Floor Statements

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Comer for yielding time.

The numbers that were just shared are out of 2.1 million Federal employees, and the figure is accurate. Some 10,000 were terminated in 2021, but this is a fraction. People in the private sector are three times more likely to be terminated for poor performance than are people in the Federal Government. That is because it is so restrictive and so difficult to go through the process.

In fact, when the discussion deals with Federal employees that have been on the job past the probationary period, the number of terminations drops to half of what was just spoken of. These are skewed numbers that are being shared, but also a fraction of the over 2 million Federal employees and a fraction in comparison to those who were terminated in the private sector.

We must be able to deal with poor performers in the Federal Government, and our Democrat friends want to protect them and make Federal bureaucrats a protected class. That is absolute insanity. It is bad for America. It is bad for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Let me begin by stating clearly that I oppose the underlying bill here. Some of my Democratic colleagues claim that there is no such thing as a deep state, that there are no problems that we have within our Federal employee system. But there are genuine, valid concerns.

Take, for example, a Washington Post story titled: ``Resistance from within: Federal workers push back against Trump.'' In that article: ``Federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new President's initiatives.''

We have a problem, and it is a problem that bureaucrats do not do their jobs in fulfilling the will of a duly-elected President and the will of the American people. Instead, over and over, as time has shown it, they resist the will of the President.

This whole title here of H.R. 302, ``Preventing a Patronage System Act,'' a patronage system is designed to get people in the front door. That is not even what we are talking about. We are talking about people who are already in the door who are not doing their job. For crying out loud, it is the back door that needs to be dealt with, when you have poor performers, people who are not doing their job.

President Trump dealt with this by instituting schedule F, giving him the authority to do away with policymakers who refused to do their job. That is something that is desperately needed, and that is what is at stake. It is that issue that my amendment addresses.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer), the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform,

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

I respect greatly the gentleman from Virginia and enjoy working with him, but his characterization that we are attacking Federal employees is just not true.

There are millions of great Federal employees, and those who are doing their job have absolutely nothing to worry about. That is not what we are addressing here. We are addressing those who refuse to do their job.

There needs to be a means of dealing with those--especially in this schedule F that President Trump put in place--those who are responsible for policymaking, to do the will of the elected President of the United States. My Democrat colleagues are trying to protect those individuals and enable them, give them the right to continue to force their will upon the American people rather than the will of the American people as expressed through the duly-elected President, whomever that may be. This is absolutely wrong and beyond my comprehension.

Even Federal employees themselves, year after year after year, talk about how difficult it is to get rid of poor performers in the Federal workforce. Here we are trying to protect them rather than have the ability to deal with and terminate poor performers and, specifically with schedule F, those who are responsible, regardless of the administration, to perform the will of that administration.

My amendment addresses these issues. I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

With all due respect, this bill will do anything but ensure a fair and accurate Census. Instead, it threatens to produce an unfair and inaccurate Census.

As ranking member of the Government Operations Subcommittee, I have stressed time and time again that we need reforms that will ensure a more accountable Federal workforce. But time and time again, Democrats show that they want anything but accountability for civil servants.

In fact, it is as though they view Federal employees as a protected and privileged class, and when a Federal bureaucracy is unaccountable, well, that is when it is most likely to threaten the American people with rogue activity like, in this case, providing an unfair and inaccurate Census.

First, it makes the Director of the Census unremovable except for ``inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.'' Then, it commands that only the Director can make operational, statistical, and technical decisions about the Census.

Mr. Chairman, what is the Secretary of Commerce supposed to do if he or she believes that the Census Director is making decisions that will lead to an unfair or inaccurate Census? Further, what is going to happen if there is no Director in place? Under the terms of the bill, only a career Census Bureau official can serve as the Acting Director.

This bill is a perfect example of how Democrats think unelected civil servants should be running our government and, in essence, that civil servants should be the ones who are governing the American people. This bill literally is having them attempt to influence who represents them. That is not the way our system is supposed to work.

