Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, last week a group of about a dozen of us wrote a letter to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the Attorney General. We demanded that the Trump administration cease its practice of prosecuting asylum seekers, to reunite the children they separated from their families, and to allow Members of Congress to visit the facilities where the children are being held.

We gave these three Trump administration Cabinet Secretaries a deadline to get back to us, and so far we have heard nothing, not a peep. So now we are trying to figure out how to make it clear to the Trump administration that agencies taking children from the arms of moms and dads is absolutely 100 percent unacceptable to us and most Americans.

Let's look at what is going on here. In order to get more of you on that side of the aisle elected or re-elected, the President and his henchmen have devised an election-year strategy to be as mean and nasty as possible to asylum seekers, to immigrants, refugees, and Latinos in general.

The President, and the Attorney General, and others have said that this is a national security strategy, and that our national security depends on taking toddlers, infants, and children, most of whom are under the age of 12, away from their parents.

Come on, really? How does jailing a scared, frightened, terrorized 8 year old who barely escaped with her life from Central America, make any of us safer?

Well, it doesn't. The only person who might be safer because an 8- year-old child is in jail is a Member of the House running for re- election on a get-tough-on-immigration platform.

And it isn't like they are taking these children from their parents and putting them on the other side of the jail or the other side of the for-profit detention center. No, they are taking the toddler, the infant, the 8 or 9 year old and taking them to a government facility somewhere else, maybe in New York, Chicago, Seattle, thousands of miles away.

And we are hearing the most horrific stories. Parents who have had their children taken from them have committed suicide.

Imagine how you would feel if you had to walk from El Salvador to Texas to save the life of your son or daughter, only to wind up in detention. Now, imagine that a man in a uniform comes up to you and says, hey, we are going to take your child for a bath. We are going to take them to see the doctor. And then hours go by and you realize they are gone, maybe forever. Can you imagine?

Can you sit quietly and do nothing when that is how your tax dollars are being spent?

We are scarring these children for the rest of their lives. We know this. Taking children from their families and institutionalizing them at a young age

will have consequences for that child, and for this country, and our taxpayers, for the rest of their lives.

And we don't know for sure because none of the agencies have responded, but we hear that parents are going to court in mass trials and having their asylum claims denied--not heard, but denied--and then the parents are deported.

Does the government then go out and find the child in Chicago or Detroit, and send them back to their parents? Who knows? But probably not.

There is a certain devious and genuinely cruel kind of evil in separating a child from their mother. And they don't expect anyone on the Republican side of the aisle to say anything, because it is part of the strategy to help them keep their job.

Well, do you know what? Look, today, I am going to be joining with a group of hundreds of advocates from a diverse array of organizations, issues, and areas of this country, and we are going to demand answers.

And it is just not Luis Gutierrez, but my friend and ally, Joe Crowley. We will be together today at a rally at Freedom Plaza at 1:30 here in Washington, D.C., and Joe and I will have other Members, including some who signed that letter I talked about and got the ball rolling.

Because do you know what? We cannot sit back and let our government systematically ruin the lives of families and scar children for life. When we said ``never again,'' we meant it. Never again, and that means right here in the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter to the Cabinet Secretary, signed by 11 Democrats, demanding that answers be placed in the Record.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, June 8, 2018.

Hon. Kirstjen M. Nielsen,

Secretary of Homeland Security,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Jeff Sessions,

Attorney General of the United States, U.S. Department of

Justice, Washington, DC.

Hon. Alex M. Azar II,

Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

Washington, DC.

Dear Secretary Nielsen, Attorney General Sessions, and

Secretary Azar: We write to express our strong and emphatic

opposition to the recently announced decision to prosecute

migrants and asylum-seekers, which is a reprehensible action

that violates U.S. treaty obligations, due process, and the

law. The consequence of this policy is that children are

routinely taken from their parents, with tragic results.

There are widespread reports of more than 11,000 migrant

children already in custody of the Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS). and hundreds of children--nearly half

younger than 12 years old detained in Border Patrol stations

when the law requires they be transferred within 72 hours to

HHS. Serious and legitimate concerns have been raised about

the deep trauma such separations cause these children, the

questionable conditions in which they are being held and the

absolute absence of a plan to reunite these children with

their parents and families.

