Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and congratulate my friend Jay Wolvovsky on his 30 years of outstanding service to the residents of the greater Baltimore community. At the end of this month, Jay will retire from his position as CEO of the Baltimore Medical System (BMS), a position he has held since he founded BMS in 1984. Under Jay's stewardship, BMS has grown into Maryland's largest Federally Qualified Health Center system. Since taking over the operation of four East Baltimore clinics from the Baltimore City Health Department in 1984, BMS has expanded to thirteen health centers reaching the whole city and even Baltimore County, including eight school-based health centers that provide essential medical care to more than 1,000 children each year. When struggling communities have faced the loss of healthcare providers, BMS has stepped in, absorbing practices and patients from the Baltimore neighborhoods of Highlandtown and O'Donnell Heights. All told, BMS provides medical care to over 45,000 underserved patients each year.

I consider myself lucky to have worked with Jay for many years. He has had an enormous impact on the Baltimore region and he has changed the lives of countless families in the State of Maryland and beyond. His compassion and dedication to give back to his community and to bring medical care to those who could not otherwise receive it has been the driving force behind BMS' incredible success over the past three decades. His keen eye for innovation, whether in working with the Baltimore City Health Department to provide seniors with pharmacy services 20 years before Medicare Part D, or in building relationships and partnerships with local foundations and national groups to expand BMS' reach, has been an invaluable asset to the organization. Jay has been a true friend to the Baltimore community and to me; I thank him for all he has accomplished and congratulate him on his well-earned retirement.

I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a vote ``no'' on the previous question as well so we can allow consideration of the Democracy for All constitutional amendment, which would allow us to put some reasonable limits on this outside spending, these huge expenditures of funds by Super PACs and outside groups that are crowding out the voices of everyday citizens.

When I go around my district, when I talk to people, the average person feels like their voice can't be heard. When they go into the political town square to try to make their views known, there is a megaphone being held by these Super PACs and these outside groups that is drowning out the voice of everyday citizens, so that their opinions, their perspective can't be heard.

If you go to a town meeting, usually, the way they organize it is you sign up and everybody gets a chance to talk for 5 minutes. The way the system is headed with these Super PACs, because there are no limits on the amount of speech they can buy, if you go down to the town hall meeting now, in a sense, you get there and you find out that some Super PAC has reserved 59 minutes out of the hour of time for talking on the issues, and everyday citizens only have 1 minute left.

That is why we need some reasonable limits, because the big money is taking over the microphone, and they are not letting anybody else have their opinions heard.

A constitutional amendment, the Democracy for All constitutional amendment--I want to salute my colleague, Ted Deutch of Florida for leading the effort on this--would put reasonable limits in place so that everybody can have a voice, so that everybody can participate in a pluralistic democratic society where all voices are heard.

I urge that we vote ``no'' on ordering the previous question to allow consideration of this important constitutional amendment to give a voice back to everyday citizens out there in our country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark 40 years that Turkish troops have unlawfully occupied the Republic of Cyprus, an occupation that undermines stability in an already volatile eastern Mediterranean, weakens the NATO alliance, and defies the European Union's peace project.

For 40 years, Turkey has frustrated every meaningful attempt to advance a just solution in Cyprus. Instead, its program has been one of systematically dismantling the religious, cultural, and ethnic identity of the island. The sad irony of Turkey's forced division of Cyprus is that it separates two communities, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot, that are, themselves, ready and willing to seek reunification.

This Congress, this administration, our Nation must insist that Turkey act in good faith to achieve what the people of Cyprus--all the people of Cyprus--so deeply desire: an end to this tragic occupation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and congratulate Dr. David M. Paige for his more than forty years of dedication to patients, students and public health in Maryland and across the country. David is a Professor of Population, Family and Reproductive Health with joint appointments in International Health and Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and in Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is a member of the Maryland State WIC Advisory Panel and the Director of the Johns Hopkins WIC Program.

Through his work as a physician, researcher and professor, David has made indelible marks on the state of public health in this nation. In response to a crisis of malnourishment among low-income infants and pregnant women in Baltimore in the 1960s, David created a voucher system for food assistance that served as the prototype for the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. This program provides essential food assistance to almost 9 million individuals each month and more than 143,000 people in Maryland alone. David remains a vigilant defender of this critical program and has testified more than 20 times before House and Senate committees.

David has also produced significant research on the increasing prevalence of lactose intolerance in children and young adults. His findings have had far-reaching effects on the availability of lactose free foods and prenatal nutrition for lactose-intolerant mothers. He is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the March of Dimes National Agnes Higgins Award for Distinguished Achievement in Maternal- Fetal Nutrition.

On a personal note, it has been my privilege to know David for over twenty years and to benefit from his passionate advocacy on issues of public health. At all times, David's service to his profession and to the broader community have been characterized by a generosity of spirit and a selfless dedication to improving the lives of those too often left behind. I am proud to call David my friend and I commend the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for recognizing David's long and distinguished record of accomplishment. This tribute could not go to a more deserving person.

Madam Chair, I'd like to note that I intended to vote in support of the Waters amendment to H.R. 4413, the Customer Protection and End User Relief Act, when it came up for a vote earlier today.

Amendment No. 5 Offered by Ms. Moore

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

I encourage my colleagues to support Congressman Cartwright's bill establishing a clearinghouse which will assist schools in identifying existing Federal programs available to help schools initiate, develop, and finance energy efficiency, distributed generation, and energy retrofitting projects.

I congratulate Congressman Cartwright. This is a very thoughtful bill. It has broad stakeholder support. It makes a lot of common sense because there are these programs out there that are available to assist our schools, but sometimes connecting the dots is the challenge. This clearinghouse will help solve that.

This bill received unanimous bipartisan support in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

It is my pleasure now, Mr. Speaker, to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright), the sponsor of the bill.

I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support Congressman Cartwright's bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the Collinsville hydropower legislation introduced by Congresswoman Esty of Connecticut.

