Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be leading this Special Order hour on the SNAP program and the current threats against it in the farm bill.

SNAP, of course, is America's most important antihunger program, serving more than 42 million Americans and delivering improved economic, health, and nutrition outcomes for millions of our families, reducing poverty and food insecurity.

To kick us off tonight, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Washington, Pramila Jayapal, my distinguished colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Jayapal for her terrific leadership on the SNAP program and for defending the ability of all of our families to not send their kids to bed at night hungry. That is really what this is all about.

People on the SNAP program receive an average of only $1.40 per meal, and in order to get assistance, of course, they have got to complete a detailed application process with meticulous documentation of their name, their legal status in the country, their identity, their income, their address, and so on. Ninety percent of participants are in households with children under the age of 18, or with elderly people, or with individuals with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield next to our distinguished colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) very much. He makes an excellent point which is, more than two-thirds of SNAP participants are in families with children, and in the majority of those, you have at least one working adult in the house.

So despite efforts to portray this as some kind of welfare, we are talking about millions of Americans who are working but still can't afford to feed their families. That is what the SNAP program is about. It is about helping working families meet the basic nutritional standards of our people.

We are the richest society in the history of the world, and we can certainly support working families, through the SNAP program, to benefit from the great bounty that is the agricultural output of the United States of America, which is the breadbasket of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to our colleague from California, Nanette Barragan. I thank Ms. Barragan very much for joining us.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Barragan very much for her leadership in defending the SNAP program. She talked about California. I just want to add to her point, a point about my home State in Maryland, where the SNAP program reaches 684,000 residents of my State, which is more than 1 in 10 people who live in the State.

Nationally, of course, it is 42 million people who participate in the SNAP program, which is 13 percent of the total population. And that is not a stagnant, permanent pool of Americans; that is a transient group because people move in and move out according to their economic circumstances.

The SNAP program is a reflection of our investment in ourselves as a people and our determination that here, in the wealthiest country on Earth, nobody should be sending their kids to bed at night hungry.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield to our distinguished colleague from New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Coleman for her comments. She has made some very important points, and I wonder if I would pursue a couple with her before she goes, perhaps have a moment for colloquy.

The first is the point she was making about the growing economic inequality in the country. That is something that has been on the minds of Americans, at the very least, since the Occupy movement took place after the 2008 mortgage meltdown crisis, which cost 11 million Americans their jobs, 12 million Americans their homes, and created an economic dislocation panic across the country, which thankfully President Obama and his administration moved to address, unleashing 60 straight months of economic growth and expansion in the country.

Today we have an administration which vowed to drain the swamp when it came to Washington. It seems like they have moved into the swamp and they are just draining the treasury instead: $1.5 trillion added to our budget deficit from the tax scam giveaway, which you referenced.

I wonder if she would reflect for a moment on the relationship between a vision of government, which is that it is a money-making operation for a handful of people, and growing inequality and poverty among other parts of the population.

Mr. Speaker, let me ask Mrs. Coleman one final question before she goes. She made a point before which I thought was profound,

which is that millions and millions of people on the SNAP program are working, but they are not making enough money to support their family in a dignified way, in a way that lives up to even the most minimal expectations for health and nutrition. That is what the SNAP program is all about. In a way, you could view the SNAP program as a subsidy to the employers of these people because we are taking care of them because their salaries don't.

Now, I could understand someone saying: Let's get rid of the SNAP program and make those employers pay a real living wage to these people, or let's make them pay a full living wage and give them all healthcare. But that is not the proposal that we are getting from our friends from across the aisle. They want to reduce the SNAP program at the same time that they don't want to increase the minimum wage and give people benefits.

I wonder if she could just explain what the theory is about how these people are going to survive.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Coleman for her strong voice and for participating in tonight's Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield to our distinguished colleague from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro, who has been one of Congress' leading champions for the security of America's working people and for building an American middle class that includes everybody.

I am thrilled that Ms. DeLauro could join us, and I yield to her now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. DeLauro, and I would ask if she would be willing to stick around just for a little colloquy.

Mr. Speaker, Ms. DeLauro made some really striking points, and I wanted to explore them a little bit more.

The tax bill, as we know, created a windfall bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars for the wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest people in the country. Eighty-six percent of the benefit from the tax cut went to 1 percent of the people.

The interesting thing to me was that because it went overwhelmingly to investors, and one-third of the investment in our companies is held by foreigners, a third of the benefit of this tax cut just left the country. It went to foreign investors in Saudi Arabia or China or Mexico or wherever it might be.

Now, does it make sense for us to confer this extraordinary bonanza on the wealthiest people in the country and wealthy people abroad, and then turn around and start cutting the major antihunger assistance program we have got, the SNAP program? I mean, what is the morality of that? What is the logic of that?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to Ms. DeLauro that that came out of the Agriculture Committee, as I understand it, on a party line vote.

Mr. Speaker, this used to be bipartisan. It used to be a bipartisan commitment, and now, suddenly, it fell apart with no participation from Democrats. It comes flying out with the idea of targeting the SNAP program. What is going on here?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, they are both from farm States.

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on something Ms. DeLauro said, which I think is very important.

She pointed out that it was Senator Robert Dole, a Republican from Kansas; and Senator George McGovern, a Democrat from South Dakota, who came together and said: We have this extraordinary agricultural bounty and surplus in America.

We could be feeding the entire world. Certainly we could be feeding the people of America. Most people are able to afford it, but not everybody, and not at every point in their life. We should make sure that, in the wealthiest society that has ever existed, everybody has the opportunity to eat three meals a day for $1.40.

Ms. DeLauro said that we don't have the giants that we had then. I don't know if that is true. I consider the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) a giant.

But I think what has changed is the public philosophy that is governing in Washington. I think there is a public philosophy that survives in town, which says that government is a moneymaking opportunity for the President and a handful of people: the President's friends and the people who surround the President. People are actually making money coming into government.

Whereas, the traditional ideal--the one I think Ms. DeLauro invoked with Senators Dole and McGovern and the new deal and Franklin Roosevelt--was government is an instrument of the common good to benefit everybody to advance the general will.

What has happened to our concept of government in America?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) for her leadership, for her vision, and for her writing. It is incisive and useful for us all.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Adams so much for her insightful remarks. Before Ms. Adams leaves, I would like to ask her a question.

Working in Washington and coming here several days a week, as Members of Congress do, we are often treated to the spectacle of lifestyles of the rich and famous and political corruption. We see Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on first-class air travel with a security detail of a dozen people, something nobody has ever seen before for an EPA chief. He built, I think it was, a $40,000 soundproof booth in his office in order to make secret phone calls.

Last night, we saw on TV, or pick up the paper this morning to read about, millions of dollars flowing into an up-till-now secret bank account that Michael Cohen had. Part of it was used as a slush fund to pay off a porn star, who had a relationship, allegedly, with President Trump. But then hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing in from one of the oligarchs in Russia with U.S. corporations involved.

There is a lot of money in this town. The power elite seems to have a lot of money, and gave hundreds of billions of dollars back to the wealthiest corporations and people in the country in the most recent tax legislation. Yet they get through with that, and then they turn and they want to pound the SNAP program, which is used to give a modicum of dignity and security to the poorest people in the country so that they can feed their families.

What is going on here?

How is it possible that we can see one kind of America operating in the Halls of power with the wealthiest people in the country, and another for the working people of the country who are trying to get by?

Mr. Speaker, three-quarters of SNAP benefits go to families: households with children in them. That should be what people think of when they think of the SNAP program.

We heard a lot today in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing that was referenced earlier, basically about lazy people sitting around. I tried to alter the image a little bit. I said: You can have lazy people who get a paycheck in public housing and they spend all day watching TV, tweeting, and filing for bankruptcy. You have lazy people in the middle class. You have rich lazy people and you have poor lazy people.

Mr. Speaker, we are not going to be able to eliminate laziness, but maybe we can take care of hunger in America so that kids don't go to sleep without food.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Ms. Adams for her leadership and her strong voice on these issues. It is very impressive to see how hard she has been fighting.

