Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my Sikh friends in Pennsylvania and around the world to recognize the 39th anniversary of November 1984 anti-Sikh violence in India. November 1984 marks one of the darkest chapters in modern Sikh history. Sikhism traces its nearly 600 years of history to the Punjab region of India. The Sikh community has a rich history in our country, with emigration dating back 100 years. With nearly 30 million followers globally and a thriving community here in the United States, Sikhism is one of the world's major religions.

Today we are here to remember the violence which occurred in November 1984, after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the capital territory of Delhi and most major cities of India. These killings lasted for days, and it is estimated that thousands of Sikh men, women, and children were brutally murdered in their homes and on the streets. Mr. Speaker, as a proud co-chair of the Congressional Sikh Caucus, remembering this heartbreaking violence that targeted Sikhs across India in 1984 is an important and historic step towards justice, accountability, and reconciliation and to prevent future such occurrences.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

For the past 6 months, the Republican majority, embroiled in chaos and dysfunction, has wasted valuable time. Because they are unable to perform the most basic job of Congress, working with Representatives from both parties and across the country to fund the government, they have brought us to the brink of a shutdown twice in the last 2 months.

Before that, they threatened to tank the global economy, and if their proposals pass this week, we will likely face new shutdown threats again in the new year.

This isn't serious governance. It is not serious or governance at all. They are playing politics with Americans' lives and our country's future.

It is outrageous that my constituents are yet again subjected to the uncertainty and fear that their paychecks won't come next week and that services they rely upon, like LIHEAP and WIC, will be interrupted. House Republicans still refuse to come to the table where the majority of the American people are and work with us in a bipartisan way to pass the spending bills that Americans expect and deserve.

The Senate is doing it. Why can't the House?

Instead, House Republicans continue to try to force the entire country to go along with their farcical and extremist approach to government funding. Unsurprisingly, they continue to fail, over and over again, on the House floor. Their proposals are so extreme that Members of their own party won't even vote for them. The MAGA majority may have new leadership, but it is the same old story.

They plan to kick the government funding can down the road, once again, so they can try to pass all 12 spending bills, which are now 2 months overdue, that cater to the most extreme and noisy fringe of the MAGA party.

These are bills that reject any bipartisan input, bills that contain harmful spending cuts that violate the Fiscal Responsibility Act's spending levels that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law last spring, and these bills include poison pill policy riders to enshrine MAGA culture wars into law and force these extremist views upon every American.

There is no clearer example of that than the unacceptable spending bill they have brought to the House floor today.

The Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill is supposed to help Americans access education, jobs, and healthcare. These are the foundations of our constituents' lives and livelihoods.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know about you, but they are three of the issues that I hear about the most when I have the opportunity to be back home rather than debating meaningless bills and amendments here on the House floor. Yet the majority has proposed legislation that slashes funding for existing programs supporting these parts of Americans' lives by a shocking 28 percent across the board, back to 2008 spending levels with even deeper cuts in certain critical areas.

Let me outline what these cuts will mean for Americans.

Mr. Speaker, our public schools are responsible for educating the next generation of Americans: our civic leaders, our innovators, and our taxpayers. They are the key to our country's present and its future. However, this bill seeks to further efforts of MAGA extremists to undermine our public school systems by ripping critical funding away from the K-12 schools that need it the most.

This bill slashes billions--that is billions with a b; 80 percent-- from title I, the foundational Federal program that for over five decades has helped schools ensure that low-income students have access to a high-quality, well-rounded education to equip them for what lies ahead.

These cuts will be devastating for the children who live in my district, which houses one of the largest public school districts in the country. Hundreds of millions of dollars in funding will be slashed from Philadelphia public schools.

Thousands of teachers will lose their jobs, but it is not just my district that will suffer. It is everyone's. Mr. Speaker, Virginia's Sixth District will lose $23 million in title I funding. Mr. Burgess' district, Texas 26, will lose $22 million. That is over 300 teachers that will lose their jobs in each of those districts.

I challenge any of my colleagues to explain to the teachers and families in their districts how they can support a bill that cuts millions of dollars and hundreds of teachers from their local public schools, particularly at a time when our children need extra help.

Members of Congress who vote for this proposal will be telling kids and families clearly and cruelly that where they live or how much money their parents make is the measure of whether they are worthy of a good education and future success. That is un-American.

In addition to title I cuts, this bill also eliminates--not cuts, eliminates--funding for programs that support English language learning, academic achievement, professional development for educators, and the emotional and mental health of our students.

In this bill, MAGA Republicans are going after preschool by slashing hundreds of millions of dollars from Head Start, which has been proven to provide young children with a critical early learning foundation that sets them up for lifelong success and saves taxpayers dollars down the road.

I want so much better than what is in this bill for our children, and I find it deeply disturbing that my Republican colleagues don't feel the same.

