Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 108.

Mr. Speaker, today marks the 100th day of this administration. One hundred days of chaos, dysfunction, and attacks. Attacks on our democracy, our communities, and our environment, rollback protections for climate and clean energy, for our air, land, water, and wildlife.

Here just 1 week after the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, my colleagues across the aisle are putting forth a set of resolutions to gut protections for clean air and public lands across the West, while they prepare a reconciliation package next week that would open our public lands to oil and gas drilling, selling them to the lowest bidder, and repealing historic investments in climate and clean energy.

To think that just 55 years ago, a historic bipartisan people's movement led the United States in leading the world to protect our air, land, and water. We are here today to say we are not going back and we will continue to fight for our planet and our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for convening this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, this week marks this administration's first 100 days in office. It has been 100 days of chaos, corruption, confusion, and absolute destruction of our Constitution and the norms that this great Nation was built on; 100 days of tearing apart our democracy, our families, our communities, the vital Federal programs that serve the people who make up our communities; thousands fired, agencies dismantled, and people's personal and private data stolen; self-dealing billions of dollars in Federal contracts, judges jailed, a Congress that refuses to act and to do its job, and the countless Americans who are living in fear.

Mr. Speaker, I have just wrapped up a townhall tour across my district. While my colleagues across the aisle are afraid to even face their constituents, we are showing up every day across our communities: 15 townhalls touching 15,000 New Mexicans across every county that we represent in 12 towns and communities and Tribal communities across our State.

Let me say this: Our people are afraid. Everywhere we go, across the aisle, we saw people who are afraid they are going to lose their Social Security, people who are afraid they are going to lose the healthcare that keeps them and their family members alive, people who are afraid that they are not going to be able to afford to put a roof over their head or food on the table, people who are afraid watching as their family members and friends are facing the threats of deportation, students who are afraid to show up to school because they don't know what will happen to themselves or their families.

This is the sign of an unhealthy democracy. This is the sign of an executive who has lost touch with the American people. This is the sign of an authoritarian and autocratic way of operating. This is the sign of a democracy that has lost its way. This is a sign that the American people need to continue to stand up, to speak out, to show up, to attend those townhalls, to call their Representatives, to continue marching, to continue making sure that we hold our elected officials to account.

All across my district, there is not a single family who has not been touched over the last 100 days: People who have lost their jobs, teachers and firefighters, people who work for the VA and the Forest Service, who work for our national security programs, scientists and engineers, people who just started their jobs and people who have been there for countless decades. These are real stories, real people, real lives that have been impacted every single day for the last 100 days.

What have my colleagues across the aisle done? Nothing. They have done nothing. They have failed to do their most basic constitutional duty of speaking up on behalf of the people that they represent, of holding the administration accountable, of saying something when they see something that is wrong.

Not only do they refuse to do their most basic job, but they are here in this building working on a tax package behind closed doors all around us that will further take away the rights of the American people, that will decimate basic programs that help people put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

All around us, our colleagues are refusing to say out loud the things they will say to us in private: that they, too, are frightened about what is happening; that they, too, have constituents and veterans and elderly people on Social Security and disability who are frightened for their lives right now.

What is happening in this country is not normal. We refuse to normalize it. We refuse to allow our democracy to be hijacked. We refuse to allow the silence that is deafening this country right now to continue. We must continue to speak up.

I say, Mr. Speaker, the time to act is now because if we do not, we will lose everything. We must restore accountability. We must restore our institutions. We must restore our norms. We must stand up. We must speak out. We need our colleagues across the aisle to join us before we lose our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, Black history is American history, indigenous history is American history, Latino history is American history, and women and LGBTQ+ history is American history.

We will not be silenced.

No illegal or unconscionable executive orders can erase American history. No firing of generals or Federal workers, no banning of books or threats to schools, no purge of websites or removal of artifacts from the Smithsonian or any other institution, and certainly no change to our national holidays will erase American history because the people of this country will not be silenced.

We will not allow this President to turn back the clock to take away American rights. We will keep speaking, we will keep marching, and we will keep fighting to protect our democracy because this is our country, and we are not going back.

