Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was the last day of the session of the General Assembly in Maryland.

Sadly, the day before, on Sunday, the longest serving speaker of the house of delegates--as we call our house of representatives--died on Sunday, and I rise to pay tribute to him.

He was a great American, a great public servant, and a very dear friend.

Maryland lost a champion. Michael Busch, Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates, passed away after a long and distinguished career serving the people of our State.

He was young; he was 72 years of age, and the longest serving speaker, as I said, in the history of the house of delegates.

He had served as speaker of the house since 2003, having first been elected to represent Anne Arundel County in the house of delegates in 1986.

His title was Mr. Speaker; many, however, knew him as ``Coach,'' a reminder of his days as a teacher and athletics coach at St. Mary's High School in Annapolis.

It was at St. Mary's High School that Michael Busch first made a name for himself as a very excellent football player. He later played at Temple University, and for 40 years, he worked with the Anne Arundel County, Department of Parks and Recreation with young people, teaching them, mentoring them, giving them values.

Many who served with him in the legislature called him ``Coach,'' not just because of his history, but because Speaker Busch was like a coach and a mentor to so many of those who served in the house of delegates.

He was a man of deep intellect, poise, steadiness under pressure, and a wellspring of compassion.

He led efforts to expand access to quality, affordable healthcare for Marylanders. He helped lead efforts to make Maryland one of the first States to adopt marriage equality by legislative action, an action that was later confirmed by the voters of our State.

He led the State in its effort to abolish the death penalty, and he oversaw the enactment of Maryland's $15 minimum wage. And he worked hard to ensure a cleaner Chesapeake Bay and its watershed for future generations while increasing investments in renewable energy.

Earlier this week, the General Assembly overrode the Governor's veto to enact Speaker Busch's bill to protect five oyster sanctuaries in the Bay.

Michael Busch's positive impact on Maryland will be felt for, literally, decades to come.

He was a good and decent person who sought to elevate our politics during an age when too many, unlike him, had brought our politics low.

I hope my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, would join me in expressing our condolences to his wife, Cindy, their daughters, Erin and Megan, and to the entire Busch family and to the people of Maryland he served so faithfully for so many years.

I hope all of us in this House will find inspiration in Speaker Busch's life and legacy as we strive to do right by those we serve, as he did for so many years, and to do so together in a way that is bipartisan, as was his inclination and performance; and be reflective of the way he lived his life and approached the work of governing.

In an age where, as I said, politics has been brought low by divisiveness, and in some respects, hatefulness and attacks on one another, Michael Busch was somebody who treated others with respect, with consideration, and with fairness.

Michael Busch served Maryland well. He served our people well. He will be missed.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Craig) for yielding and I thank my friend, Mr. Meadows, for his comments, for his support of this effort, which is, as he said and as Congresswoman Craig said, very much about giving young people a sense of competition, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of creating a vehicle through their own hands and their own work and their own efforts. So this is a very good effort for us and for young people.

One of my favorite events of the year is the Soap Box Derby.

I am speaking, of course, from experience in terms of our district, which I am going to talk about.

This resolution that has been called up today, along with other members of the region's Congressional delegation, Representatives Connolly, Beyer, and Wexton from Virginia, and David Trone, John Sarbanes, and Anthony Brown from Maryland, and, of course, the Representative of the District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is a big supporter of this, authorizes the use of the Capitol Grounds for the derby.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is my 28th year sponsoring the Soap Box Derby resolution, and I am pleased that it has passed every year unanimously. This is the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby's 78th year.

It will be held on, as has been said, June 15, and we will see soap box racers from ages 8 to 17 compete in three divisions: stock, super stock, and masters.

The winners from each division, as has been said, will each have a chance to compete at the National All-American Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio.

Soap box derbies have been called the greatest amateur racing event in the world.

In America, we have a long tradition of families participating, and many adults carry fond memories with them throughout their lives of having built soap box racers with their parents or other relatives during their childhood.

Soap box derbies are educational, teaching children about sportsmanship, engineering, manufacturing, and leadership.

Many of the racers are sponsored by civic groups, police and fire departments, and service organizations, with members coming out to cheer on their participants.

Several greater Washington soap box champions, as it will not surprise you, I am sure, Mr. Speaker, have come from Maryland's Fifth District in recent years, including the winners from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, and last year, 2018.

So we are really into this and we have some very, very talented young people who are excited about participating, and obviously do well.

Our racers, Mr. Speaker, even won the National Championship in both 2007 and 2008. So the Soap Box Derby is a big deal in the Fifth Congressional District.

Last year, Tyler Jameson from Hollywood, Maryland, won the stock division. His brother Ryan Jameson won ``Best Decorated'' soap box racer in the super stock division. It was decorated as a Maryland flag, which we love very, very much.

Aspen Tomasello from Waldorf, Maryland, which I represent, won in super stock and then went on to win third place at the National All- American Soap Box Derby race in Akron.

Kenny Tomasello, her brother, prevailed in the masters division and took fifth place in Akron.

I have a lot of confidence in our Fifth District folks, and, Mr. Speaker, you can imagine I would be in a lot of trouble if this resolution didn't pass allowing them to compete in this wonderful event.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the organizers of the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby as well as the cosponsors of this resolution, and in particular, Congresswoman Craig and Congressman Meadows for their support and help in getting this passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is a fun event, but it is also a great event to teach young people values and participation and competition.

Mr. Speaker, I have taken no backseat to my support for Israel for half a century. I rise in opposition to this cynical, political ploy.