Separating families by force and punishing children and

their families who are fleeing for their lives is immoral,

unnecessarily cruel, and violates every science-based child

welfare principle to act in the best interests of the child.

We refuse to stand by while you systematically harm and

traumatize thousands of children. Therefore, we call on the

Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security

to cease and desist with your so-called ``zero-tolerance''

policy and demand that HHS immediately begin reuniting these

separated children with their parents. We also insist that

you share with us the locations where you are holding these

children and allow us and other Members of Congress to visit

these locations and check on the conditions and welfare of

the children.

Given the severity of the situation, an immediate response

is appropriate. We ask that you respond to us with your plan

to meet these requests by 12 noon on Tuesday, June 12th.

Members of Congress stand ready to take action if these

issues are not addressed promptly. Morality and human decency

dictate that you reverse these policies and take immediate

actions to end the harm you are causing to the children you

wrenched from their parents and took into your custody.

Sincerely,

Joseph Crowley, John Lewis, Luis V. Gutierrez, Wm. Lacy

Clay, Pramila Jayapal, Judy Chu, Jan Schakowsky, Raul

M. Grijalva, Adriano Espaillat, Barbara Lee, Al Green,

Members of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to hear another Republican Member of Congress come to this microphone to speak about family values ever again. I don't want to hear about protecting families or honoring families or putting families first, because each and every time a Republican invokes family values on this floor, it will be a lie, and a cruel lie at that.

If you want to run on the President's record to keep your job so you can feed your family, part of the price is that you have zero credibility when it comes to family values from now until forever.

Along the southern border, hundreds of children have been taken from their parents and hundreds have been held in border stations without sleeping rooms or adequate bedding for several days in violation of Federal laws that safeguard children.

We are told that the number of children in the care of the agency we put in charge is now above 11,000 children, but we don't know for sure, because the government, our government, your government, is not telling us what is really going on, and an oversight hearing with the Secretary of Homeland Security scheduled for today was canceled at the Judiciary Committee.

Hundreds of children in the care of Border Patrol, most of them under the age of 12, and 11,000 total in the system.

The White House thinks Latinos are not really human beings, so we can treat them however we want and it doesn't matter; after all, it is not like they are coming from Norway.

The President and the Attorney General say they are ``illegals,'' which is also a lie, and they know it. People fleeing violence and systematic rape and murder can come to the U.S., can ask for political asylum, and it is 100 percent legal under the laws of the United States.

Every one of us knows that taking a child from a mother is morally wrong except in the most extreme cases.

In this country's history, we sold millions of Black children because they were considered property during slavery, and we stole Native American children from their families to strip them of their culture and heritage because we labeled them as savages.

Most people think these are among the most shameful chapters in American history--most people. But we all know how the President feels about Latino children. He says they are ``not so innocent,'' so I guess he thinks they are programmed to turn into the people he calls animals and rapists because of where they were born.

According to the White House Chief of Staff, the children at the border will be ``put in foster care or whatever.'' And the Attorney General says he believes the children will be well taken care of ``for the most part.''

Forgive me if I don't put much stock in national leaders whose concern for children includes the terms ``or whatever,'' or ``for the most part.''

So, Republicans, do not ever come to this floor and claim that your party supports families and defends children. You have lost all your family values privileges.

This afternoon, I will meet with families that were broken up because the meat packing plant where their parents work was raided in April by ICE and the Tennessee State Troopers.

Please tell them about your family values.

We don't provide legal ways for their parents to come here because Republicans oppose legal immigration, but employers need the workers, and those parents are under constant threat of arrest, deportation, and never seeing their children again.

The owners of the plant that employed the workers, as far as we know, nothing has happened to them, and they are probably going to enjoy dinner with their families again tonight.

Last week in Chicago and this morning in Ohio, a few hundred more working people were rounded up and their children, most of whom are U.S. citizens, are left without their parents. In Pennsylvania, it was restaurant workers; in Iowa, it was concrete plant workers.