Mr. Speaker, in my district, I have urban, suburban, and rural. I have urban places like Rockville, Maryland; I have suburban places like Bethesda and Silver Spring; I have rural places in Frederick County like Middletown and Carroll County. I have sort of the full gamut of America in my district, and there is poverty in all of them. There are people struggling in all of them, just like there are people who have become very prosperous in all of them.

But our job, I think, as Representatives in Congress, is to keep the country unified and see what that beautiful, magical phrase in the beginning of the Constitution ``We the people'' means. For us to stand together in all of our magnificent diversity of ways of life and different kinds of communities that we have across the country, what is it that binds us together?

I think the goodness of the American people is that we are invested in the success of everybody, not just this or that group, not just our business buddies, not just our partners, not just people in our political party, but we are invested in the success of everyone, and that is our job.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Adams for participating.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my distinguished colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Jackson Lee for her really profound and important remarks tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I would close out our session here by just making an observation about the importance of this SNAP question.

It is important legislatively because our friends across the aisle have broken from a bipartisan tradition going back a very long time now in the passage of the farm bill just to make it a partisan power grab and a push over everybody else in the body, but it also goes to the question: What kind of government are we going to have? Will this be government for the few or will it be a government for everyone?

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

Mr. Chair, Americans really shouldn't care that much about this Duncan amendment if they don't go on the highway; but if you go on the highway, like hundreds of millions of Americans do, you better watch out, because this amendment makes it far more likely that there will be reckless and negligent truckers on the road and that you won't be able to sue for your damages if they smash up your car.

Take the shocking case of a 19-year-old man whose car was totaled by a truck driver who was high on crystal meth. He was left injured and blinded for the rest of his life.

Now, the truck company never drug tested or road tested its employees, but that didn't stop the shipper from hiring that trucking company to do business with.

Now, the Duncan amendment would reward the shipper by immunizing it from any liability for hiring a low-road trucker that doesn't drug test its employees, or even knowingly hires employees who are high on crystal meth or who have a drug problem.

This would give the shippers even greater incentive to hire reckless and negligent truckers, making our roads and highways all the more dangerous.

In ``Born to Run'', Bruce Springsteen talks about cars that are suicide machines and a deathtrap.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would make that vision of our highways the law.

There is no way that the American people support excusing shippers from liability for their decision to hire low-road truckers, low-road trucking companies that do not drug test or do background screening on their employees.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an outstanding educator and beloved community leader, Dr. Alan Goodwin. Dr. Goodwin currently serves as Principal of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and is retiring after 43 years in the Montgomery County Public School System (MCPS). The people of Maryland's 8th district, especially those who live within the Walt Whitman community, will be forever grateful for Dr. Goodwin's great contributions and steadfast commitment to our students and to our community.

Dr. Goodwin began his career as an English teacher in 1975 and was immediately recognized for his ability to inspire students to challenge complacency and apathy and take charge of their own destinies. He was nominated for the prestigious Outstanding Teacher Award and led dozens of his colleagues as head of the English Department. Since leaving the classroom, Dr. Goodwin served MCPS as an assistant principal, a middle school principal, and finally principal of one of the top rated high schools in the United States, Walt Whitman, a school which honors its namesake with creativity, compassion and hard work.

Principal Goodwin has been an instrumental force in creating positive changes in the school district, thereby bringing out the very best in our students. Holding a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and possessing decades of experience as an educator and administrator, Dr. Goodwin waved off higher administrative posts where he could have worked less and made more. Instead, he opted to stay in a role where he could maintain day-to-day interaction with his students, or as he refers to them, his ``kids,'' stating, ``they make a difference for me every day.''

Principal Goodwin's unwavering dedication to his students and to his excellent teaching staff is legendary, and has resulted in multiple nominations by Bethesda Magazine as the ``Best Public High School Principal.''

Dr. Goodwin has seen tremendous triumphs for the Whitman community. Walt Whitman High School was routinely listed by U.S. World News and Report as one of the top high schools in the nation throughout Dr. Goodwin's tenure.

He has also led the school through difficult times, helping students, staff and community weather devastating losses and tragedies that have shaken the Viking community. Recognizing the resiliency of the community, the Whitman baseball program has dedicated its 2018 season to ``Whitman Strong,'' a rallying cry used to bolster the school community in the wake of terrible events resulting in the loss of two students this past fall.

On the occasion of Walt Whitman High School's 2018 Baseball Program Community Night, I am honored to join Vikings Head Coach Joe Cassidy and the entire school community in paying loving tribute to Dr. Goodwin for his years of service and his profoundly passionate dedication and commitment to the students of Walt Whitman High School.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the House Democratic minority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, our good friends across the aisle have been bristling when my colleagues have pointed out the breathtaking budget hypocrisy being shown by the majority today, so I thought, instead, I would offer the comments of their fellow Republicans.

Here is headline news: ``Conservatives irate over GOP's budget hypocrisy.'' ``Critics chafe over a balanced budget amendment vote on the heels of an omnibus spending spree.''

And then we get quotes from a number of Members, including Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, who says: ``There is no one on Capitol Hill, and certainly no one on Main Street, that will take this vote seriously.''

We hear from someone named Barbara Boland, who equated the exercise to ``gorging on a sumptuous feast while insisting that you want a svelte physique.''

Mr. Speaker, America knows they just drove a $2 trillion deficit hole into our budget with their gold-plated tax-and-spend scam; and the CBO now predicts the deficit will reach an astounding $1 trillion in 2019, and will continue increasing annually to $1.5 trillion by 2028.

That is not something the Constitution made them do. That is not something the Declaration of Independence made them do, or the Gettysburg Address. That is something they cooked up all by themselves.

Mr. Speaker, they promised to drain the swamp, but they just moved into the swamp and drained the Treasury instead. The Treasury is ransacked, but the swamp is teeming with monstrous special interests devouring the common wealth of the American people.

After slashing taxes on the wealthiest corporations and individuals, they propose cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, the programs built up by the American people with their blood, sweat, tears, and hard-earned labor.

And now, today, after giving us one of the most regressive tax plans in history, they effectively want to make it unconstitutional to spend what we need on the people's Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.

The whole idea defies a basic principle of our Constitution, which was enunciated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in his famous Lochner dissent in 1905. He said: ``A constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory.''

President Trump just signed a spending bill into law while complaining bitterly about it and saying he would never sign a bill like that again. Perhaps he shouldn't have signed it in the first place, but he has got the right solution in mind, Mr. Speaker: Show some courage.

Here is the bottom line: If you show political courage and wisdom, you

don't need a balanced budget amendment; and if you show no courage and no wisdom, then a balanced budget amendment will not save you.

We have the constitutional power right now to pass completely balanced budgets. Indeed, one of our recent Presidents, Bill Clinton, saw to it that we posted not just balanced budgets, but big surpluses in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001, all of it done without a constitutional amendment.

Mr. Speaker, if this political-camouflaged constitutional amendment had been in place when President Obama took office with nearly 10 percent unemployment and GDP having fallen 3.5 percent over the previous year, it would have locked the Bush era recession into place and driven our country into a deep depression.

If you have a Congress that can't balance the budget, you don't need a new constitutional amendment; you need a new Congress.

If you have a majority that won't govern responsibly, you don't need to spray-paint political graffiti all over our Constitution; you need a new political program and new political vision.

They burned fiscal discipline and budget planning to the ground with their tax bill. Let's not throw the Constitution into the bonfire, too.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to share some thoughts with you during this Special Order hour at the request of the minority leader.

I am a professor of constitutional law, as those of you who watch our proceedings here may know by now, and I would like to talk about the Constitution, and I will get there before this is over.

But I want to start, Mr. Speaker, with a basic question of political science, which is: Why does it seem as if it is so hard for us to get the people's business done in Congress these days?

Why does it seem so difficult that, even when we have a vast consensus on what to do about a particular issue, we still can't get it done?

Why is it that the approval rating of our institution, according to the most recent Rasmussen poll, is at 15 percent, which I think most people would agree is a pretty dismal showing for the people's Congress and here in the people's House.

