Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my dear colleague and friend from New York for holding this moment so that we can all speak out.

Like so many of my fellow Americans, I have absolutely been distraught the last several days, many days. Many days crying.

We are getting hundreds of calls to my office here in Washington, my office in the district. Many of those people are actually crying as they watch what is happening to children.

I have to tell you that, in my life--and I am a mother and a grandmother and, for the last 20 years, a Member of this United States Congress--I have never seen such state-sponsored cruelty, state- sponsored child abuse that we are seeing right now. There really isn't any other word for it. Child abuse.

The President of the United States has announced some sort of a so- called improvement, trying to fool an enraged Nation into thinking that they have reversed course on this issue of children coming, with their parent, across the border.

In reality, the President's executive order enables the indefinite incarceration of immigrant families and has absolutely no plan to reunite babies who were ripped from their families, ripped from the arms of their parents.

There are children who will still be in cages, Mr. Speaker. Frankly, I can't stand it. I wonder if you can stand it, Mr. Speaker.

I am the daughter of immigrants. Neither of my parents was born here in the United States of America. They came here because Jews were being persecuted in Russia, and they fled here. They were able to get to this country. They were helped to be resettled in the city of Chicago by the Salvation Army, for whom I am ever grateful in my life.

My grandfather made it by getting a horse and wagon, getting up before dawn and loading up the wagon with vegetables, and going through the alleys of Humboldt Park in Chicago and schlepping bags of potatoes over his shoulder, up stairs, and into apartments.

He and my grandmother--who made clothes for all the children, including my mother--sent four children to college, because they worked so hard to fulfill the dream of taking care of their children and having a better life.

The parents who are fleeing across this border are desperate. They are leaving domestic abuse, abuse from gangs threatening the lives of their children, sometimes leaving some children behind and taking the ones that they can across this border, because they believed that they could seek asylum in this country. And that was the rule, that is the law, until the Attorney General of the United States, directed by the President, said: No, we are no longer considering a right of asylum for people who are victimized by domestic abuse or gang abuse. No, not anymore. We are going to arrest them. We are going to put them in jail.

Now understand, I bet you--we haven't talked about this--that many of these children are not well, or their parents are not well, because this was a journey across countries, often walking for mile after mile after mile--dehydration, lack of proper nutrition--and now confined in places, separated from their parents. You have the children in one place and the parents in another place--in jails, essentially, and in cages for the children.

What happens if there is a sickness that could pass across these children?

If a child dies, will we know? Will we be told?

Many times, they try to keep even Members of Congress out of seeing exactly what is going on. Some of my colleagues--God bless them--have been able to visit and see.

How come there are so few images?

Because you can't even take your phone in there to take pictures of what is going on.

What do we know about the reality of the life of these children, the suffering of these children, the screaming of these children, that is now on the cover of Time magazine?

I am telling you, this is not the United States of America. Shame, shame on President Trump; shame on congressional Republicans for their heartless, radical immigration agenda; and shame on anyone who is silent in the face of this abuse of children. People are heartbroken, and now they have to rise up and say no to this.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that there were mothers and children today at ICE in New York protesting. We need to see more of that.

Madam Speaker, what do you call a country that institutionalizes child abuse? Tragically, today you call that country the United States of America.

We have heard the children screaming. We have seen the images of children being told to go to sleep in cages. We know that children have been ripped from the breasts of nursing mothers and taken away, maybe never to be found to be reunited again.

As a mother, as a grandmother, I can't stand it. Madam Speaker, can you stand it? Can this country stand it? What happens to the soul of America when we do this to children?

These parents have come with their children, fleeing violence; thinking they are coming to the land of the free, the home of the brave; thinking that they are going to be able to get asylum here in the United States of America or at least a chance to get asylum here and to be safe, finally, with their children. Instead, they are put in jail. They are put in prison.

I am here today with Bruce and Felix, children whose parents are in the gallery. They will go home tonight and sleep in a comfortable bed while thousands of children are put to sleep in cages.

I say to you, Mr. President: You can end this. This is your decision. Please, for the sake of our country, for the sake of the children, for the sake of families, end this now.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 262.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, too many Americans feel that Washington is out of touch with their priorities. They feel that too few people have too much influence. Americans want the culture of corruption cultivated by rich lobbyists and massive corporations to end.