The bill would authorize the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reinstate licenses for two hydroelectric projects on the Farmington River and to transfer these licenses, as was indicated, to the town of Canton, Connecticut.

This noncontroversial, but very, very important legislation has passed the House by voice vote in three consecutive Congresses and has now passed the Senate with a few nonsubstantive changes. It is high time to get this bill to the President's desk, Mr. Speaker.

With that, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. Esty), the sponsor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to congratulate Ms. Esty of Connecticut. This is an important bill. I salute her persistence.

With that, I urge my colleagues to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill sponsored by Mr. Kinzinger and Mr. McNerney.

The bill is straightforward. It simply tasks the Department of Energy with preparing a report on the impacts of using thermal insulation in Federal buildings.

Insulating ducts and pipes can prevent a significant amount of energy from being wasted. That saves taxpayers money and it reduces pollution. This bill would ensure that the Department of Energy quantifies those potential savings so that the Federal Government can make commonsense energy efficiency investments.

The bill has broad stakeholder support and was reported by voice vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Again, I congratulate my colleagues for their collaboration on this bill, and I urge my colleagues in the full House to support it.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to come down and rise in opposition to this bill, and I wanted to get on the Record because I predict that there will come a time when there will be another financial crisis, and people will look back and they will say: Where were you when the CFTC reauthorization came up?

Six years ago, our economy and the lives of millions of Americans was thrown into a tailspin by a devastating financial crisis, spurred in large part by reckless behavior on Wall Street and a lack of transparency of and oversight over the global financial systems' derivatives market.

So we acted. Congress acted. We took steps. We passed Dodd-Frank. We strengthen the rules of the road. We brought derivatives markets out of the shadows, allowing regulators to better assess and reduce systemic risk, all working towards the goal of decreasing the chances of another financial crisis.

The problem is the opponents of reform did not give up. Over the past several years, the fight for meaningful financial reform has in large part now migrated to the regulatory agencies overseeing the implementation of Dodd-Frank, and now we return to the legislative arena with H.R. 4413, which represents in my view a dangerous attack on the authority and efficacy of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

It erects an assortment of redundant hoops for regulators to jump through, empowers courts to unilaterally undercut the CFTC oversight, and dramatically reduces CFTC's ability to regulate overseas derivatives.

The forces opposing strong oversight of our financial markets have the luxury of existing in a political system that too often gives voices to the wealthy at the expense of the rest of America.

The only way we would pass this legislation is if we were suffering from collective amnesia, if we had completely forgotten what happened in 2008 and 2009 and were sleepwalking through our oversight responsibilities. We need to wake up and protect the American people from another financial crisis. I urge opposition to the bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for pulling us together this afternoon to talk about this important development that the EPA has taken to address climate change, to reduce pollution across the country.

I want to start by thanking the EPA. I mean, a lot of people are piling on right now, critics of this action, and saying this is going to cost jobs and it is too disruptive and so forth. I have a completely different perspective, and I wanted to mention a couple of things along those lines.

First of all, this is an important step to take, just from a health perspective. In other words, there are many ways you can come at it. You can look at it in terms of climate change, which is kind of a slow- moving crisis, and I will speak to that in a minute, but it is accelerating.

But if you just look at it in terms of protecting the health of the American people, frankly, and beyond, but let's talk about America's interests here. If you cut down on these carbon emissions, particularly from coal plants, you are going to be promoting clean air. You are going to be promoting clean water.

The Chesapeake Bay, which I hold very dear, representing the Third District in Maryland, and having parts of the Third District which touch the Bay, and many tributaries and rivers and waterways that lead into the Bay from across the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the Chesapeake Bay, the pollution that comes into the water often is from air deposits that come into the water because of this carbon pollution that we have.

So whether you are talking about breathing clean air, which we all want for ourselves and for our children and for our grandchildren, or drinking clean water and having clean water and high water quality, this is a very, very important step to take, this notion of now setting a goal to cut by 30 percent the carbon emissions from power plants across the country.

But let's look at it through the lens of climate change, which my colleague has already raised. We are seeing the effects of climate change, as I mentioned, accelerating every single day.

So, obviously, there is a warming going on of the planet, generally speaking, and the scientific support for that being connected to the activities of humankind is pretty incontrovertible. We have the opportunity in the Energy and Commerce Committee to get a lot of testimony on that front.

We are seeing violent weather events across the country which are having a tremendous impact on communities, damaging those communities, harming, actually producing harm to individuals, but also having a terrific impact on economic productivity across the country.

So the average American out there, I mean, everyday citizens, when they look at this issue, the great majority of them are saying, we need to do something about this. We can't just sit on our hands. In fact, there is recent polling that indicates that 70 percent of Americans favor stronger limits on the amount of carbon that is emitted by power plants.

Well, okay. That is exactly what the EPA is doing here. It is taking action to reduce the carbon emissions from power plants. The EPA is listening to the American people. The Obama administration is listening to what the American people are saying, day in and day out, about the action that we need to take.

Unfortunately, this Congress, the leadership in this House, in particular, has not, apparently, heard the cry of the American people when it comes to doing something about climate change.

So I congratulate the EPA for taking these measures because this is what the American people want to see, and it is going to have a tremendous positive impact.

On climate change per se, 80 percent of Americans think the U.S. should take action to address climate disruption, 80 percent of Americans. So those are like commonsense people getting up in the morning, going outside, getting their newspaper, opening the newspaper and seeing that there have been violent storms here, or that there is a drought happening here, or that the water supply is in danger there, all connected back to what is happening with the climate and affecting their communities.

So they are saying, okay, the commonsense thing for us to do is to take some considered and reasonable and rational steps to try to address one clear cause of climate change and pollution, and that is the carbon emissions from power plants.

Thank you to the EPA for taking this initiative and responding to what the American people are saying.

Before I hand it back, I do want to touch, though, on what I think is part of the problem here, why it is that the EPA is the one that is having to step up here and take the initiative, and why we are not taking more initiative right here in Congress.

