Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the Department of the Treasury Officer Protection Act of 2019. I appreciate the bipartisan original cosponsorship of Representative Peter King, who introduces the bill with me today. Our bill would help ensure the safety of Treasury Department police officers by allowing those officers, including those who work at the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), to carry their service weapons home with them after they are no longer on duty.

BEP officers were some of the first responders when a gunman opened fire at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009. However, BEP officers also can be targets because they wear uniforms to and from work. Many officers carry personal weapons to and from work because they are not allowed to take their government firearms home, and some are forced to leave those personal firearms in their cars while they are on duty, creating a possibly dangerous situation.

Allowing BEP officers to carry their weapons home will put them in the same position as U.S. Mint officers. Although both are uniformed police officers working for the Treasury Department, under current agency rules, U.S. Mint officers are allowed to carry their service weapons home, while BEP officers are not. There is no meaningful distinction between officers for the two agencies. They should be treated equally.

Our bill would allow all uniformed officers in the Treasury Department to carry their service weapons home to protect officers and the public and so that the Department does not have separate rules for different law enforcement agencies under its umbrella.

I ask my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to note the House's passage of the Equality Act (H.R. 5), to afford nationwide protection against discrimination for LGBTQ people in employment, housing, credit, education, public service and spaces, federally funded programs and federal jury service. Equality for all Americans has long been one of my signature issues, but my work for equal treatment for the LGBTQ community has had to have an additional dimension. Republicans have often tried to use the District of Columbia's unequal status as a weapon against the LGBTQ community. Opponents of equality for the LGBTQ community have consistently targeted the District to pass their discriminatory agenda. I have fought them off at every turn, beginning with protecting D.C.'s domestic partnerships law, ahead of its time in 1992, defending the District's marriage equality and same-sex adoptions laws, and protecting D.C.'s law that prohibits religiously affiliated schools from denying LGBTQ students access to services and facilities. In addition, I recently reintroduced bills to protect LGBTQ jurors from discrimination in local D.C. courts, action only Congress

can take because of the requirements of the Home Rule Act, and to end the unique applicability of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to the District.

The Equality Act is uniquely comprehensive. Historically, when Congress has passed civil rights legislation, it typically has done so by category, whether in employment, or housing, or the rest. However, the Equality Act, encompassing all forms of typical discrimination, sends a special message. It is too late for anything except legislation that takes on discrimination against our LGBTQ community once and for all.

The Equality Act also fills a large space I have tried to fill ever since being elected to Congress. My work for the LGBTQ community has come naturally. As a lifelong fighter for equal rights, I have always seen congressional failure to address discrimination against the LGBTQ community as no different from congressional failure to bar segregation in the public schools I attended as a child in the District, or to address discrimination in voting rights and public accommodations I went to Mississippi to fight as a student in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The Equality Act stands for the impossibility of parsing discrimination. The history of discrimination in the United States teaches that all bigotry is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, women who celebrate 100 years of suffrage this year have in common with the residents of the Nation's Capital this: denial of equal rights in their democracy, requiring decades of fighting.

It took 132 years since the Nation's founding for women to get the vote.

It has taken 218 years, and still counting, for D.C. residents to achieve statehood, which includes voting rights and all the rights that come with equal citizenship.

We are grateful that as we move forward to a formal vote on statehood, the House has already endorsed D.C. statehood in H.R. 1.

Today, women set the pace in our democracy, outvoting men in national elections. D.C. residents yearn to join them in showing that those who are denied their rights know how to use them after fighting to achieve them.

Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the District of Columbia Courts Home Rule Act. This bill would give the Council of the District of Columbia authority over the jurisdiction and organization of the local D.C. courts. The 1973 Home Rule Act (HRA) expressly prohibits D.C. from enacting any law with respect to any provision of the D.C. Code title that relates to the local D.C. courts. Congress can correct this injustice to the District's tax paying residents by amending the HRA, even before the District becomes the 51st state.

Forty-six years after passage of the HRA, matters involving the D.C. courts almost never come to Congress, so Congress knows virtually nothing about the District's courts--and could not care less. Notwithstanding the importance of D.C.'s courts to District residents, the D.C. Council, which is the repository of knowledge and experience for the District's criminal and civil justice systems and the body accountable to our residents, is irresponsibly left on the sidelines while Congress remains the sole entity to correct flaws in the District's courts.