We are about to vote on a resolution concerning U.S. involvement in the conflict in Yemen and how to promote an end to a humanitarian crisis in a country that threatens the lives of 22 million people. They are hungry. They are displaced. They are scarred by a war and violence. This resolution is about them and about what we as a nation can do to put a stop to that conflict.

The gentleman is incorrect. The gentleman did not tell us the truth. This kills this resolution.

In an effort to prevent Congress from taking action on such an important issue, however, House Republicans are trying to make this a vote about something else; and in doing so, they risk undermining the long history of bipartisan consensus supporting our ally, Israel.

How shameful. How sad.

The American people will not be fooled or misled by this tactic. Our fellow supporters of Israel will not be fooled. No one can accuse me of failing to defend the U.S.-Israel partnership and strongly opposing

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Scalise, for yielding. I also thank him for not mentioning the LSU-Maryland game one more time.

We are both lamenting that fact.

On Monday, Madam Speaker, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning- hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. On Thursday and Friday, no votes are expected in the House.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by close of business tomorrow.

Madam Speaker, the House will also consider H.R. 1644, Save the Internet Act of 2019. This bill will reverse the administration's repeal of critical net neutrality protections, which will empower the FCC to prohibit unjust, unreasonable, and discriminatory practices and ensure consumers can make informed decisions when shopping for internet plans. This bill also enacts authorities to support expanding broadband to rural communities and struggling Americans.

In addition, Madam Speaker, it is possible the House will take action to set the budget levels for discretionary spending for the next 2 fiscal years.

Madam Speaker, as the gentleman knows, we share views, as he has expressed, and we are awaiting committee action. When the committee acts, we will make a determination of how to go forward.

Madam Speaker, as I said, I agree with the gentleman's objective and position with respect to BDS. The committee has legislation before it and is considering it.

As you know, Mr. Schneider and Mr. Nadler, I think, are the cosponsors of that legislation. I expect the committee to consider it, and then, at that point in time, we will make a decision how to move forward.

Well, of course, as the gentleman well knows, we have, Madam Speaker, passed many substantive pieces of legislation. We have sent to the Senate H.R. 1, a very broad-reaching reform bill trying to ensure voting rights and access for everybody, trying to ensure fair redistricting throughout the country, trying to make sure that dark money does not control our elections, and making sure that we are operating both in the executive and the legislative agency with ethical conduct.

That passed unanimously on our side. I forget exactly how many.

Today's vote, obviously, we had two very substantive pieces of legislation, one of which is going now to the President, and the other of which--the Violence Against Women Act--had a signature bipartisan vote, as the gentleman knows, passed the House.

We have done the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which had been pending for some period of time in making that a permanent piece of legislation.

We made sure that women--in 1963, we passed the Equal Pay Act. John Kennedy signed it. Unfortunately, we are still struggling to make sure that that promise is realized and that women are, in fact, paid based upon what they do, not based upon what their gender is.

So I would say to my friend, we have passed a lot of legislation we had pending, and we are doing a lot of hearings. We are dealing with infrastructure. We are dealing with drug prices. We made it a big issue in the campaign. We are moving ahead to make sure the Affordable Care Act works in a way that it was designed to work.

So I would say to my friend that we have pursued, both on the floor and in committee, the substantive legislation that we have talked to the American people about.

I also feel very strongly that we want to avoid what happened to us at the end of the last Congress, when you were in the majority. We shut down the government.

I am going to be working hard, hopefully on both sides of the aisle. I don't think anybody wants to see that as an objective, so I am hopeful that we can work together.

I am working with your ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger, with whom I have served for some period of time, and Mrs. Lowey to make sure that we get the appropriation bills done in a timely fashion and send them to the Senate.

I am hopeful that that will occur, and I am hopeful that we can fund the government in a rational way and not shut down government, which was so irrational and so harmful to our country and so costly to our taxpayers.

So those are some of the things that we have done, are doing, and will do; and, hopefully, we can, to some degree, work on this in as bipartisan a fashion as possible.

In particular, the President has said he wants to bring the cost of prescription drugs down. We share that view. I am hopeful that we can work together.

The President said he wants a substantial infrastructure piece of legislation. We share that view. We hope we can work together on that.

So we have been pursuing, on a weekly basis; and this was, from our perspective, a pretty good week. I know we disagree on the net neutrality bill, but we do agree that it is a major piece of legislation, and I expect to pass that next week as well.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comment.

Of course, there was no budget last year until very, very late in the year.

What was done was what we will certainly make sure we do very early on, which is to try to establish the numbers, which, of course, a caps deal would do. And our objective will be to show our values in the appropriation bills as they come to the floor--hopefully, in a timely fashion--and our main objective would be not to shut down the government but to do our work on time.

I am confident that, working together, we can reach that objective.

Madam Speaker, as the gentleman may know, the Speaker invited Mr. Lighthizer to address members of the Democratic Caucus on where we stood.

As you know, that agreement has not been submitted. The Speaker said the other day that, in order to consider that in a positive way, the Mexicans, whom the President has been somewhat critical of through the years, take certain actions which make sure that our workers and their workers are treated fairly so we are competing on an even keel.

But we certainly are in discussions. There are a number of items of concern, which have historically been of concern, regarding the environment, regarding workers' rights, regarding the availability of prescription drugs for people, as well as enforcement, dispute resolution.