I think it is because the machinery here has sort of gotten gummed up by the influence that some of these polluters have. There was a report recently issued that indicated or estimated, I guess, that the fossil fuel industry is getting a 5,900 percent return on the investment it is making here in Washington through campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures.

That estimate comes from looking at some of the taxpayer subsidies that continue to flow to that industry, even

though this is an industry that makes over $100 billion in profits every year. But the influence is also found, not just in sort of that corporate welfare that that industry is taking out of this Congress, but it is seen in the way in which our efforts to try to address climate change, to try to address the issues of promoting clean air and clean water, keep getting stopped by certain industries. So we need to look at reforms on that front.

What do we do to lift up the voices of everyday Americans in a world where money is speech? How do everyday people and people of modest means have speech in that environment and push back on those influences so that we can actually process their will here in Congress?

Then let me just close with this observation, because it goes to the argument that is made that somehow this is going to harm us economically as a country, to put those goals in place and begin to cut these emissions.

My colleague pointed to the sky is falling narrative at the time when we were going to do something about acid rain. And people said, industries aren't going to be able to handle this. It is going to cause parts of the industry to shut down. Americans are going to lose their jobs.

What happened?

The country, America, stepped up to the challenge and found its way to new opportunities. And I hear a lot of times from industry who say, well, you know, putting these measures in place, particularly when maybe peer nations aren't doing as much on that front as they could, it is going to put us at a competitive disadvantage. We need to have a level playing field and so forth.

I get that, but sometimes it makes sense to push us to go find a new playing field. And I think that is what the EPA is helping us do. It is expressing what the American people want to see. Go innovate, go figure out a way to do these things differently. Find, create a new energy portfolio that makes sense from a health and safety standpoint, makes sense in terms of combating climate change, but also will create tremendous new economic opportunities and generate millions of new jobs across the country.

So these things are not mutually exclusive. Economic productivity and innovation are not mutually exclusive with doing the right thing with the environment. In fact, if you look back with a clear eye, historically, you will see that when we push ourselves to do the right thing for the environmental reasons, for the health and safety reasons, we often get ourselves to a place of increased economic productivity and innovation.

In closing, and I thank my colleague for giving me a few minutes here today to talk on the topic, I want to thank the EPA for carrying out-- listening to what the American people are saying about the steps we need to take to address climate change, to address our health and the environment out there, and taking this very, very important step that I think is going to be productive and positive for the American people. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, on April 24th we commemorate the Armenian Genocide--the deportation, forced march and massacre of 1.5 million innocent Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago. In what has become a bitter annual ritual for Armenian-Americans and those who stand with them, we once again call upon the Obama Administration and the United States Congress to formally and officially recognize the Armenian Genocide as a tragic and unambiguous fact of history. Such recognition is critical to fortifying America's moral standing in the international community and, as we prepare in the coming year to mark the 100th anniversary of this tragedy, is long and painfully overdue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today, March 25, to celebrate the 193rd anniversary of Greek independence. In Greek, we say ``Long Live Greece, Long Live Freedom''--Zito Ellada, Zito Eleftheria--in recalling the day that the Greek people threw off the yoke of the Ottoman Empire and established modern Greece as a free and independent nation.

America's Founding Fathers drew upon the example of the ancient Greeks in forming our constitutional Republic, and modern Greece has been a staunch and dependable ally of the United States. Our relationship is based on shared democratic values and respect for individual freedom.

The spirit that guided the Greek people in securing their freedom nearly 200 years ago resides within them still. It is the reason I am confident that Greece will overcome the economic and humanitarian crisis that it faces today. The United States must and will stand as a strong partner in Greece's efforts to regain its footing, to take full advantage of new opportunities that are emerging in the eastern Mediterranean, and to move forward as a vital economic and cultural resource for a critical region of the world.

Knowing that America and Greece will stand together allows us to proclaim that both democracies will continue to live in freedom. Long Live Greece, Long Live America, Long Live Freedom--Zito Ellada, Zito Ameriki, Zito Eleftheria.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the Chamber this evening. I want to talk about the topic of money in politics, which is something I think Americans across the country are increasingly anxious about because it really jeopardizes the voice they should have in their politics, in their democracy in their own government.

Yesterday, there was a special election in Florida's 13th Congressional District, and the results of that election will get commented on at length in the coming days. People will try to make forecasts about what it means for the 2014 election cycle. Generally, they will analyze it. They will look at the data and they will prognosticate as to what the implications of it are going forward.

A lot of that commentary will miss what I think is the most sinister aspect of the election yesterday that was held in Florida, and that is the tremendous amount of money, the tremendous amount of money that poured into that election, not from ordinary, everyday citizens, not from the people who really have a stake in the outcome. They were the ones asked to go to the polls, but the money that poured in there that bought advertisements, to the tune of about $12.7 million, almost $13 million spent on that campaign, about 30 percent of it was donated to the candidates themselves. So 30 percent of that $13 million was donated to the candidates themselves. The rest of the money came from outside sources--party committees, super PACs, anonymous donors, the ones who have been flooding the airwaves in the last couple of election cycles with negative advertising. That is where the great majority of the money that came into that special election yesterday was sourced, and that, I think, is a harbinger of things to come.

If you look back at the 2010 cycle, you look at the 2012 election cycle, both at the congressional level and at the Presidential level, tremendous amounts of money pouring into campaigns and into elections, much of it coming from sources that don't identify themselves, secret money, these big super PACs who weigh in and try to determine the outcome of elections.

Where does that leave the everyday citizen? Where does that leave the person out there who is sitting at their kitchen table, who is watching their television and is seeing all of these negative TV commercials pouring in? Where does that leave them in terms of their feeling about whether they have a voice in the process?

I talk to my constituents, I listen to the way they feel about the current system of funding campaigns, and there is an increasing sense of disillusionment out there, deep cynicism that election outcomes are determined by Big Money and special interests and that the voices and opinions and priorities and concerns of everyday citizens are being cast aside. That is the legacy of the influence of Big Money and special interests on our politics today.