My amendment would strip those provisions out of the legislation. If we are to ensure a fair and accurate Census, then we must ensure an accountable Census Bureau.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer), who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I am amazed at how my radical friends on the left now are so concerned with the lives of children when they literally stand and cheer and celebrate the killing of 3,000 through abortion every single day.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule that allows the consideration of the assault weapons ban.

What we have going on right now is a complete disregard for regular order that started yesterday and is continuing here today. The House floor is being run like a circus, quite frankly, and the American people deserve better than this.

They continue, the Democrats do, to ram legislation through without proper notice and without even markup in committees. The floor should be run with at least a basic sense of decorum, and that is totally out of control right now. There is a complete lack of respect for the rules and the norms of this historic institution and how it should be run.

As for the legislation being considered, it is just another attempt by the radical left to once again take away the Second Amendment rights of the American people.

Madam Speaker, time and time again, the left here has tried to disregard and trample the constitutional rights of the American people.

This bill is full of, among other things, questionable definitions that show that the left doesn't even know what they are talking about when it comes to the issue of assault weapons.

Madam Speaker, I implore my colleagues to vote against this rule and the previous question, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the great leadership of the ranking member from Arkansas. I appreciate his yielding some time to me.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly rise in opposition to the Big Cat Public Safety Act.

Let it be known that I also rise in opposition to the complete lack of decorum demonstrated by the majority in today's vote on the CHIPS bill. This Chamber is supposed to be a deliberative body governed by rules and norms agreed to by all the Members. The majority has made a mockery of those rules and norms today.

The complete disregard for the minority is what they showed today, and that is upsetting and disturbing. It is certainly no way to run the House, Mr. Speaker.

Turning to this legislation at hand, it seems as if the Democrats are prioritizing literally pet projects of a reality TV star instead of considering legislation that would benefit the American people during this time of economic crisis.

Natural Resources Committee Democrats have spent their time marking up legislation like this instead of working on bills that would lower the cost of gas for millions of Americans.

As the ranking member has referenced several times, our constituents sent us here to represent them and to work together to solve the issues that they are facing and that our Nation is facing. Right now, they are facing things like the cost of gasoline and energy production, and we are doing nothing about that in the Natural Resources Committee.

Legislation like this does not reflect the interests or the concerns of the American people.

We have Americans literally suffering right now economically, and we are debating big cats? Really?

Of all the things that are important, we are in here talking about big cats.

We have an administration right now gaslighting the American people by trying to change the definition of a recession which we are experiencing.

It is time for us to work on legislation that actually helps the American people.

Because of the actions of President Biden and the Democrats, Americans are suffering from the worst inflation in over four decades and are now facing the beginning of a recession. It is time for Congress to work on critical legislation and stop wasteful and untimely bills like this.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 263, the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Mr. Speaker, you have got to be kidding me. This is ridiculous.

Mr. Chairman, listen, you are spot on. It is virtually

everything. I honestly can't think of anything that the cost is not going up, whether we are talking food or fuel or energy or travel, vehicles. Across the board, it is all going up to the tune now of about $500 a month that the average family is having to pay more. I mean, $6,000 a year.

Literally, we are at a point in our Nation's history because of the horrific economic policies of this administration and this Democratic Party and the policies that they are pushing, that families literally are having to make choices, and they are concerned, literally, about feeding their family, about having a roof over their head, about putting gas in their cars.

This is the type of impact that these horrible policies are having on the American families, and it is all so unnecessary. That is what is aggravating about all of this. It all has to do with policies, horrible policies. All of this could have been and should have been avoided.

Oh, absolutely.

That is right, and they are suffering. People across the board are literally suffering right now and having to make critical decisions and some even to the point of getting rid of their pets because it is more important to get food on the table for their kids, obviously, than it is for pets. We have had two or three different stories of just that type of thing alone.

What is the administration's response to all this? Well, it is to double down on things like climate change, which ultimately is just going to raise taxes more. It is to spend more money that we don't have, which just exacerbates the problem.

It is horrible what the American people are facing right now. It, again, is so unnecessary. We should not be here; we were not here. Just 1\1/2\, 2 years ago, things were vastly different.