So those are being discussed. The conversations are ongoing, and I believe that the administration will make a determination when they believe it is timely to submit that document to us. As the gentleman knows, once they do so, there is a timeframe in which the House and Senate must act. The committees must act within, essentially, a 3-month period of time.

So we are in discussions. We are waiting on the administration's judgment as to when to submit. And I am sure they are discussing with us as to when we think that is timely as well, but there are still substantive matters that are being discussed.

I would presume some of those are on your side as well.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his question.

As the gentleman knows, Madam Speaker, the House voted on this bill during the last two Congresses. The most recent time it was brought to the floor, the gentleman and his party were in control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. That bill was not brought up in the Senate.

The gentleman mentioned, earlier, H.R. 1 and that Mr. McConnell has said that wouldn't be brought up. In fact, when it passed this House, it went to the Senate, and it was not brought up by Senator McConnell. So there are no plans at this point in time for us to bring this up.

Madam Speaker, I have nothing further to say. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet on Monday next, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank all of those who have been involved in getting this to the floor. This bill is a critically important bill and, unfortunately, its authorization expired last year. It is timely that we bring it to the floor. I am hopeful that it passes.

Mr. Chairman, I was proud to be a cosponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994. It passed on a bipartisan vote in the House. It was reauthorized in 2000 with a vote--and everybody ought to note this--that passed 371-1. And in 2005, it was reauthorized and passed 415-4 and signed, of course, by President Bush.

Democrats fought hard to expand the law's protections to immigrant women, Native Americans, and LGBT people, and we did so in 2013 with bipartisan support once more. We want to protect all of our women, whatever their particular difference.

I was disappointed that the law's authorization expired at the end of fiscal year 2018. It is critical that we enact a long-term reauthorization of the law without further delay in order to provide that certainty that another short-term extension cannot.

This legislation was introduced by Representative Karen Bass. It is a 5-year reauthorization. The gentlewoman from Texas, who just spoke, Ms. Jackson Lee, did a lot of work on this bill in the Judiciary Committee as well. I thank her for her leadership in this effort.

Her bill--and I speak of Congresswoman Bass--would improve on current law by expanding existing grants that make communities safer and protect vulnerable populations, including Native American women.

Why wouldn't we do that? I can't think of a reason.

It would also improve economic assistance and security for survivors struggling with unemployment or financial hardship due to an abusive relationship to which they had been exposed.

It would also ensure that the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women remains open and is not merged into another office or de-emphasized.

And, very importantly, the bill closes loopholes in gun laws to help prevent intimate partner homicides, an all too frequent happening.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, on average, nearly 20 people every minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. That is a tragedy and a crisis.

One in four women experience severe intimate partner physical violence. And one in seven have been stalked by an intimate partner to the point at which she felt very fearful or believed that she, or someone close to her, would be harmed or killed.

The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500 percent. That is why we aim to close gun loopholes by expanding the definition of intimate partners to include dating or former dating partners.

It is also why this bill has language preventing anybody convicted of a misdemeanor crime of stalking from obtaining a gun.

I am deeply disappointed that some Republican Members of this House are using the NRA as cover to vote against this reauthorization which has been overwhelmingly, in a bipartisan fashion, reauthorized over and over again.

These are commonsense protections that prevent domestic abusers from obtaining the guns that have, sadly, been used so frequently to harm or kill their partners.

Mr Chairman, I urge every Member to vote for this reauthorization. Let's make this renewal of the Violence Against Women Act as strongly bipartisan as the House's support for the law used to be. Let's send a resounding message that the House stands with the victims and survivors and law enforcement and will do its job to help them and to prevent domestic violence and abuse, which have no place in our society, but are, tragically, too often, perpetrated in our country.

Mr. Chairman, let's make it safer for women, for families, and for the children they care for. Let's pass this bill. Let's reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I would hope that we could do what the gentleman from Oregon wants to do and work together in a bipartisan fashion.

I will say to him, however, that his party was in control from 2011 to last year, and there was almost no effort to accomplish that objective. There were, however, over 65 votes to repeal, and there was no replace. When his party won the Presidency as well, there was no replace. We passed something through this House that couldn't get through the Senate. The Senate was controlled by the gentleman's party.

This is something that is not optional for any of our citizens. Healthcare is essential, and they expect us to sit down and work together.

Unfortunately, today, we saw in a tweet--the President who campaigned on the basis of everybody was going to be covered at less cost and higher quality. We are now, I suppose, in about the 29th month in the President's term. He has sent us no bill--and this morning, he has the gall, in my opinion, to tell the American people: I have got a plan. It is secret, and I will show it to you in 2021.

What is interesting about 2021? It is after the election.

Elections ought to be about policy. The election of 2018 was about policy, healthcare, and, very frankly, our argument prevailed. Our argument was that we wanted to protect the Affordable Care Act; that we wanted to make sure that the protections included in the Affordable Care Act were available to all Americans.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Representative Allred for introducing this resolution, and I rise in support of it.

Since taking office, President Trump and his administration have been focused on doing everything it can to take affordable healthcare coverage options away from American families.

Madam Speaker, you can make healthcare a lot cheaper. Offer them no coverage--it is very simple--not hospitalization, not doctors' reimbursement, not this, not that, and not the other. We call them junk policies. They pretend to be health coverage when they are not.

The President did make two failed efforts along with his party to repeal the Affordable Care Act in Congress. They came after Republicans tried to repeal or undermine the bill in more than 65 votes during their years in the majority. The American people do not want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, because if they did, then they wouldn't have us in the majority because they know we want to keep it. They want Congress, however, to work to improve and make our healthcare system work better for all Americans, and, yes, have it affordable and accessible.