Under the HRA, the D.C. Council has no authority to ``enact any act, resolution, or rule with respect to any provision of title 11 of the District of Columbia Code (relating to organization and jurisdiction of the District of Columbia courts).'' Matters in title 11 are limited primarily to rules of criminal and civil procedure, court administration, the number of authorized judges, the branches of the courts, the rules of jury service and admission to the bar. Our bill would strike this limitation on the D.C. Council's authority.

The District has never had authority over its local courts, even when it was responsible for paying for their operations. Under the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997, the federal government assumed the costs for several state-level functions, including the courts because it alone has jurisdiction over these courts. This bill, an important first step, would not change the courts' funding. This bill also would not affect the authority of the President to nominate, or the Senate to confirm, local D.C. judges, which has been within their purview since the creation of the modern local court system in 1970.

This bill is an important step to increase democratic self-government for the District. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, today, I introduce the Banning Smoking on Amtrak Act of 2019. My bill would simply codify Amtrak's internal policy prohibiting smoking, including of electronic cigarettes, on its trains. This bill is modeled on a bill I got enacted as part of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-254) that clarified that the smoking ban on airplanes includes electronic cigarettes.

Although Amtrak implemented its own internal policy banning smoking on its trains in 1993, that policy could always be repealed, though Amtrak has not indicated it would do so. My bill would make the ban a matter of federal law and put Congress on the record in support of protecting people from secondhand smoke.

Smoking bans have been a critical tool in protecting people from the effects of secondhand smoke, known to increase the risk for serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases like coronary heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema, among others. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the tobacco epidemic to be one of the biggest public health threats in the world, killing more than seven million people a year. While more than six million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use, around 890,000 non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke are also killed every year.

Under my bill, smoking would be banned on Amtrak trains in the same manner as airline travel. According to the WHO, there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke. Even short-term exposure can potentially increase the risk of heart attacks.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, we celebrate our colleague and friend Ronald Dellums at a time of historic polarization in Congress. It is a good time to remember the peace advocate who chaired the Armed Services Committee with such equanimity that he won the respect, even the friendship, of those who opposed every cause, of the many into which Ron poured his considerable talent.

I first came to admire Ron even before being elected to Congress from my work in the Free South Africa anti-apartheid movement. For 14 years, Ron did not relent until he freed his landmark bill for South Africa divestment, overcoming a presidential veto.

By the time I was elected to Congress, Ron had already been chair of the District of Columbia Committee for more than a decade. That committee is long gone, and nothing would have pleased Chairman Dellums more than its demise. But when freedom-loving Ron Dellums first came to Congress, he knew that if there had to be such a Committee, he wanted a seat on it. Just as Ron sought peace by serving on the Armed Service Committee, he sought to free D.C. from congressional control by serving on the D.C. Committee.

He joined the D.C. Committee during his very first term in Congress. Upon becoming chair of the Committee, Ron framed his service as ``an advocate, not an overseer of District affairs.'' No sooner had Ron gotten to Congress in 1975, in his very first term, long before I even thought about becoming a Member, he introduced the first D.C. statehood bill.

Ron would relish our progress today as we close in on enough votes for the D.C. statehood bill to pass in the House this term. We expect a vote soon in the Oversight and Reform Committee to send the bill to the House Floor. When that committee vote occurs, we will not be able to claim we are breaking new or historic ground. In 1987, more than 30 years ago, Chairman Ron Dellums proclaimed, ``There should be no colonies in a democracy'' and led the District Committee in a vote for statehood for the District of Columbia that passed in his Committee.

The American citizens who live in the nation's capital will forever remember Ron Dellums, prescient warrior for equality and freedom--and well ahead of his time--a leader for statehood for the District of Columbia.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 44th Capital Pride Celebration, which will take place on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. From May 31 to June 9, 2019, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and others (LGBTQ+) communities and their allies in the National Capital Region will ``shhhOUT, Past, Present & Proud.''

On Father's Day of June 15, 1975, Deacon MacCubbin, owner of the Lambda Rising Bookstore in Dupont Circle began Gay Pride Day as a block party on 20th Street, between R and S Streets NW. Pride Day outgrew the curbs and sidewalks of 20th Street and moved to Francis Junior High School in 1980. The next year, a Pride Parade from Meridian Hill Park to Dupont Circle joined the renamed Gay and Lesbian Pride Day.

Over the years, the Pride festival has changed both in location and participation. In 1995, Pride Day moved to Freedom Plaza and on Sunday, June 8, 1997, a retitled Capitol Pride Festival opened on Pennsylvania Avenue. In 1991, D.C. Black Pride joined the Pride Celebration followed by Youth Pride in 1997. As momentum grew, D.C. Leather Pride began in 2006, while Transgender and Latinx Pride began in 2007. This year, Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) inaugurate API Pride, and seniors over 60 years of age observe Silver Pride.