Well, I want to talk about this problem in some historical and constitutional perspective, and I hope that it opens up some roots of thinking and feeling that might enable us to transcend some of the paralysis that now besets the United States Congress.

Of course, the simple explanation that is often given colloquially is that everybody in Washington is just fighting, and you have got the two parties at each others' throats, and everybody is so divided that nothing happens.

This explanation, although it turns out to be wrong, of course, has a long lineage to it. In fact, the Founders wrote very widely at the time our Constitution was adopted about the problem of faction, and they said, if you look at James Madison in Federalist No. 10, for example, he identifies faction as the central problem in the political life of a democracy. But he says that the latent causes of faction are sewn in the nature of man, and we see them everywhere.

Madison cites a zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well as speculation as a practice. He cites, also, an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power; and he invokes the human passions that have divided mankind into parties, inflaming them with mutual animosity.

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, Madison writes, ``that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and incite their most violent conflicts.''

In other words, even when there is not something real and big to be fighting about, people will find something small, trivial, and petulant to fight about. And those of you with little brothers and sisters might agree that is just the way it is. Sometimes it is in human nature for people to fight.

But the Founders understood that faction was something that would arise in a democratic society where people have the liberty of thought and expression. In fact, Madison said one of the ways that you could deal with the problem of faction is to destroy the liberty that gives rise to faction, but that, of course, plunges us into authoritarianism, monarchy dictatorship. One way you get rid of all the different views is you go to one party. You create a one-party state like they have got in North Korea, and then there is no conflicts because everybody does what the one party says.

So Madison dismisses that and says that is not going to work. We are not going to be able to remove the sources of faction, but why don't we try to control the effects of faction. And the way you do that, he said, is that if--in order to control the effects of a majority tyranny is you have a bill of rights that defends the rights of the minority so that people in the majority can implement their policy preferences, but they can't extinguish the rights of the minority, the right to speak, the right of press, the right to dissent, the right to vote, and so on.

But also, Madison said, if you extend the size of the republic, if you create a big country, then even if you get a majority on one particular issue, the majorities are shifting because then you will have a different majority on another issue and a different majority on another issue and so on.

But what happens, he says, if you have a faction that is tyrannizing the society, but it is not a majority faction, it is a minority faction? What if you have a small group that is able to hijack the process and prevent the majority from having its way? Well, he thought, there, democratic processes and Republican government would take care of it.

He says this: ``If a faction consists of less than a majority''--a minority of people--``relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.''

The minority ``may clog the administration, it may convulse the society, but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution.''

In other words, Madison is assuming that, when it comes to public policy, the majority will eventually get its way if the governmental process is working correctly.

Now, let's fast-forward to 2018. I am taking three issues where the vast majority of the American people agree as to what should be done to deal with this serious, serious public policy problem.

Let's start with the problem of high prescription drug prices. Now, Congress passed a law saying that the government could not negotiate for lower prescription drug prices in the Medicare program with the big pharmaceutical companies, and it will not surprise you to learn that the big pharmaceutical companies who invest a lot of money and campaign contributions also paid for a lot of lobbyists to go and lobby for that provision to be put into the law.

So the Federal Government can negotiate for lower prescription drug prices

in the Medicaid program, it can negotiate for lower prescription drug prices in the VA program, but for Medicare, because this provision got slipped into the law, we can't negotiate; and it is costing the taxpayers $25 billion to $30 billion a year, and, of course, driving up everybody's prescription drug prices. The majority of Americans have at least one prescription drug, and one-fifth of Americans have four or more prescription drugs.

Well, 92 percent of Americans support allowing the Federal Government to negotiate free-market style with the prescription drug companies for lower prices in Medicare--92 percent of Americans support that. All right. So that is case number one. Hold that in mind.

Case number two. This is something that should be familiar to you, in the wake of the discussion about the Parkland massacre that took place. I tried not to lapse into calling it a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet, that is a tragedy. Hamlet, that is a tragedy. Macbeth, that is a tragedy. What happened in Parkland, Florida, was a massacre. It was terrorism that took place in a public school. It was a preventable public policy debacle that that young man could walk into a gun store and purchase an AR-15 and that AR-15s are so available that people can get them even when they are not qualified to possess even a handgun.

In any event, after Parkland and after the Pulse massacre, and after the Las Vegas massacre, and after the San Bernardino County massacre, and after the Sandy Hook massacre, and after the Virginia Tech massacre, guess what, 95 percent of American voters--95 percent support a universal criminal and mental background check on all firearm purchases in the United States. That is more than 9 out of 10 Americans--19 out of 20 Americans.

If you include the margin of error, it might be 98 percent. It might be almost everybody except for the leadership of the NRA and the CEOs of gun manufacturers who support a universal background check.

If you go to a licensed gun dealer and you can't purchase a gun because you failed the background check, why should you be able to go to a gun show and buy one? Why should you be able to go to the internet or the parking lot of a 7-Eleven and buy one? It doesn't make any sense.

So the common sense of the American people, 95 percent of American voters favor universal background checks, yet nothing is happening. Just like with giving the government the power to lower prescription drug prices, despite the fact that more than, you know, 9 out of 10 Americans support it. The President of the United States, President Trump, called for it in both of his two State of the Union Addresses. I think the vast majority of the Members of Congress would vote for it if it were brought up for vote, yet nothing happening. So that is case number two.

Let's look at case number three. Another thing that has been very much on the mind of the public and in the public policy debate, 83 percent of Americans favor continuing the DACA program and passing the Dream Act and allowing the Dreamers a path to citizenship in the United States. These, of course, are 800,000 young people who were brought to America with their families when they were kids, grew up here, know this as their country, are in the armed services, are working here, are in school. And we have 83 percent of the American people who say, quite logically, exercising their common sense, let's create a pathway for those people if they are in school, if they are working, if they are in the armed services, to stay here and to become American citizens, yet, again, nothing happening in Congress. Okay.

Now, why not? What is it that is going on? So we go back to the problem of faction. Obviously, people are going to have different views. That is the oxygen of democracy. There is nothing wrong with that. We are not ashamed of that. We have different political parties here. It is much better to have two parties or more than that, than to have one party, a one-party system.

You know, Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, said: ``We are all republicans, we are all federalists.'' Lincoln tried to strike the same note when he first took office, and Lincoln said: ``We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.''

So our greatest Presidents and our greatest leaders have understood we fight like cats and dogs in elections. That is how it works in a democratic society. There is a political contest. But once we are in, we try to stand for the whole public, the whole common good. We try to remember that we are not just here to represent one party.

Washington reminded people that the word ``party'' comes from the French word ``fete'', a part, one part of the whole. You represent a party. You are just representing a part of the whole. We have got to try to aspire to represent everybody. Yet, given the human condition, given the nature of political passions and moral passions that Madison discusses in Federalist 10, we know that parties are inevitable.

Okay. We accept that in a democratic society. We cherish the fact that people can form political parties that articulate different agendas and different values. So that is not the problem. So what is the problem? Why is it the case that the United States Congress cannot even bring to a vote three measures that have overwhelming public support: to allow the government to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices; to pass a universal criminal and mental background check; and to pass the Dream Act to help deal with the crisis of these young people who have been thrown into a limbo because of President Trump's action last year? Why can't we do it?

Well, there are a couple of reasons I want to identify, and then I want to call on all of us in Congress to try to take us to a higher ground. The young people who are protesting about the nightmare of gun violence, which makes America an absolute outlier state--in terms of industrialized countries, our rate of homicide and suicide by gun violence is simply off the charts when you compare it to other industrialized countries like the United Kingdom or Canada or France or Japan. It is not even close. We are losing tens of thousands of people a year.

The point I was making here is that we have this puzzlement about why we can have massive popular agreement and consensus, political consensus as to what to do, yet a bottleneck in Congress where we get this paralysis and this inaction.

The young people who have ignited a revolution across the country against political complacency with respect to gun massacres in public places like schools and movie theaters and concerts and churches and so on, they are focused very heavily on the problem of money and politics, and I think that the vast majority of the American people exercising their common sense would agree that money and politics distorts the public agenda.