Early childhood and K-12 education aren't the only things on the House Republicans' chopping block. With this bill, they are also abandoning college students and hardworking people trying to improve their lives and their futures through higher education and job training.

This bill would eliminate the Federal Work-Study Program for hundreds of thousands of hardworking students who use it to pay for a higher education.

It would block regulations to implement income-based student loan repayment programs, and this bill would rip need-based financial aid away from over a million students. Consequently, it will be harder for people from working families to get a degree, and it will stifle their potential earnings and opportunities in the job market.

This bill also leaves behind Americans who want to work, who want to access job training, or want to find a higher paying job to better support themselves and their families. When employers across this country are scrambling to find qualified job candidates, House Republicans are defunding the programs that prepare Americans for the 21st century workforce.

The bill they have proposed eliminates job training for over half a million Americans, the WIOA programs, youth job training, adult job training, and employment programs for seniors.

The bill also cuts over a billion dollars from critical worker protection agencies at the Department of Labor, including programs that ensure worker safety and promote equality and economic security for working women.

Every day, I see how my district's dozens of higher education institutions, including community colleges, bring innovation and prosperous futures to our region, but House Republicans' shortsighted vision for our country undermines these accomplishments and jeopardizes the strength of our workforce for generations to come.

Finally, the majority is using this bill to come after programs that support Americans' health, safety, and well-being. My district and the whole Philadelphia region is a hub for biomedical innovation, but the bill before us would undercut this lifesaving work by slashing funding for cancer and neurological research. Programs that help us fight public health crises, like opioid misuse and HIV/AIDS, will be eliminated.

As grieving Americans everywhere call out for action to bring an end to senseless gun violence, MAGA Republicans in the House, rather than answer these calls, want to eliminate funding for research on how to keep communities safe from firearms, now the leading cause of death for American children.

This bill also puts women's and children's health at risk. At a time when the U.S. lags far behind all other developed countries in addressing maternal mortality--not for lack of will and resources--and outcomes for mothers, but particularly women of color, are getting worse, this bill cuts hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for programs that support safe pregnancies, healthy babies, and affordable access to contraception and a full range of reproductive healthcare.

Of course, this bill also includes a toxic stew of unpopular, extremist policy riders, yet another example of rightwing lawmakers pushing their extreme agenda to ban abortion care nationwide.

This is a terrible bill, and the House majority knows it. It has been dictated by its most extreme Members. It couldn't even survive a committee markup. Therefore, the party that preaches regular order has sent it straight to the floor. On the way, with no committee input, this bill acquired additional policy riders, and no one in the Rules Committee could explain last night how they got in there since they didn't happen in committee.

This bill is so extreme it may have to be pulled from the floor, like the two bills that preceded it last week, because it cannot win enough votes even from the House Republican Conference. If it does pass the House, it will not pass the Senate or be able to overcome a White House veto.

The appropriations legislation that House Republicans have put in front of us today does nothing to invest in Americans or America's future. Instead, it slashes programs and support for children, families, workers, and women. It is a cruel vision for our country as House Republicans continue to worship at the shrine of trickle-down economics, despite its failure for half a century. Instead of making wealthy corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, they would rather balance the budget on the backs of kids and hardworking families, and undermine the U.S.' global reputation, credit rating, and national security.

Americans, my constituents, are fed up. The people who send all of us to Washington do so with a belief that we will work and fight to make their and their families' lives better, but it seems too many of the MAGA Republicans in the House aren't interested in keeping up their end of that bargain. This bill doesn't live up to the promises I have made to my constituents, and I absolutely can't support it.

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

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

The fact remains that under Democratic leadership, the House did pass budget bills. It passed the actual bills. What we are seeing here is a string of MAGA bills being brought to the floor and not passing and not leading to an eventual budget, so we keep ending up in this Mobius loop of potential shutdowns. The bills that we have seen so far will not result in a budget.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order amendment No. 81, offered by Ranking Member DeLauro from the Appropriations Committee, which strikes section 239 of the bill, which prohibits funding to Planned Parenthood and other similar women's health organizations.

Mr. Speaker, when will Republicans in the House learn? The American people want them to stop trying to tell women what they can do with their bodies. At the ballot box, in Congress, in State legislatures, women want them to stop. Republican politicians have no place dictating decisions about women's reproductive health. These decisions should be made between a woman and her doctor.

This MAGA messaging bill callously prohibits funding to an organization

that provides many different health resources to women across the country. I, myself, used Planned Parenthood when planning my family. Planned Parenthood also offers vulnerable communities services they wouldn't otherwise have access to, including critical preventive services like breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraception, and sex education. Simply put, blocking this grant funding endangers women's health across the country. There is no reason we should restrict access to Federal grant money simply to score political points for the MAGA base while limiting reproductive healthcare options.