Mr. Speaker, I will take a moment today to share a story of why we are fighting and who we are fighting for.

Every day this administration claims they are trying to make America healthy again, and yet everything they are doing seems to indicate that they are trying to make us sicker again. They have fired 10,000 HHS health professionals. On this floor this week, the GOP passed a reconciliation package that would cut Medicaid by billions of dollars.

Every day my constituents ask how can this cruel agenda continue? Yesterday, I met with Rochelle Tittmann, a mom of four, who was diagnosed with cancer when she was 29 weeks pregnant 8 years ago. By the grace of God, her family, and the medical advancements made possible by the HHS, by the National Institutes of Health, by the CDC, she is here today, and her youngest daughter, Rae, is in the second grade.

These are the people we are fighting for. This is why we are fighting back, and this is why we oppose this cruel agenda.

Mr. Speaker, the amount of gaslighting in this Chamber this afternoon has been absolutely stunning, truly, as I sat here this afternoon.

What the GOP is doing is they are introducing a budget resolution that takes the worst of the House and the worst of the Senate and puts it in one big, beautiful bill that is going to blow a hole through the national debt. It will do that by raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, cutting $1.5 trillion in vital programs, giving $7 trillion in permanent tax breaks to billionaires, and raising the debt by $37 trillion over the next 30 years.

How are Republicans going to pay for it? On the backs of the American people with cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, housing, school meals, clean energy, and selling your public lands.

Mr. Speaker, the craziest thing is the majority said that Republicans wouldn't vote for it if it would raise the debt and the debt ceiling, and here they are.

Bravo to my friends. My Republican colleagues are blowing a hole through the debt ceiling, and we will vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying welcome back to my friends across the aisle. It is really nice to have them back here in the people's House, especially after last week.

Their leadership shut down the United States House of Representatives rather than accommodate new moms voting remotely with a newborn child. Stellar work, my friends. You have simultaneously managed to shut down the House and enrage millions of moms across America.

The American people actually want a government that represents them, and that is why they are also outraged by the agenda that Republicans have in this rule and are putting on the House floor this week, including the SAVE Act, which would disenfranchise millions of Americans, including millions of married women. You refuse to take up an amendment that would protect them, so congratulations to my friends.

How about the No Rogue Rulings Act that is also being heard this week? It would undermine the courts.

There are a couple of bills to roll back consumer protections to keep banks from ripping them off.

Is that your agenda? That is it? You are going to rip off American consumers, undermine their voting rights, undermine the judiciary, and insult moms? Cool. Yes, this sounds like a great agenda.

Oh, I forgot, you are also going to tank the economy while Donald Trump is playing golf, and you are going to try to pass a budget that literally will cost the American people $37 trillion over the next 30 years while gutting their Medicaid and their food and housing assistance.

Now, luckily, the American people are not falling for it, and millions of Americans are speaking out and marching in the streets. It is because of their actions that Elon Musk--thank you very much--is finally leaving the building.

Make no mistake, this agenda will continue, as we see here this week. That is why it is vital that the American people continue to speak up and speak out, keep marching, keep showing up, and keep telling these folks that we reject their agenda and its harmful impacts to the American people, and we will not allow it to continue.

Mr. Speaker, among the daily assaults on our communities, on our economy, and the daily distractions and absurdities that we see from this administration and from my friends across the aisle in this Chamber, it can be easy to lose track of the bigger picture of what is happening across our country right now and the historical inflection point on which we stand.

If Members zoom out and look at the bigger picture and the larger movement of this moment, my colleagues can see the ways in which this administration is trying to roll back the clock on American history, to redefine whose histories count, whose languages count, whose cultures count, whose identities count, whose personhood counts, whose very civil rights count, and who belongs in this great country.

We see it in this Chamber this week with a GOP that is trying to roll back the voting rights of Americans across the country, and we see it in the insidious rollback of civil rights across the administration, in our workplaces, in our schools, and all across this country, as the administration has armed itself with Project 2025 and has sought to redefine American society and roll back advancements of the civil rights era.