We know that the NRA has put tens of millions of dollars into our politics, just as we know the prescription drug manufacturers have put tens of millions of dollars into our politics, so I think the right to identify that is one strand of the problem.

But even with that, I think here, in Congress, there is a major failure of political leadership, Mr. Speaker, and I think it goes to something that, at least, used to be called the Hastert Rule. Well, the former speaker has been discredited, but the rule, unfortunately, is still operational. And the Hastert Rule is a rule that has been adopted by the majority caucus, which says that no legislation will be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives unless it passes the Republican caucus first.

Now, think about what that means. If you have got legislation like the Dream Act or like a universal criminal/mental background check act, which has unanimous support by the Democrats and substantial support by the Republicans, such that it would pass overwhelmingly in this body, it never sees the light of day on the floor of the House of Representatives because their rule is they won't bring it out of the GOP caucus to the floor for a vote unless it can get a majority within the caucus.

This means that the majority will, not just of the country, but the majority will of this body is thwarted and frustrated by the Hastert Rule, which I wish Speaker Hastert had taken with him when he left the House of Representatives, because it is fundamentally undemocratic, and we are seeing right now the cost of this rule, which

enshrines minority preferences and minority control against majority public opinion.

Now, I hasten to say, of course, we have got a bill of rights, so what we are talking about is not allowing the majority to trample the constitutional rights of the minority. What is happening here is that a political minority is trampling the policy rights of the majority so that the majority policy preferences of the American people and of Congress are being stymied by virtue of minority control in this body.

Now, this is something that our distinguished and thoughtful colleagues on the other side of the aisle can fix. They can say they are no longer going to abide by that rule. They will allow us to have a hearing on a universal criminal background check. They will allow us to have a hearing on whether the government can negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. They will allow us to have a hearing on the Dream Act, and they will allow us to have a vote on it.

We are not saying everybody has got to agree. They have got the right to vote against it. But doesn't the minority at least have a right to a vote on those issues which reflect the massive policy preferences of the American people?

Don't we think that has got something to do with the very low esteem within which we are held by the American people today? That, when it is very clear what almost all Americans want, we cannot legislate their preferences into law?

Mr. Speaker, in Federalist Paper No. 10, Madison told us that the problem of democracy is the problem of faction. And right now we have got a tiny minority faction driving the entire train of government, and there is not enough space, there is not enough room, for the will of the people to govern.

That is why America is disenchanted with the leadership of Congress and what is happening here. We are seeing it in election results around the country. We are seeing it in public opinion polls. We are seeing it in marches and rallies and walkouts all over the country, and that is good.

Because in their wisdom, the Founders also gave us the First Amendment, which gave the people a right to petition for redress of grievances, a right to assemble, as the young people assembled yesterday on the lawn of the Capitol building and in front of the White House.

It gives us the right of free press so we can write about what is actually taking place here in Congress. It gives us a right against establishment of religion and for free exercise of religion. It gives everybody the right of free speech so we can talk about what is going on.

The Founders never guaranteed us perfection. Madison said, if people were perfect, we wouldn't need government in the first place. But they gave us a structure within which we could improve things, reform things, and make things better.

Yet, the Members of Congress who are now in charge, in the driver's seat, are blocking off the hall. They are thwarting progress across the board on everything from prescription drug prices to the ban on assault weapons and a universal criminal/mental background check, and to the Dreamers. The American people are increasingly unsatisfied and frustrated with this situation.

So I come back, finally, to the responsibility of each one of us who has been entrusted with the high honor and responsibility of coming to Congress.

Madam Speaker, the original democratic philosophers distinguished between sovereignty and government. Government is just the people who go to do the job. Sovereignty belongs always with the people. We the people.

That is why the right of free speech and protest and assembly are so critical. That is where the people come together and tell us what they want; the right to come to the town meetings, to call us up, to email us, and so on.

But we have got a high responsibility. Those of us who aspire and attain to public office are nothing but the servants of the people. There are no kings here. There are no queens here. There are no titles of nobility in the United States of America. It is in the Constitution. We have no slaves here. We have no serfs here. Just equal citizens, all of us. Those of us who get into public office are acting as the servants of those people we are sent here to represent.

Madam Speaker, our people want us to get past all of the procedural obstacles and choke holds that have been put up here at the behest of big money and big special interests, and they want us to get a job done.

Let us start with these three things, which the vast overwhelming majority of the American people--Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike, everybody--agree we need:

A universal criminal/mental background check on firearm purchases in America. We need to give the government the power to negotiate in Medicare for lower drug prices for our people so our mothers and fathers and grandparents can get the prescription drugs they need at affordable prices. We need to pass a Dream Act so we can deal with the crisis situation of hundreds of thousands of young people whose lives have been thrown into limbo over the last year.

We can do those things. We can make that happen.

Madam Speaker, I would invite you or any other Member of Congress to respond. I reach out in a spirit of openness, affection, and, as much as possible, transpartisanship to say: We have got to get America moving in the right direction again.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 7 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, March 19, 2018, at noon for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to bring the good news to Congress about where we are on the gun violence debate because I know there have been a lot of accusations flying back and forth. I want us to look for the common ground. I want to bring the good news today.

The good news is that we actually have an overwhelming policy consensus in America as to what we need to do about gun violence, and we have an overwhelming--indeed, a unanimous--judicial consensus about what is constitutional to do.

I want us to focus on that, and then that will allow us to isolate what the problem is in dislodging the paralysis in Washington today. But let's start with the overwhelming policy consensus that has emerged in the wake of a sequence of massacres, and it is enough to invoke their names to remind people of the bloodshed that is engulfing our society in Parkland, Florida; in San Bernardino, California; in Las Vegas; in Texas; at Virginia Tech; at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut; and so on. In the wake of all these massacres, America is demanding action.

But here is the good news. Everybody has agreed. As close to a unanimous agreement as you are ever going to find in the United States of America has emerged: 97 percent of the American people favor a universal criminal and mental background check on all firearm purchases in America.

That is the overwhelming majority of Democrats, the overwhelming majority of Republicans, the overwhelming majority of Independents, the overwhelming majority of gun owners, and the overwhelming majority of non-gun owners. Almost everyone in America, 97 out of 100 people--and if you take the margin of error, it might be 99 out of 100 people-- agree that firearms should not be sold without a background check so that criminals, gang members, and terrorists can't go to a gun show and acquire a weapon of war and then use it in our schools, in our movie theaters, in our churches, and in the public square.

So we have got virtually unanimous public consensus on that. Every public opinion poll is showing the same thing, except the numbers continue to go up.

Now, some people will say in response to this: Aha, but the Second Amendment won't allow us to do anything.

There are a lot of people in this debate who are now wrapping themselves in the flag of the Second Amendment and saying that the Second Amendment prohibits us from implementing this overwhelming public mandate for a universal criminal and mental background check; but they are wrong, and we know that they are wrong.

The Supreme Court, in 2008, in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, interpreted the Second Amendment definitively for us, at least sufficiently for us to understand that a background check is perfectly constitutional.

In the Heller case, the Supreme Court first divided over the question of whether or not the Second Amendment confers a collective militia- based right or an individual right. Four Justices said that the text of the Second Amendment means that you only have a right to a firearm in connection with militia service, which today we would call National Guard service.

You will recall the language of the Second Amendment is: ``A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.''

Four Justices suggested that your right to bear and keep an arm is tethered to service in the militia. But that view lost. Five Justices took the individual rights view that the so-called prefatory clause just announces the purpose of the Second Amendment, but it defines an individual right.

But nine Justices, the entire Supreme Court, agreed that, whether the right was collective or individual in nature, that right is subject to reasonable regulation by Congress and by the States. Of course, that has got to be right. Every right, all fundamental rights, are subject to reasonable regulation by the government.

Think about the First Amendment, which guarantees the right of free speech. It gives you the right to go out and march in front of the White House, but does it give you the right to march in front of the White House at 2 o'clock in the morning with bullhorns and to wake up the President's family? Of course not.