Instead, President Trump and Republicans have doubled down and tripled down on their agenda of sabotaging the law through executive actions on an almost weekly and monthly basis and through lawsuits like the one now pending in Texas.

I am not sure who convinced the President to change his mind, but I have a suspicion Mick Mulvaney did. Mick Mulvaney, of course, voted 65 times--well, I don't know that he was here every one of those votes, but every time he had an opportunity, he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If the Americans wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, then they would have voted against us.

Madam Speaker, I would tell my friend from Oregon that if it is partisan, it is partisan because none of you will support it, and so many of you campaigned on the basis of wanting to protect preexisting conditions. Obviously, the President changed his mind about doing that.

All this resolution does is express the sense of this House that such efforts are wrong and would harm tens of millions of Americans who benefit from the ACA. This includes the 133 million or more Americans living with preexisting conditions like asthma, diabetes, cancer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, who are protected in their ability to get healthcare insurance.

The actions taken by President Trump, however, and the Republicans would make these individuals uninsurable, forcing them and their families into financial hardship in order to pay for medical bills. It also includes older Americans for whom Republicans have proposed an age tax.

It would do harm to the 20 million Americans who are now covered because of the Affordable Care Act who would lose their coverage as a result of what President Trump and Republicans in Congress are seeking to do. That is what the lawsuit does. This says that we don't agree with the lawsuit--a pretty simple proposition.

By joining the Texas lawsuit, the Trump administration is seeking to allow women to be charged higher premiums than men as they used to be. It seeks to allow lifetime and annual limits on coverage, which the Affordable Care Act banned. In addition, it is trying to force Americans under age 26 to get coverage on their own, even if they don't have a job yet and are still in college.

Preventive health visits and screenings would, once more, require out-of-pocket co-pays. Plans would no longer be required to cover essential health benefits. Now, if you don't have to cover required health benefits, then you are going to get a cheaper policy, not a lot of coverage, but a cheaper policy. The objective is not just a cheaper policy, it is a policy that covers your risks. If we can make it cheaper, then we ought to do that. Plans would no longer be required to cover, as I said, essential benefits such as maternity care and prescription drugs.

This resolution is an opportunity to state on the Record whether Members support doing away with these reforms or not. Now, that doesn't mean you think that an alternative is perfect, it simply means that we either want to improve or replace it with something that is viable, passable, and good for the American people, whether to turn back the clock or look ahead, and whether to stand with the Trump administration as it seeks to dismantle every single piece of the Affordable Care Act, which it has done.

The gentleman mentions maybe a daily resolution, well, unfortunately, we have daily action by the President that does things that we don't think are appropriate. We voted on one of those the other day where we appropriated money to a certain object, and the President wants to change it on his own. We think that was unconstitutional. We didn't get a lot of help on the Republican side, the gentleman did, I agree with that, the gentleman who has spoken before me.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me and others in supporting Representative Allred's resolution in expressing bipartisan opposition to the

Trump administration's efforts--not to Trump, but to the policies. We ought to be talking about policies, not personalities. It is not about personalities. It is about policies and do we believe that we ought to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?

I think the answer to that ought to be an emphatic ``no'' for all of us. The gentleman is correct. We ought to work on a bipartisan basis to accomplish good objectives for our people. This vote will show every single American where his or her Representative stands on the question which is so consequential to the everyday lives of millions and millions of Americans.

The President clearly has no intention--he said in his tweet today-- of sending a bill down here until 2021, 2 years and more from now. How sad to be the leader of our country and say: I am not going to tell you what I am going to do, just trust me.

Well, Mr. President, we don't have any reason based upon your performance to trust you to make sure that Americans have what you said you were going to give them, that everybody was going to be covered at lower cost or higher quality.

Vote for this resolution and tell the American people that when you said on the campaign trail: I am for preexisting conditions, you meant it; and when you said that there were other protections that you wanted to keep in the bill, you meant it.

If you do, then you will vote for this resolution and send a message--democracy is a lot about messages--by talking to one another. This is the way the Congress can talk to the administration--one way. We can talk a lot of ways.

Have that communication be clear: Mr. President, leave the Affordable Care Act alone and work with us to make it better and work for all Americans, which is what you said you would do during the course of the campaign.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. I thank the ranking member for his service, and his leadership as chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to reject the President's executive order and to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the resolution introduced by my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy). His resolution simply states what millions and millions of Americans know to be true, that the Trump administration's ban on transgender people serving their country in our military is discriminatory. It reflects bias. It reflects prejudice. Indeed, it reflects bigotry.

Martin Luther King tried to teach us that what we said in the Declaration of Independence, we ought to live out. He said that all of us--and, certainly, he would have included women as we did yesterday in our Paycheck Fairness Act--are created equal in the image of God.

Martin Luther King said that we ought to judge one another on the content of our character. The President's order does not do that. The President's order is based upon a prejudiced view of somebody because of a distinction that is not the content of their character nor the quality of their performance.

I was proud to be a sponsor of and brought to this floor as majority leader, the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell legislation. That has enhanced our national security, not diminished it.

The President's resolution states what millions and millions of Americans know to be true: that the Trump administration's ban on transgender people serving their country in our military is discriminatory; that it denigrates the service of patriotic Americans. That is a facet of their character. They are patriotic, and they want to serve, and the service judges them able to do so.