Tearing apart Latino families is an election year strategy for this White

House designed to energize Republican voters for primaries and midterms this year to reelect Republican Members of the House and the Senate.

And let's not forget that, while almost 5,000 Puerto Ricans were dying--yes, dying, and are still dying today--your President was giving himself an A-plus and saying there had been no real catastrophe, all while families were telling us of the loved ones they were losing because they didn't have electricity or medicine or a hospital.

So to my Republican colleagues, some of whom I love dearly, please don't you ever come to the well of this House and tell the country that you support family values. Don't you dare. Your time talking about family values is over.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 231, 232, and 233 on Tuesday, June 5, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 207, 208, and 209 on Monday, May 21, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea.

Mr. Speaker, Glenda Perkins;

Cynthia Tisdale;

Kimberly Vaughan;

Shana Fisher;

Angelique Ramirez;

Christian Riley Garcia;

Jared Black;

Sabika Sheikh;

Christopher Jake Stone; and

Aaron Kyle McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, those are the 10 names of the people killed at Santa Fe High School in Texas last Friday. Two were teachers; eight were students. All were violently torn away from their loved ones and their pathways to bright futures way too soon.

As usual, the elected officials have expressed that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, but we all know by now that more is needed than a moment of silence, because the silence of lawmakers, especially those here in the House of Representatives, kills:

58 killed in Las Vegas, Nevada;

27 killed in Newtown, Connecticut;

14 killed in San Bernardino, California;

17 killed in Parkland, Florida;

4 at a Waffle House in Tennessee;

26 at a church in Texas;

49 at a nightclub in Florida;

6 at a Cracker Barrel in Michigan; and

9 at Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina.

The gunmen--and they were almost all men or boys--had different motives or motivations, including crime, racism, terrorism, revenge, and seeking notoriety, which they got.

And they all had access to weapons and bullets that could kill scores of humans in just moments. For the most part, of the only thing the victims had in common was that they were killed by bullets.

The Washington Post reported that the number of people killed in schools in 2018, this year, is almost double the number of servicemen and -women killed in our military in both combat and noncombat fatalities.

And this coming weekend, just like clockwork, as America honors fallen servicemembers on Memorial Day, Chicago--my city--will see a deadly toll. Fifty-two people were shot over the Memorial Day weekend last year, and that was actually down from the previous year, 2016, when 71 people were shot in my city.

There will probably be no national special reports or wall-to-wall news coverage, because when 50 or 75 people of color are shot in an American city over a weekend, it barely makes the news; unless the NRA or FOX News use my beloved Chicago and her tough gun laws as a way of giving political coverage to politicians, while failing to point out that the loopholes and weak gun laws in Indiana, Virginia, and other States feed illegal guns into my city.

And we should note that the NRA is now run by someone whose claim to fame--Oliver North--is that he lied to Congress, perjured himself, and sold guns to our country's enemies. And they claim to be on the side of law and order?

So, the result is political paralysis, societal paralysis, and actual, permanent paralysis as the butcher's bill of dead and wounded grows and grows.

When I came here in 1993, we had hope and optimism that we could cut crime and reduce the number of guns on our streets. But despite the drop in crime, all of our efforts to reduce the number of guns on our streets, in our houses, in our schools, and in our churches have been thwarted by the gun manufacturers.

The assault weapons ban, I voted for and worked for, was here until it was killed by politics.

The crime gun bill I wrote would work by reducing the availability and manufacture of the cheap, concealable handguns most often used in gun crimes, but it will never get a vote in this House of Representatives.

See, we have established a school-to-coroner pipeline in this country that will persist until the American people arm their politicians to do something about it. But I fear the profit motive of the gun manufacturers and the politicians they own, got in their pocket, is greater than the will of the American people to take on and tame our runaway love affair with bullets.

Mr. Speaker, it takes good people without guns working with good people who own guns to keep guns out of the hands of people who will use them to kill other people.

It is not that we do not know what works, because we do. Waiting periods, background checks, trigger and gun locks, restrictions on the sales of guns can all be effective in reducing suicide, murder, and accidental death by firearms.