So yesterday's election in the 13th District of Florida put a fine point on it. It demonstrated how much money can go into one special election. It was historic, $13 million being spent. More importantly, it is a lesson as to what we are looking at down the road. This idea that if you have got a big wallet you get an extra voice in our democracy, that somehow your opinion and your ideas count more because of the size of your wallet and your ability to throw millions of dollars into campaigns, well, that is not what a democracy is about; that is plutocracy. That is a government and a system that is dominated by Big Money and special interests and leaves the voices of everyday citizens behind so that they start asking themselves: Does my voice matter? Can I have an impact? Do my ideas count? If I am only able to write a check for $25 to a candidate who I think will do the right thing for me, can that $25 check compete against a $1 million check that some big donor can write to fund a Super PAC?

This is why people across the country, it is not the only reason, but it is one of the main reasons why people across the country are so disaffected with Washington and Congress and government, because they feel like their voice is being drowned out by the big-moneyed interests out there.

Mr. Speaker, we have to do something about this because if we are going to restore the confidence and trust of Americans across this country, they need to believe again that their voice matters. They need to believe that when they are trying to understand the issues in an election and follow the debate and become informed, that that information will come to them from responsible sources, not from these shadowy hidden secret donors out there that have found a way to dominate the airwaves.

So that special election yesterday I think was a warning to us all that this trend towards Big Money and special interests weighing in to what ought to be a democratic process that is owned and invested in by everyday citizens, that that trend is continuing and it is worsening.

At the end of that path lies deep, deep cynicism on the part of the American people. You can feel it; you can almost touch it when you go out into your district and you talk to your constituents who are angry and frustrated and want to see this place respond to their concerns and to their needs.

So what can we do about this? I said a moment ago that we have got to do something soon; we have to address this cynicism that people are feeling, or they are not going to trust us at all. They are not going to believe that we can deliver for them in the people's House.

This is the House of Representatives. It has the name the ``people's House.'' We run every 2 years. We are as close to the people as elected representatives can be. They want to see that we are listening to them.

Right now--I said this last week--in some ways, when it comes to the relevance of this body to the average American out there, we are hanging on by a thread.

We are hanging on by a thread because, increasingly, they think that we answer to Big Money and special interests, and we stop listening to the average person out there.

So we need to do something about this. We need to fix this. We need to

recognize that there is a problem, and we need to take meaningful steps to address it.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, about a month ago, joined by over 125 original cosponsors, I was proud to introduce something called the Government by the People Act, which is an effort to create a new way of funding campaigns that puts everyday citizens back at the center of the equation.

It says: no longer are we going to seed the financing and funding of campaigns to Big Money and special interests. We are going to come up with another way of doing it, a way that puts everyday citizens in a place of owning their democracy again, of feeling like they have a voice.

Already within the last month, we have seen, across this country, more than 400,000 people who have become citizen cosponsors of the Government By the People Act because they are desperate to see a change which gives them their voice back at a time when they feel--as those residents of the 13th District in Florida felt over the last few weeks--that their voice isn't the one that matters; it is the voice of Big Money and special interests and the super-PACs that seems to carry the day.

So the Government by the People Act would encourage people to participate in the funding of campaigns, small donors who would be assisted by a tax credit--a refundable tax credit of $25, to make it easier for them to participate on the funding side of campaigns.

It would bring matching dollars from a freedom from influence matching fund that would come in behind those small donations and amplify them and lift them up, so that candidates would begin to pay attention to everyday citizens for the funding of their campaigns and not be so dependent on Big Money and special interests. That is the promise of reform that is embodied in the Government by the People Act.

We even provide that candidates who are true grassroots candidates who go out there and make the case to their constituents and earn the support of their constituents in these small donations, that those candidates, when they get into the final days of a campaign in an election, if a super-PAC starts to come at them and try to wipe them off the field--off the playing field, there is some additional resources that can help them stay in the game, can keep their voice in the mix, so they can get to Election Day.

I believe that, under those circumstances, many of those candidates who turn to their own constituents, who turn to small donors, who turn to everyday citizens to fund their campaigns can be competitive and can win, even in the face of these super-PACs and the big money that is pouring into campaigns.

So this is real reform, Mr. Speaker. I was very pleased, as I said, that we had a number of original cosponsors who joined us when we introduced the bill about a month ago.

One of them, who has been listening as carefully as anybody out there, to what everyday citizens are saying about this and joined us as a cosponsor on the bill and can really speak to this, I believe, from the heart, is my colleague Alan Lowenthal from California.

I would be happy to yield some time to him now.

I thank the gentleman. I might ask him one question because my sense is that, if you have a system like this in place, not only will you empower everyday citizens to feel like their voice truly does count--and that would increase participation--you would have people, I think, coming back into the political town square who have now fled the town square because they are cynical and disillusioned.

But my sense is it would also create more access for candidates who, right now, are shut out of the process because they may not be in a position to raise the big dollars that you have to raise these days to run a race.

There is a lot of good people out there who would like to try to run for Congress, perhaps, but they don't know a lot of people who have a lot of money; but if there was a system that rewarded small donations to their campaign and provided public matching funds coming in behind that, they might be able to run, and they might be able to be competitive.

I wonder if you have some thoughts about that.

Again, I want to thank my colleague for his support of this reform effort, for joining us as an original cosponsor of the Government by the People Act.

We think there is real momentum here. We have 140 Members of this body now that have joined as cosponsors; but there is something else happening, which is exciting, and I think offers some new opportunities for this kind of legislation.

We have had these efforts in the past, and some of them have gotten attraction you would like to see; others have not.

But there is something new happening. There are organizations-- national organizations across this country who are forming a coalition. This consists of many of the good government groups and reform groups that have been in this space for a long time.

But there are other people coming to this issue. There are other people who are joining the fight to push back on the influence of Big Money and special interests in our politics and in our government. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, civil rights organizations like the NAACP, and labor organizations are getting behind this effort because they understand that the change they want to see--protecting the environment, making sure that our civil rights laws are being enforced--too often is being thwarted by the influence of Big Money, so they have adopted this issue as a priority for their organizations. They are joining this coalition.