This resolution, millions of Americans understand, undermines our national defense at a time of serious global threats. This resolution rightfully calls on the Trump administration not to implement such a ban on April 12. To do so would be a blow to our country and the principles it represents.

Let me remind my colleagues that there was a time when we said African Americans ought not to serve with White Americans together because that would undermine morale and undermine the security of our country. That was a manifestation of prejudice and bigotry, not of intellectual honesty, content of character.

Have we not yet learned that lesson? Are we not big enough to live out the premise that all men and women are created equal? This resolution seeks to redeem the best of America's principles, not the worst of our discriminatory past.

I was proud to bring legislation to the floor as majority leader that ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and it was overwhelmingly supported in this House and in the Senate, and passed. It has been a benefit, not a detriment.

In the years since, we have seen our military strengthen by the open service of many LGBT Americans who have contributed a great deal to keeping America safe and advancing our national security interests around the world.

To say to transgender servicemembers in uniform that they must leave their units, not because they are not performing well, not because they are not needed, but because of who they are, not the content of their character, not their service, not their performance, but because of who they are, would be a shameful action for our country and deprive us of their talent and contributions.

To deny transgender Americans the opportunity to put on that uniform and wear the flag of the country they wish to serve--as I do every day--would be to diminish that flag, that Declaration of Independence, that Constitution of the United States of which we are so proud.

I hope my colleagues in this body will join in sending a clear message that the House, not Republicans or Democrats, that the people's House reflects the values, the service, and patriotism of our transgender fellow Americans.

Let us today reflect the best of our values, not the worst of our values. Pass this resolution. Make America proud of its Declaration of Independence and its Constitution, and of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s admonition to make our judgments based upon content of character.

Mr. Speaker, I anticipated this was going to be an extraordinarily hostile colloquy.

Louisiana was so incredibly lucky. However, it cost me, I admit to the world, I guess. I hope I don't get in legal trouble. But the Republican whip and I had a little sort of side bet, so I owe the Republican whip a crab dinner for four people. That is the bad news.

The good news is the minority whip will now be eating the best crab in America, not Louisiana crab. It will be Maryland crab that I will be giving him for dinner.

Mr. Speaker, if my friend would like to ask some questions about the schedule--or he did ask me, I am told. But I knew that game was coming.

Mr. Speaker, I think it keeps getting worse. In any event, we will move on to the schedule.

I congratulate LSU. They played an excellent game, as did Maryland. It was a really good game. There has to be one winner and one loser, and we lost.

We have the fourth youngest team in the NCAA, so we will be back next year. Maybe we will be able to play LSU again, if they make it.

On Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for legislative business.

On Wednesday, Mr. Speaker, the House will meet at 9 a.m. and recess immediately. The House will reconvene at 11 a.m. for the purpose of receiving a joint meeting with the Senate. His Excellency Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, will address us. Members are advised to be on the House floor and seated no later than 10:30 a.m. for the joint meeting.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider a major piece of legislation, H.R. 1585, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019. Frankly, that bill should have been reauthorized prior to September 30 of last year in the last Congress. We extended it until February 15 of this year, at which time it lapsed. We are very hopeful and expect that this will pass this next week.

It is sponsored by Representative Karen Bass. I am pleased to bring this bipartisan bill to the floor, in response to our Nation's crisis of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

The Violence Against Women Act officially expired on September 30. As I said, it was extended. It is way overdue that we consider a long-term authorization of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, it is possible that we will bring to the floor legislation regarding the crisis that is occurring in Yemen. There are 22 million people at risk of starvation--22 million people at risk of starvation--noncombatants, women, and children.

We also may consider other legislation, if it comes from the Senate.

It is a very interesting question, Mr. Speaker, that the minority whip asked me.

I would ask, in response, a question: Does the minority whip remember when last year, when you were in charge, you brought the budget to the floor?

Mr. Speaker, I asked the gentleman a simple question. He asked me about when the budget was coming, and I asked him when did he bring the budget to the floor last year.

I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, a lot of words of the minority whip.

He didn't pass the budget last year. There was no fiscal year 2019 budget. He is correct that we had reached a caps deal. That is not the budget, Mr. Speaker.

A budget is a plan that is reported out and brought to the floor and passed and sent to the Senate, and the Senate passes it and we have a budget that is in the same position on each side of the aisle. That is a budget. That has rarely been done in the last 8 years.

A caps deal has been reached. I would like to see a caps deal reached.

I have been talking to Mr. McConnell, who wants a caps deal reached; I have talked to Mr. Shelby--both of those, Republican leaders. I have talked to the White House about a caps deal.

Unfortunately, I don't think Mr. Mulvaney wants to reach a caps deal. He wants to use it as leverage as opposed to allowing us to proceed in the regular order.

But a budget is a different kettle of fish, I will tell my friend, than a caps deal. A caps deal does, in fact, set the 302 level of discretionary funding for both defense and nondefense spending.

Yes, we reached the 2-year cap deal. I have been trying for the last 2 months to get meaningful negotiations underway to do the same. I have not been successful, largely because the President, apparently, and Mr. Mulvaney are not interested in reaching such a deal. I regret that.

But the Budget Committee is meeting this week--it is going to meet next week, and we are going to be reporting out what will be what the minority whip refers to as a budget. It will certainly speak to the levels of funding that we need to spend.

I want to pass the appropriation bills by June 30. That has never been done, but I want to do it. I think we can do it, Mr. Speaker, and I am going to work towards that objective. It will require reaching what numbers are going to be for discretionary spending.

