Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 599 to designate the facility of the U.S. Postal Service located at 3500 West 6th Street, Suite 103 in Los Angeles, California, as the Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Post Office.

This legislation introduced by my colleague, the distinguished Representative Jimmy Gomez of California, would designate a post office after the Korean-American leader, Dosan Ahn Chang Ho. A Korean independence activist who immigrated to the United States, he became an early leader in the Korean-American immigrant community. He opposed the Japanese occupation of Korea and later served as a founding member of the Korean Provisional Government.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez).

Madam Speaker, in closing, I would encourage all of my colleagues to join us in honoring the life of Mr. Ho by naming a post office in Los Angeles after him.

Madam Speaker, I urge passage of H.R. 599, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 1060 to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1660 East Date Place in San Bernardino, California, as the Dr. Margaret B. Hill Post Office Building.

The legislation introduced by my friend and colleague, Mr. Aguilar, would rename the Del Rosa Post Office to honor Dr. Hill, a beloved educator and longtime advocate for the people of San Bernardino.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Aguilar).

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, but I encourage all of my colleagues to join us in honoring the life of Dr. Hill by naming the post office in San Bernardino after her.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are pretty good at attacking Federal workers around here, but we are not very good at praising them.

So I rise today to offer my profound appreciation for the hardworking employees at the National Personnel Records Center, who last week completed a huge achievement: They eliminated a large pandemic-related backlog of veteran records requests.

This is important to me, so I have been monitoring the situation closely. Veterans and their families rely on these records in order to access all the benefits that they have earned, as well as critical services, including housing and healthcare.

Due to restrictions in place to protect worker health and safety during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Personnel Record Center amassed a gigantic backlog of tens of thousands of unfilled veteran record requests.

Last Congress, as a consequence of bipartisan oversight and urging by leaders in the House, employees at the National Archives came to implement several critical new steps in order to address this backlog, including enhanced and reorganized staffing levels, technology updates, and digitizing millions of paper records.

We owe great thanks to the employees of the National Personnel Record Center for a job well done and for their great commitment, their passionate hard work, and their unswerving devotion to eliminate this backlog for America's veterans. It was a true success story of Federal workers.

Mr. Speaker, the reason mysteries are called whodunits is because they start with a crime, and then you have to try to figure out who did it.

The Biden impeachment investigation isn't a whodunit, it is a what is it.

It is like an Agatha Christie novel where the mystery is: What is the crime?

That gets very tedious very fast. After 11 months of this, no one can tell us what President Biden's crime was, much less where it happened, when it happened, what the motive was, who the perpetrators were, or who the victims were.

Maybe the funniest thing I have ever seen in Congress was yesterday in the Rules Committee when Congressman Neguse kept asking Congressman Reschenthaler what the crime was? Congressman Reschenthaler--who is not on the Oversight and Reform Committee and is apparently just waking up to the joke--kept saying that he didn't know what it was, but that is why we need an impeachment investigation, to find out.

Congressman Neguse kept asking him: But what will the impeachment investigation be looking for?

Finally, Congressman Reschenthaler said: A high crime or misdemeanor.

And Congressman Neguse said: Yes, but which one?

Now Congressman Neguse, of course, was involved in a real impeachment investigation of a real Presidential offense: the incitement of a violent political insurrection against this Congress, against the Vice President of the United States, against the Constitution, and against the election of 2020.

We did not need Sherlock Holmes and a magnifying glass to find the Presidential crime with Donald Trump. It came right into this House and smashed us in the face.

Now, it is true Chairman Comer has collected a mountain of evidence over the last 11 months: tens of thousands of pages of documents and dozens of hours of interviews with dozens of officials, but all of it clearly shows that Joe Biden committed no crime. Even their own witnesses, whom they called to the only public hearing they had, said that there is not remotely enough evidence to justify impeachment.

Chairman Comer has bragged on FOX News about procuring 100 percent compliance with his subpoenas, so forget about obstruction, which I hear them muttering about today.

Mr. Speaker, I played a game with the little kids at our family Thanksgiving. I asked them whether they had seen my henway. When they said, What's a henway? I said, about 4 or 5 pounds. It is a dad joke, and some of the bigger kids got it.

