Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, I rise today to express my strong opposition to H.R. 1215. First of all, my home State of Washington is one of those States where our Supreme Court has ruled and said that caps are not constitutional. So this bill is an intrusion of our States' rights.

This bill also clearly puts the interests of big corporations over everyday people and sends a signal to medical and health providers that they can act irresponsibly, perhaps to make more money, and get away with it.

Let me give you a very real example of what happens when hospitals put profit over people. The neurology program at Swedish Medical Center-Cherry Hill in Seattle is under investigation for negligent care arising out of a program designed to incentivize neuroscience doctors to take on heavy caseloads of complicated cases that lead to serious errors and even death.

One of the patients was Talia Goldenberg, a talented and vibrant young woman. Talia went in for a cervical spinal fusion with a neurosurgeon who had been embroiled in numerous investigations. And as a result of gross medical malpractice, Talia died.

According to a Seattle Times investigation, numerous problems surfaced around her care--or lack thereof--and attention to the surgery and medical complications that arose from it.

When Talia went in for her surgery, she was filled with hope. In thinking about the life that she might have after surgery, she wrote this: So who am I? I am an artist, a dreamer. I am a stationary biker. I am a woman, a girl, a person. I am a skier. I am an aspiring pole vaulter. I am a reluctant, yet faithful, believer of the power of lucky underwear. I am someone with a voice.

Talia died. She is one of the many tragic instances of people losing their lives to medical malpractice, and, even in my own office, two of my staffers have lost three of their grandparents due to medical malpractice. We have to make sure that we have consequences when we entrust our healthcare to someone, and there are grave errors.

For the sake of Talia and so many others like her who have dreams that are violated by preventable errors, we must defeat this bill.

A ``no'' vote is a vote for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 325.

Mr. Speaker, all over the country, millions of Americans are celebrating Pride Month and our LGBTQIA communities across the country. In fact, this week I will join tens of thousands of Washingtonians at our annual Seattle pride events.

We will come together to support our family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues; we will come together to celebrate the advancement of LGBTQ rights in our country; and we will come together to celebrate the second anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision that reaffirmed our commitment to the principle of marriage equality in this country.

But this year, we also come together to acknowledge that we have seen a spike in hate crimes, an increasing coarseness of public discourse, and greater fear-mongering for political gain. We have a lot of work to do.

We intend to protect every advancement that has been made and continue demanding progress toward full protections in employment and housing, safety for our transgender brothers and sisters, and equitable access to healthcare and other services.

There is a lot to celebrate, but much more to do to ensure the promise of equality for all in our Nation. That is what this month has been about, and we celebrate it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland, Representative Raskin.

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have you presiding over the Chamber as well. It is all of our new Members here, and Representative Khanna from California, who is going to be taking over as co-chair of this Special Order hour for the Progressive Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, we have to make sure that the American people understand exactly what is going on. This is a bill that the Senate has been negotiating in private. It has been 13 men discussing healthcare for all Americans across this country in a secret room. That is really what has been happening.

Today we saw a draft of this bill, and the prevailing wisdom, when the bill passed the House, was that the Senate would completely revamp the bill. But according to The New York Times, it said: The Senate bill ``once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health bill passed by the House . . . instead maintains its structure, with modest adjustments.''

It is the same bill. It is the same bill. And in fact, in some ways, it is a little bit worse because the cuts to Medicaid, while they don't take effect as quickly and they are more gradual, they are actually deeper than the House cuts to Medicaid.

There are other things in the bill that have been done, really, in part, to affect how the American people see the bill but don't change the basic provisions of this bill.

Part of the reason they delayed the cuts to Medicaid is so that they hope that they can get a better CBO score, Congressional Budget Office score, which the American people should know the last time around, the second time around after the first time the bill was about to come to the floor and then it got pulled from the floor because there weren't enough votes in the House, the second time when it did pass, it passed without a CBO score. It was not scored.

The reason it was not scored was because there was a belief that that very narrow passage in the House would not happen if Republicans and Democrats found out that the bill, as ``revised,'' was actually just as bad.

So the bill that passed the House still took away health insurance from 23 million Americans. This is where we are today: a bill that has been crafted in secret but is essentially the same bill.

I have received more than 9,000 calls and letters from constituents who have been very clear that Congress needs to do all it can to protect our seniors, to expand Medicaid, and to defend the gains that have been made over the last 7 years.

And you know what is really ironic about this whole situation is that, if you think about some of the things that Republicans said about the Affordable Care Act when it was being passed--here is a quote.

In 2010, Speaker Paul Ryan said: ``After months of twisting arms, Democratic leaders convinced enough members of their own party to defy the will of the American people and support the Senate health bill which was crafted in secret, behind closed doors.''

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: ``When it comes to solving problems, Americans want us to listen first, and then, if necessary, offer targeted, step-by-step solutions. Above all, they're tired of a process that shuts them out. They're tired of giant bills negotiated in secret, then jammed through on a party-line vote in the middle of the night.''

That is what Speaker Ryan said and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said when the Affordable Care Act was being debated.

But here is the thing: When the Affordable Care Act was being debated, Democrats actually threw open the doors in Congress. They held over 100 Senate hearings. I wasn't here. This is based on actual reports and documents and files from Congress. There were over 100 Senate hearings, 25 consecutive days of consideration, and 161 amendments from Republicans. Many of those amendments were accepted into the bill.

This is a completely different process. We didn't have a single hearing on this bill. The bill came to the House floor, and there was some debate, but it certainly wasn't 100 hearings. It wasn't 25 days of consideration. There weren't 161 amendments. There weren't any amendments that were accepted from Democrats because there was no amendment process.

And now, in the Senate, we are going through the same process where a bill that is about the healthcare of hundreds of millions of Americans across this country is about to come to the floor, and they are not going to accept any amendments, certainly not from the Democratic side. Maybe they will take a few amendments from the Republicans before it comes to the floor. I don't know. We will have to see. But there is no debate on this.

How can we talk about the process of democracy and even of civility and the ability to work together if we didn't offer the other side a chance to weigh in?

This bill will take away health insurance from millions of people, and it will make it less affordable for those who still have insurance because it is not very different from the House bill, and we already know that that is what the House bill does.

It would raise out-of-pocket costs for middle class families with higher

deductibles and cost sharing. It would essentially defund Planned Parenthood by blocking people with Medicaid coverage from accessing preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers for birth control, cancer screenings, and STD treatment and testing. And it would cut the essential health benefits protections.

Now, what are the essential health benefits protections? We talk about that phrase, but a lot of Americans don't know exactly what that means. So here is what it means.

It means that if you buy insurance, then you can be assured that that insurance is going to cover certain things. It will cover, for example, hospitalization. It will cover if you get cancer. It will cover some of your treatments that you need for cancer, certain things that are included in that. Mental healthcare is part of that essential health benefits coverage.