Unfortunately, the budget that the President of the United States sent down to Congress is totally unreasonable and irrational, and there is not a single person, I think, on this floor who will support his budget.

I will tell the minority whip that I will be glad to give his party the opportunity to vote on the President's budget. If he asks me, I will have it put on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we are not able to get to a budget caps deal. We passed and began, in my view, an irrational--and I voted for it, and I am sorry that I voted for it--Budget Control Act, creating the sequester.

``Sequester'' is a complicated word which starts with S, which I tell my people in my district and town, many, stands for ``stupid.'' It was an irrational document that took numbers out of the air without regard to our responsibilities and our opportunities.

But I am hopeful, and I tell the Republican whip, my friend, that we are going to try to--hopefully, working with his party--establish some reasonable, rational numbers for defense and nondefense discretionary funding so that we can move ahead with doing what really makes the difference, and that is the adoption of appropriation bills on this floor; send them to the Senate; have the Senate consider them; and we will have a conference, and we will pass those bills and send them to the President of the United States.

Will my friend yield simply for clarification?

I want the public, Mr. Speaker, to understand that a caps deal is not a budget. They are two separate items:

A budget is a plan for expenditure on defense and nondefense objectives. A caps deal is to simply set not necessarily those priorities per se, but to set a top level of discretionary spending. That is why it is called a cap.

It has been about $1.1 trillion or $1.2 trillion--now, it is going to be a little over that this year, I presume--for discretionary spending. Most of the budget, of course, is not discretionary spending. Two- thirds of the budget is either mandatory spending or debt payment.

I just want to clarify that we are talking about two separate items. One is a budget, which is a budget plan which can, in fact, include caps within it, but a caps deal is a separate deal.

As the gentleman has pointed out, we have usually made them now for 2 years since the sequester would otherwise have gone into effect. The reason we made that deal is both sides--both sides--are unwilling to follow the sequester because we think the sequester does not make rational sense for the security of our country and for the investments our country needs to make.

The President doesn't want to do that either. The difference is, he wants to borrow an additional $180 billion-plus to fund defense and leave domestic discretionary spending largely at 2010 or 2009 levels. We think that doesn't make sense.

But I will clarify for the gentleman again that the Budget Committee is, in fact, considering what legislation they should bring to the floor in order to facilitate us, as the caps deals did, to facilitate us achieving the ability to mark up our appropriation bills, send them to the Senate, and try to reach agreement between the Senate and the House prior to September 30, and certainly to avoid the historic and very harmful shutdown that occurred at the end of the last Congress and continued into this Congress.

Will the gentleman yield?

The Mueller report is not out, Mr. Whip.

Will the gentleman yield?

The Mueller report is not out. The only report that is out is the Barr four-page letter report.

I hope you are right, Mr. Whip.

Mr. Speaker, what it found is six of the President's closest associates--his campaign manager, his deputy campaign manager, his foreign policy adviser, his national security adviser, his lawyer and counsel for over a decade--all committed crimes. All were either convicted or pled to crimes.

You had a lot to say. I have something in response.

There is not a person on our side of the aisle who doesn't believe the letter that you issued regarding Mr. Schiff isn't totally a partisan distraction from what you hope is not found. There has been no Mueller report yet that we have received.

The gentleman, Mr. Speaker, voted to have the Mueller report, as did every other member on his side of the aisle and every member on our side of the aisle, to be disclosed. Hopefully, it will be.

Hopefully, it will not be just a four-page letter from the Attorney General of the United States appointed by Mr. Trump. Hopefully, we will get Mr. Mueller's full report. That is what the Congress voted to get. That is what we expect to get, and that is what we hope to get.

Let me assure the gentleman that there is not a person on my side of the aisle that believes that Mr. Schiff has done anything but act in the highest interest of our government, of the Intelligence Committee, and of full knowledge for the American people, unlike his predecessor who worked hand-in-glove with the White House, not as an independent coequal branch of government, but as an advocate for the White House's position, who clearly should have been removed and was not.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the minority whip that Mr. Schiff is a member of the highest integrity, highest intellect, and has great responsibility. I expect him to pursue his responsibilities as chairman of the Intelligence Committee to assure that neither Russia nor any other country will in the future be able to interfere in the elections of the United States, as Mr. Mueller concluded the Russians have.

Now, the President hasn't concluded that, but almost every American understands that the Russians tried to, on behalf of the President of the United States, affect the elections. So I tell my friend, I hope that we can have the debate. Let's look at the Mueller report.

Very frankly, there are other investigations that are going on, as the gentleman knows, in the Southern District of New York, as well as in the Government Operations Subcommittee, as well as in the Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as in the Financial Services Committee, as well as in the Intelligence Committee.

We still pale in insignificance in the number of investigations that we have had or oversight hearings that we have had when compared to the oversight hearings the Republicans had of the Obama administration and Mrs. Clinton in trying to undermine their credibility, an administration that, by the way, I don't think anybody was put in legal jeopardy and there were no scandals in the Obama administration.

There were disagreements, but I would think the gentleman ought to be very reserved, very frankly, in terms of making conclusions based upon a four-page letter before we have seen the Mueller report, before we have seen the actions of the Southern District of New York, and before we have seen the results of the oversight hearings that are continuing.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think I will respond to all of that, time being of the essence, I suppose.