Nevertheless, when I asked the little kids, like 3 or 4 years of age, if they had seen my henway, they said: What's a henway? I said 3 or 4 pounds. They started looking for it. When the other kids came along and asked what they were doing, they said: We are looking for Uncle Jamie's henway. Then for hours they were looking everywhere for my henway, under the sofa and under the chairs, and it could go on for days like that.

Mr. Speaker, we are all looking for the Republican Party's henway. It just weighs 3 or 4 pounds, but it is costing us tens of millions of dollars. So please forgive me for spoiling the party here, but I want to say this to America: There is no henway. This stupid, blundering investigation is keeping us from getting any real work done for the people of America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this resolution which, to my knowledge, would mark the first time in American history that the House of Representatives would vote to tell private college and university presidents to resign. I want all of my colleagues to think very seriously about what this means for us today and in the future.

We are all profoundly disturbed by the resurgence of anti-Semitism and racism in campus towns, including death threats, serious death threats against Jewish students at Cornell, and actual shootings and attempted murder of three Palestinian-American students in Burlington, Vermont.

We all want to express our outrage in House resolutions, which we have done more than 20 times as a House of Representatives, and numerous times even since October 7. For example, on November 2, we passed H. Res. 798, which condemned all forms of anti-Semitism on college campuses, denounced any support for terrorist groups on campus, reaffirmed the free speech rights of Jewish students and faculty, and urged enforcement of Federal civil rights laws to protect Jewish students against anti-Semitism.

Why do we need this resolution? The only thing new about it is it would have the U.S. House of Representatives call specifically for the resignation of two college presidents, a call that has been slipped in at the bottom of page 2 of the resolution.

This extraordinary passage comes close to being what the Constitution calls a bill of attainder, which is the unconstitutional imposition by Congress on a specific citizen or citizens of a criminal punishment or stigma by the Congress itself. Although this resolution is not a criminal punishment or stigma against specific citizens, it is undoubtedly a civil punishment and stigma against specific American citizens.

How many of you would like the president of the college where you went or where your children go to be walking around with a congressional resolution telling them to resign?

Everyone knows that this will be an academic scarlet letter and a professional death sentence for anyone carrying it around. Does anyone think that UPenn President Liz Magill, who has already resigned in the face of Ms. Stefanik's ceaseless campaign to force her out, will ever be able to find another college presidency? Give me a break.

Now, I hold no brief for the college presidents' overly legalistic, ethically tone-deaf answers awkwardly advanced in response to Ms. Stefanik's rapid-fire, yes-no questions. It should not be difficult for anybody to say in an age of rampant gun violence and lax Republican gun laws, which have put tens of millions of AR-15s in circulation in our society, anyone calling for genocide of the Jews, or anyone else, should be sent immediately a campus security detail to see if they pose the risk of harm to other people or if they need an immediate mental health exam. If there is not an imminent threat, surely the call for genocide of the Jews by definition constitutes a hostile learning environment and should occasion aggressive disciplinary action. Where is the common sense on the part of the college presidents?

Where is the common sense in the Congress of the United States of America?

Calling for the resignation of private individuals at private universities would be a dramatic and unprecedented departure for the U.S. Congress, which has never before voted to tell a college president to resign.

Before we affix this lifelong stigma, reproach, and dishonor on a private citizen, do you think perhaps we should offer them some kind of due process, the kind of due process that even George Santos got and that Donald Trump is getting all over America right now for his 91 Federal and State felony charges?

Mr. Speaker, should Harvard President Claudine Gay, who is the first Haitian American ever to serve in that position, and Sally Kornbluth, who is Jewish, get the chance to explain what they are actually doing to combat racism and anti-Semitism at their schools and what they have done in their lives and in their careers to oppose anti- Semitism and racism, which are the gateways to destruction of liberal democracy? Do we care about that, or is this just a bunch of drive-by talking points?

Is it relevant that the Harvard and MIT boards have made unanimous statements affirming the leadership of their two college presidents? Are we saying that their boards don't matter or they are indifferent to anti-Semitism and the leaders of the Freedom Caucus know better than the Jewish president of MIT what anti-Semitism is?

Now, I know these two were the presidents testifying before Ms. Stefanik, but are we sure that these two are even the worst in the country when it comes to bias and discrimination? Is this a one-shot deal, or, as Ms. Stefanik promises, is this just the beginning? Are we going to go through all of the college and university presidents in America? What about the CEOs of the businesses? Maybe they are not performing to her satisfaction either.