We are not lacking the way. We are only lacking the will to overcome the deeply entrenched, highly profitable industry that thrives on fear, mistrust, inequality, racism, misogyny, and tribalism.

We cannot afford another moment of silence, because silence kills. What we need is a moment of action to save the American people from killing themselves with American guns and American bullets.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this list of moments of silence observed in the House since the Newtown shooting. It is compiled by the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. There are 43 of them, moments of silence, and nothing done to save the American people from the gun lobby and the NRA.

Moments of Silence Observed on the House Floor Related to Gun Violence

December 14, 2012--May 21, 2018

Date, Topic of Moment of Silence.

12/17/12, Moment of Silence in Memory of Victims of

Connecticut Shooting.

2/27/13, Chardon 1-Year Anniversary.

3/6/13, Honoring the Lives of Sergeant Loran ``Butch''

Baker and Detective Elizabeth Butler.

7/19/13, Aurora Remembrance.

7/24/13, Moment of Silence in Memory of Officer Jacob J.

Chestnut and Detective John M. Gibson.

9/17/13, Moment of Silence in Tribute to the 12 Navy Yard

Shooting Victims.

1/8/14, Moment of Silence on Anniversary of Shooting

Victims in Tucson, Arizona.

4/3/14, Moment of Silence and Prayer for the Fort Hood

Shooting Victims, their Families, and the Community.

5/28/14, Moment of Silence in Memory of the Victims of the

Santa Barbara, California, Tragedy.

6/9/14, Moment of Silence to Honor the Victims of the June

8, 2014, Las Vegas Shooting.

6/10/14, Moment of Silence for Victims of Reynolds High

School Shooting.

7/22/14, Domestic Violence.

7/24/14, Moment of Silence in Memory of Officer Jacob J.

Chestnut and Detective John M. Gibson.

7/30/14, Moment of Silence for Victims of Clackamas Mall

Shooting.

11/20/14, Moment of Silence for the Victims at Marysville-

Pilchuck High School.

1/8/15, Moment of Silence on Tucson Shootings' 4-Year

Anniversary.

5/12/15, Moment of Silence In Honor of Officers Liquori

Tate and Benjamin Deen of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

6/23/15, Moment of Silence For Victims of Shooting at

Emanuel AME Church, Charleston, South Carolina.

7/21/15, Moment of Silence For Servicemembers Killed in

Chattanooga, Tennessee.

7/27/15, Moment of Silence for Lafayette Shooting Victims.

9/8/2015, Moment of Prayer for Allison Parker and Adam Ward

(Roanoke).

9/10/15, Moment of Silence Honoring Deputy Darren Goforth,

Harris County Sheriffs Office.

10/6/2015, Moment of Silence Honoring Victims of Umpqua

Community College Tragedy.

12/2/2015, Moment of Silence Honoring Victims of Colorado

Springs Shooting.

12/16/2015, Moment of Silence Honoring Victims of the San

Bernardino Terrorist Act.

1/8/2016, Moment of Silence Remembering the Fifth

Anniversary of the Shooting in Arizona.

2/23/2016, Moment of Silence For the Victims of Kalamazoo

Shootings.

3/1/2016, Moment of Silence for the Victims of Kansas

Shootings.

6/14/2016, Moment of Silence for the Victims of the Orlando

Shooting.

7/8/2016, Moment of Silence for the Victims of the Dallas

Shooting.

1/5/2017, Moment of Silence to Commemorate Sixth

Anniversary of Shooting in Tucson.

1/9/2017, Moment of Silence for Law Enforcement Officer

Killed on Law Enforcement Officer Day (* includes same

shooting).

1/9/2017, Moment of Silence in Recognition of Victims of

the Two Most Recent Tragedies in Ft Lauderdale and Orlando (*

includes same shooting).

1/9/2017, Moment of Silence Honoring Law Enforcement

Officers Killed in Orlando (* includes same shooting).

2/27/2017, Moment of Silence in Remembrance of Kansas

Shooting Victims.

4/5/2017, Moment of Silence Remembering Virginia Tech

Victims.

7/18/2017, Moment of Silence Honoring Officer Miosotis

Familia and State Trooper Joel Davis.