Look no further than Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical companies. Since 1998, they have spent $4 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions. They employ 1,400 lobbyists, three lobbyists for every Member. No wonder the system seems rigged against commonsense solutions to lower drug prices.

Americans are getting a raw deal when big money controls politics. Democrats offer A Better Deal for our democracy: a bold, comprehensive program to bolster our Nation's ethics laws, overhaul our campaign finance system, and create more transparency and accessibility.

Americans deserve a government that works for them. They deserve A Better Deal.

I want to acknowledge Mimi Quin, with me today as part of Foster Youth Shadow Day.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, this that I am proposing today would be the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee.

If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended, and this amendment would offer a more targeted approach to improve FDA's expanded access program that allows patients access to experimental drugs that can possibly save their lives, which is the goal of all of us.

The FDA ensures that expanded access requests are safe, and it approves nearly 100 percent of all the requests that are made, and most in a matter of hours, if necessary.

The right-to-try legislation we are considering today presents a huge risk to patients and is much worse than the House bill we passed in March, as our ranking member explained.

If this bill is so good, why are 104 patient groups--these are the groups that represent the sick and dying people--opposed? And PhRMA, the big pharmaceutical companies, are not supportive because this gives open license to snake oil salesmen.

This bill exposes far more patients to serious risks through a dangerous and unnecessary pathway for experimental treatment.

FDA Commissioner Gottlieb noted this legislation is not limited to patients with terminal illness anymore: ``We are certainly going to be exposing patients with potentially less severe conditions to a risk.''

It is troubling that, in some States, patients using an investigational drug can lose their hospice coverage and, in other States, that they can be denied home care. These are the very people who need this care.

Why should we put more patients at risk when the current process does work? FDA already approves, as I said, nearly 100 percent of the requests for experimental therapies through the expanded access program. If a person is denied treatment, it is because the manufacturer will not provide it. It also isn't going about giving the terminally ill hope.

If that were true, then why would these 104 patient groups, including the American Cancer Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and the Vietnam Veterans of America also oppose this bill?

The main reason that this bill is being pushed is to remove FDA oversight of the safety and effectiveness of our drugs. It allows manufacturers to serve as the gatekeeper and protector of patients. It opens the door for bad actors to prey on people desperate to save their lives or the lives of their children.

Imagine if someone like Martin Shkreli, the infamous pharmaceutical bad actor, promised a cure to save a child's life provided that the parents pay whatever price he might charge, under this bill, FDA would play no role in determining if that drug were safe and effective.

Bad actors do exist, and this Republican bill gives them the opportunity to prey on desperate people who are looking for any treatment that might help to save their lives.

Unlike S. 204, this motion to recommit is not based on the false premise that the FDA approval is a barrier to investigational treatments; rather, it provides clarification of the liability and how FDA will utilize clinical outcomes.

With this motion to recommit, the FDA would provide manufacturers guidance to clarify how FDA will consider clinical outcomes associated with treatments under expanded access when making a decision about whether or not the drug should be granted full approval. It also provides transparency as to how many patients are making expanded access requests and how often these requests are granted or denied by the FDA and manufacturers. It also offers to provide manufacturers or sponsors liability protection if they comply with the requirements of the expanded access program.

I believe that these legislative fixes facilitate patient accessing of experimental treatments while ensuring critical FDA oversight to protect public health.

In conclusion, patients already have the right to try. Rather than creating an unnecessary pathway that puts patients at risk by allowing the sale of

snake oil, I would urge my colleagues to join the over 100 patient groups, organizations that care about their neighbors and their friends and people who have these diseases, in support of the expanded access program.

These targeted improvements are one way to achieve that goal, so I urge my colleagues to support my motion to recommit and oppose the dangerous Republican proposal.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs are forcing families to make impossible choices every day.

No one in America should have to decide between putting food on the table and paying for the lifesaving medication their children need, but pharmaceutical corporations will keep raising their prices for one simple reason: because they can.

There are a number of things that we can do, and number one is negotiate prescription drug prices under Medicare; number two, shed light on the pharmaceutical corporations' drug pricing system; number three, end patent system abuse by eliminating tactics that thwart competition; number four, allow safe importation of prescription drugs from other countries; and number five, ensure access to affordable drugs through fair trade agreements.