Indeed, maybe there are college presidents who have looked the other way in not hypothetical cases of anti-Semitism and racism but real cases of anti-Semitism and racism. What about them? Are we going to let them go, or are we going to go after them? Maybe we should determine who the worst are before we start using the resources of the House of Representatives to call for people to resign.

Are there college presidents, by the way, who looked the other way when there was sexual abuse of college male wrestling team members, rape of students, or female gymnasts or female soccer players? Are we interested in that now that we are superintending higher education in America, now that we are the appellate review board for the colleges?

Mr. Speaker, are we prepared to become the national academic appeals panel for college presidents, coaches, and professors, or is that perhaps best left to the universities themselves?

Maybe it is that we just don't have a positive legislative agenda of our own to lower drug prices in America, to get aid to our democratic allies in Ukraine against the fascist imperialist thug Vladimir Putin. Maybe we don't have anything real to do, so we decide instead to go around and start lecturing the college presidents and the college boards all over America.

In the absence of a real program for America, the majority is filling our hours with censures, expulsions, motions to vacate the speakership, overthrow their own leaders, and, of course, impeachment of President Biden for what? For doing nothing wrong. That is all that they give us. This cannibalistic instinct they have unleashed now turns on private citizens, academic leaders who will wear the scarlet letter ``A'' so they can have some more press conferences.

Vote ``no'' on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to honor my neighbor and my young friend, Noah MacMillan, who we lost last July when he died of complications from colon cancer at the age of 33 years old.

What an honor it is to speak to America this morning about Noah MacMillan. Noah's brilliance, his gentle soul, and his boundless creativity live on in the hearts of everybody he touched, in the truly extraordinary and imperishable art that he left behind, and in the beautiful devotion of his remarkable parents, Jeff MacMillan and Lucinda Leach; and his brothers, Seth and Julian.

Noah was an accomplished artist. He was a talented athlete and a soccer player. He was a gifted chef, and he was a generous teacher.

His stunning and thought-provoking illustrations were accomplished in a variety of news outlets, including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Bloomberg Business, Sports Illustrated, and Riverfront Times, to name just a few of the places that recognized his exceptional art.

One of the crowning achievements of Noah's life and one of his final projects was an illustration that fused his passions for exuberant, colorful art and for the game of soccer.

The vibrant stamp that you see next to me here bursting with energy and power honors the electrifying achievements of women's soccer in America.

It was released by the United States Postal Service at the beginning of this year, 2023. Now, countless little replicas of Noah's art are flying all across the country on envelopes and packages, inspiring artists and athletes, especially young girl soccer players everywhere, all over America and all over the world.

Noah first came to battle cancer at the age of 23. He had the same oncological surgeon that I had at Johns Hopkins; Dr. Efron.

Noah's quiet courage and insistence on living joyfully carried him through treatment and through a lot of times of adversity over the next 10 years of his life.

In that intervening decade before colon cancer stole this splendid young man from us, he lived with great purpose and great passion and an unwavering dedication to his art and to the people in his life who he loved and was devoted to.

To honor Noah's generosity and his creativity, his loving family has launched a scholarship in his honor at his alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis.

This fund will make it possible for a high school student artist to attend the same summer program at Wash U. in St. Louis that gave Noah the confidence and the skills to pursue his dreams of becoming an artist and an illustrator, a dream that led just one of his pieces of art to become a stamp in our country.

Noah was not only a remarkable artist, he was an astonishingly quick- witted and gentle and loving human being.

He left an indelible mark on everyone who knew him, including his fantastic care team led by Dr. Jonathan Efron and nurse practitioner Tam Warczynski.

Noah is survived by his fiancee, Hitomi Inoue; his devoted parents, Jeffrey and Lucinda; his two loving brothers, Julian and Seth; his extended family; countless friends and neighbors; grateful, loving students; and, of course, his timeless amazing art, which now the entire country will get to enjoy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have images of three politicians in my office: Abraham Lincoln, Robert F. Kennedy, and Samuel H. Bellman, who was the first Jewish person ever elected to the Minnesota Legislature, a great champion of civil rights and civil liberties in the Constitution and of the creation of the

State of Israel, the Jewish democratic state in 1948. He was my grandfather.