That is what it means. Otherwise, an insurance company can sell you something, and it can even say we cover, you know, X, Y, and Z, but when you get to the hospital because you are sick, you will find out that it doesn't actually cover hospitalization.

So this was an attempt to say, there is sort of an essential understanding, an essential set of things that would be covered. We will guarantee you that they will be covered if you buy insurance.

Now, I want to talk about Medicaid for a second, because this is one of the biggest travesties of the bill that is being proposed by the Republicans in the Senate.

This bill would literally decimate Medicaid. And between the Medicaid cut of over $800 billion in the healthcare bill in the Senate and the budget cut that is proposed of over $600 billion, let me be clear that we are talking about almost a $1.5 trillion cut to Medicaid through these two mechanisms.

I want to talk about what Medicaid is because a lot of people might think that Medicaid just covers poor folks, which, frankly, I think we should cover poor folks. Let's be clear about that. But I want to tell you what Medicaid actually covers.

It covers half of all the births in the United States. It covers insurance for one in five Americans. It covers treatment for 220,000 recovering people with drug disorders, including those who suffer from opioid abuse. It covers 1.6 million patients, mostly women, who get cancer screenings, and STD testing. It covers 64 percent of all nursing home residents. It covers 30 percent of all adults with disabilities. It covers 39 percent of all kids in this country and 60 percent of kids with disabilities.

So if you cut half of Medicaid, which is what a $1.5 trillion cut to Medicaid would include--it would be half of what we spend on Medicaid today--a program that covers 74 million Americans across this country, 38 million Americans would lose their coverage.

No wonder, as Mr. Raskin said, this healthcare bill has had such low approval ratings in the House, and now it is the same bill in the Senate.

Americans understand that whether you live in blue America or red America, whether you live in rural America or urban America, whether you are a man or a woman or a child, whether you are young or old, one of the great things about this country is that we are a country that believes in trying to provide for people when they get sick.

Now, we have been trying to do that for a long time, and until the Obama administration and the Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, we weren't doing that. But in Washington State, my home State, when we passed the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion allowed us to cover an additional 600,000 people across our State. We cut the uninsured rate in half, and we created over 22,000 jobs across the State, including in rural areas.

So what we need to do now is to stop this bill from moving forward because it would be bad for the American people. It is that simple. It is going to kick Grandma out of her nursing home. It is going to stop a kid with asthma from getting an inhaler. It is going to put a premium on being an elder American. If you are an older American, you are going to pay four to five times as much as anybody else. Why? You just have to ask why.

So who benefits from this bill? This bill is a transfer of wealth from middle class Americans to the wealthiest Americans, corporations in this country. So this is about tax cuts for the richest. Sheldon Adelson, who is a Republican donor, casino magnate, he will get, if the Senate bill passes, he will get a $44 million tax cut in 2017 alone.

How are they paying for that? By cutting Medicaid, taking away protections for preexisting conditions, for seniors, for average Americans.

Mr. Speaker, that is just not right. It is not right if you are a Democrat. It is not right if you are a Republican. It is not right if you are an Independent. It is just not right.

And, yes, the President is correct on this point: It is a mean bill. It is mean; it is cruel; it is unjust. And I hope we defeat it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Raskin for his leadership in the House. It has been a great honor to co-chair the CPC Special Order hour here every week on the floor.

Since I have just been elected the first vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, I, unfortunately, won't be continuing to do that. But I am still going to be right here for these Special Order hours, because I do think that they are an important opportunity for Members to talk about issues all at once, and to kind of pick an issue, and then to focus on it.

Obviously, today, we are talking about the testimony from former FBI Director James Comey. This was highly anticipated testimony, and I would be willing to guess that a lot more people, perhaps, even watched the testimony than watched the inauguration. But I think we learned a great deal from former Director Comey. I appreciate that he was willing to come and testify, and he said some very important things.

In that testimony, Mr. Comey confirmed that President Trump sought to influence the FBI investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia, including that of Michael Flynn.

While the President had claimed that he did not ask former Director Comey to drop the investigation, Mr. Comey actually testified under oath that Trump's directive was clear, and that this was apparently so off-putting that he began to memorialize their meetings. Every single meeting he had with President Trump, he would have the meeting and then go back to the car and immediately take notes on the meeting, and that is troubling.

That was something that former Director Comey never did with previous administrations. And one of the things that stuck out to me in his testimony is that he had actually asked--he felt so uncomfortable with the interactions that he was having with the President, because I think the American people need to understand, the FBI is built to be an independent organization.

The reason that the term of the FBI Director is 10 years is because it was a signal from Congress that even though the FBI Director does serve at the pleasure of the President--and Mr. Comey was clear about that in his testimony today--the President has the ability to hire and fire the FBI Director.

But the reason Congress signaled through legislation that the term of the FBI Director should be 10 years was because they wanted to send a signal that this body is incredibly important, and the independence of this body is incredibly important.

The fact that Mr. Comey, as FBI Director, felt so uncomfortable about these interactions with the President--nine interactions with the President. I think he had only two interactions with President Obama during his entire term, and yet, in just the first few months, he had nine interactions with President Trump. He actually asked Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein not to leave him alone with the President.

That is really a remarkable, scary thing that he would have to ask for that, and it certainly should have raised some red flags and should have triggered some action from the Attorney General, or the Deputy Attorney General. It did not. He never received an answer to that.

Mr. Comey also said that he expects the special counsel's investigation to look into the possibility that Trump's actions were an obstruction of justice. He said that this did fall within the investigation scope. So while he didn't directly say that Trump was directly under investigation, he did say that the President's behavior does fall within the investigation's scope.

That, frankly, does nothing to dispel any concerns that are out there amongst the American people, and many of us in Congress, that President Trump's campaign did not collude with Russia.

Apparently, he did not seem particularly concerned about whether or not Russia did interfere in the elections but was more interested in whether or not his circle of friends, Michael Flynn, was under threat.

Former Director Comey also confirmed that Michael Flynn is under criminal investigation, and he raised more questions about Attorney General Jeff Sessions. As I have spoken about on the floor before, Attorney General Sessions should not have been involved in the firing of James Comey in the first place.

He had recused himself from all things related to the investigation into the campaign's ties to Russia because of his involvement with the Trump campaign, and so that was good. We thought that was a very good move that he made to recuse himself, but then he immediately went and was directly involved in the decisionmaking around the person who was leading the investigation, in fact, involved in the decision to fire the person who was leading the investigation.

Mr. Comey also hinted that Jeff Sessions had more contact with the Russians than maybe we even knew about. He could not speak to that in a public setting. He said that is for a classified setting, but, obviously, that raises a lot more questions, and the American people certainly deserve the truth.