This is not just about the influence of Big Money on the outcome of elections. Oftentimes, that is where the focus gets placed. This is also the effect that Big Money has when it comes to governing because the reality of it is that, if you have an institution that becomes increasingly dependent on Big Money and special interests, then when it comes time to vote on important policy matters, it is just human nature that the institution will tend to lean in the direction of where that money comes from and lean away from everyday citizens.

The promise of this legislation is that, if everyday citizens and matching funds become the source of powering campaigns, then when the candidates who are elected get here to Washington, the only people they will owe are those everyday folks who helped to power their campaigns. They will have an independence that will allow them when they go to make policy to really think about the issues that are at stake. The fact of the matter is the tremendous amount of money that pours into this place from PACs and other special interests can gum up the system so that it doesn't work.

I would be interested in my colleague's observations on a couple of quotations of former Members of Congress. These are very interesting. I am going to read a quotation from former Senator Bob Dole, Republican minority leader, who said in 1982:

When these political action committees give money, they

expect something in return other than good government. It is

making it much more difficult to legislate. We may reach a

point where, if everybody is buying something with PAC money,

we can't get anything done.

That was Republican Minority Leader Bob Dole in 1982 before the trend had gotten to the point where it is now.

I would be interested in my colleague's observations just on how money comes in and how it can actually begin to influence the way policy gets made here in Washington.

I appreciate it, and I will follow up on what you just said.

There is another quote that I would love to read from Senator Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire, who was a force here on Capitol Hill when he served.

He said:

Money affects whom Senators and House Members see, whom

they spend their time with, what input they get; and make no

mistake about it, the money affects outcomes as well.

This is exactly what you just said. You can understand why everyday Americans are getting so fed up.

I went and hired a film crew. I decided I was going to go interview some people in my district at one of the local fairs. I just wanted to get their views on this issue. So I went out. I spent 2 hours and stood in the central artery of this festival.

I said: I am Congressman Sarbanes. I want to just ask you two questions. The first question is: What do you think of Congress?

They said: Do you really want to know?

I said: I wouldn't be here otherwise.

They told me what they thought about Congress, and you know what they think about Congress. All you have to do is look at the latest survey, which shows that our approval rating is hovering around 10 or 12 percent. You can't run a country if the institutions that are supposed to be the instruments of democracy are held in such low esteem.

The second question I asked them was: What do you think about the influence of Big Money on our politics?

What was amazing--these were Republicans, Democrats, Independents--is that it was as though they had gotten together ahead of time and had scripted their answers, because they were all the same: the fix is in; the Big Money crowd runs things in Washington; my voice can't be heard; my voice doesn't matter. This is the way people feel when you actually ask them to talk about this issue, so we have to do something about this.

The good news is that we have a bill that we have worked on really well. We have gotten a lot of people from not just here in the Chamber, who are people who are sensitive to this, but from

people out there in the country who care about this issue. We have crafted something that, I think, passes the test of addressing in a meaningful way the cynicism and anger that people feel, this desire to get their government back, to get their voice back. They should know that there are people here who are determined to make this kind of change with the help and support and momentum and advocacy that can come from people--everyday citizens--around the country.

I am very pleased that we are joined as well this evening with another person who was an original cosponsor of the Government by the People Act. He is relatively new to Congress but not new to a commitment and a passion around this issue. One of the first conversations we had was about: How do you reach out to everyday citizens and make them feel that they are really part of the process? that their voices really can be heard?

It is a real pleasure to yield to my colleague from Texas, Beto O'Rourke.

I thank my colleague.

Before we wrap up, I want to ask him and my colleague from California as well to comment on the kind of response they are getting as they talk to their constituents about this kind of reform.

We are all very familiar with the cynicism and frustration. We encounter that on a daily basis. Sometimes it is so deep that it can be hard to get the attention of people to say to them, We hear you. We understand the frustration. We are trying to do something about it.

I have begun to find that as I talk to people about the Government by the People Act, about this idea of a My Voice tax credit that would help them make a small contribution to support a good candidate that they want to see be competitive and successful, when I talk to them about the Freedom From Influence Matching Fund, think about that.

Right now this institution is largely shackled by dependence and influence of Big Money. The Freedom From Influence Matching Fund comes in behind those small donations and makes it possible for a candidate to run their campaign by turning to everyday citizens.

So as I talk to people about that and our ability to begin pushing back on super PACs, I am encountering some hope out there. People are skeptical. They have a right to be. I would rather have them be skeptical than cynical. I would rather have them have some hope and be ready to get out there and fight for this reform because I think we can make a difference.

I would be curious to hear from my colleagues because I am starting to feel that. I am seeing a positive, cautious response that this can really make a difference as we move forward in elections and governing.

I would be curious to hear, Alan, what is happening in your district as you talk about it.

I want to thank my colleagues for joining me here this evening to talk about this critical issue of the influence Big Money and special interests on our politics and the way we govern here.

Professor Lessig has gotten a good shout out--and he deserves it-- because he has really studied the effect of money on this institution.

There is a path to reform, and that is what the Government by the People Act is. I will close by sort of capturing this as a matter of voter empowerment.

In this country we view as sacrosanct the right to vote. We do everything we can--or we should do everything we can--and we even have legislation in front of us to make sure that we are preserving people's access to the ballot box, to the voting booth because the franchise is the most important thing in a democracy. It is the foundation of what American democracy is all about--protecting that franchise and making sure that people have that franchise.

If people go into the voting booth and they pull the lever and they exercise their franchise, and the day the person they send to Washington arrives and has to start representing Big Money and special interests, then what happens to the franchise? What happens to the voice of the person who went in there and pulled that lever?

So the journey of empowerment, getting to the ballot box is just part of it. You have to protect that franchise so that when the candidate gets there, they can keep representing the interests of the people that voted to send them to Washington.