He was elected at a time of terrible anti-Semitism, not unlike today. Minneapolis was actually called the anti-Semitism capital of America, and my grandpa told me a story I will never forget.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Republican Caucuses both had their annual retreats at a country club that did not allow Jews or Blacks to enter. My grandfather complained privately to the speaker about the fact that he wouldn't be able to go to his own retreat. The speaker apologized but said that it was a tradition.

So my grandfather, the only Jewish person in the chamber, spoke on the floor about anti-Semitism. He was booed and jeered at, and members left as he tried to speak.

When the minority leader asked me to manage our time today, I thought about my grandfather and how he must have felt on that day. I rise here not in spite of the fact that I am a Jewish American who supports the Constitution and the Jewish democratic state and hates all the anti- Semitic tyrants and terrorists of the world, from Putin in Russia and Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia to Hezbollah in Hamas. I am here because of these things and because of everything that I believe in and stand for.

At this moment when democracy is under siege all over the world, America must stand tall for the Constitution of the United States. This resolution is about one thing and one thing only: the punishment of speech.

We have the chance to show the world what the American Constitution means and how we hold fast to our core principles even when we are drawn away from them by our passions and our righteous anger.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the very heart of it is our First Amendment, which protects every citizen's freedom of speech and says Congress shall make no law abridging it.

The freedom to speak includes the freedom to disagree, the right to think radically differently from the majority about important things, or else it is no freedom at all. It is easy to defend freedom of speech for people when you agree with them. The test for each Member today is whether you can defend freedom of speech for people when you most fundamentally and vehemently disagree with them.

The First Amendment is like an apple, and everybody wants to take just one little bite out of it--leftwing speech, rightwing speech, sexist speech, feminist speech, homophobic speech, pro-LGBTQ speech, anti-war speech, pro-war speech, religious speech, sacrilegious speech. Everybody wants a bite out of the apple.

At the end of the day, after everybody has taken his or her bite, do you know what is left? Nothing. There is nothing left.

If you want to save the apple, you have to learn to tolerate not just the speech you love the most but the speech you hate the most.

Now, like the First Amendment, the Speech or Debate Clause embodies this central value in the proceedings of this body. It states that Members of Congress ``shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.''

In the two-and-a-half-century history of this great Chamber, Members have been overwhelmingly censured for their actions, not for their speech--actions like participating in the violent assault against Charles Sumner of Massachusetts; assaulting Representative Grinnell, of Iowa, with a cane; selling military academy appointments; taking bribes; engaging in mail fraud and payroll fraud; improper spending of campaign funds; embezzling congressional money; engaging in sexual misconduct with a House page.

Do you see the difference? It is not what they said. It is what they did.

I can find only three categories of cases where speech is the sum and substance of the charge, and all are exceptions that have been ratified by the Supreme Court:

One, violent threats against other Members of this body, which the Court has found, as recently as April, are not protected by the First Amendment.

Two, fighting words: the use of unparliamentary or aggressively insulting language on the House floor that constitutes a direct affront to another Member. The Supreme Court has said that fighting words are not protected.

Three, speech advocating or promoting treason, secession, or insurrection, all of them outside of the First Amendment because of numerous provisions in our Constitution condemning and opposing insurrection.

That is it: violent threats against other Members, fighting words on the floor, speech inciting insurrection.

The resolution offered against the gentlewoman from Michigan is all about censuring her for her political speech and literally nothing else. No actions, no conduct, is being alleged or punished. The entire motion is about her speech and how much we hate it and how wrong we think it is, and all of that is fine for all of us to express individually on the floor, in the media, on social media.

I have said to Ms. Tlaib myself that the phrase ``from the river to sea'' is abhorrent to me, even with her published explanation of what she means by it, which is very different from what Hamas says about it and how Hamas uses it, but I would never think of punishing her or disciplining her because we disagree about that.

The resolution proposes to condemn her for quoting this objectionable phrase in her video, a video which is indisputably protected speech under the First Amendment.

Unlike the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, whose proposed expulsion by members of the majority was rejected by a commanding bipartisan majority last week because he has not been convicted of either the criminal or the ethics charges outstanding against him, Ms. Tlaib has been criminally charged with nothing. She has been civilly sued for nothing. She has no ethics charges outstanding before the Ethics Committee in any way.

It is easy to see why. She cannot face criminal punishment or civil liability for her speech because, in the United States of America, we don't punish people for their political ideas, no matter how wrongheaded or offensive we think they are. The majority might think they are, or it might not, but in any event, it doesn't make any difference.