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 reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, this is a terrible bill. I remind all my colleagues that this is kids' futures that we are talking about. It is the jobs that support American families. It is the health and safety of our loved ones.

If the House's MAGA Republicans had their way, our workers, students, children, women, and families would all suffer if the cuts in this bill were implemented. Our public schools, the centerpieces of our communities and our democracy, would be decimated. Hardworking people would be underwater, unable to find good-paying jobs to keep themselves and their families afloat. Devastating diseases would go uncured and unchecked, and women would be denied the right to make their own free choices about their own healthcare.

America and the people who live here are worth investing in so much more than this, and I won't accept the bleak and nihilistic picture that House Republicans are trying to paint. Our country's future can and should be brighter. It is what our constituents and our children deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, my heart is breaking for the parents, children, friends, and neighbors in Lewiston, Maine, who woke up today to the unfathomable grief of yet another mass shooting.

We do not have to live like this. My constituents know it, and, Mr. Speaker, your constituents know it, too.

Americans are disgusted by Congress' failure to check the gun violence that is so rampant across our country, and they should be. Gun violence now impacts all of us, in urban areas, in rural areas, and in red and blue States. We must work together to address the gun violence crisis.

The House can and must act now to consider the numerous gun violence prevention bills that are waiting to be brought to the floor and that a majority of Americans, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, support.

We call on Speaker Johnson to bring these commonsense and constitutional bills to the floor as soon as possible. Our constituents, our children, deserve to know where their Representatives stand on these bills. The very least we can do is have the courage to show them.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, over the past month, House Republicans have plunged this Chamber into chaos. Whether it is the extremists who refuse to honor the bipartisan budget deal negotiated with the White House and voted into law by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, and then sought to shut down the government with their outrageous demands, or whether it is House leadership who seem unable to prevent this destructive behavior or perhaps to leave this Chamber at all.

As I and my Democratic colleagues push back against the majority's cruel, extreme, and unworkable agenda, Members on the other side of the aisle have been consumed with infighting and trying to distract from the fact that their refusal to work in a collaborative or bipartisan manner either with the Senate, Democrats, or even within their own party, has resulted in their failing to perform Congress' most basic job of funding the Federal Government.

Just this past weekend, they brought us within hours of a devastating government shutdown. As the funding deadline approached, my office was fielding calls from terrified constituents; people feeling that come the end of month, their paychecks would no longer arrive and that critical government services which they rely upon would be interrupted.

Parents wondered whether they would be able to make ends meet, whether they would be able to pay the childcare bills that allowed them to go to work and keep food on the table for themselves and their children. Seniors worried about heat assistance as temperatures drop. That is why Democrats stepped in to keep the government up and running without the outrageous rightwing demands coming from the most extreme and exotic fringes of the House Republican majority.

Now, we have 6 weeks before another funding deadline, and we have a lot of work to do. The American people don't deserve this continued uncertainty.

After the majority's reckless approach to government funding failed, time and time again, on the House floor, we still only have 4 of the 12 appropriations bills passed through the House; 2 haven't even been marked up, another one has failed, and more may go down this week.

One would think they would be willing to change tactics because after all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

You would think they would be willing to come to the table, honor the agreements, pass the spending bills

that the American people should expect and certainly deserve, but apparently not. Instead, we see them doubling down on the strategy of jamming through unrealistic spending proposals that would devastate children, families, seniors, and veterans all across this country.

That includes the two hyper-partisan bills they have brought to the House floor today; bills that continue to break the pattern of the bipartisan funding agreement that Congress approved last spring and that both parties in the Senate have been willing to honor.

These bills slash vital services and include rightwing culture war provisions; bills that are so extreme that the House Republicans may not be able to pass them here, the Senate won't agree to, and the President certainly won't sign.

The first of these is H.R. 4394, the Energy and Water Development funding bill. With this legislation, we should be ensuring that the U.S. is able to meet the challenges of today's and tomorrow's world.

Unfortunately, the bill in front of us doesn't do that. It is full of harmful rescissions, repeals, and funding cuts. It attempts to impede the progress we have made by increasing America's energy costs, jeopardizing our energy security and hurting U.S. global competitiveness.

It claws back important funding that supports programs to combat flooding, improve wildlife habitat, and reduce pollution in our drinking water. That includes millions in funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Let me zoom in on that for a minute and talk about all the important work that the Army Corps does in my district alone.

It is responsible for the regular maintenance of two major rivers running through and alongside Pennsylvania's Fifth district: the Schuylkill and the Delaware. That maintenance includes tasks like dredging, debris removal, and maintaining river embankments.

This river work is critical to our region's environmental, public, and even economic health because it means boats can use our waterways without interruption, and larger vessels can sail into and trade at the port of Philadelphia.

The broader budget cuts included in this bill undermine the importance and viability of all of these programs and means that additional measures to improve the health of our communities, both in my district and others, will go undone.