One of the biggest takeaways from the testimony was this: President Trump gave many changing reasons as to why former Director Comey was fired. And former Director Comey spoke to this today. He said, at first, it was because it was the handling--it was because of Comey's handling of the Clinton emails. Then it was that he had lost the support of the FBI agents, something that James Comey responded to, and said: ``Those were lies, plain and simple.''

Actually, Mr. Comey spent quite some time really acknowledging the work of the organization, the FBI organization, and the agents, and everything that he has done. I certainly got the impression that he felt very deeply upset by any indication that perhaps it was because his agents didn't want him to be there.

What Mr. Comey pointed to is that eventually the President, in his own words, admitted that he fired James Comey over the Russian investigation, and then, right after that, actually said to the Russians that the pressure has now been taken off now that Comey has been fired. Those are all incredibly disturbing.

And I am sad, Mr. Speaker, that the Republicans--some Republican colleagues, not all, but some--have tried to dismiss the President's actions as ``mistakes made by a new President who is learning how to do his job.'' Speaker Paul Ryan went so far as to say: ``He is new at government. Therefore, I think he is learning as he goes.''

This is just 1 day after the Speaker said that it is obviously--that was his word--not appropriate for the President to ask for Mr. Comey's loyalty. So which one is it, Mr. Speaker? It is unacceptable to excuse the President's actions simply because he is not a career professional, especially when we are talking about something of this magnitude--the magnitude of interference in our election process in the United States of America by a foreign government.

We do not have any information still about all of the ways in which a President of the United States, this President of the United States, may be indebted to some foreign government because of their actions with the election.

It has been repeatedly reported that the President does not sit for briefings, does not read the reports that are provided to him, does not stick to speeches on policies that are written for him, and, frankly, shows very little interest in participating in the administrative responsibilities that most Presidents go through in order to learn what is a very big job.

Yes, the job of the President of the United States is a very big job, and anybody who gets into that job, just as I do in this body as a new Member of Congress, we try to learn the rules. We go to the people who know the most. We ask them to give us briefings. We suck up as much information as we possibly can so that we understand both content and process.

But, unfortunately, this President has not done any of that, and he has made many unforced errors. Frankly, he has put our national security at risk by giving secrets away to Russia, insulting key allies who have now said that they won't share information with us because they don't trust that we are going to be able to keep it secret.

NATO and our allies in the European Union, where I just came back from, everybody around the world is unsure of what leadership, if any, to expect from the United States of America.

Angela Merkel said it the best when she said: We can't rely on anybody else anymore. And she said: We, as a European Union, have to just come together and rely on ourselves.

And while that is great for the European Union, I am glad that there is something that has happened here that has drawn the European Union together. It is an incredibly important entity for the world and has been doing remarkable work. But what I would hope, Mr. Speaker, is that countries around the world know that the United States is going to continue to take global leadership, is going to continue to demonstrate that global leadership, and, most of all, is going to be trusted to make relationships and respect the rules of those relationships.

The American people are aware that the President's background is not in politics. However, the White House is not ``The Apprentice.'' Had a new employee in The Trump Organization made as many errors as have been made in this administration, he would have been fired a long time ago.

The American people deserve better. And not only do we demand that the President not intervene in any negative way in Director Mueller's investigation--and we are very pleased that Director Mueller has been appointed. I believe that was an incredibly important step that Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took to appoint somebody with the credibility that Mueller has--but we hope that this investigation will continue, because I think it is important for the American people to understand that this is not an independent investigator, or prosecutor. This is special counsel.

So that still means that anything that Director Mueller finds in his findings, his reports, they do get run up the chain of command at the Department of Justice. So if you watched yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, you might have seen Senator Kamala Harris discuss this and ask Rod Rosenstein if he could assure that there really would be independence, that neither Rosenstein nor Jeff Sessions would get involved in trying to change or influence, in any way, whatever Director Mueller comes up with.

She was not given that assurance yesterday, unfortunately, and so we still don't know. But we have to hope and believe that the President and this administration will preserve the independence of the special counsel and will take all of the findings and the recommendations as to what they are presented and not try to change them.

I really believe, Mr. Speaker, at this point, that while the special counsel is an important step forward, I join my colleague Mr. Raskin and many others in this caucus, in our Democratic Caucus, in calling for a special commission, an independent commission, similar to the 9/ 11 Commission, filled with citizens--not with Members of Congress but with respected citizens--and people with expertise, as well as those citizens, to actually come together and think not only about the immediate impact of how we get to the bottom of what has happened, but, really, how do we prevent this going forward?

What we are talking about is the sanctity of our democracy; we are talking about whether our elections can be free of influence from other countries; we are talking about if an American citizen casts a vote here in the United States for the President of the United States, that that vote is not being influenced by a foreign government who has hacked our elections, or worked in collusion with a campaign for the President of the United States; and that ultimately, whoever we select, whether it is this President or any President in the future, that that President must be responsible to the American people.

That is what democracy is about. We don't want any President, now or in the future, to ever be in a situation where there is information that can be used against them, where they could be blackmailed, leveraged, or where they are actively colluding with any government outside of this country.

These are our elections. It is what makes this country great. It is why so many people from all around the world look at America with tremendous gratitude, with tremendous respect, even awe for the way in which we have constructed our democracy. That is part of what goes on in this Chamber, and we need to know that the election of the President of this great country is always an election that the American people have faith in, and that democracy is preserved.

Mr. Speaker, I think what James Comey's testimony showed us today is, we got a lot of answers, but we didn't get enough answers. There is still more information that we need to find. There is more information that the Senate Intelligence Committee needs to find. There is more information that the President may have to provide, and there is more information that the American people are going to demand in order to ensure that we get to the bottom of where we are, that we get an independent commission established, and that we allow Director Mueller, in his investigation, to proceed without any interference.

That is the least that we have to be willing to do, and we have to be willing to put country above party as we try to ensure that we understand exactly what has happened. The American people deserve that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. This bill will have a devastating impact on the ability of regulators to protect everyday Americans from future wrongdoing on Wall Street.

If you support consumers, you must oppose the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. If you want to make sure that consumers have a fighting chance against those big banks and against illegal practices, then you must oppose the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act, because this act guts the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In nearly 6 years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has returned nearly $12 billion to 29 million Americans hurt by illegal financial practices, reduced $7.7 billion in consumer debts while winning $3.7 billion in compensation for consumers, and it has benefited nearly 50 million households in the form of new protections shielding consumers from surprise costs in terms on their mortgages and their credit cards.

Now, at a time when we have a student loan crisis in this country, $1.4 trillion in student debt, we have to make sure that we are protecting families, students, and young people around these predatory debt collection practices and all working families around predatory lending.