She won reelection with 71 percent of the vote in Michigan's 12th District, and if anyone is going to punish her for her political ideas or performance, it must be the people of her own district who sent her here to represent them.

Mr. Speaker, the disciplinary process should never be used to punish the political speech or viewpoints of a Member of this Chamber just because the majority disagrees.

The punishment of political viewpoints will mean that Members will be censured just for being in the minority rather than in the majority, and that will come to stifle our dialogue and haunt all of our work.

For example, the good Speaker of the House, who is my friend from the Judiciary Committee, has taken positions in the past arguing that sex between consenting gay adults should be a crime, that the Supreme Court was wrong to strike down sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas and wrong to give gay people the right to marry in Obergefell, a right that he said is ``the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.''

The vast majority of Americans reject these positions as extreme in public opinion polls and believe all citizens should have the freedom to pursue their own love lives and to marry.

If the House majority changes hands, should we actually censure the former Speaker of the House for his constitutional apostasy and thought crimes against the rights of millions of Americans? I sure hope not because the gentleman from Louisiana is absolutely entitled to his political and religious views, no matter how far outside the constitutional and American mainstream they are.

Under the First Amendment, extremism is in the eye of the beholder, but how will we resist the temptation to punish him in the future if we set a precedent today that Members can be censured and canceled simply for their

political heresies in the eyes of the majority controlling the House?

If we say the gentlewoman can be punished because her views of history are wrong, as I heard my friend say, can we then punish Members of this body who refuse to vote to take down in our Halls the statues of Members of Congress from the 19th century who joined the Confederacy and committed treason against the Union, people like John Breckinridge, a former Vice President and U.S. Senator who was expelled from the Senate after he defected to the Confederacy? Should we use the disciplinary process to impose historical orthodoxy?

If anything, there is a stronger constitutional case for punishing the 120 Members of the House who voted against taking down statues of Confederate traitors because multiple provisions of the Constitution explicitly forbid and punish participation in insurrection. Do Members who voted that way want to risk being censured in the future by establishing that divergent minority views on history are a legitimate matter of institutional discipline?

What about the Members who defended conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and stated that Sandy Hook and Parkland mass murderers of dozens of schoolchildren were staged by Hollywood to generate support for gun safety? That is not even a matter of opinion but adjudicated positive fact, and still, the Constitution protects your right to be wrong about facts unless you are deliberately defrauding or cheating someone out of something like money or campaign contributions.

What about all of those Members who have followed the former President in advancing the big lie that he actually won the 2020 election? Should we convert the 60 Federal and State court decisions rejecting claims of election fraud and corruption into discipline and punishment of Members who still cling to that view?

What about the 11 Members of this body who lost the 405-11 vote in 2019 recognizing that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I was a genocide? Does their denial of the genocidal character of the deaths of more than 1 million Armenians qualify them for collective punishment today, institutional punishment?

Can we convert differing interpretations of history into the basis for disciplinary action?

Well, perhaps you say political dissent should be uniquely punishable when it comes to foreign policy. Of course, the First Amendment doesn't distinguish between speech having domestic or foreign policy content. All of it is protected. If not, every Member of this body who has voted against aid to Ukraine and praises Vladimir Putin, as the former President did for his ``genius'' and his ``savvy,'' or says Putin is not our enemy, as a number of Members have, could be censured for it by this body.

This resolution not only degrades our Constitution but cheapens the meaning of discipline in this body for people who actually commit wrongful actions like bribery, fraud, violent assault, and so on.

When people are punished for their political ideas and expression, they will wear it as a badge of honor. They will fundraise on it. Millions of dollars will flow to people who are punished that way, and they will join the public in mocking the new speech censors of Congress.

A secure constitutional republic, which actively protects the freedom of dissenting speech to allow for serious debate and growth as society, shows its strength, not its weakness.

As Thomas Jefferson, whose beautiful statue is right outside of this room, put it: ``If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.''

Now is a moment when we will get to see who in the House of Representatives believes in the freedom of speech, even the speech they hate, versus those who want to impose a new political straitjacket of cancel culture on America and Congress.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Pressley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 10 seconds to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bowman).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Carson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. Omar).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck).

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I don't think that my colleagues have caught us in any kind of contradiction when they raised the case of Representative Gosar, who posted a video on social media depicting himself killing our colleague Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and also attacking President Biden. This was a true threat. These were fighting words. This is something that is totally within our First Amendment tradition.