Critically, this bill also fails to meaningfully confront the climate crisis. In southeastern Pennsylvania, we have already started to feel the effects of climate change, more intense and frequent storms have resulted in unprecedented, devastating flooding across our region.

For example, the Eastwick neighborhood of Philadelphia, which sits adjacent to a flood-prone marsh, has experienced increasingly dramatic floods in recent years. About 3 years ago, Tropical Storm Isaias damaged more than 300 homes in this low-lying area. We have seen tornados and flooding in the Brandywine River region in Norristown and elsewhere.

It is important for everyone here to realize that none of our districts are immune from the impacts of the climate crisis. Flooding, hurricanes, rising sea levels, wildfires, and other climate disasters, they affect us all.

My Republican colleagues' denial of this fact would only leave us extremely unprepared and will prevent us from doing anything proactively to address these growing threats and help our communities be more resilient.

Ultimately, it is our constituents and future generations of Americans who will suffer the consequences of these kind of policy failures.

Additionally, just as families have started taking advantage of provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that reduce their home energy costs, this bill would increase energy bills for hardworking Americans.

For all my Republican colleagues' talk, it is clear that Democrats are the only ones here willing to take action to keep costs down for American families, because with this bill, the majority is trying to undo the work that we did with the Inflation Reduction Act. They want to slash funding for programs that help people to weatherize their homes, purchase efficient appliances, and be able to afford to heat their homes.

These programs have the potential to save Americans thousands of dollars a year. For the past several months, I have been holding meetings across my district to talk to constituents about these measures and help them access and improve their lives and their budgets. Now House Republicans want to take this away.

This bill also blocks funding for initiatives that direct investments to our underserved communities most overburdened by pollution. My region has long struggled with dangerous air quality and its negative health impacts leading to high rates of cancer and some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in our Nation.

Federal investment is needed to ensure that kids in my district and across the country can grow up healthy and have bright futures. In kneecapping this important work, it seems that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are more concerned with catering to polluters than the health of our children, and I find that incredibly disappointing.

We are also considering today H.R. 4364, the legislative branch funding bill.

Unfortunately, this legislation undermines the important work of this institution and threatens Congress' ability to move into the future and serve its constituents and America today rather than in the 19th century or so.

I served on the bipartisan Select Committee on Modernization of Congress for 2 years. Since then, I have followed its subsequent work to produce recommendations on how to make Congress work better for the American people.

Ultimately, that committee passed over 200 bipartisan recommendations, including recommendations related to diversity and inclusion among our staff here in Congress. Leading businesses around the globe have embraced diversity and inclusion because they know that a diverse workforce is more effective.

Despite the successes we have seen in other sectors, it seems my Republican colleagues here in the House want to go backwards.

Troublingly, they want to eliminate the Office of Diversity and Inclusion here on Capitol Hill. A well-functioning legislative branch is critical our democracy, and I know our democracy is strongest when Members of Congress and their staff look like the America we are here to represent.

We should all want to serve our constituents in the best way we possibly can, and we can only do that if we give our institution the tools and the staff to achieve progress with the times and truly represent our modern Nation.

Unfortunately, this bill would undermine that goal.

Even after flirting with a disastrous shutdown, my Republican colleagues are still trying to force through spending bills written in back rooms with no bipartisan agreement and riddled with culture war poison pills and devastating cuts. They do so knowing that these bills are so extreme that their passage is imperiled here in the House, and it is a fiction if they think it is going through the Senate or that it will be signed into law by the President.

This continued dysfunction only hurts America and throws our country into chaos.

The bottom line is that the House needs to do better than this. The American people deserve better than this.

Madam Speaker, I strongly oppose both of these bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Rules.

Madam Speaker, I wish that our colleagues across the aisle were as concerned about the fact that this bill would increase our dependence on Russian oil, Russian oil that is being used to fund their illegal, inhumane war against the Ukrainian people.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution which clearly states that it is the people's House's duty to keep our promise to American workers and seniors to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare and fight against any cuts to these vital programs.

Madam 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.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove) to discuss our proposal.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, funding the Federal Government is not a game. The American people who elect us to Congress depend on us to solve real problems. They don't send us here to play politics with their lives and our country's future.

The incompetence, extremism, and infighting we have seen on display from our Republican colleagues is not serious governance. It is dangerous. It is destructive behavior, and it makes it wholly clear that there are Members of this body who care more about making headlines than the job they were sent here to do.

Madam Speaker, our budgets reflect our priorities. Democrats are here to put people over politics, and these bills make it clear that my Republican colleagues are prioritizing scoring political points over working for American families or strengthening this body and our democracy or protecting our planet.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding.

We are 37 hours, 6 minutes and 25 seconds away from a shutdown, an unnecessary and devastating government shutdown after wasting weeks on rightwing messaging points and bills.