That is what the Government by the People Act is all about, because if you power your campaign with funds from small donors and a Freedom From Influence Matching Fund, when it comes time to cast your vote, the only people you are answering to are those citizens that you represent. That is the promise of the Government by the People Act--to create a government that is truly of, by, and for the people.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 13 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, March 13, 2014, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the issue of money

and politics. I address it knowing that many of my constituents and many Americans across the country are in a pretty bad mood about Washington, about politics as usual, about Congress.

They are angry because they feel like their voice can't be heard. They are frustrated because they feel like somebody else writes the rules, somebody else makes the policy, and their opinions on issues don't matter.

A big part of the reason for that frustration and that anger is they look out and they see these super-PACs and other Big Money campaign donors and PACs and special interests pouring money into Washington, pouring money into our political system.

They feel like those are the folks that call the shots here in Washington, that when it comes time for us to make public policy, too often the institution of Congress leans in the direction of the Big Money and the special interests and away from the priorities and the needs and the concerns and the demands of everyday citizens.

People are pretty smart. Americans are pretty smart. If they are feeling this way, there is probably a good reason for it. When you do the research, when you track the numbers, when you look at the amount of money that is pouring in here, it is no wonder that Americans have become cynical and angry and fed up and disillusioned. It is no wonder that the favorability rating--the approval rating of this institution is as low as it is.

Let's look at some of those numbers. In the 2012 election cycle, Big Energy--the big energy industry poured $140 million into Congressional campaigns. That is in one election cycle. They spent another $380 million on lobbying expenditures here in the city of Washington, here on Capitol Hill.

Wall Street, they were at the top of the list. Again, in one election cycle, in the 2012 election cycle, the financial industry contributed $660 million to Congressional campaigns and spent another $490 million--almost a half a billion dollars--on lobbying up here on Capitol Hill.

Sometimes, we ask ourselves--and I know my constituents ask me, and I know Americans raise this from time to time--how is it the case that an industry like the oil and gas industry in 2011 posted profits--the top five oil and gas companies posted profits of $132 billion?

How is it that an industry like that continues to get taxpayer subsidies every year to the tune of $5 billion? How are they able to preserve that loophole when they are making all those profits and they don't need that taxpayer subsidy? How does that come to pass?

Well, I just read you the numbers. If you are pouring $140 million into campaigns and you are spending another $380 million on lobbying, you can keep those loopholes in place.

Why can't we close some of these loopholes that Wall Street and the financial industry enjoys? The same answer applies. Look at how much influence is coming from the money that pours in from those industries.

When Americans feel in their gut that somehow their voice isn't being heard and it is the interests of Big Money that rules the roost around here, there is a factual basis for that, and it is something that we need to address.

Whatever the priority is that Americans care about--whether it is jobs and the budget, whether it is health care and education, whether it is protecting our environment, whether it is reining in the influence of Wall Street and making sure that important regulations are in place--whatever the priority is that Americans want to see, the fact of the matter is that Big Money gets in the way of those priorities. It pours into campaigns; it pours into lobbying shops; and it stops often coming out of the gate these priorities that everyday Americans put at the top of their lists. It is no wonder that so many Americans are fed up. In fact, when you talk to them, when you get them to start talking about how they really feel, the fact of the matter is that many are downright disgusted by the influence that Big Money has on our politics and on our government.

We have got figure out what to do about this. If we want to reclaim some of the trust of the American people, if we want Americans to have confidence that their government is actually working for them, we have got to address this problem. The first step to any recovery is to recognize the problem, and the fact of the matter is that the institution of Congress is too dependent upon Big Money and special interests. As a result, when it comes time to make public policy, it leans away from the public's interest and in the direction of the special interests.

So what can we do?

A month ago, joined by 128 original cosponsors, I introduced the Government by the People Act. This is a first step. This will not cure all of the ills that bedevil Congress and Washington, and it is not waving a magic wand, but it is an important first step in Americans' being able to say: We want to take our government back from the special interests and Big Money. We want our government to work for us.

The Government by the People Act is premised on the idea that we have to put ordinary Americans--everyday citizens--at the center of the funding of campaigns and take that away from the PACs and the special interests and the Big Money campaign donors. The fact that we had so many cosponsors on this bill at the point of introduction, I think, shows that Members of this institution are hearing from their constituents and understand the anger and frustration that is out there and recognize that they need to do something about it. Let me tell you about the Government by the People Act because it is really designed to make sure that the voices of everyday citizens are as powerful as the voices of the Big Money campaign donors.

The first thing it does is to provide a $25 tax credit, what we are calling the My Voice Tax Credit--a $25 refundable tax credit--to any American who makes a contribution to a congressional campaign in both of the 2 years of the election cycle.

Now, why did we do that?

If you look at the numbers right now, you will see that a very small percentage of Americans actually participates in the funding of campaigns. The funding is dominated by a small group that tends to be of the more wealthy citizens in society, and ordinary Americans out there are not getting into the role of helping to power campaigns on the funding side. We want to encourage them to do that. We want to say to those citizens who want to support a good candidate who is turning to them and listening to their concerns: If you are willing to put $15 or $20 or $25 behind that candidate who stands for the right thing, we will help you do that. We will provide this tax credit to make it a little bit easier for you to step up and be a part of the solution.

So the My Voice Tax Credit does exactly that. It gives a voice back to everyday citizens who feel right now like their voices can't be heard, like they are not empowered to participate in the system, to participate in the solution. That is why we created the My Voice Tax Credit, and that is the first important element of the Government by the People Act.

The second is that we want to make sure that the voice of the everyday citizen can be loud enough to compete with the big money out there, so we created something called the Freedom From Influence Matching Fund. This would provide matching dollars that would come in behind those grassroots donations and boost them up--amplify the voice of the grassroots--so that now those everyday citizens can get the attention of candidates or of Members of Congress who might otherwise be inclined to go spend their time on K Street or on raising money from Big Money campaign donors. Now they have an incentive to go do a house party back in their districts and raise small donations, knowing that those matching funds will come in behind it, and they will be able to raise sufficient dollars to run competitive campaigns.