The gentleman represents a party who held eight hearings, all headed by Republicans, on Mrs. Clinton. All eight reached the same conclusion, but the first one wasn't enough. The second one wasn't enough. The third one wasn't enough. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh weren't enough. So the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Gowdy) was appointed to do one more because it was pretty close to the election then, Mr. Speaker.

The majority leader, now the minority leader of this House, said: Oh, no, they accomplished something. They accomplished the political objective. He said that on television, roundly criticized by his party. Why did you say that? Why did you admit that?

But for the minority whip to say that the Mueller report instigated X millions of dollars spent for political purposes, Mueller was appointed by a Republican, not by a Democrat, and the Attorney General recused himself so the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Rosenstein, was the one that appointed him.

Why did he recuse himself? Because he had been involved, contrary to what he testified to in his nomination hearing, with the Russian Ambassador. I don't know if there was anything of substance in this conversation because we don't fully know what that conversation was.

But the fact of the matter is, for the minority whip to be talking about political hearings or oversight, and then to say he has had an opportunity to review the Mueller report, the gentleman has had more than I have had.

He reviewed the four pages of the Barr letter, appointed by Mr. Trump, and what we know is Barr's reading and his conclusion. But, frankly, we knew that before, because he sent a 19-page letter months ago that he thought

this investigation would not reach any conclusion, and that it should not, and that the President could not be held accountable, in any event. That was Justice Department policy.

So I listened to a long discussion, in my view, with all due respect, I tell my friend, the whip, at odds with the performance of their administration and the eight hearings they had in trying to bring Mrs. Clinton down and never finding--never, eight hearings, all led by Republicans--a conclusion that led to anything.

So we will see what the Mueller report says, I hope. And I am pleased that the whip and his party voted to have the Mueller report fully disclosed. He is correct. There are some national security interests that will properly restrict some of that, so we don't out sources or ways and means of discovering information.

But having said that, I say to the whip that we will have a time to debate this. We will have a time to debate it when we have the information. We will have a time to debate it, perhaps months from now, when all of these investigations are through.

But I wouldn't take too much solace in what the Mueller report did. It led to, as I said, the indictment and conviction of the President's campaign manager. It led to the indictment and conviction, either through plea or trial, of five other individuals to date.

That is not something to be very proud of in terms of the President of the United States being so close to and so involved--Mr. Cohen, in particular, brings that information forth to a hearing, and he was apparently his closest legal adviser for over a decade. We will see. But I don't think now, Mr. Speaker, is the time to debate it. Because the time to debate it will be to see when we see, and the American people see the Mueller report.

I want to say to my friend, so he understands, I am pleased that we don't have a finding that the President of the United States colluded, as he said he did not do. Colluded, of course, is not a legal term. Conspiracy is the gravamen or the essence of a criminal activity, a conspiracy to commit something that is illegal.

But we have a time to debate that and discuss it. And the American people, hopefully, are going to have an opportunity to reach their own conclusion, which, obviously, in the final analysis, will be the most important conclusion.

But the good news is, we are continuing to do the substantive business of the people of the United States. We are continuing to focus on jobs. We had numerous hearings this week on jobs, on wages.

We had numerous hearings on healthcare, and the costs of healthcare, and the costs of prescription drugs. We passed one of the most far- reaching reform bills that we have seen on the floor of this House, H.R. 1. Every Democrat voted for it. Almost every Republican voted against it.

We have passed some rational and reasonable controls on people with criminal records who are on the no-fly list or with mental health problems from not getting weapons to hurt a lot of people quickly. We have seen the tragedy here and around the world.

So we have done a lot of very substantive legislation in a relatively short time, and, very frankly, we would have done more if the Republicans hadn't let the government shut down and repeatedly voted against opening it up for the first month of our session.

Mr. Speaker, this is obviously about scheduling, and we are going to continue to bring substantive bills to the floor to respond to the needs of the American people. Yes, we can do oversight as well, but that will not preclude us from pursuing, as the majority, the agenda that we think the American people sent us here to Washington and made us the majority to do.

I hope that my Republican friends will join us in that effort and offer substantive amendments when they think there are differences that they have with that legislation, consider those, and send them to the Senate, because that is really what the people want us to do.

To the gentleman's observation about impeachment, I know he has been here. I know he has voted on efforts by some to move ahead on impeachment, and surely I know that he knows the overwhelming majority of Democrats voted ``no.'' I know that he must have heard Speaker Pelosi say that we are not pursuing impeachment and that we want to focus on the needs of the American people. I am sure he heard that, Mr. Speaker, but he tends to reference otherwise on that. I think that is not accurate.

The American people ought to understand that we are pursuing their agenda: their jobs, their healthcare, and the welfare of their families. That is what our duty is, that is what our responsibility is, and that is what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my friend: Is he at all concerned that somebody that he didn't mention, Mr. Flynn, was, in fact, indicted and convicted of lying about his relationship with the Russians and his having clients in Europe, in Ukraine, which he failed to disclose?

He was appointed to one of the highest offices, the National Security Advisor to the President, and he lied about

his relations with the Russians to law enforcement, which is a crime, and was convicted and, in fact, pled.

I understand what Mr. Barr has said in a 4-page letter after some 48 hours of review of all of the documents, all of the evidence, that was adduced. None of us really knows. I am not going to make a conclusion until I have an opportunity to review the report. I hope we will have a full debate on that.

All of us are concerned, Republicans and Democrats, about the extraordinary number of people very close to the President--and, most importantly, Flynn, who was the National Security Advisor to the President--who were convicted of lying to law enforcement, some not paying their taxes and cheating the American people and all of us by not paying their fair share of what was due. I think that ought to be of concern to all of us.