Here, the majority has brought to this floor not a responsible short- term funding bill, but more of the same posturing, dangerous, and unrealistic games to placate the most extreme factions in their party. It is well past time for the chaos caucus to get serious about governing.

Funding the Federal Government is Congress' most basic duty and this colossal failure of the Speaker and House Republicans to keep the lights on across this country will cause real harm to our economy and to hardworking families.

These aren't just numbers. These are real people whose lives will be upended. This shutdown means senior citizens won't be able to heat their homes because this CR cuts 74 percent from the LIHEAP budget. That is a $137 million cut to LIHEAP in Pennsylvania alone. That is over 342,000 families who are counting on this program and who will be left in the cold in October. Just a few hours from now are when those funds should start to become available.

This shutdown means that mothers and babies in my district will go hungry because their WIC benefits will be cut. It means that teachers will be kicked out of their classrooms that need them most because of draconian cuts to the IDEA and Title 1. Cuts to Title 1 and IDEA equates to nearly 150,000 teachers and service providers being cut from our public schools where they need help the most.

Approximately 275,000 children will lose access to Head Start, undermining early education for them and their futures, and harming their parents' ability to go to work.

My district is home to the Philadelphia airport. TSA workers and travelers alike will be affected by delays.

Madam Speaker, the last time the Republicans shut down the government in 2018-2019, we had to run food drives to feed TSA workers who were required to show up but were not paid. Some of them lost their jobs when they lost their cars, doubling down on the harm.

Look, a Republican government shutdown is going to hurt working families, interrupt vital services, damage our economy, endanger our national security, force millions of our troops and government employees to work without pay, all because Speaker McCarthy has turned over the House of Representatives to the most extreme Members of his caucus.

Meanwhile, House Democrats, bipartisan Senate leadership, and President Biden are working together to keep the lights on.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to attend votes today due to an immovable scheduling conflict. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 361, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 362, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 363, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 364.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, with the two bills under consideration in today's rule, we have a striking example of the best and worst that this Chamber can produce.

The first bill reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration for another 5 years. That bill is the product of bipartisan negotiations between the members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It was debated and amended in committee with the full participation of all members, Republicans and Democrats, and it passed out of that committee with unanimous support--unanimous support.

So this FAA bill is an example of how the legislative process can and should work when Members of Congress seek results and are willing to work together to address the interests of the American people.

The other bill in today's rule could not be more different. It is an unserious, hyper-partisan proposal from rightwing extremists designed to sow division and fear by pushing false narratives about immigrants and what is happening in our public schools.

In a truly bizarre twist for the party of small government, this bill would have the Federal Government dictating to our local governments and schools what they should do with their buildings.

All of this is done under the guise of solving a fake crisis manufactured by Republicans, both by sending migrants to cities run by Democrats in a failed attempt to score political points and, more importantly, by refusing to come to the table and genuinely address the critical need for substantive reforms to our immigration system.

If everyone would follow the lead of our colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and if our rightwing colleagues could drop the heated rhetoric and partisan nonsense, there are many solutions that Republicans and Democrats could work on together to serve the American people, and we would welcome that opportunity.

I will return to this point, Mr. Speaker, but first let's talk about the two bills.

H.R. 3935, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, will reauthorize the FAA for 5 years and make a variety of much-needed improvements to the laws governing aviation in the United States.

I am encouraged by many of the policy wins that Democrats achieved in the bill, including policies to increase funding for airport infrastructure, increase the scope of projects eligible for funding, hire more air traffic controllers, and grow the talent pipeline for hiring and training the next generation of pilots, mechanics, and aviation manufacturing workers.

This bill also takes some much-needed steps to improve the passenger experience. The bill requires airlines to reimburse passengers for hotel and meal costs when their flight is canceled or significantly delayed.

It requires airlines to allow families to sit together, and it requires airlines to make accommodations for passengers traveling with wheelchairs or other assistive devices, and to compensate those travelers if their property is damaged.

While this bill is good, it is far from perfect. I recognize that when you negotiate, Mr. Speaker, you don't always get what you want. However, Mr. Speaker, when you negotiate with this House Republican majority, it is not only that you don't get what you want, it is also that you get less than what is needed to actually fix the problem at hand.

Mr. Speaker, anyone who has taken a flight knows the sorry state of our Nation's airports. While our country was once First in Flight, our airports are now collectively second and third rate, and that is a policy choice by Congress.

Over the past 30 years, we have underfunded our airports, forcing them to get by on inadequate budgets and limited revenue streams. The result is crystal clear to anyone who flies: old, crowded airports, large backlogs in runway maintenance, and a passenger experience that is often unpleasant from the moment you try to check in, Mr. Speaker, until you arrive at your destination. We did hear a fair amount of commentary on that from our colleagues in the Rules Committee last night.