Lukewarm pharma-friendly approaches just won't work. Failing to take truly meaningful action could mean the difference between life and death.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First, the Republicans passed a tax scam that blows a $2 trillion hole in the budget and gives 83 percent of its tax cuts to the wealthiest among us and corporate CEOs.

Then they offer a budget that would fill that gap by cutting more than $2 trillion in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even programs like Meals on Wheels. And now, they want to amend our Constitution to require a balanced budget.

We know how the Republicans plan to balance the budget--on the backs of seniors. We have seen this movie before--budget after budget that cuts Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid;

budgets that leave seniors without their earned benefits or access to long-term care; budgets that privatize the Veterans Administration and Medicare; providing vouchers and not health benefits; that raise the age of eligibility for Medicare and Social Security; that cap and slash Medicaid, the largest source of long-term care. And no wonder seniors groups are raising the alarm.

Under this resolution, the AARP says: ``Social Security and Medicare would cease to provide a predictable source of financial and health security in retirement.''

The Alliance for Retired Americans calls it ``irresponsible'' and ``extremely harmful to older Americans.''

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare says it ``would force severe cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other vital Federal programs.''

The Strengthen Social Security Coalition says: ``We regard a vote for the balanced budget amendment as a vote to cut Social Security, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.''

When Paul Ryan announced his retirement yesterday, he said before he leaves, he hopes that he is going to be able to go after these retirements and entitlements and cut them: Social Security and Medicare. This has already been announced. This is the future if we let it happen. We need to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his generosity and time.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I rise in opposition to H.R. 5247 because it creates a dangerous back door for modern-day snake oil salesmen, a back door around the FDA approval process for people who may or may not be preying on desperate people, and it ignores that there actually is a safe pathway for terminally ill patients to get treatment.

This bill failed to pass last week and it should fail again. It is a harmful policy that both Republican-and Democratic-appointed former FDA Commissioners concluded there is ``no evidence'' that this bill ``would meaningfully improve access for patients, but would just remove the FDA from the approval process and create a dangerous precedent that would erode protections for vulnerable patients,'' the most vulnerable patients. People whose lives are in danger feel that they will try anything, and there are people out there who will prey on that.

This bill denies patients what they really need, which is safe and effective treatments. This bill strips away important safeguards in the name of helping patients, but it does not, and that is why 78 patient groups and doctors, groups like the American Cancer Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, oppose this bill. In total, there are now 110 groups opposing this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Congressional Record a multipage list of opponents to this bill.

Groups Opposed to Right To Try Legislation

ADNP Kids Research Foundation; AIDS Action Baltimore;

Alliance for Aging Research; Alliance for Regenerative

Medicine; American Academy of Neurology; American Association

of Justice; American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network;

American Lung Association; American Society of Clinical

Oncology; American Syringomyelia and Chiari Alliance Project;

Amyloidosis Support Groups; Association for Creatine

Deficiencies; Benign Essential Blepharospasm Research

Foundation; Biomarin; Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer

Foundation; Breast Cancer Action; Bridge the Gap--SYNGAP

Education and Research Foundation CancerCare; Cancer

Prevention and Treatment Fund; Charlotte and Gwenyth Gray

Foundation to Cure Batten Disease.

Children's Cause for Cancer Advocacy; Children's

Cardiomyopathy Foundation; Congenital Hyperinsulinism

International; CurePSP; Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation; Cystic

Fibrosis Foundation; Defeat MSA; The Desmoid Tumor Research

Foundation; The Disability Rights Legal Center; Dupl5q

Alliance; Dysautonomia Foundation; Equal Access for Rare

Disorders; Fight Colorectal Cancer; FORCE: Facing Our Risk of

Cancer Empowered; Former FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg;

Former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf; Friedreich's Ataxia

Research Alliance (FARA); Friends of Cancer Research; Georgia

State University College of Law; The Global Foundation for

Peroxisomal Disorders.

