American people want us to do is to stand up for principle and what we think is right. If we later lose, we have done what we thought was right.
I would love and hope that, someday, I do something that would make me have any type of recognition as someone who did take several stands while a Member of Congress that added great difficulty to my life. Most recently, I have felt that.
During the time that I was with Ronald Reagan and before, I had a position--as Davy Crockett did as an Indian fighter--I was in a position as one of the fierce warriors of the Cold War. I was never in the U.S. military, but I did do things in Vietnam during the Vietnam war and behind the Iron Curtain as well as other activities that I did to fight against communism.
During my time in the Reagan White House, I worked with the President on many of his bold statements and worked with people in developing what they call the Reagan Doctrine, which enabled our country to defeat the Soviet Union and bring it down without having a direct conflict between U.S. troops and Soviet troops. I thought that was a tremendous accomplishment. I am proud to have been part of the development of that doctrine, and I brought that knowledge with me here to Congress.
But after the fall of communism, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, I believed that it was time that we were working for peace. Ronald Reagan always talked about peace through strength. The goal was not strength; the goal was peace.
I felt that we needed to go and reach out to try to find ways of working with Russia and to try to meet more of our mutually beneficial goals, but also goals that would be achievable and helpful to the entire world. We needed to do that, and Russia was in turmoil.
I might just note that there were some people who didn't share my desire to try to bring Russia into the family of nations and wanted to continue to treat Russia as a pariah and also try to have American policy be unrelenting hostility toward anything that Russia would do. Communism was our enemy; the Russian people were not.
Ronald Reagan reached out to Gorbachev. Ronald Reagan did have an iron fist, and he helped the freedom fighters against those Soviet- backed regimes. But at the same time, he reached out to the Russian leadership and the Russian people.
Over these last few years there have been very powerful segments here in Washington, D.C., who want to reignite the Cold War. They want war with Russia. I have tried to stand firm and be reasonable, but it has made me very powerful enemies. But I am proud that I made that stand, and I think the American people want us to cooperate with Russia where it is mutually beneficial.
I have been over and over again labeled Putin's favorite Congressman. That is absolutely absurd. I will say right now I believe that everything I have ever done in this body has been based on my love of my country and thinking of what would be good for the people of the United States. In this case, working with Russia in order to defeat radical Islamic terrorists who threaten us was the right thing to do.
The same with maybe working with India, Japan, and Russia, and these other countries. But instead, we have had just, as I say, an unrelenting effort on the part of some powerful interests to keep America and Russia in a hostile situation. We should be able to talk to people and try to work out differences, rather than trying to establish something that would lead to armed conflict eventually. So I have taken a lot of hits on that and I consider that to be the right thing to do.
Over the years, of course, I am very grateful for other things that I have been able to play a role in and actually succeeded in. For example, when I first came here 30 years ago, we had a Democratic majority. But later, when we won a Republican majority, I was granted-- and I was in the Science, Space, and Technology Committee--I was granted the chairmanship of the Space Subcommittee in the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. That was the prime subcommittee in science. I oversaw America's space program for 8 years.
I am very proud and grateful that I had the opportunity in those 8 years to make a lasting difference in the way America's space program has been configured. Before then, it was always just government employees, bureaucrats, NASA, and military space ventures. There wasn't a commercial space industry.
I made sure, when I had a challenge of balancing the budget here, knowing that the way to bring more money was to encourage the private sector to invest. I worked on and I passed legislation designed to help promote commercial space activities here in the United States. I am very proud of what we have accomplished.
But now we have Blue Origin, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic. There are 10 or 20 different space programs that are at work today. And we have vast plans that are being made by private companies to develop space. For example, to develop observation of the Earth and monitoring satellites that will help us. Look at what we are doing with guidance systems now, our GPS systems, et cetera.
I am very, very honored and pleased and grateful that God gave me and this Congress gave me in those 8 years the right to be chairman of that committee and be part of this type of change for the better that now is reaping good benefits for our country and the world.
I also have been very active while here on science and technology issues. For example, the patent issue. Many people don't even look at patents. They yawn when you say it. But the fact is, Americans have had the benefit of the strongest patent system in the world. And thus our investors, from the very Constitution where the patent law was written into our Constitution, have had that benefit of our creative genius and of our people being protected in order that they can be nurtured. Thus, the number one development of new technology in the world has come from Americans.
