Mary Gay Scanlon

Mr. Speaker, as ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, I am here to emphasize that this proposed constitutional amendment would undermine our system of checks and balances and fly in the face of the Founders' wisdom.

I think it would be a grave mistake to dictate how many Justices should sit on the Supreme Court in perpetuity and, thereby, lock in for a generation, or more, a rightwing majority, which has engaged in an unprecedented assault on Supreme Court norms and our constitutional order.

For the past several years, in the wake of the Court packing that occurred during the first Trump administration and under the Senate leadership of Mitch McConnell, constituents have called for Supreme Court reform at every townhall that I have held.

Those calls have grown louder in the wake of each decision that has lessened our individual rights and liberties or enabled the administration to avoid accountability or overrule the powers and duties reserved to the American people through their Representatives in Congress and in the ethical lapses of the Court's own members.

People are paying attention. They are demanding a Court that is more responsive to we the people than to an administration that is beholden to special interests and oligarchs.

The American public, the Founders, and the Constitution demand more than a misguided constitutional amendment that would permanently tie Congress' hands by capping the number of Justices, especially when there are more pragmatic solutions that have not yet received due consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to reject this measure.

Mr. Speaker, as I think we can all tell from the ensuing debate here, there are serious issues that this body needs to be wrestling with, but the Speaker has chosen to put on the floor this week H.R. 139, a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent.

I think there is one thing everyone in this Chamber can agree on: Americans do not like changing their clocks twice a year.

The big question isn't whether we should ditch the switch; it is how. Unfortunately, the bill that the Speaker has chosen chooses the wrong solution by making daylight saving time permanent nationwide while denying States the right to enact permanent standard time if they so choose--not if, but when they discover that Congress made the wrong choice.

We can all understand the appeal of an extra hour of sunlight in the summer, but permanent daylight saving time comes with serious health and safety concerns with even darker winter mornings.

If this bill becomes law, winter mornings across the country are going to look very different. Millions of Americans will wake up during the winter months in complete darkness, with the Sun not rising until long after people get up and travel to school or work or have to go about their days.

In much of upstate and northern New York, communities will not see the Sun rise until well after 8:30 a.m. In Michigan, it will be close to 9 before the Sun comes up. In parts of the Pacific Northwest, sunrise will be pushed even later than 9 a.m.

In many parts of the country, children will be waiting for schoolbuses in darkness. Parents will be driving to work before sunrise. Morning commuters, students, and pedestrians will be starting their day in the dark, not because of the seasons, but because Congress decided to move the clock instead of following the Sun.

We don't have to speculate about what would happen under permanent daylight saving time. We already tried it. During the 1974 energy crisis, Congress made daylight saving time permanent in a failed attempt to save energy. It lasted less than a year.

Families found themselves sending their kids to school in the dark, and there was a rash of fatal crashes involving schoolchildren. Communities raised serious safety concerns, and public support, which initially was quite strong, quickly collapsed. Congress repealed the policy within months.

The science has only become clearer since then. Medical and scientific experts have endorsed the move to permanent standard time because permanent daylight saving time disrupts our natural circadian rhythms, the internal clocks that regulate when we sleep and wake. That disruption has been linked to higher rates of heart disease, stroke, chronic sleep deprivation, and other adverse health concerns. These bad outcomes are even more serious and long-lasting than the sleep deprivation, traffic accidents, and heart attacks that follow the twice-yearly changes that we currently have.

I have also heard directly from my constituents. Like most Americans, they are ready to ditch the switch, but when I ask which permanent system they would prefer if they had to choose, the clear preference was for standard time. A Gallup poll last year found that Americans preferred permanent standard time to permanent daylight saving time by 2-to-1.

That is why I have introduced the bipartisan Sunshine for Our Kids Act with Representative Pat Harrigan. Our bill would end the clock changes and make standard time the national default.

Importantly, it would also allow for States to adopt permanent daylight saving time through State law if they choose.

If we are going to make a permanent change that affects every American, we should follow the science, learn from history, and prioritize Americans' health, particularly that of our children. That is why I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and on H.R. 139.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying bills.

At its core, this Republican reconciliation budget bill is a statement about priorities, and the priorities reflected in this bill could not be more out of step with the needs and values of the American people.

Families across this country are struggling to afford housing, groceries, childcare, and healthcare. Americans are dealing with rising costs, economic uncertainty, and the consequences of another unending war in the Middle East.

Americans were promised lower prices and stability, but instead, they are watching gas prices climb back up to $5 a gallon while inflation continues to rise and squeeze household budgets.

Against that backdrop, Republicans have decided that what the country really needs is to spend another $70 billion on ICE and Border Patrol. This is on top of the roughly $140 billion Republicans already provided to those agencies last year, much of which remains unspent.

Taken together, Republicans are proposing to spend nearly a quarter trillion dollars, all deficit spending, to expand detention camps, fund mass deportation, increase surveillance, and accelerate an immigration crackdown that has already caused enormous harm across our country.

Republicans are doing this while simultaneously claiming that America cannot afford investments in schools, housing, nutrition assistance, or healthcare.

Let's be honest about what this reconciliation bill represents. Republicans spent years pretending to be deeply concerned about deficits and debt, claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility. They have attacked virtually every Democratic proposal to help working Americans and families, saying that those measures are fiscally irresponsible, but they have used their control of Congress and the White House to add trillions with a t, trillions of dollars, to the debt by giving tax cuts to their wealthy friends and corporate donors.