The passenger experience at many U.S. airports is eclipsed by virtually every other airport in Europe and Asia, and there is no good excuse for that.

Beyond the benefits of improving the flying experience for American travelers, having first-class airports should be a point of national pride. We are not putting our best foot forward when foreign tourists visit the United States, the richest country on Earth, and the first thing they experience is a crumbling, unattractive, and inefficient airport.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act made a massive investment in our Nation's airports, and dozens of projects have broken ground as a result. However, the IIJA was a onetime investment and gives us about 5 years of boosted airport funding. We need to build on the success of that bill, not rest on our laurels and pretend that this short-term fix was a long-term solution to decades of underinvestment.

In addition, I would have liked to have seen stronger protections for workers and consumers. I strongly oppose the provision in the bill to raise the pilot retirement age to 67, and I would have liked to have seen reforms to organize and form a union and to hold the airlines accountable for junk fees, delays, and cancellations.

However, Mr. Speaker, again, I recognize that any bill of this sort is a compromise, and in a compromise you have to work with others who don't share your beliefs, and you can't always get your own way.

It is important to pass this bill in a timely way so that we are able to maintain and improve our aviation functions without a lapse.

Mr. Speaker, the other bill in today's rule is the so-called Schools Not Shelters Act or, as one of my colleagues called it, the defund our schools act.

This bill is a monumental waste of the House's time and taxpayer dollars.

It is nothing more than an attempt by House Republicans to double down on their demonization of immigrants. The House had this same debate last month when Republicans brought to the floor a poorly drafted and fact-free resolution to the same effect.

Now they have turned that resolution into a bill so they can continue their failed efforts to sow fear of immigrants in order to score political points. This bill does nothing to address the needs of communities facing an influx of migrant families or to solve the problems facing our schools. It is nothing more than another vehicle to create division and stoke culture wars because that is the point.

Starting with the last administration, rightwing Republicans at the State and Federal level have abused migrant families and children fleeing poverty and violence to manufacture a crisis using them as pawns to score points.

For example, if Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, was genuinely unable to safely shelter migrants, he could have reached out in good faith to State and local leaders around the country to collaborate on solutions instead of shipping migrant families to those places without any notice or coordination.

He could have reached out to the Biden administration for additional resources, and he could have come to Congress and asked for emergency funding.

Instead, when faced with all those options, Governor Abbott decided to mislead or trick migrants and ship them to other parts of the country with no coordination or communication to the receiving communities.

One of the destinations chosen by Governor Abbott, and Governor DeSantis as well, was Philadelphia. I met some of those migrant families last winter. During the week between Christmas and New Year's when temperatures were at or below freezing, they sent buses of families and children to Philadelphia. These families arrived in T- shirts and sandals. They had no jacket and no gloves, and they were dropped off on the street at 6 a.m. and in the middle of the night.

If not for the mercy and decency of our city officials, charities, churches, and advocates, those poor souls would have been left on the street in the middle of winter.

These are human beings. These are families with children. They are people escaping horrors that apparently our colleagues can't even imagine. I still struggle to process the willingness of those Republican Governors to harm people and the willingness of our colleagues to enable them.

While those Republican Governors thought that everyone shared their contempt and disregard for the humanity of these families, they were dead wrong. All over the country, the cities that have received these migrants did so with open arms and worked in unison with their faith communities, with volunteers, and with advocates to find solutions rather than to inflict further harm.

They refused to play this sick game. They welcomed the migrants with compassion. I continue to be inspired by the fundamental decency and kindness of the Americans who mobilized to help migrants come to our shores yearning to breathe free, as we have throughout our American history.

We are the country we are today because of the innumerable contributions of immigrants from all over the world. So instead of debating rightwing messaging bills to posture for the Republicans' extremist base, we should be using our time to pass a clear, legal, and efficient path to work, residency, and citizenship.

We need to pass the American Dream and Promise Act again to provide Dreamers with a pathway to citizenship. However, our colleagues are not offering solutions to our immigration challenges, they are just offering complaints. They don't have a single, serious proposal for how we can address the needs of our immigration system.

It is particularly galling that they have tried to reframe their active mistreatment of migrant families as a threat to public schoolchildren calling to defund public schools in retaliation against local governments for addressing the mess that Governor Abbott created.

As my colleague, Mr. Neguse, pointed out in the Rules Committee hearing last night, the House majority has made clear its priorities: pushing unserious bills like this anti-immigrant bill while failing to address the actual issues facing our public schools, including teacher pay, student achievement gaps, gun violence, and hunger--daily hunger-- for schoolchildren.

Later this week when Republicans host their press conference to celebrate passage of this bill, all these problems will still exist.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to passage of the FAA reauthorization later this week, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am so sorry my colleague across the aisle

misunderstood me. The fake crisis I was referring to was the crisis that this defund our schools bill is seeking to address, which is the use of active public school buildings to house migrants.