Mr. Speaker, we live in a time of terror and war, great polarization and trauma across the world. We must grapple the rule of law to our souls with hoops of steel at this moment. In a time of all kinds of storms all over the world, the rule of law, the Constitution, is our shore, and now is a moment to hug the shore.

Let's defend the freedom of speech for today, for tomorrow, and going forward in the Congress of the United States.

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

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

Mr. Speaker Pro Tempore, I rise to honor the Pancretan Association of America (PAA) on their many achievements throughout their 94 years of dedicated service. I am thrilled to congratulate the PAA on the establishment of their first-ever National Headquarters at the Hellenic Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and on the recent election of their organization's first female president, Diane Kounalakis.

The PAA and the Pancretan Youth Association (PYA) offer a rich array of programs to cultivate and preserve the extraordinary heritage of the island of Crete. The PAA and PYA have supported the enrichment and personal development of both Cretan Americans and the general public through educational events, study abroad scholarships, dance and music workshops, and translations of Greek literature. The PAA also has a long and storied history of advancing essential causes on the island of Crete and throughout both Greece and the United States. From helping to establish Crete's first public hospital in the 1950s to supporting orphanages, food pantries and disaster relief today, the PAA has made immense contributions.

I have no doubt that President Diane Kounalakis, a longtime PAA member and volunteer, will be an exemplary leader for the PAA. Mr. Speaker Pro Tempore, I urge my colleagues to join me in applauding the PAA for its many decades of service, and in wishing the PAA all the best in the years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 292, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 24355 Creekside Road in Santa Clarita, California, as the William L. Reynolds Post Office Building.

William Reynolds, better known as Bill, was brought up in the San Fernando Valley. He was the son of a World War I veteran.

Following high school graduation and just before his 20th birthday, he followed in his father's footsteps and enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam war. He served in the 9th Infantry Division and is recalled as one of the few surviving servicemembers of the Charlie Company's ``Boys of `67.'' For his heroic service, Mr. Reynolds earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

After receiving an honorable discharge, Mr. Reynolds moved to the Santa Clarita Valley in California with his wife, Meg. He spent the remaining years of his adult life as an influential supporter of veterans.

In addition to his military accolades, he is remembered for single- handedly organizing a local effort to construct a memorial wall at the Veterans Plaza to honor Santa Clarita Valley veterans from World War I to the present day.

He also traveled to Da Nang, Vietnam, with a veteran delegation led by a former President to honor the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam war. As a passionate advocate for Santa Clarita Valley's local veteran community, he became a high-profile historian as director of veterans affairs for two Santa Clarita-based news journals, publishing more than 100 different biographies of local veterans in his community.

On January 11, 2021, Mr. Reynolds passed away. I encourage my colleagues to join me in honoring the distinguished life of Mr. Reynolds by naming a post office in Santa Clarita, California, after him.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I urge passage of H.R. 292, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 996, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3901 MacArthur Boulevard in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the Dr. Rudy Lombard Post Office.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Carter), my distinguished colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from New Orleans for his eloquent words about Dr. Lombard. May I add, not only was

he a hero to the people of New Orleans and Louisiana, but he was also a nationally recognized civil rights advocate who was the vice president of CORE when he was a student at Xavier University. He is remembered for leading a 1960 sit-in at McCrory's Five and Dime store to peacefully protest Jim Crow in Louisiana with a group of people famously known as the ``CORE Four.''

So the naming of this post office will be an opportunity not just for the people of his city and State, but for the people of the United States to recognize him.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong favor of H.R. 2379, designating the facility of the U.S. Postal Service located at 616 East Main Street in St. Charles, Illinois, as the Veterans of the Vietnam War Memorial Post Office.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Illinois for his remarks about the naming of this post office, and I strongly encourage all of our colleagues to endorse this significant legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Second Lieutenant Patrick Palmer Calhoun was born on March 19, 1941, and raised in Mount Vernon, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia and enlisted in the U.S. Army in the middle of the Vietnam war.

While stationed in South Vietnam, Second Lieutenant Calhoun served heroically for his country as a rotary wing aviation unit commander.

On April 19, 1965, his helicopter was shot down by enemy fire in the Pleiku Province. He was later declared killed while missing in action at the tender age of 24.