We see it in the executive orders that Donald Trump signed in his first days in office, terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion across our Federal agencies, putting thousands of Federal workers on leave, shuttering offices and freezing Federal funds, and scrubbing websites of American history.

We see it in the military in the treatment of our veterans, firing one of the highest-ranking generals serving on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first females in military leadership across multiple armed services divisions, the banning of our trans and LGBTQ+ servicemembers from serving openly, the scrubbing of DOD websites trying to erase the history of our veterans with 26,000 images and web pages of our history to be erased including the Tuskegee Airmen, Jackie Robinson, and the Navajo Code Talkers. Republicans even want to delete a picture of

the Enola Gay airplane because it contains the word ``gay'' in it.

We have seen the termination of the Commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a memo from the Department of Justice that would investigate, eliminate, and penalize those who engage, both in the private sector and universities, in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility for our communities who live with disabilities, claiming that they will unleash the law and criminal proceedings on private companies, unleash the FCC, threatening to block mergers of companies like Disney and ABC. Federal contractors are being told that they cannot have contracts with the Federal Government if their boardrooms engage in diversity and inclusion. They are engaging in trying to stifle and chill the telling of American history by putting the Vice President in charge of a commission, just last week, to erase history from our Smithsonian Institution as well as attacking our schools.

Across the United States, there are 98,000 public schools. Last week, the Trump administration issued a letter to those schools saying that they must certify that they will end the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our public schools, or they will have their Federal funding cut.

Imagine that in schools across every community. These are schools in your neighborhoods. They are the schools that I attended. They are the schools that your children attend. Their Federal funding will be cut if they teach history, if they teach language, if they teach culture, and if they celebrate the multiple cultures and diversity of this country.

The administration is trying to dismantle Tribal schools, which were created because of our trust and treaty responsibilities, trying to turn them into a voucher program and school choice. There are no choices in many of our rural and Tribal communities. The choice is to keep our Tribal schools open, which provide multicultural programs, language, and other programs that are the root of these communities.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot give in. We will not allow them to roll back the clock. We must keep fighting for the future of this country. We will not give in to the politics of despair because the time is right to always do right. We must stand up and fight back and we will.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to say to our President and to his administration: Hands off our education, hands off our teachers, hands off our students, and hands off our schools. Last week, the Department of Education sent a letter to thousands of public schools across the country asking them to certify that they would end programs promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility or they would have their Federal funding cut.

Let us be clear. This is a direct attack on our communities on whose histories, whose cultures, whose languages, and whose communities count.

Last week, we met with the Secretary of Education and hand delivered a letter calling on the administration to end these attacks on our schools, on our communities, on Tribal communities, and our education system.

We will continue to fight back because we cannot stand with a country that is attacking our students.

Mr. Speaker, I say to our President: Hands off our schools, hands off our students, and hands off our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to ask a question that millions of Americans across this country are asking right now. That question is, ``What is Elon Musk doing with our data?'' because I think that none of us can figure that out.

For the last several months, we have watched as Elon Musk, DOGE, and his team of hackers have infiltrated agency after agency and database after database, downloading, accessing, and applying artificial intelligence systems to those data. Yet, when we have tried to bring Mr. Elon Musk in front of the Oversight Committee, or any committee of this body, the GOP has consistently blocked us day after day.

Mr. Musk claims to have maximum transparency, yet all he has done has created a B grade Twitter in which he is posting Twitter posts claiming that he is cutting government spending. Meanwhile, he is dropping millions of dollars in Wisconsin today, trying to buy a judicial race.

Republicans in this body are readying legislation this week to try to block the judiciary from holding and reining in Donald Trump and Elon Musk from data mining, firing Federal employees, freezing Federal funds, and dismantling Federal agencies. It raises the question: What are they doing inside our Federal agencies?

That is why, today, I have introduced legislation and a resolution to get to the bottom of what Elon Musk and DOGE are doing with our data and how they are using artificial intelligence.

Last week, Elon Musk did an interview with his DOGE hackers on FOX News, yet he still will not come in front of this body under oath and testify. During that interview, he claimed, as he has many times, that what he is using this data for is to make the government more efficient. Yet, over the course of the last several months, not only has he not made it more efficient, but he has mired the Federal Government in constant litigation and constant dismantling, disruption, and chaos of our agencies.