That is exactly right. You are spot on. Listen, this administration can try all they want to redefine the meaning of a recession, but they cannot change the realities of what this means to the average family.

Like you just described, we have people who are trying to get in homes, and with the hike today, there is no question that is going to prevent many people from being able to get that car that they desperately need to replace the one that is falling apart or a home or whatever it may be, loans of different types. This is going to, right out of the gate, take thousands and thousands and thousands of people across this country away from being able to get those things.

I was speaking just this week with a leader in the construction industry in the State of Georgia, and I just said, Tell me the truth, what is your future? And he said, it was dismal. Man, we are seeing the brakes being put on in a major, major way.

Of course, as far as construction, right now Georgia is a major mover and shaker, and they are seeing it come to a halt, in his words--just along with what you said--we see no end in sight. It is just now starting to slow down, but we do not see on the horizon anywhere soon that this is going to be turning the corner.

You are right, Mr. Perry.

What concerns me as well is what you just described is just a couple months away. States like yours, they are going to start feeling the cold of winter and will need to start heating their homes.

So the question then becomes: What are we doing about that here in Congress? What makes me scratch my head right now is we are not having any hearings on this issue. We had a hearing today on banning guns. We had a hearing last week on attacking the energy sector. We are voting on bills this week about big cats, of all things.

I mean, the lack of concern coming from the other side is devastating to the American people who right now already are going through some of the darkest days of their lives. It is only going to get worse as winter starts coming in the months ahead, and our colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle right now seem totally unconcerned. We are not even having hearings to discuss this. That, to me, is inexcusable.

If I could just add a thought to that. This is not and should not be a Republican issue versus a Democrat. This is an American issue. Both parties, Independents, people who have no affiliation, the country is suffering under this.

I don't know if you saw the recent poll that said only 1 percent of Americans believe that the current economic conditions are excellent, only 1 percent. Twelve percent said it was good. That leaves 87 percent of this country admitting we are in bad economic circumstances in a variety of the spectrum there of how they described it. But 87 percent, that is Democrats and Republicans and Independents and people who never vote. That is our country that is suffering.

So I think it is important that we do all we can to stand up for the entire Nation right now and say it is time to make some key changes.

The free enterprise system is the greatest economic engine in the history of the world, and we are suffocating it right now by advancing policies that are just destructive, and the impact of that is not only on our economic system but on individual lives.

Madam Speaker, I missed the below Roll Call Votes due to pending judicial matters.

Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 364, NAY on Roll Call No. 365 (Previous Question), and NAY on Roll Call No. 366 (Rule).

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, this amendment, that my friend has brought up, seeks to include an attempt to remove something that is very needed and necessary among civil service. And I say to Mr. Connolly that this amendment coming within the NDAA, is a poor attempt at reversing something that is important to remain.

The legislation was written to override President Trump's executive order 13957, as has been mentioned, which was entitled ``Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,'' and I supported President Trump's order in that regard. But it guaranteed--and this is the issue--that civil servants in policy-making roles could not be held accountable when they were insubordinate to the President and members of the President's administration.

Why in the world would we not want there to be accountability when there is insubordination? That just is common sense. It is common sense that we have the ability to stand up when people are opposing or being insubordinate.

The bottom line is that the voters elect the President, and then the President nominates administration officials to implement the policy that the voters have elected the President to implement. When career officials resist implementing those mandates, then they are, in effect, resisting the voters.

This is, to me, at the heart of this whole issue right here. To resist the President's orders that have been supported by the voters is unacceptable, and we need the means to hold those individuals accountable.

America is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is not a government in which career bureaucrats dictate the way things will go, particularly when they are doing so in direct opposition to the will of the President, regardless of which party is represented in the White House.

My colleague, Mr. Connolly, is of the view that President Trump's order somehow reinstated a 19th-century-style political patronage system, but he is sorely mistaken. President Trump did not create Schedule F to reinstate a patronage system. Had he wanted to do that, he could have converted Schedule F to employees and to the same kind of at-will political employees that Schedule C has. That is not what he did.