My home State of Washington was proud to work with the CFPB on those new regulations that would actually protect working people, make sure that they have off-ramps if they get into predatory loans and make sure that we regulate that industry.

The benefits of Dodd-Frank are not limited just to consumers, by the way. Big and small banks have benefited: lending is at record highs, and 2016 data from the FDIC shows that those banks are doing pretty well.

The financial crisis, which destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth and wreaked havoc on the financial lives of millions of families, was not a random event.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission itself said that widespread failures in financial regulation and rampant predatory lending practices were key drivers of the crisis. This bill ignores those lessons and takes us so far backwards, Mr. Speaker.

Real people are struggling to recover from that 2008 crisis, still, and instead of rolling back protections for consumers, we should be investing in jobs for everyday Americans. We should be making sure that the guy on Main Street or the woman on Main Street has a chance against those big banks and against all those predatory practices.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support consumers and working Americans and to oppose the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly believe that crimes against children are particularly egregious. It is our duty as members of Congress to do everything we can to prevent these crimes and hold offenders accountable. However, I felt compelled to vote against H.R. 1842, H.R. 1862, and H.R. 1761, as each of these flawed bills would increase the application of mandatory minimum sentences in the U.S. criminal justice system. Judges already have the ability to impose harsh sentences in these cases as they see fit. Mandatory minimum sentences make it impossible for judges to take context or circumstance into consideration, which eliminates judicial discretion and compromises the futures of those at the hands of our justice system. Mandatory minimums create a glaring disproportionality between crime and according punishment and subsequently expand prison populations, strain resources and structures of support, and disproportionately impact communities of color. Because of my stance on this issue and my steadfast resolve to fight any expansion of mandatory minimum sentences, I have voted against each of these bills. I remain committed

to protecting our children and doing everything in my power to prevent crimes against children from happening, but expanding mandatory minimums is not the answer. I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle as we continue to pursue critical reforms to the criminal justice system.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee). She has been such a champion on progressive issues for so long. Barbara Lee still speaks for me across the country.

Mr. Speaker, it is my great honor to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), who has also been a leader in the Progressive Caucus on so many issues, from the death penalty to immigration to healthcare.

Again, I am very pleased as the Congressional Progressive Caucus to be able host a Special Order every week. We pick a different topic every week, for those of you that are just beginning to listen. This week we want to focus attention on what we believe are some of the most serious and pressing issues facing our country today around the Trump administration's ties to Russia, around the firing of James Comey, and the many, many issues that have come forward over the last several months, but certainly in the last week.

Since last Tuesday, we have borne witness to a slew of alarming events within the White House and the Department of Justice. Last Tuesday afternoon, we received word that the President had fired FBI Director James Comey from his position.

That position, by the way, is a 10-year term. Congress designated it as a 10-year term specifically to ensure that we could protect any administration and the entire country against any conflict of interest that may come up. Obviously, that did not convince the President that he should keep Director Comey.

So we heard that he fired him. It seems as if each morning we wake up to a barrage of firings, tweets, or untruths that continue to erode the public's confidence in our democracy.

So what do we know today? Certainly, we don't know enough, but we do know that the President fired Director Comey under the guise of being unsatisfied with how he handled Secretary Hillary Clinton's email investigation.

But if that were the case, then why didn't he fire him months ago? Why now? Why did he choose to meet with Russian officials the day after firing Mr. Comey?

Mr. Trump's attempts to use Clinton's emails to divert attention from Comey's investigation into the campaign's ties to Russia are, unfortunately, very disingenuous, and I think that they are proving to be unsuccessful.

Despite his claims that Mr. Comey was not investigating him, the President must have been concerned about what Director Comey would find because the firing, interestingly, came just days after Director Comey had requested additional resources for the investigation.

White House officials attempted at first to say that the blame for the firing was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's fault. They said it was at his recommendation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions weighed in on that decision as well. But, in fact, shortly after, the President went on television and said that, no, this was his decision regardless of what had been proposed, this is where he was going to be.

On Wednesday, just 1 day after firing then-Director Comey, the President welcomed the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov; and the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, into the Oval Office for a closed press meeting. Let's not forget that Kislyak met with former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn during the campaign, a meeting that Flynn then lied about. I think this is very important because there were a number of Trump administration or Trump campaign officials that met with Russian officials over the course of many months before the election.

Those meetings in and of themselves are not a problem. The problem, however, is that these individuals continued to lie about those meetings, and that makes you wonder: What fire is there where the smoke is? Why would they lie about these things?

We certainly don't know that. We have been unable to get the transcripts of that conversation because the President has not been willing to release them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is more willing to make that information public than our own President, but I find it outrageous that President Putin would actually propose to be sort of the backup of this information for the President. We are not looking to President Putin to provide corroboration of these meetings. We actually need an independent ability to look at the facts of this case.

On Monday, the news exploded with reports that the President released highly classified information to Lavrov and Kislyak during their discussion at the White House. This is extremely alarming. It is true that the President has the right to declassify any information, but the information that was shared was so sensitive that the United States had not even shared it with our allies. The President's decision to divulge that information to foreign officials--particularly Russian officials with whom our relationship is contentious at best--is dangerous and reckless.

There is no doubt in my mind that this will hinder our ability to build international coalitions to actually be able to share information with allies who provide that classified information to us with the understanding that we are going to protect that and guard that. Should any classified information then be declassified for some reason, it is done in consultation with the country that provided that information and with national security advisors. None of that happened in this situation.

President Trump also tweeted during the campaign that Hillary Clinton and her team were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive and highly classified information. So this seems like a particular irony. The President claimed that Hillary Clinton's lack of ability to handle classified information actually made her unfit to be President.

Speaker Paul Ryan said this: ``It is simple: Individuals who are `extremely careless' with classified information should be denied further access to it.''

Reince Priebus, Trump's Chief of Staff, took it one step further, saying: ``Those who mishandled classified info have had their sec clearances revoked, lost their jobs, faced fines, and even been sent to prison.''

So this is a situation that we have to take extremely seriously.

Before we could even fully engage and vet that news, however, reports then came out that President Trump had actually asked FBI Director James

Comey to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn. According to sources close to Comey, this request came just 1 day after Michael Flynn was fired. This is truly a new low. If this is true--and we are trying to get to the bottom of this--it would absolutely constitute an obstruction of justice. The President has put obstacle after obstacle in the way of any real investigation that gives us the information that we need to protect our national security and the American people.

In the 118 days since the Trump Presidency began, it has been scandal after scandal. The latest events have escalated this crisis to an even higher level. As I mentioned, the FBI Director serves a 10-year term specifically in order to be able to carry out these independent investigations free of partisanship or political pressure. The firing of James Comey and the fact that he was asked by the President for loyalty--again, this is apparently in Director Comey's memo, which we hope to be able to see--and to abandon the investigation against Michael Flynn are extremely serious offenses. They hurt our democracy and they hurt our country.