Now, he is telling us that he is going to leave the Federal Government in just a few weeks to expand his data and AI operations, as he announced last week, with his own AI company, of which a number of the executives are actively operating inside the Federal Government with DOGE right now.

It raises a lot of questions, doesn't it? That is why every single day, my constituents and Americans across this country are asking us: What are they doing with our data? Why are they inside these systems? Why are they downloading Treasury payment data? Why are they downloading IRS data? Why are they downloading our Social Security data? What are they going to do with it?

That is why this resolution will demand answers. This resolution, which has been introduced in the Oversight Committee, will demand that they produce documentation, names, datasets, and information about what they are doing. This is crucial to understanding not only how they are utilizing our private and confidential data as Americans but also the ways in which they are hacking those systems and illicitly using that data for their own policy and political ends and the way in which they are threatening our national security.

What they are doing is not legal. They cannot do this. We know that, but without the proper oversight that our Republican colleagues across the aisle are refusing to provide, we must use every tool that we have at our disposal.

That is why this resolution of inquiry is necessary to demand an investigation into what DOGE and Elon Musk are doing with our data, how it is impacting American privacy, and how it is impacting our national security. We will not back down until we get those answers.

Mr. Speaker, I humbly say to the Members of this House: We demand answers, and we demand answers now.

Mr. Speaker, as we stand here today on the House floor, Donald Trump's Secretary of Health is announcing that he is firing over 10,000 healthcare professionals across America. These are the doctors, practitioners, experts, and scientists who keep us safe.

While we stand here today, Elon Musk is trying to buy an election in Wisconsin.

While we stand here, Donald Trump is bragging about tariffs across town while he is saying that he is going to run for President for a third term, which is unconstitutional.

What are Republicans trying to run on the House floor this week? The SAVE Act, which would undermine the voting rights of millions of Americans, and the No Rogue Rulings Act, which

would undermine the judicial branch and interfere with its rulings. It is trying to run two CRAs that would revoke administrative rules to keep banks from ripping off the American people.

Here they are, trying to sneak in a rule today that would take our power away as Representatives here in the House to ensure that our own Members can care for their children as new parents.

This is what abuse of power looks like: attacking the judiciary, attacking our elections, and attacking our democratic institutions.

We will not stand for it because American democracy is on the line.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand up, have a backbone, do what is right, and vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address the Members of this Chamber and the American people, especially in the wake of remarks by the President and actions by the GOP here in the House this week which undermine the Constitution and the fundamental rule of law.

It is with that in mind that I say tonight that there is no situation in which Donald Trump will serve a third term in these United States of America. It is unlawful, unconscionable, and, yes, unconstitutional.

To my colleagues across the aisle who are supporting legislation this week that would weaken and undermine the judicial system and the voting rights of Americans, I say to you that history is watching and will remember this moment.

Did you stand with the American people and our democracy or did you stand with the lawless administration who is unleashing chaos on our communities and our democracy and our Nation? I encourage my colleagues to find your backbone. Right your minds and right your hearts because history will remember.

Mr. Speaker, I think ``insanity'' is a good word for what is happening here on the House floor today. Another good word is ``bizarre.''

When I go home and I tell my constituents what happens in these Halls, they are amazed. Today is one of those days where I am wondering what the hell are these folks doing. While our economy is in crisis, while groceries and housing are at an all-time high, while our veterans and our firefighters and our teachers are being illegally fired, while Elon Musk is dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, and while the Secretary of Defense is trying to cover up the most incompetent national security leak I have ever heard of in my life, the Republicans in the House are trying to save the American people from the scourge of walk-in cooler and refrigeration efficiency standards.

That is right. We are here wasting precious debate time on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives debating dismantling efficiency standards for walk-in refrigerators. How out of touch are Republicans with the American people? Like literally, I know Republicans are not holding townhalls and meeting with their constituents anymore, but do they think that the American people voted for them to waste our time on refrigeration standards? That is what they think they were elected to do?