I encourage my colleagues to join us in honoring the life of Second Lieutenant Calhoun by naming a post office in Mount Vernon, Georgia, after him.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

As ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4502, the Modernizing the Acquisition of Cybersecurity Experts Act.

I thank my distinguished colleagues, Representative Nancy Mace from South Carolina, who is the chair of the Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee, and Representative Katie Porter, who is the ranking member of the Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee, for their excellent bipartisan work on this bill, something that, yes, does still exist in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This year, more than 750,000 cybersecurity jobs in the United States will be left unfilled. Each one is a missed opportunity for a talented person and also a missed opportunity for our country.

These are well-paid positions with great job security. They are essential to the protection of our government, the prosperity of our businesses, and the security of our communities.

One big barrier to entry for many of these jobs is the requirement that applicants have a college degree, even if that degree has no bearing on the technical expertise required to satisfactorily meet the demands of the job or to successfully perform the work. Remember that Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college before he created Facebook.

According to a 2017 study by Harvard Business School, more than 60 percent of employers turned down qualified applicants in the IT field because they didn't have a college degree. Many such applicants were turned down even when they sought to fill jobs vacated by individuals who also didn't have college degrees.

This degree inflation excludes people from opportunity. In 2022, less than 40 percent of the population over the age of 24 had a bachelor's degree.

As technological and cultural advancements continue to transform the nature of the workplace, businesses and public-sector entities alike have begun to realize that college degrees are not always effective proxies for job qualifications and skills. Often, highly capable candidates became that way precisely because they pursued their own path in life, a nontraditional route into the workforce. To remain competitive and to attract top talent, hiring authorities could no longer allow degree inflation to automatically disqualify more than half of our workforce.

H.R. 4502 applies the same logic to the Federal cybersecurity workforce which performs the critical work of defending our Federal networks and our Federal data from attack. Recognizing the government must be competitive to attract high-demand cybersecurity talent to public service, the bill eliminates the requirement that a BA degree is a prerequisite to Federal hiring for cybersecurity.

Eliminating unnecessary degree requirements isn't just good for business, it is good for workers and especially minority workers who are too often excluded from opportunity. In 2022, less than 30 percent of the Black population had a bachelor's degree. For the Hispanic population, that number is even lower at 21 percent. Addressing degree inflation and advancing legislation like this takes steps toward creating the more inclusive and fair society that the public wants.

This bill contributes to a record of strong bipartisan cooperation to strengthen Federal cybersecurity and its workforce. Democrats led passage of the CHIPS and Science Act last year with increased funding for Federal cyber workforce programs, and the Office of the National Cyber Director recently published the Biden-Harris administration's National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy. This strategy includes a provision encouraging employers to take a more skills-based approach to hiring for these cyber positions.

While Republicans in the House continue the crusade to shut down the government--let's hope they have thought better of it now--I do hope that Americans see that it is still possible for Congress to come together on commonsense legislation like this to advance meaningful opportunity in a well-functioning government.

Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Porter).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from California for her introduction of this legislation with Congresswoman Mace and for her leadership here.

The gentlewoman is absolutely right that there are people who may have gotten a college degree and a Ph.D. in some other field but are completely unprepared and unqualified to have a cybersecurity professional's job in the Federal Government, and there are those who never went to college at all who would be excellently prepared based on what their professional and life experience has been.

I thank them for moving in this direction, and I hope we can look at some other parts of Federal hiring to make sure we are making equivalent adjustments, so we are getting, as the gentlewoman says, the best candidates.

I am wondering--and I would yield to the gentleman for a second, if he knows the answer to this.

Is it just a happy coincidence that the acronym for this legislation is the MACE Act? Was that pure coincidence? I don't know.

In any event, I congratulate Ms. Mace and Ms. Porter on this excellent legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this week marked the one thousandth day of imprisonment of one of Hong Kong's 1,648 political prisoners: Jimmy Lai, a hugely successful businessman, owner of Hong Kong's major newspaper, and a freedom fighter for the people of Hong Kong. His ``crimes'' that have landed him in a maximum-security prison at age 75? Supporting pro-democracy protests and publishing the truth about the Chinese Communist Party's creeping authoritarian takeover of Hong Kong.

I have begun the process of adopting his case as a ``prisoner of conscience'' with the Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights and I urge all colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, to adopt a political prisoner, a religious prisoner or some other prisoner of conscience in this time of terrifying global crackdown on human rights and free expression.