Glutl Deficiency Foundation; The Guthy-Jackson Charitable

Foundation; Hemophilia Federation of America; Hematology/

Oncology Pharmacy Association; HLRCC Family Alliance; Hope

for Hypothalamic Hamartomas; Hyper IgM Foundation, Inc.;

International Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP)

Association; International Myeloma Foundation; International

Pemphigus and Pemphigoid Foundation; International Society

for Stem Cell Research; International Waldenstrom's

Macroglobulinemia Foundation (IWMF); The Isaac Foundation;

Jack McGovern Coats' Disease Foundation; The LAM

Foundation; The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; Lymphoma

Research Foundation; Li-Fraumeni Syndrome Association (LFS

Association/LFSA); LUNGevity Foundation; Max Cure

Foundation.

M-CM Network; Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation; MitoAction;

MLD Foundation; Moebius Syndrome Foundation; The MSA

Awareness Shoe; Mucolipidosis Type IV Foundation; The Myelin

Project; Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation; National Brain Tumor

Society; National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship; National

Comprehensive Cancer Network; National Consumers League;

National Health Council; National MPS Society; National

Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation; National Organization for

Rare Disorders (NORD); National Patient Advocate Foundation;

National Physicians Alliance; National PKU Alliance.

National PKU News; National Women's Health Network;

Neurofibromatosis Northeast; NYU Langone Health; Operation

ASHA; Our Bodies Ourselves; PRP Alliance, Inc.; Prevent

Cancer Foundation; Public Citizen; Rare and Undiagnosed

Network (RUN); Sarcoma Foundation of America; Scleroderma

Foundation; The Snyder-Robinson Foundation; Sofia Sees Hope;

SSADH Association.

Susan G. Komen; TargetCancer Foundation; Treatment Action

Group; The Turner Syndrome Society; TMJA (Temporomandibular

Joint Disorders patient organization); United Leukodystrophy

Foundation; United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF);

University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine;

Veterans Health Council; Vietnam Veterans of America; VHL

Alliance; Washington Advocates for Patient Safety; Woody

Matters; Worldwide Syringomyelia & Chiari Task Force; Yale

School of Public Health.

Mr. Speaker, it opens the door for bad actors to take advantage of terminally ill patients. It is the FDA's job to ensure that drugs are safe and effective, and we can't trust manufacturers to act as this gatekeeper.

There is already a safe process for terminally ill patients to access experimental treatments. Under what is called the expanded access program, 99 percent of applications are approved. The expanded access program plays a vital safety role.

I am very troubled by what can happen to patients in some States who undergo treatment from right-to-try companies. In 19 States, patients using an investigational drug could actually lose their hospice coverage; in 6 States, they could be denied home care coverage. These are the very people who are dependent on hospice and home healthcare, and this bill would cause them to lose that coverage.

This is not a humane, patient-centered bill for people who are facing death; it is just a dangerous pathway for bad actors to exploit those very people.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 5247, and, again, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to speak against this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.

Since it was signed into law, Americans have relied on the ACA for access to quality, affordable healthcare; but Republicans have attacked Americans' healthcare at every turn.

Last year, Republicans tried to pass TrumpCare, a bill that would have imposed a crippling age tax, raised out-of-pocket costs, and increased the number of uninsured Americans by 23 million.

After the American people stopped TrumpCare in its tracks, Republicans went after the Affordable Care Act again in their tax scam. On top of that, the administration waged a persistent campaign to discourage people from enrolling in the ACA plans.

Despite GOP sabotage, Americans still signed up for the Affordable Care Act. Americans want better, more affordable healthcare, and that is what Democrats offer: A Better Deal for better healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, Congressman Waters, for pulling this little surprise together.

I thank Marcy Kaptur. It is so great to be able to stand on the floor of the House and laud one of our great, great Members on her great achievement of serving here for 36 years in the House of Representatives. She continues every day to bring her intelligence and persistence to issues from labor and working people to Ukraine.

Her accomplishments are enormous. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She earned a BA and an MA, served in the White House, and now is the longest serving woman in Congress.

Marcy has never forgotten her blue-collar roots. She knows the importance of unions in providing job security and good wages. She has focused on making sure that workers get their earned pension benefits. This is a big issue right now that she is leading the charge on.

I feel, and have felt from the beginning, a special affinity, being a midwesterner and coming to this Congress with these Midwestern values: nothing fancy; it is just about working people who want a good life and deserve to get it.