Literally, how out of touch are Republicans? No American voted, no American--I don't care where you are on the ideological spectrum, you did not vote for this. This is ridiculous. It is preposterous and it is just stupid.

Yesterday, it was reported that the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the Vice President leaked war plans to a journalist. This is the same administration that accidentally fired nuclear scientists and engineers who maintain our nuclear stockpile. This is the same administration that is illegally firing Federal employees and dismantling Federal agencies, and they are here running a resolution on refrigerators.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, Republicans are going to hold a hearing and haul NPR and PBS in front of Congress to try to undermine the media just like they did here on this floor just a few moments ago as they are kicking the media out of the Pentagon and the White House because they don't believe in the media anymore.

Well, maybe this is exactly what the end conclusion of dismantling education and American democracy is because this is ridiculous. I will vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, sometimes when I am standing in this Chamber, I literally cannot believe my ears, and I have to say that today is one of those days.

As we stand here on the floor today, I am hearing Members of the other side of the aisle who said they would never vote for a continuing resolution, that they would never vote to raise the debt, and that they would never vote for a bill that extends the debt ceiling say that we have to pass this bill.

I literally cannot believe my ears today because the GOP today is here with a great American bait and switch.

Let me explain what exactly is going on. Donald Trump spent the weekend calling our colleagues across the aisle, asking them to keep the government open until the end of the fiscal year so that they can get on with their real agenda. You all know what the real agenda is. The real agenda is that they are dismantling the Federal Government. They are firing tens of thousands of Federal workers, teachers, firefighters, veterans, military, and members of our community who are in crisis right now, and they are illegally impounding funds.

Meanwhile, my Republican colleagues who said they would never vote for anything like this are saying that they are going to vote for it because, on the side, Donald Trump is winking at them, and his people are telling them not to worry, if you pass this bill, we are going to continue to do all of that illegal activity. We can get on to the real work, which is dismantling our basic programs that support our communities.

They want to take away your Medicaid. This weekend, Elon Musk said he wants to take away your Social Security. They want to dismantle housing programs. They want to dismantle food assistance programs. They are literally bait and switching the American people and abdicating their fundamental responsibility as Representatives of the people.

The people have spoken, my friends, and there is no number of townhalls that you can run away from to know that your people in your communities do not support your bait and switch.

I say to my GOP colleagues: Do your jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for convening this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the real-world impacts of what is happening right now in our Federal Government. With the dismantling of Federal agencies, the free fall of our economy, and the impacts that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are having on our communities, what is happening right now is not normal. It is impacting our communities in ways that many do not even understand.

Right now, real people are hurting. They are scared. They don't know what is going to happen. Today, in my office, I met with members of a Tribal council and leaders from a Tribe in New Mexico who came to visit me.

Like others, they shared stories about the people in the community who are frightened about what is happening. Teachers and educators and Tribal schools who have been fired without any explanation, critical Federal funds that are on hold. When they went to meet with the Department of the Interior today, they were told that even those who are in charge of the very programs that they were meeting them about didn't know what was happening.

Back home people are frightened. They are scared. They don't know if they are going to lose their Social Security, their Medicaid, or the access to lifesaving care.

A few days ago, I met with the largest food bank in the State of New Mexico. They distribute food to hundreds of food pantries, churches, homeless shelters, and individual families across the State. They told me that if the cuts to food assistance go through that Republicans are proposing in their budget framework, that the number of families, and especially our children and seniors who are currently facing food insecurity, will double.

There is not enough support, resources, and infrastructure in the State of New Mexico to meet the need if these programs are cut. Our food system will do everything that it can to support our communities, but it will be more severe than even during the pandemic.

Every day I am hearing from constituents in my district who have lost their jobs. These are real people, real New Mexicans. Thousands of Americans are being fired every single day by this administration for no reason. These are not faceless people, but real members of our communities.

A Tribal schoolteacher was told in the middle of the school day that she was being fired for no reason, after she had taught for years, to pack up her things and return home in front of her students. These are students who don't know if they are going to be able to finish the school year and graduate. There were no answers. There was no explanation. There was no follow up for how she is going to support her son and her disabled mother at home.