I have for the last 20 years, at least--maybe 25 years now--been one to defeat and champion the cause of the individual inventor in America. American people aren't interested in something that complicated. It is hard for them to understand that multinational corporations, many of them headed by Americans, have been trying to undercut the patent system in our country.
I am also very proud that during my time here and being recognized as Ronald Reagan's special assistant when I left the White House, my conservative credentials gave me the authority and gave me the ability to talk to conservative people throughout the country--and, yes, throughout the House and the Senate--on the issue of cannabis.
The fact is, marijuana created an illusion of disruption and of decadence in the American peoples' minds, because in the late sixties the use of marijuana was so public and it was identified as something with hippies and people who didn't like American culture.
Well, the fact is, cannabis has tremendous service to give to the people of our country who are suffering from various maladies. Older people, senior people, now some of the greatest people, are utilizing cannabis--that is, marijuana--in order to cure some of the problems they face as seniors: the aches, the pains, the lack of an appetite, and things such as that.
We understand that there are children who are suffering, when before, no one was able to think that cannabis might be a cure for the seizures of young people; or, who would have ever suspected that this opioid epidemic, where some people claim the use of drugs and opiates started with cannabis? No.
What we are finding out now is cannabis is not a gateway door into the use of opiates. It is instead a way out. It is a way that cannabis can actually be used to break the addiction of opiates in our country.
These are things where there was never any research done. I am very proud that, with my conservative credentials, I can talk to a number of my Republican colleagues to join with almost all of my Democratic colleagues and vote to permit the States to decide whether or not cannabis would be legal or illegal in their State for the medical use of marijuana.
That has brought a great change over the last 6 years since my amendment--first, the Rohrabacher-Hinchey, then Rohrabacher-Farr--and now, over these 6 years, it is a $6 billion industry now. That is $6 billion not going to the drug cartels in Mexico. That is $6 billion of which can be spent helping people, rather than trying to put someone in jail for consuming a weed, using all the money for law enforcement, jails, judges' time, and police time, rather than trying to protect the American people. What a waste.
My colleagues joined with me in that. I think that has been a wonderful accomplishment that I am very, very proud of and very grateful that I had the opportunity to be here and express that in debate and to reach out to my fellow Congressmen here from both sides of the aisle and mobilize a majority that got that passed so that the Federal Government cannot supersede State law now, when it comes to medical marijuana.
Also, one of the things that I guess is something that is people don't know much at all, but during my time before Congress and during my time during the Reagan years, I was deeply involved with various insurgency groups that were trying to defeat the Soviet Union, bring down the Soviet Union.
Part of that is I was able to get to know the leadership of the mujahideen who were fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan. In fact, I went to Afghanistan and I fought with troops and the mujahideen and fought against Soviet soldiers at the Battle of Jalalabad. Yes, I had that type of experience.
Later, when our Pakistani friends and our Saudi friends betrayed us and betrayed the people of Afghanistan by supporting the creation of the Taliban, a radical Islamic terrorist organization our Saudi friends and our Pakistani friends created, I continued to go to Afghanistan during that time period, while I was here in the Congress, and meet with the warlords that I had met with during the time that we were fighting the Soviet Union.
One of them, Commander Massoud, who I met on a number of occasions, was murdered 3 days before 9/11. I knew he had been tipped off by other contacts that I had in Afghanistan that there was an attack being planned on the United States. They said: You will know that it is going to happen when something major happens in Afghanistan that will change the political balance. It is a signal that the attack will go forward.
I went all over this city when I realized that Commander Massoud was murdered 3 days before 9/11, that was the signal to move forward on this attack on the United States. I tried to warn our administration. I tried to warn everyone in the city. No one would listen.
Then, I had a wonderful thing happen in my life. Actually, after 9/ 11, people did start to listen. Of course, they did. They remembered: Dana Rohrabacher was trying to warn us about this. And all of this is happening without public view. The public never saw any of this.
But I was able then to talk to various people in our government at high levels
of positions and outline for them how we should proceed. Our own military, our Defense Department wanted to send 100,000 American troops or more into a frontal attack--an attack from Pakistan in the northwest provinces--into Afghanistan.
I was horrified when I heard this. I knew that territory. It is the most anti-American territory on the planet. Our military would have been slaughtered or at least holed up in fortress cities like the Russians had been. It was a horrible thing.