The First Amendment is conditioned on reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions the Supreme Court held in a case called Ward v. Rock Against Racism, where the Court said it was perfectly fine for New York City to turn the sound down when they have a concert in Central Park because there are other social activities taking place.

The Second Amendment is the exact same way, said the Supreme Court. You have the right to possess a handgun for self-defense. You have a right to possess a rifle for purposes of hunting and recreation. You don't have a right to a machine gun. There is no constitutional right to carry a sawed-off shotgun.

There is no constitutional right to carry weapons of war in public places. There is no right to carry a firearm in public buildings, said Justice Scalia, into public schools and into the U.S. Congress. There is no constitutional right for that, and there is certainly no constitutional right for anybody to access a weapon without passing through the regulatory screen that the government sets up.

That is the common sense of the American people, too. Thomas Paine, who wrote the pamphlet ``Common Sense,'' said that common sense is essential in a democracy because it is the sense that we have in common. The sense that we have in common today about guns that we need a universal criminal and mental background check is something that is nearly unanimously held, and it is something that clearly passes constitutional muster according to the Supreme Court's decision in the District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.

So we have got a public policy consensus, a popular consensus, and a constitutional juridical consensus about the right thing to do and the constitutional thing to do. Yet what do we have here in Congress? We have got paralysis. We have got absolute inaction in defiance of the public will.

Why? Nobody really says. The GOP leaders, Mr. Speaker, simply refuse to bring a universal background check bill to the floor of Congress. They won't even permit a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee about it, despite the fact that that is what everybody wants and that is what the times demand right now.

Why? Have we become a failed state?

Are we unable to govern?

Does democracy not work anymore?

Is that what we are saying?

I hope not. I hope we have not become a failed State. I hope we are able to address the public safety needs of the people. I hope we are able to address the democratic will of the American public. I hope we are able to effectuate the majority will of Congress, because we know that, forced to a vote, a majority of Congress would support this.

So what is going on?

Well, James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, predicted it well when he talked about the problem of faction. He talked about a minority of people animated by some passion or some common interest that goes against the rights of the rest of the public and against the common good, against the general interest of the people.

But our institutions have got to be set up to legislate over the demands of one small faction, the 2 or 3 percent of the people who don't want to see a universal background check because they spread the mythology that any gun safety regulation will lead to a confiscation of people's firearms, which is utterly absurd and ridiculous and demonstrably false.

Yet, that tiny group of people, that tiny faction, has been allowed in this Congress to control the public agenda and to dictate to everybody else, when we have tens of thousands, and soon, on Saturday, March 24th, hundreds of thousands of young people marching for the most elementary rights of life in a civil society.

And what is that?

The right to security and safety--the whole reason we have got a social contract. If you read your Thomas Hobbes, you read your John Locke, you read your Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the whole basis of civil society is that we will be safer entering into the social contract than we would be if we stuck it out in the state of nature, which John Locke and Thomas Hobbes described as a war of all against all, where life is nasty, poor, brutish, and short.

So we are asking for the leadership in Congress simply to act. Let us bring this bill to the floor of Congress, and

stop with the distractions and the deflections and the diversions. They can bring up 50 other things. The people of America know, with our common sense, that we need a universal criminal and mental background check for everyone.

Mr. Speaker, I would love it if someone could explain why that legislation is not allowed to see the light of day on the floor of the House with not even a hearing or a vote in the House Judiciary Committee. This is a public emergency. The young people of America, beginning with the heroic kids, the survivors in Parkland, Florida, will not let us off the hook.

One of them was asked the question: Well, why suddenly have you unleashed this revolution across the country against one minor faction control of all of Congress? Why did it happen now, but it didn't happen back at Sandy Hook?

One of the young leaders said: ``At Sandy Hook, they assassinated first graders with an AR-15 at pointblank range; but in Parkland, Florida, they assassinated high school students. We are more educated and we have a voice and we know how social media works.''

There is no putting the genie back in the bottle. There is going to be no avoiding this question. At the very least, we must have a vote on a universal criminal and mental background check for all firearm purchases in the United States of America. The people want it. The Supreme Court has made it clear that such legislation is constitutional.

In Maryland, in 2013, we passed not only fingerprint licensing and universal background checks, we passed a ban on military-style assault weapons, a ban on high-capacity magazines. These are bans that are, again, favored by more than two-thirds of the American people.

It was challenged in Federal district court in Maryland and it was upheld against Second Amendment attack. They appealed to the Fourth Circuit of Appeals. It was upheld against Second Amendment attack. They went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court let it stand.

So within the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, within our circuit, we have already got all of the legislation upheld as constitutional, which some people are saying you can't do because of the Second Amendment.

Stop hiding behind the Second Amendment. Stop hiding behind it. The Second Amendment is just like every other amendment. You can pass a reasonable regulation, as long as you don't destroy the underlying right itself.

Nobody is trying to take away anyone's handgun for self-defense. No one is trying to take away anyone's rifle for hunting and recreational purposes. But you don't need an AR-15 in order to go hunting. Any real hunter will tell you.

You certainly don't need to allow the sale of firearms in the United States of America to criminals and terrorists and gang members in order to support the Second Amendment. That is ludicrous. It is absurd. We should stop spreading that propaganda. I think it is just so important that we get this message out to the American public.

Mr. Speaker, one of the great things about our job is we have all these wonderful young people come to us from all over the world. And in school, they read about the social contract. They read John Locke. They read Thomas Hobbes. They read Rousseau. The whole premise of the social contract is that we will be safer in civil society together than we would be if we stay in the state of nature, which Hobbes described as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

But we are failing the elemental test and obligation of civil government because we are not keeping our people safe when a teenager can access an AR-15, go into a school, and assassinate at point-blank range 17 teachers and students.

And what are we doing here in Congress?

Nothing. Here in the House of Representatives, we have not had a single hearing on gun violence. We have not had a single hearing on a universal criminal and mental background check, which is supported by 97 percent of the American people. It is almost unanimous, and we can't even have a hearing about it.

We are demanding a hearing, and we are demanding, with the young people who are coming to Washington on Saturday, March 24, serious treatment of the gun violence problem which does not belong in a civil society.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I want to thank the distinguished Congresswoman from New York for her comments about Francis Bellamy, the great Christian abolitionist and socialist who authored America's Pledge of Allegiance. He was a great patriot who wanted to unify the country in the wake of the Civil War during the Reconstruction Period. We, indeed, owe him a great debt of gratitude for everything he did for America.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a matter of pressing importance and urgency to the people of America today. It is the question of gun violence and what Congress is doing about the problem of gun violence.

I want to start by invoking something that all of the schoolchildren of America know about, which is the idea of a social contract.

You can go back and read John Locke or Thomas Hobbes, or Rousseau, but all of them began with the idea that, in the state of nature, we are all in a dangerous and perilous condition because there is no law. It is the rule of the jungle. Hobbes said that the state of nature was a condition that was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Because of that, people enter into civil society to create a government.

The first principle of government is that we have got to protect our people. As Cicero put it, the safety and good of the people must be the highest law. That is why we have a social contract.

But, Mr. Speaker, in America today, our social contract is bruised and battered and damaged and tenuous because of the gun violence which has come to our public schools, to our universities, to our churches, to our movie theaters, to the public square.

America's high school students have woken us up to the fact that this is not a normal condition. America is an absolute outlier nation in terms of the levels of gun violence that we permit to take place in our own society. Our social contract is threatened by the gun violence that is a menace to every single American citizen.

Now, we have a social contract, we have got a social covenant, and it is the Constitution of the United States. We know that we have an amendment in there which deals specifically with the question of guns, the Second Amendment, which says: ``A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.''

That is the Second Amendment.

Now, some people would have us believe that, because of the Second Amendment, there is nothing that we can do about the problem of gun violence. If you remember nothing else about what I am about to say, please remember this: this is demonstrably, absolutely, categorically false, and we know it is false because the Supreme Court has told us that it is false.

In its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court adopted the individual rights view of the Second Amendment. There was a contest between those who said, no, you only have a right to bear arms in connection with militia service versus those who said that it is an individual right. The individual right won in a 5-4 decision.