A veteran, who was on medical leave, returned to their job at the VA on a Monday only to find out that they had been locked out of their email, and inside that email was a nameless, faceless dismissal, letting them know that they had been fired for no reason. A dedicated public servant who drove 60 miles to work every single day to the VA hospital to serve their fellow veterans was never even notified as to the reason they were terminated. It was just a mass email sent to thousands of Federal employees across the United States.

Just like the other veterans across my district who lost their jobs over the last several days, another veteran who

served in the Army Reserves from 2001 to 2010 also received that same nameless, faceless email from Elon Musk. A veteran, who received an Army Achievement Medal, a Combat Action Badge, and other medals and achievements over the course of their service, was fired with devastating impacts to their family not only financially but emotionally.

These are the real people being impacted by this administration, an administration that seems to have no regard whatsoever for the thousands of Americans who are literally losing their livelihoods every day as a result.

While they take on these actions, while they dismantle these Federal agencies, while they withhold the funds that literally thousands of organizations across the country depend upon to provide vital services across our communities, while they fire these thousands of Federal public servants who have dedicated their life to service, including our veterans and members of the military, they are giving themselves contracts to replace the very programs and create new services that will give them more wealth like Elon Musk at the FAA.

They are talking about monetizing HUD programs. That is right. Voucher programs that our lowest income family members and members of our communities depend on, they want to turn it into a monetary program that makes private companies money. They want to turn over mortgage markets to their crypto buddies. Well, that sounds like a good idea, right?

They are doing all of this against the backdrop of trade wars that are not only endangering the American economy, but endangering the lives of millions of Americans and making it more expensive.

Now the thing I ask myself is: What is the end goal of all of this? Seriously, what is the end goal?

Donald Trump campaigned for the last 2 years on lowering costs. He told the American people: If you elect me, I will make it cheaper and easier to live in America. I ask my fellow Americans, is it cheaper than it was 6 weeks ago in America? If you have been grocery shopping over the last several weeks, you are seeing that prices are higher than they have ever been.

We are not just talking about the price of eggs and meat. It is everything: the price of housing, the price of groceries, the price of energy. Not only have prices not gone down, they have gone up, and now because of these tariffs and trade wars, we know that everything is going to get exponentially more expensive.

The raw materials that fuel American manufacturing and construction will get more expensive. Produce and food will get more expensive. Energy will get more expensive.

What are they doing? Why are they doing this? Why are my colleagues enabling this administration to harm the American people, enabling this administration to put harmful policies in place that are making it not only more expensive for Americans but tanking our economy? What is this all about? To what end?

I ask my colleagues honestly, Mr. Speaker, to what end is all of this? What is the point of hurting real Americans?

These policies are not making life better for real Americans. It is really about stealing from the working people of this country to make the wealthier more wealthy.

Mr. Speaker, if you need any more evidence of that, then all you have to do is look at the budget framework that they passed here in this Chamber 2 weeks ago.

A couple of weeks ago, when they passed this budget, they pretended like we are just trying to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and that we are going to take those savings and reinvest it into tax breaks to help the American people. As the last couple of weeks have passed, they are not even trying to hide it anymore.

Over the weekend, Republicans were on a blitz across the news media, saying that they were going to gut Medicaid. They are talking about it openly now. They are going to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the basic programs that sustain Americans. Over the weekend, Elon Musk talked openly about gutting Social Security. This is their plan.

What are they going to do with all of that ``savings''? They are going to use it to give permanent tax breaks to billionaires. That is it. That is what all of this is in service of: taking from the people who have spent their lives serving this country, proudly serving this Nation, proudly working to put food on the table and a roof over their head for their families, and they are going to give that money to billionaires. That is what this is all about. It hurts my heart.

My colleagues passed their budget resolution, their budget CR, this afternoon, and the vast majority of them are on planes back to their districts, where they are not going to hold townhalls. Their leadership told them not to because they don't want to hear from the people who are unhappy and being hurt by this harm to our communities.

I have to ask my colleagues: Why are they even here? What is this all in service of? Go home and represent the people, and come back here and have a backbone to stand up for the Constitution and the people of this country because real people are being hurt.