The President has tried to distract us time and time again, but we actually know that the American people deserve better. History smiles kindly on those who stand up and put country over party and on those who ensure that in the darkest of times and the most difficult of times, the times when we face a constitutional crisis, where our Nation wonders what direction we are going in, the times when we know that the need to preserve the institutions of democracy and justice are most necessary, those are the times when we need people to speak out on both sides of the aisle for the facts, for the truth, and for democracy.

This should not be a partisan issue. We are seeing that starting to emerge from our colleagues across the aisle. I commend those Republicans who have begun to ask for information, documents, and hearings; and I hope that more of my colleagues will join us in the pursuit of truth and in the pursuit of justice.

Last night we received news that Robert Mueller, who is the former FBI Director, has been appointed as special counsel for the investigation into the Trump campaign's ties with Russia. This is an extremely distinguished man. He has served the country with tremendous success and loyalty, and we are hopeful that Mr. Mueller will diligently investigate the allegations against Michael Flynn and other members of the Trump campaign with veracity and free from political influence. However, we still maintain that an independent commission is necessary because a special counsel answers to the Attorney General, who can then overrule decisions that they make or even fire them at any time. So the appointment of Robert Mueller is a good first step, but it cannot be the last.

Director Mueller will still be in the chain of command under the Trump-appointed leadership of the Justice Department. He cannot take the place of a truly independent outside commission that is free from Trump's meddling.

I think that is why it is so important that we all join in signing the discharge petition that was introduced yesterday by my colleagues, Representative Swalwell and Representative Cummings, who is the ranking member on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. This discharge petition would essentially allow for a bill to move forward that would establish an independent commission that we could truly trust to seek justice. The commission would interview witnesses, would obtain documents, would issue subpoenas, and would receive public testimony in order to examine whether or not the Russian Government did, in fact, interfere with U.S. elections and how they carried that out.

This is a really crucial step to take because it is not only about the short term and the immediacy of what is in front of us--extremely important, the commission would deal with that as well--but it is also about how do we ensure that these things don't happen again? What did happen, first of all, and how do we make sure that we continue to protect our democracy in the face of what 17 independent intelligence agencies said, which is that the Russians hacked our election in the United States?

There is a lot we need to understand. We need the special counsel, but we also need this independent citizen commission not made up of Members of Congress, but appointed by the House and the Senate leaders of both parties in equal numbers so that we could actually have people who look at this from the perspective of all of America and not tainted by even the vestiges or the appearance of party.

Apparently when President Trump heard that special counsel had been named, he laughed out loud, saying that this is ``the greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.''

No, Mr. President, we are seeking the truth. As the American people have shown us, they are not backing down, and we will continue to fight for this truth.

Now, in that vein, I also wanted to mention that my colleague, Representative Raskin, and I actually introduced a package of bills that we are calling the Trump transparency package. It is because we really believe that the American people deserve better. We believe that the American people deserve from us transparency. So what this package will do is, first, it will clearly forbid government officials from accepting anything of value from foreign governments in exchange for an official act. It would prohibit government employees from using their positions to further the financial interests of the President. It would ensure that the President's press pool continues to exist so that the American people receive honest answers, and it would require the President and his family to publicly report any foreign business deals that exceed $10,000.

These are simple steps. They are not egregious and they are not outrageous. They would apply to anyone. They are not partisan. They are about transparency and accountability so that we know that the President of the United States and that others in government are actually accountable to the American people--not to their financial interests, not to their bank accounts, not to their stock portfolios, not to their hotels and golf courses, but to the American people. We have to hold every administration--and certainly this one--accountable. So now, more than ever, it is our moral duty to defend the Constitution, and this bill package goes a step in the right direction.

So I hope that all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would actually cosponsor the Trump transparency package with us so that we can continue to fight for the American people, for democracy, and for the notion that America is willing to question itself and for the notion that America is willing to always put our hands on that moral arc of the universe to push it more quickly towards justice.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize National Infrastructure Week.

In my first few months in Congress, I made it a priority to meet with elected officials from every municipality and jurisdiction in my Washington State congressional district. I met with them to understand their critical transportation and infrastructure needs. Today I am releasing a report on those needs.

I am proud that my district continues to draw in more and more people and that we have assets like a natural deep water port that facilitates commerce from across our State.

Unfortunately, between 1990 and 2015, as our State's population increased by 45 percent, Seattle has now got the second worst evening rush hour traffic in the country. We have failed to invest in our infrastructure.

This administration made promises but has done nothing to actually fulfill those promises to invest in infrastructure and to ensure that our country actually moves forward. Instead, it has just been lurching from crisis to crisis.

Investing in infrastructure is not only essential, it creates jobs. I intend to do everything I can to make sure that I fight for my district's priorities and to ensure that Congress invests in our infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Frederick Van Hoose, Executive Director of the Northwest Field Office of SourceAmerica, who is retiring after 40 years of service.

Mr. Van Hoose grew up in the agricultural heartland of eastern Washington, where he learned at a young age the value of honest work. He also came to understand work as a social connection--an activity that, in bringing people together for a common purpose, validates our collective worth and impact on each other. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Central Washington University and his MBA from City University of Seattle, Mr. Van Hoose built a career centered on the needs of persons living with disabilities. As an executive manager at Provident Industries in Yakima, Washington, and Northwest Center Industries in Seattle, he developed employment opportunities that increased the quality of life for hundreds of workers with disabilities.

In March 1997, Mr. Van Hoose secured a position as an Operations Manager with National Industries for the Severely Handicapped--now SourceAmerica--a non-profit agency that works through the provisions of the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act to facilitate meaningful employment for persons living with disabilities. Mr. Van Hoose has helped scores of non-profit agencies build business systems to expand their capacity to compete for contracts, and he has worked with Federal procurement professionals to find contracting solutions that enhanced the double bottom line: quality services and products for a fair price, while supporting access to employment for persons living with disabilities.

During his tenure with SourceAmerica, Mr. Van Hoose has served as a model of the selfless spirit and inspired leadership that has helped the program grow to employ many individuals living with the full range of disabling conditions, including many wounded warriors. Mr. Van Hoose's dedication to enhancing the lives of Americans living with disabilities extends to his personal life, as he serves as guardian to a man living with a severe disability.

For his years of dedicated service, it is appropriate to express our deep appreciation for Frederick Van Hoose's long and exceptional career and his outstanding volunteer service, and to wish him well on his retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for leading and for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, let's be very clear about where we are with TrumpCare 2.0.