7/24/2017, Moment of Silence in Memory of Officer Jacob J.

Chestnut and Detective John M. Gibson.

10/2/2017, Moment of Silence in Memory of the Victims of

the Attack in Las Vegas.

11/6/2017, Moment of Silence in Memory of the Victims of

the Attack in Sutherland Springs, TX.

1/8/2018, Moment of Silence Commemorating Seventh

Anniversary of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona.

1/29/2018, Moment of Silence Honoring Marshall County High

School Shooting Victims.

2/26/2018, Moment of Silence Honoring Those Killed at

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

3/13/2018, Moment of Silence for the Three Victims of Gun

Violence at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville.

4/25/2018, Moment of Silence for Fallen Gilchrest Law

Enforcement Officers.

4/26/2018, Moment of Silence for the Victims and Hero of

Waffle House Mass Shooting.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 181, 182, and 183 on Tuesday, May 15, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea.

Mr. Speaker, we can only imagine what the President and Sean Hannity talk about every night on the phone. The two TV hosts have a lot to discuss, I am sure.

Maybe they talk about their mutual lawyer, Michael Cohen, and what he might or might not have in his files that could incriminate one or both of them. Or maybe they just discuss their mutual admiration for Russian dictator Putin.

We can be reasonably sure that neither of them spends too much time discussing things they have done for which they are ashamed or things they have done or said for which they should apologize.

All of that blathering this past week about whether the White House or the President would apologize for comments by a White House staffer about a gravely ill American war hero, Senator John McCain, was just wasted breath, if you ask me. In our President, we have someone who does not ever apologize or regret something he or his staff has done, no matter how egregious.

This week, the White House is not alarmed that a senior staff made light of Senator McCain's illness and life expectancy but, rather, that the comment about the former prisoner of war, an American hero, was made public.

Clearly, someone on the White House staff who heard the comment knew it was wrong--just wrong. Moreover, they recognized the comment was emblematic of the attitude at the White House, from the President on down, and thought the Nation and the world should know about it.

But it was the leak of accurate information from inside the White House that raised the ire of the President, not the fact that someone said things really awful about a true American hero.

We should know by now that this President and his henchmen do not apologize:

Tweeting racist videos from rightwing British groups? Nah, no apology.

Booting able-bodied Americans who want to serve their country out of the military because they are transgender? Not even.

Bragging about sexually assaulting women by grabbing their private parts? Well, he came close to apologizing, but not really.

Some speculate that being unapologetic is just the President's brand. He is brash, and he says mean things and doesn't back down because doing so would make him look weak, and revealing his weakness in public is clearly among the President's greatest fears.

The President and his late night phone buddy, Sean Hannity, remember? They complained about the last President being too apologetic.

But looking tough to cover up a fear of inferiority is only one explanation for why this President does not apologize. He often doesn't apologize because he thinks he was right in the first place, like when he said there were good people on both sides of the Nazi rally in Charlottesville where a woman was murdered by racist KKK extremists.

The President is not going to apologize, and not because it would make him look weak in the case of Charlottesville, but because he believes what he said was true: Nazis and the rest of Americans, the same.

He will never apologize for his founding campaign sin: calling immigrants rapists and criminals. In fact, he is basing a broad anti- immigration and anti-immigrant policy agenda on the bedrock belief that crime and the skin color of a person are synonymous.

This puts everyone around the President in a difficult position. Do they point out the emperor's nudity or do they praise his new suit? His chief of staff, remember, was dispatched to tell a Black Member of Congress that she was lying about how the President treated a soldier killed in action until the chief of staff was shown to be lying, himself, about what the Congresswoman said.

In the end, the American people knew what they were getting with this President, and a minority--not the majority of Americans, but a minority--still elected him to the White House

anyway. But the American people are learning important lessons about the President's enablers at the three most important branches of the Republican Party: at the White House, in the Congress, and at FOX News.

We know the President doesn't lose sleep wrestling with the moral implications of his behavior, but all of us had higher hopes for the professionals around the President--expectations which were apparently too high, indeed.