Marcy can match anybody with her understanding in the details of pension policy. She always stays focused on the fundamental goal of pensions, which is simply making sure that, after a life of hard work, women and men can retire with dignity and security, something that I am afraid is in too short supply today. Marcy is continuing to lead that battle.

Marcy has been an expert on trade policy. I learned that early on in my tenure here in the House. On the 10th anniversary of NAFTA, Marcy, with the help of the Teamsters union, organized a visit and took a group of us first to the border city of El Paso, Texas, to look at and talk to people who had lost their jobs and had moved across the border.

We then crossed the border to Ciudad Juarez, where we actually saw people living in the packing crates of the products they were working to manufacture at the maquiladoras.

So, on both sides of the border, we saw the pain that was caused.

On that trip, we went to Mexico City, talked to leaders, talked to union leaders and political leaders, government leaders. We also went to the city of Puebla and talked to people there. It was a really comprehensive trip that gave us a sense of what happens to people when they are not being considered when policies are being made.

She continues today, as we renegotiate the NAFTA agreement and the administration works on that, to have input on what a really fair trade deal looks like--not just free trade, but fair trade--where it is not just the big corporations, but it is the workers in all the countries, in the United States of America and the workers in countries that we have trade agreements with, and that all the workers get a fair deal.

Marcy fights for people who played by the rules, faithfully going to work every day and making their pension contributions. They are counting on her and us to fight for them and to fight for a middle class in this country to help people who are poor get to the middle class and stay there. Those people--our people--could not have a better champion in this United States House of Representatives, in this Congress, than Marcy Kaptur of Ohio.

I love you, Marcy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 5247 because it actually creates a dangerous back door around the Food and Drug Administration approval process and it ignores that there is a safe pathway for terminally ill patients to get the treatment that they need.

This bill denies patients what they really need, which is safe and effective treatments.

This bill strips away important safeguards in the name of helping patients. It is not patient friendly. That is why 78 patients and doctor groups are all opposed to this legislation, like the American Cancer Society, the National Brain Tumor Society, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this 5-page list of the opposing groups.

Groups Opposed to Right to Try Legislation,

ADNP Kids Research Foundation, AIDS Action Baltimore,

Alliance for Aging Research, Alliance for Regenerative

Medicine, American Academy of Neurology, American Association

of Justice, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network,

American Lung Association, American Society of Clinical

Oncology, American Syringomyelia and Chiari Alliance Project,

Amyloidosis Support Groups, Association for Creatine

Deficiencies, Benign Essential Blepharospasm Research

Foundation, Biomarin, Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer

Foundation, Breast Cancer Action, Bridge the Gap--SYNGAP

Education and Research Foundation, CancerCare, Cancer

Prevention and Treatment Fund, Charlotte and Gwenyth Gray

Foundation to Cure Batten Disease, Children's Cause for

Cancer Advocacy, Children's Cardiomyopathy Foundation,

Congenital Hyperinsulinism International, CurePSP.

Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation,

Defeat MSA, The Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation, The

Disability Rights Legal Center, Dupl5q Alliance, Dysautonomia

Foundation, Equal Access for Rare Disorders, Fight Colorectal

Cancer, FORCE: Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered, Former

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, Former FDA Commissioner

Robert Califf, Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA),

Friends of Cancer Research, Georgia State University College

of Law, The Global Foundation for Peroxisomal Disorders,

Glutl Deficiency Foundation, The Guthy-Jackson Charitable

Foundation, Hemophilia Federation of America, Hematology/

Oncology Pharmacy Association, HLRCC Family Alliance, Hope

for Hypothalamic Hamartomas, Hyper IgM Foundation, Inc.,

International Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP)

Association, International Myeloma Foundation.

International Pemphigus and Pemphigoid Foundation,

International Society for Stem Cell Research, International

Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia Foundation (IWMF), The Isaac

Foundation, Jack McGovern Coats' Disease Foundation, The LAM

Foundation, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Lymphoma

Research Foundation, Li-Fraumeni Syndrome Association (LFS

Association / LFSA), LUNGevity Foundation, Max Cure

Foundation, M-CM Network, Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation,

MitoAction, MLD Foundation, Moebius Syndrome Foundation, The

MSA Awareness Shoe, Mucolipidosis Type IV Foundation, The

Myelin Project, Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation, National Brain

Tumor Society, National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship,

National Comprehensive Cancer Network, National Consumers

League, National Health Council.