This bill still strips 24 million Americans of health care, cuts $880 billion from Medicaid, and increases premiums for the majority of Americans. It still has an age tax if you are 50 to 64 years old, and cuts maternity care and coverage for substance abuse disorders.

It still gives $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest millionaires, billionaires, and corporations on the backs of working people who will pay more and get less.

TrumpCare 2.0 adds insult to injury because my Republican colleagues would like you to believe that they are going to cover preexisting conditions. That is just not true.

American people, be clear: this will not cover preexisting conditions, and 133 million Americans with those preexisting conditions will suffer. There are kids like James Kish, an 8-year-old in my district who has a brain tumor and literally stands to die if this bill passes.

Mr. Speaker, hundreds across this country are calling our offices and weeping. We should all weep that this bill is coming to the floor. We should vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill, H.R. 1180, the Working Families Flexibility Act.

There is nothing in this bill that provides any flexibility to working families. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we all seem to have names for this bill, but mine is that it should be called the employer flexibility act because that is what it really does. It gives employers flexibility to not pay for time worked. It is a smoke-and-mirrors promise that ultimately helps employers but hurts workers.

The choice between overtime pay and comp time is a false choice for workers, Mr. Speaker. We know what happens in the reality of the workplace. The vague promise of time off in the future is often never realized, and many hourly workers may feel compelled by employers to forfeit their overtime pay to accept comp time.

Workers do need more flexibility, more money, and more control over their lives, but this bill is a cruel joke on workers. At a time when America's working families are strapped for both time and money, this bill takes time away from families and offers them less money in every paycheck. In the end, there is no guarantee that employers will let their employees take the time off when they need it.

Here is the story of Camilla, from my home State of Washington. This is what she wrote:

It was my first job out of college. I was given comp time

in lieu of overtime pay. I worked so much overtime that, in

just over 6 months' time, I had accrued 2 weeks of comp

time. When I scheduled my time off, I was told I could not

take the time off, as I had not worked there for a full

year. I had already purchased airfare. I ended up quitting

my job.

zMr. Speaker, I urge our Republican majority to go back to the table and return with legislation that provides real flexibility to American families: raise the minimum wage; ensure that hourly workers have paid sick leave; make sure that families don't suffer from pay discrimination. That is what the American people expect us to be working on. Not false choices in the name of flexibility.

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

Mr. Speaker, this Special Order is for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and I am so proud to be a vice chair of that caucus and to lead the Special Order hour with my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).

We do this once a week, and we try to take up topics that we think are of great interest across the country to our constituency. So I am very proud to have the Congressional Progressive Caucus leading the way on so many issues that are important, from education to transportation, infrastructure to, of course, today's topic, which is the tax plan that was released yesterday by President Trump.

The tax plan that was released yesterday--and I have to start by saying I am not sure this is actually the plan. I am not sure that a one-page document constitutes a plan. This is not even a two-sided document. It is a one-sided document. This is what we are reacting to. And it is similar to the tax plan that candidate Trump spoke about during the campaign.

So we will do our best with what has been put forward as a plan, but this plan, in our estimation, when you look at what it contains, really amounts to nothing more than a one-page document full of handouts to the rich.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, yesterday said, during a press conference, that one thing that this President has done very well--this is a quote: ``One thing this President has done very well is listen.''

Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with that. Two weekends ago, there were 190,000 Americans in red States and blue States across the country who were on the streets asking for the President to release his tax returns in the same way that every other President of the United States has done in modern history. Unfortunately, this President has not listened. As a candidate, he said he would release his tax returns. As a President, he has refused to do so.

He didn't listen when women and their allies took to the streets in the biggest march in American history to demand that he respect women, protect Planned Parenthood, and support equal rights for women.

And this President certainly didn't listen to the millions of Americans who were outspoken in their opposition to the Republican healthcare plan that essentially took $1 trillion off of the backs of working people and folks who need health care across this country and transferred it to the wealthiest in our country.

The reality is this President, unfortunately, has not been listening to the American people. If you look at that healthcare plan, just as an example, only 17 percent of the American public actually supported TrumpCare. This President has not been listening, to now put forward another plan on health care that again suggests that we should actually take away essential health benefits from people, take away the opportunity for people to have preexisting conditions covered, and, once again, leaving an additional 24 million Americans stripped of their health care.

So in this tax press conference yesterday, it became very clear that the administration doesn't have really an idea of exactly what the plan is going to look like, except for the fact that it will be good for business.

Secretary Mnuchin said:

``Under the Trump plan, we will have a massive tax cut for businesses. . . .''

Despite all of President Trump's broken promises, we have to believe that this may actually be true. Let's not forget that the Secretary of the Treasury was a C-level executive at Goldman Sachs and his loyalties have been with Big Business.

The tax plan, as we have been given it on this one-page document, is a gift-wrapped tax cut to the highest earners and corporations. The claim is that it was written to create jobs and spur economic growth and help low- and middle-income families, but what it really does is drastically reduce tax rates for Big Business to just 15 percent. That tax break isn't just for cooperations; it is also for pass-through firms.

Let's be clear about what pass-through firms are. Pass-through firms are entities that wealthy people and companies use in order to funnel money and have lower tax rates. Among these companies is The Trump Organization.

This is why, in asking for the President's tax returns, this is not just an ask that doesn't have any meaning. It is not a partisan ask. We have 190,000 Americans in the streets in red States and blue States asking. When we know what is in the President's tax returns, then we have the ability to make sure that we understand, as the American people, whether any plan he proposes is in the interest of the American people or whether it is in his own financial interest.

According to the Center for American Progress, 70 percent of partnership and S corporation income goes to the top 1 percent of U.S. households by income. So when you propose a tax cut for these pass- through entities, we are talking about a tax cut for the people in the top 1 percent of this country. We are not talking about a tax cut that benefits middle class, working families.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provided a specific example where a lawyer making $1 million a year could funnel their income through that pass-through and could actually save $180,000 a year. There is no doubt that this President would himself benefit from this tax plan, although we can't say exactly how much, because we haven't seen the tax returns and we don't know exactly which financial interests he has and how much he would benefit.

However, his own lawyers reported that nearly all of his 500 or so businesses are--don't be surprised--pass-throughs. If we accept this assertion from his lawyers that his assets are worth more than $10 billion, then this tax plan or tax ploy, depending on how you want to see it, would actually save the President of the United States millions of dollars, but it would not benefit millions of working families across this country who actually need to see our tax system reform so that it is more fair.

When asked how these tax cuts were paid for, Secretary Mnuchin said they would be so effective at bolstering the economy that it would pay for itself. Now, we have seen trickle-down economics before in this country, and it is a nonsensical idea that this tax plan would bolster the economy. We have seen the disastrous effects of trickle-down economics specifically on low-income and middle-income families.