Now, Republicans are adding hundreds of billions more in debt to put more masked and armed ICE agents on our streets and to build out a nationwide network of corporate detention camps. Apparently, deficits only matter when tax dollars are used to help everyday Americans instead of Trump's billionaire buddies.

Mr. Speaker, it is also telling that Republicans are using a completely partisan process to ram through this S. 2 legislation. Once again, they are using the partisan reconciliation process to pass a budget because they have refused to negotiate through the normal appropriations process. Specifically, they have refused to enact any reforms to address the lawless behavior of ICE and Customs and Border Protection under the Trump administration.

Democrats proposed bipartisan funding solutions for DHS. We proposed reforms, accountability measures, and guardrails after repeated abuses by ICE and CBP resulted in chaos and death on American streets. We asked for basic transparency and oversight after the killings by Federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, American citizens. We asked that ICE and CBP be

held to the same standards as every other responsible law enforcement agency in this country.

Republicans said no. They said no to everything. There is not a single provision in this bill to rein in these rogue agents at DHS.

The Senate rejected amendment after amendment that would have imposed even minimal constraints on these agencies. The House bypassed committee consideration altogether. Why? It is because Republicans know the American people do not support the chaos that this administration is inflicting.

They know Americans don't want masked and armed Federal agents rampaging through their neighborhoods, at their kids' schools and soccer games, and in shopping malls and workplaces.

They know Americans are alarmed when lawful residents, law-abiding community members, and even citizens, are roughed up or detained by

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

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that my colleague from Arizona brought up the impact of immigration on our Social Security system. The fact that immigrants pay into our Social Security system but are not eligible to take benefits out has actually acted to extend the life of that system and is a very important component of keeping that system working, in addition to all the benefits that immigrants bring to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Simon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

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

Mr. Speaker, Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Ruben Ray Martinez are all American citizens killed by Federal agents in our names, and our colleagues are unwilling to stand up and do anything to prevent that kind of senseless death in the future.

Instead, they try to get sympathy, which naturally should be provided to anyone who has suffered a family member's loss, but they can't lecture us that this is about human trafficking when DHS and the Department of Justice have pulled the resources from human and drug trafficking prevention and corporate crime prosecution. They have pulled those resources to direct them toward their massive deportation and detention effort. Eighty percent of the people they are detaining have no criminal records. It is all distract and divide.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Mrs. Fletcher).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad to hear my colleague from Iowa express support for the safety of our law enforcement officers, and I would like to offer him and the whole caucus the opportunity to live up to that sentiment.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to allow the House to take an up-or-down vote on an amendment to S. 2 authored by Ranking Member Raskin, which would prohibit anyone who was convicted of or pleaded guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer on January 6, 2021, from receiving a settlement payment from the Department of Justice.

This taxpayer-funded slush fund to compensate insurrectionists and Trump allies is a disgrace. Even though the DOJ has paused this effort, the President on Sunday said he loves the idea and doesn't know what is going to happen to it. Since my Republican colleagues seem unwilling to kill this slush fund outright, maybe they will at least accept some restrictions on who can get legal settlement money from

the Federal Government and from taxpayers.

This next vote is very simple. Democrats want to vote to enshrine the following language into law: ``The Department of Justice may not use taxpayer funds to make settlement payments to individuals convicted of or who pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers at or around the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.''

These individuals beat and injured dozens of law enforcement officers with bats, bike racks, fire extinguishers, and flag poles on January 6. They should not receive taxpayer-funded payouts.

If there are just a few Republicans who agree and are willing to join us in defeating the previous question, we could fix this right now.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the ranking member of the Committee on Rules, to discuss our proposal.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, underneath all the rhetoric we have heard today, this debate comes down to a very simple question about what kind of country we want to be and what we believe government should do for the people it serves.

As Americans struggle with rising costs, economic uncertainty, and the consequences of this reckless and expensive war in Iran, Republicans have chosen to spend nearly $210 billion in taxpayer dollars on ICE and CBP.

At every turn, this Republican majority says that there is no money for housing, for schools, for healthcare, for SNAP, for WIC, or for food for infants and children. Yet, somehow, there is always enough to fight forever wars, to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and to drive chaos and division into our communities.

The tragedy is that Congress could choose a different path. We could invest in our communities instead of detention camps. We could lower costs for working families instead of enriching lobbyists, consultants, and private prison companies. We could protect constitutional rights and strengthen public trust instead of rewarding agencies that have repeatedly abused both.

We could implement humane and sensible immigration policies that support, rather than suppress, our economy and economic development, and that don't scare away foreign visitors, whether from Niagara Falls in the Buffalo area or from Independence Hall in my district, where we are seeing the direct impact of bad immigration policy on visitors for our 250th anniversary and for the World Cup.

These are the choices before this House. This legislation is not a serious attempt to solve problems. It is an ideological project built around fear, division, and the concentration of executive power.

Think about what this bill will do. Republicans are about to spend exorbitant sums to put more masked agents on our streets, to spy on their political opponents, and to build a sprawling network of detention camps, private corporate detention camps, capable of imprisoning tens of thousands of who? Political enemies? It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this authoritarian project is going.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and demonstrate their support for law enforcement by denying payments from the President's slush fund to the people who attacked law enforcement officers here at the Capitol on January 6, and I urge my colleagues to reject this dangerous waste of taxpayer money.

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

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