Each June, Capital Pride recognizes individuals and organizations that have advanced causes important to the LGBTQ+ community in the National Capital Region. The Paving The Way Award acknowledges an individual or organization that has provided exemplary contributions, support or advocacy that impacts the larger LGBTQ+ community. The Alliance proudly awards the 2019 Paving The Way Award to The Washington Blade, America's LGBTQA Newspaper of Record.

The 2019 Hero Award recipients are Kimberley Bush, Director of Arts and Cultural Programs at the DC Center for the LGBT Community; Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force; Martin Espinoza, co-founder and President of Stonewall Sports; Ben de Guzman, Acting Director of the D.C. Mayor's Office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs; Amanda J. Hackett, Esq., an attorney in private practice who specializes in immigration matters for LGBTQ+ communities; and Tony ``And I Thank You'' Nelson, one of D.C.'s leading and most respected emcees and comedians.

Capital Pride gives the Engendered Spirit Award to outstanding advocates, activists and supporters of the transgender community. This year's recipients are: Xemiyulu Mariibusan Tapepechul, a Nawat Trans Femme from Kuskatan (El Salvador) and Larry Villegas-Perez, a Native American-Hispanic born in Venezuela. Donald Burch, III and Alan Thompson receive the Bill Miles Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Service. The Larry Stansbury Award for Exemplary Contributions to Pride goes to Team DC, the association of LGBTQ+ sports clubs in the DMV region. Capital Pride also awarded the National Center for Transgender Equality the Breaking Barriers: Community Impact Award.

I have marched in the Pride Parade since my election to Congress. I look forward to marching this year. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the 44th Capital Pride Celebration.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

Madam Speaker, the administration's guidance permitting junk plans to replace the Affordable Healthcare Act has fooled no one, and certainly not the millions with preexisting conditions and those who now enjoy essential health benefits.

The administration's true intent is clear from its support, in court now, as I speak, of a case to repeal the ACA in its entirety, including preexisting conditions.

Republicans, historically, have initially opposed virtually every form of coverage for the American people, including Social Security, but they have never succeeded in withdrawing or reducing benefits then in use. They will not succeed this time.

In my own District of Columbia, 106,000 residents with preexisting conditions would lose or risk losing or being denied or charged significantly more for health coverage.

The District, on its own, has succeeded in overcoming Republican attempts to weaken the ACA and now has reached virtually universal coverage, in spite of a specific attempt to block the city's successful efforts.

The administration's junk coverage is particularly untenable in allowing Federal subsidies of junk plans.

Republicans failed to overturn the ACA when they controlled majorities in both the House and the Senate. Plans that the administration has put forward to dismember the Act will not succeed either. Because of how insurance works, junk plans put all insured at risk of paying more for insurance.

Today, we intend to expose and defeat the administration's dangerous substitution for the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing the 29th annual D.C. Black Pride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

This Memorial Day week the National Capital Region welcomes members of the African American LGBTQ community to celebrate ``Our Truths In Harmony'' at the 29th annual D.C. Black Pride.

The festivities begin May 20th at 5:00 p.m. with the Damian Ministries' Black Pride Kick Off Reception and they close at 6:00 p.m. May 27th with Helping Us People Into Living's ``Pride In the Park'' festival at Fort DuPont Park.

On May 21st, D.C. Black Pride honors its 2019 award winners at the D.C. Black Pride Awards Reception. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President and Chief Executive Derrick Johnson receives the President's Award. The 2019 Welmore Cook Awards go to Bishop Allyson Nelson Abrams, founder prelate and pastor of Empowerment Liberation Cathedral, her spouse, Bishop Emerita Diana Williams, and Dr. Dii-Quartelai Quartey of the National Association of Retired Persons (NAARP) and the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Steven ``Kahos'' Wilson, Founder and CEO of Ovah the Top Productions and Executive Director of the OASIS Dance Company, receives the Unsung Hero Award. Black Pride recognizes True Colors United Senior Program Officer Kahlib Barton with the Leadership Award. Shi-Queeta Lee, noted DMV Drag Entertainer and costume designer, is honored with the Earline Budd Award.

Black Pride acknowledges U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Impact Specialist Derrick Caomei ``Strawberry'' Cox as the Charlotte Smallwood Volunteer of the Year for 2019. Gail Oliver and Nana Amuah-Afenyi VI (born Peggielene Bartles, known informally as ``King Peggy''), chief of Tatum Ghana, receive the Curtis L. Etherly, Jr., Ally Award. Michael Beale of Mb Staffing Services, LLC, receives the D.C. Black Pride Small Business Award.