But in the course of making that 5-4 decision, the majority on the Supreme Court agreed, readily, that the right to bear arms is one that can be conditioned on all kinds of regulation by the government. That is true of all of the rights in the Bill of Rights.

Think about the First Amendment, which guarantees all of us the right to speak. You have a right to go protest across the street from the White House, but do you have the right to go protest across the street from the White House at 2 in the morning with 20,000 people without getting a permit? Of course, you do not.

The Supreme Court has said that the exercise of First Amendment rights is conditioned by reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. And in the same sense, the Second Amendment right to keep and to bear arms is conditioned on reasonable time, place, manner, and use restrictions by the government. We know that to be the case. The Supreme Court told us that in Heller.

In Heller, the Court said everybody has a right to the possession of a handgun for purposes of self-defense; everybody's got a right to a rifle for purposes of hunting and recreation. But nobody's got a right to possess a machine gun, even though someone might describe it as an arm; nobody's got a right to possess a sawed-off shotgun, much less does anybody have a right to access a weapon without going through a background check, without going through the government's policy for determining that you are not going to be a danger to yourself or to other people. The Supreme Court was very clear about that.

Those people who were out there saying, ``We can't allow any gun safety regulation or we are going to lose the right to have guns, our guns are going to be taken away,'' are engaging in a knowing falsehood. There is no way that the guns of the people of America--the hundreds of millions of guns that are out there--could be confiscated. They can't be confiscated.

People have a right to them for purposes of self-defense and for purposes of hunting and recreation, but it doesn't give you a right to an AR-15. It doesn't give you a right to carry weapons of war into public schools and into movie theaters and into public places, and it does not give you the right to access guns without a background check, yet that is precisely what the law is today. We have a huge gaping loophole where terrorists can go to a gun show and simply buy a gun without any background check at all.

Now, here is the good news that people want to keep from you. We have great news, America. Mr. Speaker, we know there is good news, and here is the good news.

We have a consensus about what to do in America, starting with a universal criminal and mental background check, supported by, no longer, 95 percent of the American people. In the wake of the Parkland massacre, it is 97 percent of the people who think that you should not be able to access a weapon without first passing a background check.

That is the vast majority of the people, maybe almost a unanimous verdict by the American people. Almost everybody believes that we need to close the gun show loophole, we need to close the internet gun sale loophole, we need to close the 7-Eleven parking lot loophole, and we need to close the loophole that would allow criminals and gangsters and terrorists to go to a gun show and purchase a gun. Ninety-seven percent of the American people agree with that.

Sixty-seven percent of the American people agree with the call of the young people who survived the massacre in Parkland, which took the lives of 17 students and teachers, the call for a ban on assault weapons. Sixty-seven percent of the American people, more than two- thirds of the American people, agree with a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons.

And 75 percent of the American people say that Congress must be acting to reduce gun violence. So we have a consensus over what to do.

But what is happening now?

Well, I serve on the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Speaker, and we had a vote today that had nothing to do with guns. It was about collecting data on

bail policies, which is not to say that that is unimportant; but, seriously, millions of people in America are demanding action from Congress, and we can't even have a hearing on the problem of people accessing assault weapons and going to public schools and assassinating our school children at pointblank range.

Now, I had the good fortune of meeting some of the young people from Parkland who have awoken the conscience of the country. One of them was asked a question: Why, suddenly, is America waking up in the wake of the Parkland massacre, which took the lives of 17 people, but it didn't in the same way after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, at Sandy Hook, which took the lives of even more people, 26 people?

She had a fascinating answer. She said: Most of the people killed at Sandy Hook were first graders, and first graders can't start a revolution against the political power of the NRA; but high school students know how to do it because they understand how to contact people, and they know social media. They know Facebook and Twitter, and they have enough education so that they can speak with authority about the recklessness and the negligence of government not addressing the problem.

Congress now is the outlier. Congress will not act.

Are we a failed state such that when more than 95 percent of the American people agree that something needs to be done, Congress cannot act?

Are we abandoning our social contract?

Are we abandoning our primary commitment to defend the lives of our own people?

Well, it is a very serious moment. We are having our Special Order hour on the problem of gun violence, the failure of Congress to act, but the need for Congress to act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my distinguished colleague from the State of Washington (Ms. Jayapal), with whom I serve on the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, we are so grateful for Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal from Washington, for her powerful leadership and her lucid discussion today of the gun violence problem.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for placing emphasis on the fact that we have had no hearings in our Congress since we arrived here more than a year ago on the problem of gun violence in the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for placing emphasis on the Dickey amendment, which forbids the expenditure of any public money even to research the epidemiology of gun violence and gun violence epidemics in the way that certain outbreaks of gun violence and mass shootings will trigger others.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman also for placing emphasis on the fact that the Newtown families who come to lobby in Washington, the families from Parkland, just want to see us break the logjam; they just want to see us end the paralysis and do something. And why not start with the thing that is backed by more than 9 out of 10 Americans, a universal criminal and mental background check so that people who are carrying guns in America are the lawful gun owners who can do it responsibly? That is something that the overwhelming majority of American people believe in, yet this Congress seems to be completely stuck, totally hamstrung.

Mr. Speaker, please help us dislodge this legislation.

Now, Congresswoman Jayapal praised her home State of Washington, rightfully, for the actions they have taken recently to ban the bump stocks and to pass other commonsense gun safety reforms.

I would like to talk about what has happened in my home State, the great State of Maryland, which is touching Washington, D.C., where we all are right now.

In 2013, after the catastrophe took place in Newtown, Connecticut, at Sandy Hook, where an AR-15 was used to assassinate 26 people at pointblank range, we acted in Maryland. We passed a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons. We passed a ban on high-capacity magazines.

We gave our State police the right to engage in frequent and unannounced inspections of the gun dealers so that bad apple gun dealers couldn't be dealing firearms directly into the underground.

Then we said if a firearm is lost or stolen, it has got to be reported within 48 hours, and if not, that is a misdemeanor, because what was happening was they were selling guns to criminals, they would surface in a homicide investigation 10 months later, we would trace it back to the gun dealers, and the dealers would say: Oh, yeah. That was stolen. We forgot to report it.

Or they would say: We lost that, but, yeah, we never filed a report.

So now, in our State, you have got to file a report--commonsense gun safety supported by people across the spectrum--so we don't have a leaky system where guns are getting into the wrong hands.

Now, our opponents on this, of course, marched and protested and said they were opposed to all of it. They said this was an attempt to confiscate everybody's guns, which, of course, it was not. And responsible law-abiding gun owners have all the guns that they had before, they have still got them, but it was challenged in court. They said it violated the Second Amendment.

I raise it because I want America to notice this. They sued in the United States District Court in Maryland, and they lost. And the court said, reading the District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, that the Second Amendment permits reasonable gun safety regulation that does not infringe on the fundamental right to bear arms for self-defense or to have rifles for hunting or recreation, but there is no right for civilians to be carrying military-style hardware and weaponry in public.

They appealed it to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the ruling of the district court.

Then they brought it to the United States Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court let that ruling stand.

So there is a perfect example of how you can enact reasonable gun safety regulation and it doesn't infringe anybody's Second Amendment rights and it doesn't impinge on the right of reasonable, law-abiding gun owners to have guns for lawful purposes.

So why are we involved in this terrible, atrocious situation where we have rates of death and fatality and injury greater than six times higher than any other modern industrialized country on Earth?

In the U.K., it is less than 50 people a year who die by gun; in Japan, it is less than 50 or 60 people a year. We are losing tens of thousands of Americans every year.

Is it because we have mental illness and they don't? No. They have got mental illness, too. Is it because Americans are more violent than other people? I don't think so.

It is simply because of the ready access to firearms wherever you go, and anybody can get them almost anywhere. Okay? So we need to follow the rest of the world in terms of enacting reasonable gun safety legislation.

Now, we have got our Second Amendment, so nobody's handguns are going to get taken away. The Supreme Court said it in the Heller decision and reaffirmed that 2 years later, that it applies not just in the District of Columbia directly against Congress, but it applies in the States, in a case that came out of Chicago.