One thing is sure: this country owes a great debt to Senator John McCain, and our thoughts and prayers are with him, even if the President's thoughts are somewhere else.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House Chamber for Roll Call votes 173 and 174 on Wednesday, May 9, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Nay.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 169, 170, 171, and 172 on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Nay.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 167 and 168 on Monday, May 7, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House Chamber for Roll Call vote 156 on Thursday, April 26, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Nay.

Mr. Speaker, bipartisanship is often applauded in Congress, but seldom rewarded. Let me repeat that. Bipartisanship is often applauded, but seldom rewarded, which is an important part of why we have been unable to pass any meaningful immigration reform in this body for years.

I have worked with good men and women on the other side of the aisle on many occasions to advance immigration reform, but none of those efforts forced the Speaker of the House, whoever he or she was at the time, to allow a vote, except for the time the House passed the DREAM Act in 2010.

I continue to work with partners on the other side, because I know if a vote is allowed, those who see immigrants and immigration as important assets to this country will prevail. It will take Democrats and Republicans working together to enact commonsense immigration reform.

Just this week, the gentleman from Colorado, Republican Mike Coffman, and I worked together to demand statistics from the Department of Homeland Security to determine if the Trump administration is complying with Federal court orders on the renewal of DACA applications, and to get more information on the DACA processing backlogs.

Working with Republicans doesn't win me many friends among Democrats, who spend their days trying to defeat people like Mr. Coffman. They would probably prefer I stop working with him. As I said, bipartisanship is often praised, but seldom rewarded.

Secondly, bipartisanship is more than just signing your name.

Jeff Denham of California and some other Republicans are promoting an idea that has a great deal of merit: the so-called ``Queen of the Hill'' rule, which has almost 50 Republican cosponsors and all the Democrats, myself included.

This rule calls for a debate and votes in the House on a series of immigration reform bills, some of which would address the vulnerability of Dreamers and their families to deportation. It is an unprecedented bipartisan action to demand an immigration vote, and I support it wholeheartedly. But so far, all the Republicans have had to do is sign their names as cosponsors. The next step should be that we demand that Speaker Ryan bring the rule and related bills to the floor for a vote through a discharge petition.

You see, working with people from the other side of the aisle is just one aspect of bipartisanship. When the rubber meets the road is when you take on the leaders of your own party in order to achieve a bipartisan goal.

When I got arrested protesting President Obama's treatment of Dreamers and migrants, I didn't win any popularity contest with the Democratic Caucus. My colleagues were quick to defend the President and the Democratic Speaker at the time. I was shunned and passed over many times by my own team.

Later, when I and other Democrats worked with Judge Carter, Sam Johnson, and Raul Labrador to find bipartisan immigration solutions in the 113th Congress, Members of my own party told me to stay away. Right here on this floor they told me: ``Don't help Republicans solve their immigration problem.''

But I didn't stay away. I kept working with the Republicans, until they walked away. They were unwilling to take on their own party in the end. Speaker Boehner backed away when the chips were down.

Speaker Ryan came to my district in Chicago and talked about moving forward on immigration, with me standing by his side. We are still waiting for him to put skin in the game. That is what it will take: taking a courageous position, even in the face of opposition from your own party.

So the 48 Republicans who joined Mr. Denham's ``Queen of the Hill'' rule calling for immigration votes should not declare mission accomplished just yet. Your country needs you right now, today. We need your courage, in addition to your signature. Sign a discharge petition to bring about the vote on immigration solutions for Dreamers. That puts your skin in the game. You may not get invited to the next state dinner or fly on Air Force One, but you will have done a service to your Nation.

A discharge petition on the Denham bill says you are willing to expend your personal reputation and political capital to do what is right and what is necessary in a time of great hatred and divisiveness at the highest levels over immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

Will you be praised for your bipartisan courage? I hope so.

Will you be rewarded by other politicians or activists in your own party, or voters in mine? Probably not.

Which is exactly my point. It is hard, it is thankless, but your country needs help that only Republicans in Congress can provide: put pressure on your own Republican leadership. I, and a lot of my colleagues, will work with you, stand by you, support you, but we need you to lead the way.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House Chamber for Roll Call votes 148 and 149 Tuesday, April 24, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call votes 148 and 149.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes on Monday, April 16, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call votes 140 and 141.