This year, Black Pride initiates the Alan Sharpe Award for contributions to art by awarding it to its namesake, Alan Sharpe, Founding Artistic Director of Washington, D.C.'s African-American Collective Theater.

Black Pride continues through Memorial Day with town halls, educational workshops, a poetry slam hosted by Mary Bowman, an interfaith worship service, and social events, including breakfasts, brunches, dinners and happy hours.

D.C. Black and Lesbian Gay Pride Day began my first year in Congress. On Sunday, May 26, 1991, 800 people gathered at Banneker Field on Georgia Avenue. I have watched it mature from an ad hoc event to one of the world's preeminent Black Pride celebrations. Now D.C. Black Pride draws more than 50,000 participants from the United States, Africa, Europe and the Americas to our nation's capital.

D.C. Black Pride fostered the beginning of the Center for Black Equity (formerly known as the International Federation of Black Prides, Inc.) and the ``Black Pride Movement,'' which now consists of 53 Black Prides on four continents. I commend the volunteer Advisory Board that assists Earl D. Fowlkes, Jr., Jeffrey Richardson, Michael S. Hinson, Jr., C. Hawkins, Kenya Hutton and Genise Chamber-Woods in the planning and execution of D.C. Black Pride.

As Black Pride comes to town, I also take this opportunity to inform the celebrants and to

remind my colleagues of the various limitations Congress has placed on the District of Columbia. Despite paying more federal taxes than 22 states and paying the highest per capita federal taxes in the United States, the residents of Washington, D.C. still do not have full voting representation in Congress.

I ask the House to join me in welcoming all attending the 29th annual D.C. Black Pride celebration.

Madam Speaker, today, I introduce a bill, the Federal Government Advertising Equity Accountability Act, to require all federal agencies to include in their annual budget requests to Congress the amount they spend on advertising contracts with small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs) and businesses owned by minorities and women. Federal agencies would be required to provide prior and projected total expenditures for such contracts. Representatives Barbara Lee and Gwen Moore are cosponsors of this bill.

In 2007, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined spending on advertising contracts with minority-owned businesses by five agencies--the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of the Interior and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration--and found that only five percent of the $4.3 billion available for advertising contracts went to minority businesses. In light of these concerning figures, several Members of Congress and I sent a letter to the GAO in April 2016 requesting updated information on the amount of federal advertising dollars spent with SDBs and businesses owned by minorities and women. That GAO report, released in July 2018, showed that in fiscal year 2017, only 16 percent of the federal government's advertising contract obligations went to SDBs and businesses owned by minorities and women.

The federal government is the largest advertiser in the United States, and it has an obligation to ensure equitable access to its contracts for SDBs and businesses owned by minorities and women. The GAO's findings make it clear that there is still much progress to be made.

The regular collection of information on federal advertising contracts with SDBs and businesses owned by women and minorities, along with the provision of this information to legislators and stakeholders, is essential to bridging the divide between what current statistics show and a more inclusive advertising landscape. This bill would achieve these goals while also promoting transparency and encouraging federal agencies to strive to reach minorities, who often receive their daily news from smaller media outlets that serve communities of color. The requirement that agencies submit prior and projected information regarding the amount of advertising dollars spent with SDBs and businesses owned by minorities and women would allow federal agencies to evaluate their progress over time. The regular collection of this information would also demonstrate that the promotion of equity in advertising, and in all areas of government, should be a continuous effort that is important to the mission of every agency.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in honoring Roger Addison, who served as a dedicated employee of the House of Representatives for 31 years under six Clerks of the House.

Born at D.C. General Hospital, Roger is a true Washingtonian. He began his tenure as a busboy and dishwasher in the Longworth cafeteria before becoming a laborer in House Furnishings. Having worked as a D.C. cab driver and chauffeur, Roger then became a driver under former House Clerk Donnald K. Anderson.

Roger took computer classes and secured a position as a Public Information Specialist in the newly formed Legislative Resource Center. In time, Roger was promoted to Registration and Compliance Clerk.

He met his wife, Cassandra, while walking in the Longworth tunnel, and he will tell you it was love at first sight. They have been married for 18 years. They raised six children and have 11 grandchildren. Cassandra is responsible for convincing Roger to start wearing bowties, now his signature look.