The Tax Foundation estimates that reducing the business rate for companies and pass-throughs to 15 percent would actually reduce revenue in this country by $3.5 trillion over 10 years. They also found that, at the very best, the plan would only spur enough growth to pay for less than half the cost of the tax cuts. Low-and middle-income Americans would ultimately pay the price, not Big Business.

Now, this is similar to what we saw in the healthcare plan. In the healthcare plan, if you remember, what we saw was a proposal to cut $880 billion from Medicaid and take that money and essentially give a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest. So if you were in the top 4 percent of income earners in this country, you would have gotten a tax cut of about $200,000 a year. But if you were in that age that we like to call seniors, between 50 and 64, you would have an age tax and you would have to pay up to $15,000 more on your premiums. So that is why some of my colleagues across the aisle actually called that healthcare plan a downpayment on a tax plan. It was supposed to be the beginning of a tax reform plan that, again, moved more money to the wealthiest in our country.

We are seeing a State-level microcosm of this playing out right now in the State of Kansas where the State passed massive tax cuts, including exempting pass-throughs from State taxes.

The result?

More than 333,000 residents changed their income to funnel through pass-throughs in the first year alone.

What happened in Kansas when this was pushed through?

State revenue went down by an additional almost 2 percent, costing $206 million in 2013 and $472 million the following year.

Today, the State faces a $1.1 billion shortfall, and residents are paying the price in lost programming and services. But the promise that was made at the time that this plan was pushed through in Kansas--the same kind of plan that is being proposed today at the Federal level-- the promise that was made was that it would kick-start the economy. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, that hasn't happened either. Economic growth in Kansas is happening at just half the national average.

Because here is the thing: tax cuts don't just pay for themselves, and there are plenty of experts on both sides of the aisle that will attest to that. A sheet of paper is not a plan, and everyone knows it.

When reporters pressed Secretary Mnuchin and the National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn for details, they failed to provide anything of substance. A reporter asked Cohn three times what the tax cut would look like for a family of four making $60,000 per year.

I have a lot of those families, Mr. Speaker, in my district. I believe we have those families in red States and blue States, working people across this country who believe that America should be and must be a land of opportunity for people who work hard. Maybe they are not the richest people in the world. Maybe they are not the richest top 1 percent in this country. But they work hard, they earn a good living, and they deserve to have fairness in our tax plan.

Now, when Mr. Cohn was asked three times by this reporter what the tax cut would look like for a family of four making $60,000 a year, he replied it is ``gonna mean a tax cut'' three times in a row. Instead of getting answers, though, and when he was pressed, reporters were told over and over again that they would get more information later and that the administration is in ``robust talks.''

Well, I am a Member of the House, and supposedly those robust talks are happening with the House and the Senate. We all represent the people of the United States. We want to all be a part

of the conversation, and we demand to know specifically, as we look at this plan, how this President, his family, and his Cabinet will benefit from the tax plan. That is only fair, Mr. Speaker, that we understand exactly how this tax plan would benefit the person who is proposing the tax plan.

Is this tax plan for the American people to see relief, or is it for the President and his best friends to see relief?

The reality is that this is about an issue of trust. The American people deserve to know whether they can trust this President and this administration to act on their behalf. So far, unfortunately, this administration has continued to throw the middle class under the bus, whether it is threatening to cut funding for Meals on Wheels, which is part of the budget proposal in cutting the CDBG programs, or whether it is in proposing a healthcare plan that cuts vital health care from millions of Americans. So we are intent to stay extremely vigilant.

I see that we have a couple of colleagues from the Progressive Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), a colleague on the Judiciary Committee, a strong champion for working people in Texas and across our country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for eloquently articulating so many of the issues that are in front of us right now, including, once again: What exactly is this administration doing for people across this country, both those who voted for him and those who didn't, but middle class Americans who are trying to make sure that this country stays a land of opportunity?

Mr. Speaker, so the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my distinguished vice chair and co-chair of this Special Order hour, may control the remainder of this hour, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congresswoman so much for her leadership and for her work on all of these issues.

I was listening to the gentlewoman as I came in and thinking that I couldn't agree with the gentlewoman more on, first of all, the need for us to do a lot of work to continue to increase our presence and our ability to really effect policy decisions in the best ways, but also to celebrate the accomplishments of Jeannette Rankin as well as all of the Congress Members that are here.

I am so proud to represent the Seventh District in Seattle. When I ran for the State senate, it was my first run for elective office. I became the only woman of color in the State senate. But our State has traditionally been very strong with women's leadership. We are fortunate to have two women Senators. We have had a woman Governor and a woman mayor of the city of Seattle. So we have, I think, made some strides that have been very important to the well-being and the welfare of our State.

Unfortunately, we have taken some steps backwards in the last couple of years. The numbers of women in legislative office at the State level have gone down, but I do believe that Republican and Democratic women, together, have put together a strong agenda for the things that we care about around families.

I am very pleased to have already worked with one of the members of your caucus across the aisle, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, on a letter around domestic violence victims and the immigration system. I am very pleased about the work that the gentlewoman has championed and that we intend to, together, lead around making sure that families have security for themselves and for their children.

I rise to congratulate the gentlewoman for what the gentlewoman is speaking about today, for the work that the gentlewoman has done, and to say that I remain very committed to trying to find all of the areas where we women, together, can put forward priorities that are important to us.

We do joke that, if they would just turn the keys of all elective office over to women, I think we would get a lot of things done--and no disrespect to our incredible male colleagues who have been right there with us every step of the way. So I am looking forward to this time here in the House of Representatives.

I am proud to also be the first Indian-American woman ever elected to the House of Representatives. I think that as we think about getting women into office, we also should continue our work on making sure that women of color enter elective office and that the representation of people here in this great Chamber that we are so honored to serve in reflects the representation that we have across the country of women, of people of color, of African Americans--as the gentlewoman mentioned in her speech--of immigrants, and, actually, of people who have been born outside of the United States. I think I am one of just about a dozen Members of Congress who were not born in the United States but have the great honor and privilege of becoming a United States citizen and now serving in this great body where only 11,000 or so people have served before in the history of our country.

So I thank the gentlewoman again for her leadership. I look forward to working with the gentlewoman. I appreciate her yielding in her Special Order hour. Hopefully, it is a great symbol of the things we can do together.

Not on Foreign Affairs, unfortunately, but we work on immigration issues together.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from Maryland (Mr.

Raskin). It has been such a pleasure since coming to Congress--and it seems difficult to believe that it has been almost 3 months--but it has been such a pleasure to co-lead this Special Order hour with the gentleman and to really bring to the public all of the issues that we feel are so important in the Progressive Caucus, issues that have ranged from the issue we are talking about now with the Supreme Court nomination, to issues around health care, immigration, the Muslim ban, and many others.