That is a fake crisis. It is actually not happening across the country, and it was brought up only after the Texas Governor sent migrant families unannounced to New York State.

Obviously, we have an issue with the amount of migration occurring throughout our hemisphere and the impact on our communities. I would gladly work with anyone to make sure that all of our communities, whether in Texas or New York or Philadelphia or Martha's Vineyard or anywhere across our country have the resources they need to feed and clothe the hungry and unsheltered people in those communities.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Barragan).

Mr. Speaker, as I suggested, this is just about rightwing messaging, pushing a false narrative that anybody is advocating for an open border--they aren't--while still refusing to come to grips with what do we do with the people who come here? What do we do with the people who are here?

If there are solutions, we would love to work together on them. One of them appears to be providing enough resources for our communities to feed and house folks.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution which unequivocally states that it is the House's duty to keep our sacred promise to American workers and seniors to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare and reject any cuts to those essential programs.

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 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Escobar) to discuss this proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I find myself in complete agreement that we should be addressing the actual issues, like student achievement, that are impacting our students, but, obviously, this bill does none of that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

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

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

As I was listening to some of the prior speakers, I started to understand why we have this defund the schools bill before us today. It is based upon a whole bunch of misunderstandings.

The idea that migrants who are in the position where they are potentially being housed in our communities, these folks have, in fact, been vetted by our immigration agencies.

Second of all, no Federal school funding can be used for that purpose. That funding is already restricted, and if it were to be used for the purpose of housing migrants, it could be immediately clawed back.

Again, this is a bill that accomplishes nothing and is based on a series of alternative facts, and I strongly urge that we reject it and the rule.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we heard the gentleman describing parents of schoolchildren being frightened, upset, and agitated because their school needs, their education needs, their needs for food or remedial education, are not being met.

I remind my colleagues that they hold the majority. They are able to bring forward those bills and have the committee work to address those needs, but, again, the bill before us today does none of that.

We would love to work together in a bipartisan manner, as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has done, to present a really good, forward-looking bill to address our Nation's aviation needs. We would just like to extend that ability to work on solutions, as opposed to culture wars, throughout the work before us for the good of the people.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing this week is a tale of two Congresses, one that is capable of working across the aisle to solve real problems but one that is increasingly held hostage by forces more interested in culture wars and punching down on vulnerable people to score political points.

I ask my House colleagues, again, to follow the example set by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as well as the House Armed Services Committee. I think this building and our country work a lot better when Members put their heads down and work on solutions to the problems facing the country. I would like to think there are many Members in both parties who would agree with that view. However, we learned a lot last week from Kevin McCarthy and the most extreme members of the Republican Party.

Since the first day of the 118th Congress, particularly on the Rules Committee, we have heard countless lofty speeches from our Republican colleagues about the need for more transparency in our processes, for more amendments to be considered on the floor, for more debate, and for more rank-and-file Members to have their priorities considered by the whole House.

Last week, House Republicans had the chance to stand behind those words and instead blocked over 1,000 amendments submitted to the NDAA.

Today's rule and the amendments allowed on it were negotiated behind closed doors--not between Democrats and Republicans but between Republicans and the most extreme members of that party.

Next week, Kevin McCarthy has already signaled that he is abandoning his commitment to consider appropriations legislation under an open rule.

It has become increasingly clear what the real deal is. It is an open rule for the rightwing Freedom Caucus and a closed rule for everyone else, including many Republicans who do not endorse the chaos and antidemocratic impulses pushed by the far-right members of their party.

Despite the griping about regular order and empowering individual Members, this Congress remains enthralled by a power grab--plain and simple--by the most extreme members of the Republican majority.

We can now expect Speaker McCarthy to fold at the first sight of trouble, meaning that the House is now run by its loudest and most extreme Members.

Beyond being an embarrassing way to run a democratic institution, this arrangement only serves to weaken the House and all but guarantees that the Senate will jam us on big legislation like appropriations, the NDAA, and the FAA reauthorization.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, there have been more mass shootings this year than there have been days.

We do not have to live like this.

Children are scared to go to school, parents are scared to put their kids on the bus, and teachers are scared that they will have to protect their students from a mass shooter in the classroom. The daily gun violence that often goes unreported by the media, including suicide and domestic violence, impacts neighborhoods in every corner of the country.

We do not have to live like this.

Last Congress, House Democrats passed into law the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in 30 years, but we know that was only a baby step in the right direction. We have seen that evidence- based violence prevention programs, like group violence intervention, can dramatically reduce gun violence. When it was implemented in the city of Chester, Pennsylvania, 3 years ago, homicides by gun dropped by over 60 percent. The expansion of that program to other cities around the country is already yielding results, but we have also seen the fatal impact of guns flooding our streets nationwide and making their way into the hands of criminal or mentally unstable users.