I thank God that I had this opportunity, because I went to the powers that be and I told them: You can't do this. This is wrong. They said: What do we do?
I managed to get ahold of General Dostum and other ``warlords'' in Afghanistan to enlist them, and the President of the United States, when given the alternative of using the warlords with special forces teams and U.S. air power versus sending in hundreds of thousands of American troops, our President chose to use Afghans in what they called the Northern Alliance, which I helped create with a team of people-- Charlie Santos, Paul Behrends, and other friends who had been working with me in Afghanistan over the years--and helped us put that together and the President decided to go in that direction. I would recommend the book on the horse soldiers: ``12 Strong.'' There is a movie out. It is about that first special forces team and General Dostum.
I believe that I was able that day, by convincing the authorities to go in that direction, to save thousands and thousands of American soldiers' lives. How demoralizing would it have been if we had not succeeded in a counterattack after 9/11?
Finally, let me mention a couple of things in passing that are those things that I discussed that give me pride and that I remember; what really also is most heartwarming to someone who is a Member of Congress is what he or she has been able to do for our own constituents.
As I say, whether you are Republicans or Democrats, we know our job is to help our people. Nobody else is going to help our people, except us. We care about them. Jack Kemp used to say: They won't care what you say unless they know that you care about them. Unless you can show them you care, they don't care about what you say. I never met a Democratic or Republican that didn't love his constituents or try to help them.
During the time period that I have been a Member of Congress, we had a flood control project. I know that sounds not so great here. But the fact is, we had a flood control project in Orange County that basically saved maybe billions of dollars in flood insurance costs for homeowners in my area in Orange County. The flood threat was going where people's lives would have been at stake.
I worked on that and I made sure when I first got here and worked with other Members of Congress--Democrat Members of Congress, because it was a Democrat Congress--to help complete that project. That is the type of bipartisanship we are capable of.
We have a water reclamation project in Orange County. It is the most high-tech water system in the world. We had a big drought over these last few years, but Orange County was the one county that stood alone in not being hurt dramatically because we had a system we invested in. I brought people from all over the world to see that technology, and I was able to work with our locals to make that happen.
I was able, over my years, to help veterans who were being stood up, veterans who were not getting the service they needed. They felt helpless. They were, some of them, sick, psychologically wounded by the service that they had provided, yet we were not helping them.
My office has helped hundreds of these men and women who were in desperate need of someone to care for them. That is a memory now, a good memory, and I know my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, do that.
And we have changed the rules so that now the Veterans Administration has to be more caring. They have to make sure these people are being taken care of.
I am very proud, again, of the bipartisan approach on these issues of human caring for our own constituents, making America a better place from the bottom up instead of from the top down.
Let me just note that there are hundreds of people in my district who would have lost their homes about 10 years ago when we had an economic upheaval. People remember the Great Recession. Well, yes, things got really bad, and people were losing their homes. We established a program, and we helped over 500 people in Orange County, in my district, to save their homes, families that would have lost everything.
Thank God that I was permitted to be a Member of this body, because I know each and every one of us were doing things like that to help those in need.
I have gone to help as many seniors who are having trouble with bureaucracy, with Social Security; and I have also tried to do my best over the years to work with organizations, organizations that add to the benefit and that add to the strength, the moral strength as well as every other strength of our system, organizations, whether they are the Rotary Club or whether they are the Boy Scouts of America.
I have pinned on hundreds, if not thousands, of Eagle Scout pins for all of the Scouts for these last 30 years that I have been a Member of Congress representing Orange County.
So we must be loyal, basically, to these local people, these people who have elected us. That is our job. Our job is to watch out for them, for their interests.
I have one last note, and that is this: When we look at the immigration issue, I would hope that we do so with respect for each other and understanding that people have good hearts on both sides. But I know that, in my heart, my main job right now--and it has been for every Member of this House--should be to watch out for what is in the best interests of the American people.
Those people who would like to come here illegally, I am sorry. We already provide for a million people to come here legally.
We have to make sure the policies we set for immigration are what are in the interests of the people of the United States, and the same with our foreign policy.
I want to say that I am grateful that God has given me the opportunity and the voters have given me the opportunity these last 30 years to try to serve in the interests of my people, of the people of our country, and of those ideals our Founding Fathers and Mothers put in place when they risked all in the American Revolution back in 1776.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