Jimmy Lai recognized that a free press that reports the facts is essential to democracy and a free society. He founded one of Hong Kong's most reputable papers in 1991, Apple Daily, in reference to the Garden of Eden's fruit of knowledge. One of the paper's original mottos was ``an apple a day keeps the liars away.'' Jimmy Lai's newspaper continued to report the facts as Hong Kong citizens from all walks of life--led by thousands of courageous young people--demonstrated for their freedom and against Beijing's repressive ``National Security Law'' in 2019.

It is for this principled defense of truth and common sense in a civil society that Mr. Lai has been unjustly detained by China's authoritarian expansion into the free city of Hong Kong. According to the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a human rights organization, Jimmy Lai is one of 1,648 Hong Kongers who are political prisoners today. This staggering number--reached after just four years--puts the once-free Hong Kong on the same plane as countries like Belarus and Myanmar. Everyday Hong Kongers who dared to dream of a democratic future are instead languishing in detention. They await trial and sentencing before a hyper-politicized judiciary executing a twisted facsimile of Hong Kong's traditionally independent, common law court system.

Jimmy Lai was first arrested in August 2020 as one of the first targets of the repressive ''National Security Law'' imposed by mainland China. He has since been arrested numerous times, charged with everything from collusion with foreign powers, to so-called ``unauthorized assembly,'' to alleged fraud. Many of his fellow political prisoners in Hong Kong face charges that are similar affronts to a free society.

The reactionary movement against democracy is global, which is why our movement to defend democracy is also global. I salute the courageous activists, like Jimmy Lai, who refuse to bend to the brutal forces of fear and authoritarianism. Whether they live in Washington, D.C. or Hong Kong or Moscow or Kyiv, everyone should have the right to determine their own destiny. I stand here today on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in solidarity with Jimmy Lai as he marks his one thousand and first day as a political prisoner. Please join me in acting in solidarity with Jimmy Lai and demand his immediate release and freedom from the Chinese government.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to recognize Mr. Benjamin Zelenko, a distinguished constituent and exemplary citizen who helped shape the revival of our national commitment to equality through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mr. Zelenko has accomplished a lifetime of excellent service to this great Nation and this body, making vital contributions to our journey towards a more perfect union.

Mr. Zelenko served as a top aide to Representative Emanuel Celler, the legendary Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the apex of the Civil Rights Movement. Mr. Zelenko played a critical role in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and the Gun Control Act of 1968. Mr. Zelenko helped Representative Celler shepherd these bills through fraught Committee debates, floor debates and final passage.

Later in his career, Mr. Zelenko represented Japanese Americans in their fight for reparations and redress for their unlawful and outrageous internment by the U.S. Government during World War II. He argued their case in United States v. William Hohri, et al. before the U.S. Supreme Court. This case helped pave the way for the enactment of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which awarded $20,000 in reparations and an official apology from the U.S. Government to tens of thousands of Japanese Americans.

Throughout his career in several of our Nation's leading law firms, Mr. Zelenko championed human rights, workers' rights, and intellectual property rights. Mr. Zelenko documented his experiences helping to pass monumental legislation for an oral history project conducted by this body's Office of the Historian for the public record. His encyclopedic recollection of the minutiae of the events of 1964 reminds us that landmark civil rights protections were not inevitable but rather were won through grueling and sustained efforts spanning decades of social struggle. A Princeton University and Harvard Law graduate, Mr. Zelenko contributed his great knowledge and gifts to the unending quest for a more perfect union. We are fortunate as a Nation that he chose to use his immense talents to serve the causes of social justice and equality.

Mr. Zelenko is a beloved husband, father and grandfather. He married Barbara (Saltz) Zelenko in 1961. In 1964, the Zelenkos moved to Maryland's beautiful Eighth District where they raised their 3 children, Brian, Laura and Carin. Ben and Barbara Zelenko still live in the same house they first occupied. This year, Mr. Zelenko celebrated his 90th birthday surrounded by his loving children and 6 grandchildren, Leslie, Jennifer, Sasha, Katya, Lia and Kayla. Mr. Zelenko is known by his family for being a gracious and captivating host, performing magic shows at all 6 of his grandchildren's birthday parties and seizing any opportunity to tell a great story. I am proud to salute Mr. Zelenko for his lifetime of service and extraordinary character.