So we know that nobody's handguns are going to be taken away and nobody's rifles are going to be taken away.

All we are talking about is keeping our children and our grandchildren

safe; keeping people safe at concerts, like in Las Vegas; keeping people safe in church, like in South Carolina; keeping people safe in their public schools, like in Parkland, Florida; keeping college students safe, like at Virginia Tech. That is what we are talking about doing.

Now, we don't know why Congress won't act. Some people are starting to hypothesize that America has become a failed state, that we can't respond to an almost unanimous demand by our own people to legislate in the interests of public safety, which is the most elementary requirement of a civilized society under a social contract.

Some people say we have become a failed state, like failed states we see around the world. You know that authoritarianism is on the march all over the world, whether it is in Putin's Russia or Duterte's Philippines or Orban's Hungary or Erdogan's Turkey, where it is all about enriching the people in power--ignoring the needs of the people, ignoring the rights of the people, but instead, using government as a money-making operation for a tiny group of people.

Have we become a failed state? Is that what we are? I don't think we are a failed state.

We have had other periods in American history where Congress has refused to deal with pressing public policy problems. One of the most famous ones, beginning in the 1830s, was when a proslavery faction within Congress said it would refuse to have any hearings at all and would refuse to entertain any petitions against slavery from anywhere in the country. It was a direct assault on the right to petition Congress for redress of grievances, it was a direct assault on the freedom of speech, but they imposed this stranglehold on Congress so there could be no debate on the most pressing issue of the day.

Now, I am not likening slavery to gun violence. Okay? I want to be clear about that. But I am saying that there are other times in American history where Congress has acted as a chokehold against the ventilation of serious public concerns and grievances. There have been times when Congress has refused to engage in debate, discussion, and analysis of the most pressing problems of the day, and that is where we are right now on gun violence.

All we are saying, Mr. Speaker, to the majority in Congress, is let's have some hearings on this, let's have some hearings on a universal criminal and mental background check being demanded by nearly every American right now. Let's start with that. Is that one thing we can all agree on, that there should be a background check before people go out and obtain weapons of war that they then carry into the hallways and the schoolrooms of our country? Can we have a hearing on that?

If you don't want to vote for it, you can stand up with the 1 or 2 percent of the people who are against it, but allow those of us who want to represent the 97 or 98 percent of the people who are for it to have a vote, because we don't think that terrorists and criminals should be able to go to a gun show and purchase firearms, including AR- 15s, without a criminal background check. We don't think that.

So, Mr. Speaker, we have got a consensus in America on this. Let's not stifle the consensus. Let's not choke off the ability of the American people and their representatives to govern. That is why we were sent here, to legislate.

The essence of legislation is hearings. We have to hear the American people, we have to hear the experts, we have to collect the evidence. We have got to overturn the ban on the collection of statistics about gun violence that was imposed a few decades ago on the CDC. We have got to collect the information, and we have to act.

The time for just prayers and meditation about the problem is long gone, as the young people from Parkland, Florida, have told us.

They were told in the wake of the massacre: It is too early to start debating gun policy.

They turned around, and they said: No. It is too late to be debating gun policy. This should have been done after Las Vegas. It should have been done after San Bernardino County. It should have been done after the Sandy Hook massacre. It should have been done after Virginia Tech.

How many more massacres do we have to await before this Congress decides something really must be done? How many more massacres? That is what America is asking us, Mr. Speaker.

Please, let's do our job. We have sworn an oath to the American people. Let's go and represent the public will, let's make it consistent with the Second Amendment, because it is very easy to do so. We proved it in the State of Maryland, and the Supreme Court has told us we can pass reasonable commonsense gun safety measures without violating anyone's rights.

We have got a consensus in America. In Congress, we have got to do our job and let that consensus become the law.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Perlmutter very much for yielding for just a moment. I was very moved by his comments. We know that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and I want to salute him for his vigilance and his zealousness in defending American freedom and our democratic process against foreign and potentially domestic enemies, those who would subvert and undermine our political processes.

It seems to me that, in Congress, we have two jobs that we need to do now. One is to defend the Mueller investigation and the Department of Justice against unfair attacks and attempts to subvert and undermine investigation; and two, and perhaps more importantly now, is we have got to work to fortify our election systems against a repeat in 2018.

The U.S. intelligence agencies, they told us, in January of 2017, that there had been a campaign of cyber espionage and cyber sabotage and cyber propaganda against the American elections. They have told us that the Russians are very likely to be doing the same thing with respect to the 2018 election. And, by the way, it is not just the Russians now. They may have just set the template for other bad actors who want to stick their nose into American elections, too.

You know, James Q. Wilson wrote this book called, ``Broken Windows,''

where he said if somebody throws a rock into a window and you have got a broken window and nobody does anything about it, it is an invitation for more people to come along and break some more windows. Well, right now, the U.S. Government has done nothing.

As you have said, we have not spent the money in the State Department to try to defend ourselves against the foreign subversion of our elections and cyber espionage and sabotage. And when we had the Attorney General come to the Judiciary Committee, we asked him what had he engaged in to try to defend our elections across the country against another attack, and he said basically nothing. And followup efforts by members of the committee to get the Attorney General to meet with us have resulted in nothing.

So, this week, we have asked for $14 million from the appropriators to go to the Election Assistance Commission, which is the only Federal body we have got that is charged with trying to help State election administrators defend themselves against cyber attack. That $14 million is urgent and necessary, and it is obviously a very small sum of money, given the amount of money we spend on defense in America, but this is defense of our elections.

We are also asking for $400 million to help update outmoded and weak election technology in the States today. That is another badly needed infusion of cash to the States so we can fortify our elections. We know that at least 22 States suffered attempted electronic probes by foreign actors in 2016, and they are coming back in 2018, and everybody wants to know what are we doing about it, and we have no coordinated plan. At the very least, we should get this money to the Election Assistance Commission so we can help the States harden themselves.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 772, the AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act. I strongly favor this important legislation because it will provide Indian Tribes with the ability to respond quickly to child abductions, thereby increasing the chances that we can avert catastrophe.

Through the grant program reauthorized by S. 772, Tribal law enforcement agencies would develop the capacity to immediately initiate their own AMBER Alerts and allow Tribal alert systems to be integrated with the more advanced AMBER Alert communications plans of State and regional law enforcement.

The AMBER Alert program is a powerful tool that engages geographically targeted networks of law enforcement, broadcast and transparency agencies, digital signage companies, internet service providers, and the wireless industry to issue urgent notifications in

the most serious cases of child abduction. Such alerts can instantly galvanize an entire community in the search for an abducted and endangered child.

From its inception through January of 2018, the AMBER Alert program has directly led to the rescue of more than 900 children. Presently, the AMBER Alert program is used in all 50 States, here in the District of Columbia, in Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

AMBER Alert systems have evolved to utilize all available technology in notifying the public of a child abduction. Native American Tribal communities, however, are unable to take full advantage of this lifesaving program. Currently, Tribal law enforcement must rely on State or regional law enforcement agencies off-reservation to issue the complete AMBER Alert on their behalf. This is unfortunate, and indeed it is notable because the rate of child abduction is reportedly down across the country with the sole exception of Indian Country.

As we all know, time is of the essence when a child is abducted or goes missing. AMBER Alert plans provide comprehensive, rapid-response system, which is critical to success in such cases. Statistics show that roughly 74 percent of abducted children who are murdered are killed within the first 3 hours of their abduction.

The time spent to coordinate with State or regional law enforcement before issuing an AMBER Alert can be lengthy and can have a dire consequence.

In 2003, the PROTECT Act established a grant program to be administered by the attorney general for the States, with the goals of strengthening AMBER Alert communications plans nationwide and developing a seamless network through the Nation, which dramatically increases the likelihood that abducted children will be recovered swiftly and safely.

S. 772 would reauthorize $10 million for the program and would make Indian Tribal communities eligible to receive grant funds for the very first time. With this funding, Tribes will be able to develop and implement AMBER Alert communications plans of their own, and also integrate their AMBER Alert systems into and with State and regional communications plans.