Mr. Speaker, the CBS News program ``60 Minutes'' devoted more than half their show on Sunday to a 7-month investigation into Allegiant Air, a low-budget airline based in Las Vegas.

The segment was called ``Allegiant Air: The Budget Airline Flying Under the Radar.'' According to CBS, Allegiant is one of the most profitable airlines in the U.S. and made a healthy profit for 60 straight months. And up until word came out about the expose on CBS, its stock was doing pretty well, too.

In order to reward investors while still selling seats at rock-bottom ticket prices, however, Allegiant pushes their aging, secondhand fleet of 99 outdated aircraft beyond their limits. But, hey, apparently, in corporate America, profits are more important than people, even if carrying people safely is supposed to be your main concern.

So far, the only thing to crash with this airline is its high-flying stock price, which is down 11 percent since word of the CBS story first came out, because ``60 Minutes'' documented incident after incident-- more than 100 in a less than 2 years--of aborted takeoffs, unscheduled landings, smoke-filled cabins, cabin-pressure loss, and other emergency situations.

A former prosecutor at the FAA with 30 years of experience says: ``You know, if, God forbid, there is an accident, I think there will be a lot of people saying, `Well, we knew. We knew and we did nothing.'''

Mr. Speaker, Allegiant Air is a tragedy waiting to happen. And they really should know better, and we as a country should know better, because the CEO of Allegiant is none other than one of the founders of ValuJet.

Do you remember them? They were the cut-rate airline that was apparently cutting corners on safety to boost their position with stockholders. But they aren't flying anymore because ValuJet flight 592, with 110 people on board, plunged into the Everglades after taking off from Miami International Airport 22 years ago.

What we learned after the fact was that the airline drove up profits, pushed its fleet to the edge, took extra freight in cargo holds to make extra money, and cut corners on the safety of its passengers. And you know what happened. People died.

We have seen this before, which leads to the very important question for Congress: Why isn't anyone doing anything about it? Where is the FAA? Where is the DOT and the committees of jurisdiction here in the House of Representatives? I hear the Senators are doing something about it.

Why have there been no hearings and so little response from the Federal Government? ``60 Minutes'' made a compelling case that the regulators are not doing their jobs. Host Steve Kroft said: ``Over the last 3 years, the FAA has switched its priorities from actively enforcing safety rules with fines, warning letters, and sanctions, which become part of the public record''--so we would all know about the safety of these airlines--``to working quietly with the airlines behind the scenes to fix the problems''--yes, at the backs of the American people that they are supposed to protect.

This airline, Allegiant, with 3.5 times as many serious emergency incidents as any other airline, might be a special case or it might just be typical, but we just don't know. And the American people just don't know.

If the FAA isn't doing a good job of making sure Allegiant Air is safe, what else are we missing about the airlines? We ought to demand that the experts inside and outside of Congress get the facts and all the people are accountable.

Now, I understand that the dirtiest word in the conservative dictionary is ``regulation,'' and, frankly, it is not clear that the downside in regulatory oversight happened exclusively or even more rapidly since our current businessman and TV host President took office; but I think it is clear that following the rules being transparent and being accountable in American industry, especially the airline industry where millions of lives are at stake every day, ought to be a top priority.

When I sit down to dinner with my family, I want to know the chicken and vegetables on my plate are safe to eat.

My car, my gadgets, and my flight home all deserve rigorous scrutiny. I want to know that the water my grandson drinks is clean.

The American people are losing confidence, Mr. Speaker, that the people who are supposed to be watching out for us are really watching out for us when we eat, drink, breathe, travel.

There is a big drive in Congress to cut government budgets, cut red tape, crusade against regulation. The other side demonizes regulation almost as much as the President demonizes immigrants. But I just want to make sure that, when the Federal Government and this Congress are cutting budgets, we are not cutting corners that allow airplanes with Americans on them, with anybody on them, with human beings on them, to fly out of the sky so that companies can make better profits.