We can't give up. Democrats are working to prevent the bloodshed.

We are offering commonsense legislation that will address the epidemic of gun violence and protect the Second Amendment rights of responsible gun owners.

Democrats introduced three discharge petitions last month to ban assault weapons, require universal background checks, and close the Charleston loophole. The MAGA Republicans running Congress don't want these bills to come to the floor because they would have to make a choice, and voters would see it, whether to side with the gun lobby that funds their program, their campaigns, or to protect our kids and our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, especially those who claim to be moderates, to have the courage to sign the discharge petitions and force Speaker McCarthy to bring the legislation to the floor and to have the courage to choose kids over guns.

We do not have to live this way.

Mr. Speaker, last week, we celebrated our Nation's birthday, a day that conjures up images of flags and fireworks, family barbecues and patriotic parades.

But in my district, the dominant image on July 4 was a mint green child's bicycle. That little green bike lay untouched in the street in the Kingsessing neighborhood for days after it was abandoned by its innocent owner when a man wearing combat gear and a mask stalked his neighbors, shooting randomly, killing five and injuring four others. One of the victims was 13. Another was on his dinner break from work. Two-year old twins

and their mother were injured when their family car came under fire.

My district was not the only one that was the scene of such horrors during the holiday week. There were mass shootings in Baltimore, Fort Worth, and Wichita.

From sea to shining sea, on a day when we should have been celebrating the greatness of our Nation and the blessings of liberty, we saw senseless, needless death and destruction.

With the memory of the Highland Park shooting last July Fourth reinforced by more recent shootings, people across the country decided to skip parades and public celebrations because they were afraid of being shot.

Today is the 175th day of 2023, and so far this year, there have been over 370 mass shootings.

The bloodshed is daily. American families are scared and traumatized.

Americans are tired of living in fear at the grocery store, church, school, community celebrations, and parades. It does not have to be like this.

There are commonsense laws that can stem the bloodshed of gun violence, and House Democrats are committed to passing them.

On June 13, House Democrats introduced three discharge petitions that would ban assault weapons like the one used by the Kingsessing shooter last week; require universal background checks, which have been proven to prevent shooters from obtaining weapons; and close the Charleston loophole.

Those bills should get a vote, and Members of this House should be willing to put on the record where they stand.

We have other bills that would ban ghost guns, which the shooter also carried, and implement red flag laws, which have been proven to save lives by preventing suicides and allowing law enforcement to remove weapons from troubled individuals--again, like the Kingsessing shooter--before they kill someone.

These are bills that we know have the power to save lives, and they are popular, too.

Republicans in Congress just need the courage, the guts, to act. Anyone without the guts to act allows this unending epidemic of mass shootings to continue.

Americans do not and should not have to live like this. We don't need more neighborhoods with devastated families, abandoned children's bicycles, and people afraid to leave their homes.

Mr. Speaker, I will continue fighting to protect your families and mine, and I urge every Member of this body to join me.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot overstate the solemnness and sadness that I feel right now.

To see the House so debased by the invocation of our most grave constitutional duty--impeachment of a President--should disturb every patriotic American.

Just 49 years ago, Barbara Jordan, the great gentlewoman from Texas, invoked the solemnity with which any serious Member of Congress must approach our duties, and particularly the circumstances under which we should consider impeachment.

That solemnity has guided the majority in this House in recent years as we have tried to navigate an extraordinarily tumultuous time in service to our Nation and our constituents--a time in which we have seen a rogue former President run roughshod over the guardrails of democracy and decency, compromising our national security and disparaging the courts, the free press, law enforcement, Congress, and anyone who would try to hold him accountable.

During that time, we impeached former President Trump twice, but we did so based upon a careful and close study of law, history, our Constitution, and rigorous factfinding, as well as consideration of the impact upon our country. We prayed. We prayed for guidance to discharge our duties to our country, our constituents, and our Constitution with fidelity.

Today, as we confront this deeply unserious effort to impeach a President to serve partisan political posturing and political profiteering, I have to return to the words of Barbara Jordan.

She cautioned: ``Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: appropriations, tax reform, health insurance, campaign finance reform, housing, environmental protection, energy sufficiency, and mass transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems.''

Jordan's words could not ring more true today. Common sense is revolted by the political grandstanding and petty stunts allowed by the House majority. Days on end are wasted catering to the whims of an extremist minority.

We are marking 6 months of one of the least productive Congresses in history. Under the control of this MAGA majority, we have made no progress in addressing the most pressing issues facing America, whether gun violence, hunger, opioid abuse, housing, immigration, health costs, tax reform, or the environment.

So I must oppose both this rule and the resolution, because in the words of Congresswoman Jordan: ``My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.''