Awarded funds may also be used for education, training, and law enforcement tools and equipment related to the AMBER Alert plans.

If enacted, this legislation will help build a truly national and cohesive network of AMBER Alert systems. Tribal law enforcement will have the ability to directly issue AMBER Alerts without having to rely on outside law enforcement, while outside agencies will be available to fill in any gaps when necessary through the improved coordination.

Mr. Speaker, accordingly, I encourage my colleagues to join us in supporting this crucial piece of bipartisan legislation.

S. 772 was introduced in response to a fatal abduction that occurred on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Eleven-year-old Ashlynne Mike was kidnapped after school, along with her brother. Her brother escaped, and, alas, she did not.

That case focused attention on gaps in communication and coordination between Tribal and off-reservation law enforcement.

In the past, the Navajo Tribe has relied on New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah to activate AMBER Alerts. Before an alert issued, Tribal officers have been required to meet a list of requirements to establish a case. If the criteria are met, the officers may only then begin the process of requesting States to issue the AMBER Alert.

Based on several accounts of this case, the AMBER Alert was issued 10 or more hours after Ashlynne was abducted.

Her abductor confessed to brutalizing her and leaving her alive to fend for herself in the desert. It was too late for Ashlynne when she was found dead a day later.

Children are precious to us, and they deserve our protection wherever they may live, either on reservations or off reservations.

Mr. Speaker, because we should do everything that we can to ensure that appropriate resources are allocated to efforts to recover missing or abducted children, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its powerful and invaluable work to make the world a safer and more peaceful place. The organization is a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGO) that pursues one of the continuing great imperatives of our time: the control and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.

ICAN sought to build on the notable success of the Ottawa Treaty, which 163 signatories have signed agreeing to ban the use and possession of landmines. Previous international agreements have banned cluster munitions and the use of biological and chemical weapons, but no such agreement prohibits the use of nuclear weapons. By combining the efforts of hundreds of NGOs in 100 countries, ICAN draws international attention to the horrifying humanitarian consequences of armed conflict and the devastating specific threat posed by nuclear weapons.

After its founding in 2007, ICAN coordinated efforts around three international conferences--in Oslo, Nayarit, and Vienna--that considered the effects of nuclear detonation and worked toward a binding international agreement. After the Vienna agreement, ICAN worked with more than 100 governments on a nuclear humanitarian pledge to cooperate on efforts to ``fill the legal gap'' in the international regime governing the use of nuclear weapons. This effort helped the United Nations develop the first legal framework for nuclear prohibition. Thus far, 122 governments have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first binding international agreement of its kind. Through ICAN's efforts, the world is moving forward in the campaign to eliminate some of the most inhumane and destructive weapons ever created.

The existential threat of nuclear conflict looms ever larger in our daily lives. Although anti-proliferation efforts have dramatically reduced the number of state-held nuclear arms, the 15,000 nuclear weapons that remain continue to pose an unparalleled and complete threat to the future of humankind. The consequences of nuclear war are devastating and irreversible. We must do everything in our power to prevent such a calamity.

I commend ICAN for its tireless advocacy for a strong and effective nuclear weapons ban treaty, and applaud its essential work to make the world a safer place for us all humanity.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of U.S. leadership to end malaria globally, a movement driven by the President's Malaria Initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. These benchmark programs have helped save the lives of seven million people from this devastating disease for nearly two decades. I am proud to represent the 8th District of Maryland, where many of the major life-saving scientific discoveries have occurred, notably at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the National Institutes of Health.

As a leader in the fight to eliminate malaria, the U.S. has helped create and advance life-saving interventions like insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor residual spray, and rapid diagnostic tests throughout endemic regions including Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. Between 2000 and 2015, the U.S. and our global partners have driven down malaria death rates by 62 percent overall, and by 69 percent for children under five. Yet, despite this progress, more work remains: the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 445,000 deaths in 2016 caused by this preventable and treatable disease.

In its World Malaria Report of 2017, the WHO highlighted the successes and shortcomings of the global community's efforts to combat this disease, which is still killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. While annual reports have noted steady declines in deaths and infections caused by malaria, progress has stalled due to insecticide and drug resistance, stagnant funding from global and domestic partners, and political instability. For the first time since 2000, when the global community first came together to end malaria, infection rates increased and death rates did not decline. This is the stark reality of the fight against malaria: when attention and funding shrink, the disease thrives and spreads.

I urge my colleagues to join me in continuing our bipartisan commitment to defeating malaria, including full funding of the President's Malaria Initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Together, we can ensure that a day will arrive when no child will ever again die from a mosquito bite.

Mr. Chairman, one of our great Republican Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who served in this body, spoke of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We didn't start out that way, but through civil rights movements and civil rights statutes, we have opened America up. The Americans with Disabilities Act has been a crucial piece of legislation to opening America up--our restaurants, our hotels, all of our business establishments--to tens of millions of Americans who otherwise couldn't fully participate fully and on an equal basis.

This bill would require a totally novel requirement in the civil rights field, that in order to sue for violations of public accommodations law under the ADA, the person must first notify the business of their alleged violations and then wait 180 days to allow the business to remedy the violation, or make substantial progress towards compliance. No other Federal civil rights law operates this way. They just don't work like that. The ADA has been in process for 27 years, and there is no reason that any business today should be out of compliance with a very clear directive under the ADA.

The new notice and cure provisions will have the effect of shifting the burden of enforcement from the wrongdoer to the victim of discrimination. It would incentivize businesses not to comply with the ADA, unless it receives a notice of violation.

Now, our colleagues raised questions of overzealous, or vexatious, or abusive litigation by certain lawyers, and we know that there are cases of that. They are in the handful of States that have added damages under the ADA.

Understand that, under the ADA, federally, there are no damages. You can just get your costs and your legal fees. So some States have added damages.

Then there are some lawyers who are out making trouble. We agree with that. Use the State bars to sanction them. If there is sanctionable behavior, disbar them. Deal with that problem. But don't cut the heart out of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been central to the ability of our people and all of our families to participate on an equal basis in our economy and in our society.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our chairman, Mr. Harper; and the ranking member, Mr. Brady, for their excellent leadership on this legislation.

I rise as a proud cosponsor and strong supporter of H.R. 4924, the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act; and H. Res. 724, the companion resolution which strengthens antiharassment and antidiscrimination policies and procedures in this institution.

These two bills show how Congress can make dramatic progress on a bipartisan basis when we listen to the people; specifically, the Me Too movement against workplace discrimination and harassment that has swept America into the 21st century by demanding equality and dignity in the workplace for all women as well as all men.

This continuing Women's March Across America for workplace fairness has forced the Members of this body to acknowledge that, here in Congress, sexual harassment has been a serious occupational hazard for thousands of women who only want to come to work to support their families and to contribute to the common good of the country.

We have heard about shameful cases of quid pro quo harassment, hostile workplace environment, groping, forcible kissing, sexual coercion, and reprisal and retaliation for saying no or complaining.

As the representatives of the American people, we have a compelling obligation to lead America to a culture of zero tolerance for sexual harassment and assault in the workplace; and we, in Congress, must lead, not only by strong legislation, but by strong example.

Our current dispute resolution process is stacked against victims, requiring people to go through a protracted and duplicative process. Members are provided legal counsel, while victims are left to navigate this convoluted process on their own. Settlements, if provided, are paid for with taxpayer money instead of the money of the perpetrators of the events.

This legislation eliminates protracted mandatory waiting periods. It empowers victims to move directly to a court proceeding if they so desire. It creates an Office of Employee Advocacy with lawyers on hand to help people understand their rights.

It prohibits sexual relationships between Members of Congress and their staffs. It holds offending Members personally responsible for their conduct by requiring that they pay any settlements that are actually made.

I thank Chairman Harper and Ranking Member Brady for their leadership. I especially thank Congresswoman Jackie Speier for her untiring and exemplary advocacy over the years on this issue. I am glad that we are being part of this great cultural paradigm shift in America right now.