National MPS Society, National Niemann-Pick Disease

Foundation, National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD),

National Patient Advocate Foundation, National Physicians

Alliance, National PKU Alliance, National PKU News, National

Women's Health Network, Neurofibromatosis Northeast, NYU

Langone Health, Operation ASHA, Our Bodies Ourselves, PRP

Alliance, Inc., Prevent Cancer Foundation, Public Citizen,

Rare and Undiagnosed Network (RUN), Sarcoma Foundation of

America, Scleroderma Foundation, The Snyder-Robinson

Foundation, Sofia Sees Hope, SSADH Association, Susan G.

Komen, TargetCancer Foundation, Treatment Action Group, The

Turner Syndrome Society.

TMJA (Temporomandibular Joint Disorders patient

organization), United Leukodystrophy Foundation, United

Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF), University of

Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Veterans Health

Council, Vietnam Veterans of America, VHL Alliance,

Washington Advocates for Patient Safety, Woody Matters,

Worldwide Syringomyelia & Chiari Task Force, Yale School of

Public Health.

Mr. Speaker, it opens the door for bad actors to take advantage of terminally ill patients. It is the FDA's job to ensure that drugs are safe and effective. We can't trust manufacturers to act as a gatekeeper.

The important thing to know is there is already a safe process for terminally ill patients to access experimental treatments. Under the Expanded Access Program, 99 percent of applications are approved, and they are done in a speedy way.

This process is not merely a rubber stamp. The FDA plays a vital role in ensuring these experimental treatments are safe.

Even more important, in 19 States that have passed right-to-try laws, patients using an investigational drug can lose their hospice care; and in 6 States, they can be denied home healthcare. These are the very people who depend on hospice and home care, and they could lose those services.

This is not a humane, patient-centered bill for people who are facing death. It is just a dangerous pathway for bad actors to exist.

Let's go with the positive ability right now that we have. Ninety- nine percent of those desperate people looking for hope will get it from the Food and Drug Administration. So I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 5247.

Mr. Speaker, as Congress fails to advance commonsense gun safety legislation, I would like to share a letter from a young constituent of mine, Bella, from Skokie, Illinois.

Bella recently had a lockdown at her school. She writes: ``While my peers and I crowded in the corner of my classroom, my mind instantly thought about the rise in school shootings in 2018. I thought, `Am I going to be part of that statistic?'. . . . This lockdown made me realize that something like that could happen to anyone anywhere. Please do something.''

Well, Bella, we have solutions that are supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans: banning assault weapons, passing comprehensive background checks.

Students and parents around the country are telling us to do something. It is time, now, for Congress to listen.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and thank Judge Patricia M. Logue for her extraordinary leadership in establishing the civil rights of LGBTQ Americans and for her service to the state of Illinois.

In 1993, Pat brought the fight for LGBTQ civil rights to the heartland when she opened the Midwest Regional Office of Lambda Legal in Chicago. Over the next fourteen years, Pat built the office into a formidable force. Working with cooperating attorneys from law firms across the Midwest, Pat won groundbreaking legal victories that helped redefine equality and freedom for students, parents, and families throughout the Midwest.

Pat's deep understanding of constitutional law, ability to select and advance compelling cases, and brilliant strategic thinking made her a leading voice of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. She has been a hero to many in the Chicagoland area and across the country, including to me. I am one of many who have relied on Pat to inform us and to inspire us.

In 1995, Pat helped win the right for gay men and lesbians to adopt children in Illinois. Four years later, Pat acted swiftly to preserve that right against a rogue circuit court whose extraordinary actions put adoptions for three small children at risk. In two separate cases involving lesbian couples, the judge disregarded social workers and court-appointed guardians who testified that the children were thriving in these couples' care and ``highly recommended'' the adoptions. Instead of crediting these experts, the judge appointed the Family Research Council--an organization that opposes all gay and lesbian adoptions--to represent the children's best interests. Pat immediately appealed these rulings and, minutes after hearing her argument, a unanimous three-judge panel moved to affirm the adoptions for both families. Reading from the bench, Judge Morton Zwick rebuked the lower court's rulings as ``an inexcusable injustice'' and a discredit to the ``people of Illinois.''