So we combine those two elements to try to change the way campaigns are funded--the My Voice Tax Credit to promote those small donations, those grassroots donations, and the Freedom From Influence Matching Funds to come in behind it and amplify it so the voices of everyday people can actually be heard, can actually compete with the megaphone that Big Money has and special interests have. That is what the Government by the People Act is designed to do--to empower everyday

citizens to really have a voice again in their own democracy.

The third piece is just as critical. Over the last two election cycles, Americans have seen the spending by super-PACs and by outside groups go through the roof, and they have been turned off by it. They know that there are good candidates who run for office who make a strong case on issues that matter to the public but that they get into those last 60 days--the home stretch of a campaign--and suddenly a super-PAC comes in and pours money into negative advertising, and before you know it that candidate's voice is wiped off the playing field. So we said that, in that home stretch--in those 60 days--we wanted to make sure, of a candidate who chooses to participate in this system, who chooses to reach out to everyday citizens and lift their voices up, that that candidate's own voice would be able to stay in the mix, because that candidate's voice represents the voices of thousands of small donors and other supporters who have stepped up behind him. So, in the last 60 days, candidates who choose to participate in this system would get the benefit of some additional dollars to help them stay in the game, to help keep their voices in the mix, up to Election Day.

There is evidence, Mr. Speaker, to show that, of candidates who work hard to reach out and build relationships with their constituents, if they can get enough dollars in that final stage to stay in the game--to keep their voices there, to keep representing the interests of everyday citizens--then even if a super-PAC or some outside group comes in and throws a lot of money at them, they can still prevail. That is the way it ought to be. Candidates who are doing the right thing--Members of Congress who are trying to serve their constituents and lift up the voices of their constituents--ought to be able to survive the process where some outside group is coming in and trying to wipe them off the face of the map.

So those are the three pieces of the Government by the People Act-- the My Voice Tax Credit to encourage and help everyday citizens participate on the funding side of campaigns, a Freedom From Influence Matching Fund that will come in behind that and provide matching dollars to amplify the voices of the grassroots and everyday citizens, and then some extra dollars in that final stretch for participating candidates who suddenly face an attack from a super-PAC or from some other outside group so that their voices and the voices of the people they represent, who have invested in them, can still be heard.

I have talked about why this is so important in terms of changing the perception that Americans have of Washington and Congress, the notion that if everyday citizens feel that Members of Congress can continue to represent them because they are the ones who powered their campaigns instead of the special interests and Big Money being the ones to underwrite their campaigns that that can begin to restore some confidence. It won't change it overnight--it won't cure all the ills of this place--but it will begin to restore some confidence on the part of everyday citizens that their voices can actually be heard here, that when the campaign is over and governing begins, this institution will continue to listen to them because they are the ones who helped to lift that candidate up on his shoulders.

I want to come at it from another angle for a moment. If you have a system like this that allows a good, strong candidate who knows how to reach out and network in his district to be competitive, you will see a different kind of person coming to Washington. Right now, more than half of the people who serve in Congress are millionaires. That is not surprising because, to run for office, you need a lot of money, and you need to know a lot of people who have a lot of money--that is the reality--but if you have a system where small donors and matching funds can lift up a candidate and power his campaign, you will get people running for Congress and being competitive who in the past would never have had a chance.

I was recently in Maine or in New Hampshire, and I sat on a panel with a legislator from Maine. In Maine, they have a system that helps candidates who reach out to the grassroots be able to assemble the funds to be competitive. This legislator said, but for that system, she would not be a member of the Maine State Legislature because she wouldn't have been able to raise the dollars she needed to run for office and represent the people in her district, but because a system like that existed, she is now in the Maine State Legislature.

I believe that we would see people competing for Congress and succeeding and being elected who right now have no way to access this place, and those are the kinds of people who represent the broad American constituency. Another way to begin restoring people's faith in this institution is if they look here and they say: Do you know what? There is somebody who is a community activist in my district. There is somebody who volunteered at my church who decided to get into politics, who decided to put his name in the ring. Because there is a system for funding campaigns now that combines small donations with matching funds, that person was able to run and compete and be elected. I think that that will lift up many Americans and make them believe that their voices actually make a difference here, that their voices can be heard.

I want to put this in another context as well. There are many things that we can do to try to address the influence of Big Money in our politics. We need more disclosure and transparency in terms of where these independent expenditures are coming from. I support the DISCLOSE Act, which is sponsored by my colleague, Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, because Americans deserve to know where this big money comes from and who is spending it so they can make a judgment about whether that is fair and whether the people to whom that money is going ought to be representing them here in Washington. We need that transparency and we need that disclosure. That is an important reform.

It is important also, I believe, to try to address the decisions of this Supreme Court, in particular the Citizens United decision, which basically took the lid off of outside campaign spending and expenditures by these super-PACs and other independent groups, and has resulted in this flood of negative campaign commercials and advertising to come in in the final weeks and months of the campaign cycle.

So we need to address that.

There are proposals that have been introduced in this body for a constitutional amendment that would rein in the spending of these outside groups. I think we need to address that, too. Those are important measures that we need to undertake. I also think it is critically important that there be something that is part of the reform agenda that has to do with empowering everyday citizens.

If you think about it, disclosure and putting limits on the spending of these outside groups and super PACs is about reining in the conduct and the behavior of the bad actors out there--the people who have kind of gone too far, but we also have to do something to empower and lift up the good actors--everyday citizens who just want to see their government do the right thing and who have commonsense solutions and want the people they elect to Congress to reflect that commonsense perspective.

That is why we need the Government by the People Act. It would create a system that would empower everyday citizens. It would allow them to feel that their voice is being heard and that they are not just standing back as observers watching the titans, the Big Money players, the super PACs sort of duking it out in the ring like two professional wrestlers, but that they can participate.

Everyday citizens could step in the ring and say, You know what? My voice is just as important as the voice of that big donor, and I demand to be heard. That is what that everyday citizen is saying. They want their voice to be heard, but we have got to give them a system that will allow for that.