I think that the vision that we are trying to make sure people understand for the Progressive Caucus and certainly for Democrats is a vision of inclusion, a vision that respects the rights of everybody, regardless of what gender you are, regardless of what race or religion you might be.

This moment is, in fact, very important. Tomorrow, Senate Republicans will attempt to push through President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. I stand with my colleague, Mr. Raskin, and with our other Democratic colleagues in the Senate who are opposing this nomination because I truly believe that confirming Neil Gorsuch to this position would be a devastating backslide for numerous communities.

I want to go through some of the communities that would be affected and how. Women, people of color, people living with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ community will have to wonder if the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is going to systematically remove their protections and strip them of their rights.

Unfortunately, Neil Gorsuch, though an accomplished justice in his own right, does have a track record of doing that throughout his judicial career. So this isn't as simple as saying: Well, you blocked our nominee; therefore, we are going to block your nominee.

No. This is about the issues and the refusal he has had to answer some of the questions before the committee.

I did want to reflect briefly on the fact that yesterday was Equal Pay Day. Ninety-four days into the year, Equal Pay Day symbolizes the amount of extra time that it takes for a woman to earn the same amount as a man. We have got to work--I see the heads nodding up there in the Chamber--extra hard for an additional 3 months and some days in order to earn the same wages as a man.

When you break it down by race, the gap widens even further. Black women working full time year round only earn 63 cents to the dollar. For them, Equal Pay Day comes on July 31. Latina women earn a mere 54 cents, which means that their Equal Pay Day--get this--is November 2.

Over a lifetime, the financial losses that women face due to this gap are immense. On average, a 20-year-old woman will lose $418,000 over the course of her 40-year career. For Black women, they will lose $840,000. Latinas will lose more than $1 million.

Now, why do I bring this up in the context of Judge Gorsuch?

Because I believe that as we mark Equal Pay Day, we need to know that we will have a Supreme Court Justice who will, in fact, crack down on the gender pay gap and enforce the law.

Unfortunately, Judge Gorsuch has a history of prioritizing big business over people. In fact, he has ruled in favor of employers in two-thirds of the employment and labor disputes that have been brought before him on the basis of discrimination. Let's be clear: Equal Pay Day and the situation that women face is about discrimination.

Gorsuch ruled against an African-American man who claimed that he was fired because of racial discrimination in Johnson v. Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

In Poindexter v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of Sequoyah, he ruled against a man who argued that he was demoted because of his political views.

His opinion in Strickland v. UPS was particularly troubling. The court ruled in favor of a female employee who had been discriminated against based on sex. Judge Gorsuch, though, wrote a dissenting opinion, despite the fact that the woman's male colleagues testified that she was required to attend counseling sessions while they were not, even though she was out performing them.

The court ruled in her favor, but, again, Judge Gorsuch, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, went out of his way to undermine her.

Perhaps the clearest example of Gorsuch's affinity for big business was his ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which many people across the country may know about. He ruled that private corporations should enjoy the same constitutional protections as people.

Not only are people being told that the money of corporations represents protected speech, but women across this country are being told that those corporations can make decisions about women's health care and their rights to make decisions about their own body. This case sent a clear signal that Judge Gorsuch is no friend of women's reproductive rights.

It isn't a surprise, frankly, that this President chose him, because he does fit right into this administration's all-out assault that we have seen since the beginning of this Congress on women's rights to make decisions about their bodies and their health care.

Judge Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion arguing that the Affordable Care Act forced employers to violate their religious beliefs by providing birth control. It is our right to choose whether and when we want to have families. But rather than coming to the conclusion that corporations should be required to allow women to make their own healthcare decisions, Judge Gorsuch made it very clear that he stands with big business and against women's rights.

His appointment is a deep threat to something that I have appreciated my whole life and that women before me have fought for so hard. His appointment is a threat to Roe v. Wade, which has protected women's rights to abortion access.

Trump has said many times that he intended to appoint a Justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade. While being questioned in his confirmation hearing, Judge Gorsuch sidestepped all of the questions on this issue, but his views are obvious. He has questioned and argued against the legal foundation of a woman's right to choose, and he has been critical of the decisions of Roe v. Wade's and its reliance on the right to privacy and the substantive due process rationale.

That is unacceptable. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and it has helped save the lives of millions of women across our country. We need to make sure that we protect that right to choose and continue to allow abortion access in this country.

Judge Gorsuch has also taken actions that signal his support for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Of course, we remember the doctored videos that came out to destroy Planned Parenthood's image. Utah Governor Gary Herbert attempted to defund the organization, but the tenth circuit issued an injunction. Gorsuch stood with the Governor. He even went so far as to push for a rehearing by the full court, without being asked by the Governor. The court refused. Gorsuch issued then a dissenting opinion that relied on the very fallacies that the Governor was pushing.

We cannot afford to have this critical vote on the Supreme Court go to someone who so clearly intends to undermine women's fundamental and constitutional rights.

Judge Gorsuch has also shown that he presents a threat to the LGBT community. In 2005, he wrote that people should rely on the ballot box to achieve marriage equality.

During his confirmation hearing, he was asked about cases that involve LGBT people as a class. This qualification is important because it adds heightened scrutiny. Apparently, Gorsuch was not comfortable with this, because he dodged the question. That is alarming. Our LGBT community does face discrimination at extremely high rates. This is not a speculation; it is fact.

Gorsuch could not even give a straight answer when Senator Dianne Feinstein asked if he agreed with Justice Scalia that there is ``no protection for women or gays or lesbians under the equal protection law.''

With States around the country attempting to pass discriminatory bills, it is crucial that we have a Supreme Court Justice who will apply that heightened scrutiny.

Finally, people living with disabilities are also fearful of this appointment and the possibility that Judge

Gorsuch might be our next Supreme Court Justice.

In Luke P., a case involving a severely autistic student, Judge Gorsuch ruled that a State can provide an education offering minimal educational progress to students with disabilities.

Rather than requiring States to fulfill their responsibilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Judge Gorsuch was satisfied with putting a student's learning potential at severe risk. In the middle of his confirmation hearing, the current Supreme Court unanimously overruled his decision.

What does that say about his judgment? Do we want a Supreme Court who gets it wrong on so many issues?

Judge Gorsuch should not be appointed to the Supreme Court. The fact that Senate Republicans are threatening the nuclear option if Democrats filibuster his appointment is just terrifying. It would have long- lasting consequences, and it is inappropriate to select a man for this key position to the United States Supreme Court who makes decisions about so many issues that affect all Americans across our country.

It is not right that they would make that on a purely partisan ideological basis. There should be a 60-vote threshold. We should make sure that they understand that, if they do this and they go to the nuclear option, it will have long-lasting consequences for them in their districts, in their offices, and also for the entire country.