Pat played a similarly critical role in securing protections for students. For four years, Jamie Nabozny endured extraordinary cruelty and abuse at his Wisconsin high school. Students urinated on him, pretended to rape him, and at one point beat him so badly that he required surgery. Jamie asked for help, but school officials told him that this was what he could expect for being gay. When Jamie sued, the school argued that it was not legally obligated to protect gay students from harassment. Pat took Jamie's case on appeal and won the nation's first ruling that schools cannot turn a blind eye to anti-gay abuse in the landmark 1996 case Nabozny v. Podlesny. By protecting students from anti-gay harassment and abuse, Pat opened the door for the gay-straight alliances that now flourish in high schools and colleges across the nation.

Pat was one of the lead lawyers in Lawrence v. Texas. At the heart of the majority decision in Lawrence is the understanding that the Constitution's fundamental protections of liberty, equality, and freedom are guaranteed to all Americans. Affirmation of the equal dignity and respect of LGBTQ Americans set the stage for the Supreme Court's 2015 decision to recognize marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges.

When Pat opened Lambda's Midwest office twenty-five years ago, law and public policy reflected stereotypes and prejudice against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. Children were removed from gay and lesbian parents; LGBTQ workers were denied employment or fired from their jobs; and elected officials cited state sodomy laws to deny equal protection under the law. To win cases for clients and lasting change for the nation, Pat helped change that landscape by opening minds and hearts to the realities of LGBTQ lives. She did this time and again, changing public attitudes and legal policies and proving that we are stronger as a nation when we recognize equality and freedom for all.

In 2007, and after leading Lambda Legal's Midwest office for fourteen years, Pat was named as an Associate Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Pat brought the same clear-eyed sense of justice and fairness to the bench, where she has served in the Domestic Relations Division.

Pat has enriched the lives of thousands of individuals, couples and families--those she represented directly and the many others who have benefitted from the landmark systemic changes brought about by her work--creating a lasting legacy of opportunity and hope for generations to come.

Pat's life and work are a call to action, a reminder that each of us has the power to effect significant change. For her leadership and courage, her intellect and compassion, we owe Patricia M. Logue a debt of gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, today is the Anti-Hunger Day of Action, and I rise to support the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps feed 40 million Americans.

We live in the richest country in the world, yet many Americans struggle to get nutritious food to feed their families, including 1 out of 5 American children. President Trump's budget would worsen the problem by cutting SNAP by $213 billion over 10 years. The President's proposal would also replace families' flexible monthly SNAP benefits with food boxes that contain no fresh produce. It basically puts people on rations.

So I ask my Republican colleagues: Did you really come to Congress to take food out of the mouths of hungry people, hungry children? Who are you?

Ending hunger in America is not a matter of resources; it is a matter of political will. We must invest in our nutrition programs to make sure that no one's plate goes empty in America.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 620, which would violate the 28-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act by allowing public places to bar access to people with disabilities. H.R. 620 would actually allow barriers for the disabled to stay in place as long as ``substantial progress'' is made to remove them, whatever that means.

The ADA was a compromise, giving the disability community access and helping businesses to comply by giving them tax credits and training. H.R. 620 undoes that compromise, making it virtually impossible to enforce the

ADA's goal of fairness and inclusion; and that is why the AARP, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the National Council on Independent Living, and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities oppose this bill.

It is why the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities ``believes that H.R. 620 represents a downward spiral of the Americans With Disabilities Act and will impact people with disabilities' freedom of access . . . across the United States.''

And it is why 55 Illinois--where I am from--disability groups, led by Access Living, whose president, Marca Bristo, my personal hero, helped enact the Americans with Disabilities Act, she says and they say: ``H.R. 620 . . . would fundamentally harm our Nation's progress toward an accessible and integrated society. The bill telegraphs to individuals with disabilities that . . . their inclusion is not important.''

Let's show people with disabilities that they do matter, that they shouldn't be locked out of restaurants or sporting events or job opportunities, that they should not be treated as second-class citizens in the American civil justice system. Show your commitment to the ADA and to civil rights, and vote ``no.''