We called this bill the Government by the People Act because when I, and others, listen to Americans across the country, we hear them saying, We are tired of a government that appears to be of, by, and for the special interests

and the Big Money. Put very simply, we want our government back. We want it back.

The Government by the People Act is an attempt to begin to change business as usual and to create a system that will give government back to the people that it is supposed to represent. That is our only path back to relevancy, in the eyes of the general public. That is our only path back to restoring a trust and confidence that we need as an institution in order to get things done, and let me tell you something: when it comes to relevancy and trust and confidence, we are hanging on by a thread right now.

When you look at the polls and the surveys in terms of what people think about Washington, and they feel that the priorities of this place have become Big Money and special interests, in the minds of most Americans, our relevancy is hanging by a thread.

We need to do something. The Government by the People Act is a reform that can begin to reclaim government and democracy and the political system back for everyday citizens out there that are so frustrated with what is going on.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am optimistic. I am optimistic by nature. I think we can get this reform. When we introduced the bill, we had 128 cosponsors at the point of introduction. We have 140 as of today.

I think Members of this body themselves are at a point where they want to see something different. A lot of Members of Congress are exhausted by the current system. They wish they could raise money a different way. They wish they could run their campaigns and fund their campaigns by turning to the people they represent instead of having to chase the PAC money and the Big Money and the special interests all the time.

There is something wrong with an equation where people go into the voting booth, they pull the lever for you and send you to Washington to represent them, and the day you get to Washington, you have to start representing the Big Money and the special interests because that is the only way you can raise money to fund your campaign.

Let's think about it in those terms. What happens to the franchise when somebody gets here and they have to turn their back on the people who elected them because they have got to go raise the money from someplace else?

What if the place you went to power your campaigns was back to your constituents--everyday citizens--because you had a system that would match their small donations and be able to lift a candidate up and power them forward? That would change the way things operate around here.

I invite people listening to this to go back through the Congressional Record and read the statements of Members of the House and the Senate who announce their retirement and--sometimes within 24 hours--go to the floor of the Senate or the House and talk about the problem of money and politics and how corrosive it has become. Liberated finally from the current system by the fact that they have decided to move on, they are able to stand back and in a clear-eyed and candid way talk about this problem of influence that comes from Big Money and special interests and what it is doing to this place.

I want to read you a quote because I think this really goes right to the heart of the matter. People are fed up with the gridlock and dysfunction here. We can connect a lot of that to this issue of money and politics.

Let me read you a quote from 1982:

When political action committees give money, they expect

something in return other than good government. It is making

it much more difficult to legislate. We may reach a point

where if everybody is buying something with PAC money, we

can't get anything done.

Do you know who said that in 1982? Robert Dole, the minority leader at that time and a Republican Member of the U.S. Senate. That was in 1982.

The influence of Big Money on our politics and on our governing has metastasized since then, but even then, on the front edge of this trend, Bob Dole could see what it would do to the institution, and he was lamenting it.

So a public that is upset about gridlock and dysfunction of this place needs a solution that will address the influence Big Money has here. Because that will help, I think, change the whole way in which we operate. Other Members have made similar comments, as I mentioned a moment ago.

So, Mr. Speaker, as I said, I am optimistic. I think we have a good piece of legislation. I think it goes to the heart and tries to address a lot of the cynicism that so many Americans have out there that their voice can't be heard.

I want to mention that we have at this stage over 40 national organizations who have gotten behind this legislation. This is a new development. We have had reform bills in the past--good ones--but they didn't have that kind of broad support from grassroots organizations across the country--civil rights groups like the NAACP; environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Green Peace; labor groups who have been out there trying to address the issues of working families, like CWA and others.

Why are they coming to this? Because they figured out what the American people have figured out. The good things they want to see when it comes to the environment or to creating jobs or to making sure people are treated fairly in this society, all those good things are being thwarted by the influence that Big Money has over the way this institution operates.

So they are coming to this fight now, saying, If we care about the environment, if we care about jobs, if we care about economic justice, we have to adopt reforming the way campaigns are funded as part of our own efforts.

Already, within the first 3 or 4 weeks since we introduced the bill, over 400,000 citizen cosponsors from across the country have signed petitions supporting the Government by the People Act because they understand that this reform is meaningful and will make a difference.

So I am optimistic that we can get this done. We are not going to get it done tomorrow. We are not going to get it done next week. But with the opportunity to channel in a constructive way some of this anger and cynicism and frustration that the American people are feeling right now that their voice is not heard, if we have a vehicle to channel that and organize it into a strong momentum, then when the opportunity presents itself to actually achieve this reform, I think we can do it.

I think that if we don't do it, Americans will finally turn away completely from this place and say, You can't help us any more.

That is what is at stake here: the relevancy of this institution and the relevancy of this, the people's House, to the people, and until we address the problem of the influence of Big Money over our system, we are not going to be able to reclaim the confidence and the trust of the American people.

So, Mr. Speaker, as I close, I wanted to tell the story of a person in my district. A couple of years ago, he came to one of my house parties. He is a longtime supporter of mine. He came up to me after the House party was over and said, Look, I would like to contribute $25 to your campaign.

He said, I can't do more than that. I can't afford more than that, but I would like to do it. I would be proud to do it. I just don't know if it will make a difference. Will it matter?

He was, I think, saying what many Americans are saying, which is, Do our voices count? Can we really compete with the Big Money out there? Is anybody listening to us?

That is what he was saying to me.

If we can pass legislation like the Government by the People Act and create a new way of funding our campaign that puts everyday citizens in the middle of the equation, make them the ones to sort of solve this problem for us, and empower them, then I will be able to say to constituents like that person who came up to me and was feeling marginalized by the current system, Not only are you relevant, not only is your voice important, your voice is the most important part of the way we power campaigns in this country.

That is the message we need to send. That is the outreach we need to do.

So we can move with this legislation from a system of politics, a democracy that is too often of, by, and for the Big

Money campaign donors and the special interests, to a government that truly is of, by, and for the people.

I yield back the balance of my time.