President Trump's order simply made it easier to discipline or remove civil servants in policymaking roles who actively work to undermine the policies of their politically accountable superiors.

It also made it easier to deal with just plain poor performers. Who among us really wants to deal with poor performers? The executive order originally avoided meddling with Senior Executive Service individuals and preserved protections for nonpolicy-related civil service positions. In fact, those are the very types of positions that were the original object of the 19th century civil service reforms that eliminated the patronage system.

Regardless of one's view of Schedule F, this amendment simply is not needed, in spite of the fact that President Biden reversed it. This amendment is not needed. It is not wise. The personnel reforms President Trump's order attempted have been sorely needed and should not be precluded from any future administration, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, this bill is necessary because we have a radical and unhinged leftwing activist group of individuals that also have been encouraged by the slow-walking Democratic Party in hopes of intimidation being used to influence the courts. That is why we are here today.

We have assassination attempts on Judge Kavanaugh. We have fire bombings of women's resource centers and healthcare facilities. We have U.S. Senators, sitting U.S. Senators, encouraging violence against the children and families of Supreme Court Justices.

Ever since the leak took place some 6 weeks ago, there have been at least 14 coordinated attacks on women's pregnancy care facilities, and Democratic leadership has endorsed and encouraged physical threats to their political opposition. This is totally unacceptable. It is un- American.

The unhinged left is not the party that empowers women. If that were true, they would not be trying to destroy women's resource centers, nor would they be trying to attack and intimidate those who work there. They would not be threatening the life of and encouraging violence toward the children of the fourth woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

The protests that have been taking place outside the Justices' homes this past month are unacceptable, and Democratic leadership has refused to condemn the threats of violence.

One great example of this is, despite the law and the prohibition against such protests, Jen Psaki, while she was White House press secretary, stated: ``. . . we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges' homes, and that is the President's position.''

This is the position of the Democratic Party: intimidation and fear. Now it is getting out of control. It is about time the Democrats are coming to admit it. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Montana for your leadership on this issue and for all the members of the House Freedom Caucus who stand for the issues that are both constitutional and extremely important to the American citizens.

All of us, all of us, all of us have been shocked over and over to see the unspeakable acts of violence, mass shootings and the like that have taken place in recent years and are rising in intensity and frequency. We see the heart-wrenching situations that these tragedies create in families and communities, and we see the rippling effect that they have in our Nation as a whole.

But far too often when these types of things happen, the reaction has become predictable from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, from the media, from others who immediately jump to conclusions, politicize the tragedies, and transfer to an agenda that includes disarming law-abiding citizens and stripping away our constitutionally protected Second Amendment.

Stricter regulation is not the issue--it is not the answer. Stripping away constitutional rights of American citizens is not the answer to these problems.

When considering how to deal with issues like mass shootings, we need to dig down to the root cause. This is just common sense. We have a major problem, let's get to the cause of the problem.

Firearms are just a tool, and like with any tool, the tool is only as effective or ineffective as the one operating the tool. I am not a violent person, that is why I don't have violent guns. The guns are not the problem. The person is the problem.

If you have a violent person--as has already been stated tonight--a violent person is going to commit violent acts. What is our response here--let's not go after the person, let's not deal with the cause, let's go after the tool, the instrument that was used. That does not solve the problem.

If we are ever going to deal with issues like mass shootings, and a host of other issues of that nature, then we have got to look at the problem, which is the shooter. We, in this country right now, we are a Nation in deep moral and spiritual crisis.

Among other things, we are watching our values in the family unit deteriorate right under our nose. Just today in a hearing in the Oversight Committee where the Democrats were yet again offering one piece of legislation after another that continues to deteriorate and dismantle the most critical unit in this country--that is the family unit.

Mr. Speaker, I would challenge anyone to take a deeper look at those who have committed such violent, heinous crimes that we have watched and see what their family life was like, what their spiritual life was like, and we will start finding some of the issues here that must be addressed.

Yet, we have so many attempts right now to address all the wrong things.

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

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

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