Outside of the House, Roger is an avid golfer and often vacations with his family in the Carolinas. He loves to travel, and, as many of his colleagues will attest, he famously holds down the dance floor during the Clerk's annual holiday party. He is a deacon at Ambassador Baptist Church, and he is a Mason.

Roger is affectionately known as the ``Mayor of Capitol Hill.'' He will be missed by his colleagues and the Members who have come to know him. We all wish him the best in his well-deserved retirement.

Madam Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing Roger Addison for his service and dedication.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for his important work on this urgent bill.

It is too late to overstate the urgency of the climate crisis. It has already assumed emergency status in parts of the world, including parts of States like Florida.

The threatened withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accord should be considered an international crime. The United States is the only nation to threaten to withdraw from the agreement, but others, such as Brazil, seem willing to follow our lead.

I am encouraged, though, that in our country, even though we have record polarization today, Americans overwhelmingly want the United States to remain in the agreement. The absurdity of sealing our own fate by faking blindness to the climate catastrophe is not lost on the American people we represent. This is the most serious issue faced by the Congress of the United States in our history. We must vote for the life, not the end of the planet.

Madam Speaker, today, I am introducing the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2019, a version of which I have introduced since 1994, after working with the District of Columbia residents who were responsible for the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion ballot initiative, passed by D.C. voters in 1993. My bill still requires the United States to sign and ratify an international agreement to disable and dismantle America's nuclear weapons, to provide for strict control of fissile material and radioactive waste and to use nuclear-free energy. In lieu of joining such an agreement, this new version of the bill also gives the United States the option to ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Treaty). Many nations have already signed onto the Treaty. The Treaty was drafted by the United Nations in conferences in March and July of 2017, which is why I did not include it in my previous bills. According to the United Nations, the Treaty is ``a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.'' I am pleased by the international progress on this important issue.

Our bill continues to provide that the funds used for nuclear weapons programs be redirected to human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security, restoring the environment and creating carbon-free, nuclear-free energy. The conversion to a peace economy would occur when the President certifies to Congress that all countries possessing nuclear weapons have begun elimination under an international treaty or other legal agreement.

The bill is particularly timely considering the ongoing nuclear threat from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Our country still has a long list of urgent domestic needs that have been put on the back-burner. As the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in war, and that still possesses one of the largest nuclear weapons arsenals, I urge support for my bill to help the United States reestablish its moral leadership in the world by redirecting funds that would otherwise go to nuclear weapons to urgent domestic needs.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, today, in recognition of April as Second Chance Month, I introduce the Ensuring Successful Reentry Act of 2019, a bill to eliminate so-called ``subsistence fees.'' Federal law currently requires the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to impose a subsistence fee on the income of offenders living in residential reentry centers (RRCs), supposedly to promote financial responsibility by requiring RRC residents to pay a portion of their housing costs. The fee is currently 25 percent. However, many offenders living in RRCs often work minimum wage jobs, so the loss of 25 percent of their paychecks is a significant hurdle to successful reentry, and it makes it extremely difficult for them to save money for rent, pay child support, or fines and fees associated with their conviction (such as restitution). Recently, BOP eliminated the subsistence fee for offenders on home confinement, who cost BOP almost nothing for maintenance. Far from promoting financial responsibility, subsistence fees actually prevent returning citizens from meeting their financial obligations.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has already recognized how ``counterproductive'' subsistence fees are, both for offenders and BOP. In a November 2016 memo, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates noted that

BOP's ``process for collecting these subsistence fees is costly and administratively burdensome for both RRC's and [BOP],'' and called for DOJ to ``develop a plan to limit the use of counterproductive `subsistence' fees imposed on indigent residents.'' BOP can already waive subsistence fees in certain situations for residents of RRCs, but only a change in federal law can remove this unnecessary barrier to reentry.

We should not be imposing additional burdens on returning citizens, setting them up to fail, especially those who are employed and working toward independence from the criminal justice system. Jobs and affordable housing are crucial components in ensuring successful reentry--charging subsistence fees is antithetical to this goal. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of Representatives to join me in celebrating the International Festival of Language and Culture (IFLC). For the past 16 years, the IFLC has been showcasing both international diversity and the talent of our youth through poetry, song and dance from their cultures.

This year, Washington, D.C. is one of many world capitals co-hosting the IFLC. More than 80 participants from over 16 countries are invited to perform. This event brings together young students, parents, teachers and volunteers to promote diversity. These talented student- performers work tirelessly for several months in anticipation of meeting American audiences, including members of the U.S. Congress.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the students, parents, teachers and volunteers of the International Festival of Language and Culture for their efforts.