These weren't just some people. They were the President's campaign chairman. They were one of the President's foreign policy advisers, Mr. Papadopoulos. It was his personal attorney for 10 years, a so-called fixer, did anything he was told or implied to do. We all ought to have concern about that.

But we ought to also be happy that, hopefully, correctly, Mr. Mueller found that we were not in a conspiracy with--I don't know about that, but colluding with--I don't really know what that exactly means; I have a sense, but it is not a legal issue--that the President did not, because any President who did collude with a foreign government that was clearly not our friend and, indeed, for the most part, our competitor and, yes, enemy, that would be something, I think, of which all of us would be extraordinarily concerned. I am glad that Mr. Mueller didn't find that.

But to think that, as the President says, this was a whitewash and no problems when five or six of your closest allies and friends have been or are about to be sent to jail, that is not something to be happy about.

It wasn't that Mueller didn't find wrongdoing. What Mueller didn't find was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was criminal behavior on which he believed he could act. That is what Barr said. And, in fact, Mr. Mueller, in Barr's letter, concluded that the President could not be exonerated or indicted on the basis of obstruction of justice. He made a conclusion that there was not sufficient evidence.

We don't know the answer to that question, but Mr. Mueller says that he could not find beyond a reasonable doubt and, therefore, made no assessment as to whether he did or did not.

In any event, we need to move on, as I said, Mr. Speaker, with the people's business: jobs, healthcare, integrity in government, safety in our neighborhoods, education of our children, and the health of our people.

Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the whip that I look forward to working with him on such an agenda for the people.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at noon on Monday, April 1, 2019, for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, I rise out of a deep concern for our country and its ability to sustain investments in growing our economy and making opportunities available for our people.

Our country suffered the longest government shutdown in its history just a few months ago. For 35 days, 800,000 Federal employees and their families were forced to go without paychecks. Our economy was burdened by uncertainty and a lack of confidence in our leaders.

That shutdown was the direct result of the Trump administration's confrontational approach to governing and its irresponsible decision to insist on a position that Congress had already rejected.

I would have hoped that they learned from that experience, but it appears that that is not the case. Now President Trump and Mick Mulvaney--a former colleague of ours who voted not only to shut down the government, but against the wishes of the Republican Speaker, voted against opening government up--have sent to Congress a budget proposal that ramps up confrontation and sets up an even more difficult impasse.

Their budget proposal rejects 6 years of governing consensus enshrined in three 2-year budget agreements to raise the caps put in place by the Budget Control Act in a bipartisan way and according to the principles of parity, fairness, and equality.

Adhering to that path and working together to raise the caps responsibly and at the same rate for defense and nondefense investments would be, in my view, the best way to ensure that appropriations for next year proceed on a bipartisan basis so that we can do the job of funding the government and avert another unnecessary, dangerous, and harmful shutdown in October.

The administration's proposal of using the overseas contingency operations account to avoid negotiating with Congress on responsibly dealing with the BCA caps and hiding increases in defense funding is a massive gimmick.

Who said that? The Republican majority said that a number of years ago.

It is more than just an accounting sleight of hand, with real implications for our national security planning and long-term strategy.

The OCO account, again, overseas contingency operations account, was created to fund imminent defense priorities outside of the normal Pentagon budget planning cycle.

Now Mr. Mulvaney wants to use OCO at the rate of some $175 billion- plus as if Afghanistan, in which we have been involved for some 17 years, is a contingency. It is not a contingency. It is an operating expense.

If OCO were used in the way the administration intends, it could cripple multiyear planning by our military by calling into question every penny shifted into that account in future years.

It is also disingenuous for them to demand that Congress pour money into defense through what Mr. Mulvaney himself has called a ``backdoor slush fund.'' That is what he called OCO in 2015 when he was a Member of Congress.

And now that same Mr. Mulvaney, the Acting Chief of Staff and, frankly, I believe, also, the Acting OMB Director, proposes to use what he called a backdoor slush fund without acknowledging the need to compromise elsewhere on the ledger.

This is fiscal irresponsibility at its worst, because it is a veneer of concern

for fiscal discipline used to hide the ugly truth of fiscal recklessness and brinksmanship. The Trump-Mulvaney budget is, to put it bluntly, a fraud.

It is the Congress' job to move ahead with good faith efforts to agree on raising the caps. We have a procedure called sequester that, if we do not amend the caps, will go into effect 15 days after we adjourn this session and cut to levels that no Member of Congress, in my view, believes is reasonable, rational, or responsible. It would automatically occur if we do not pass a caps bill.

That is indicative that there is bipartisan agreement, which has happened over the last 6 years in 2-year cycles, that the caps required by the sequester bill were irrational. I think there is a consensus. So, as opposed to confrontation, and to avoid a shutdown in October, we ought to come to an agreement. The President, of course, needs to be part of that agreement, because he would need to sign legislation amending the sequester act.

Appropriators need guidance, also, to begin the hard work of writing funding bills. They need to know what the agreed spending level will be. We call it a 302(a). What it really means is: How much money are you going to spend on discretionary spending for defense and nondefense objectives?

Now, I am an appropriator. I haven't served on the committee for some years, because I am in the leadership, but I am on leave. I understand as well as anyone how important it is to have agreed-upon top-line numbers in order for the committee to do its work effectively on a bipartisan basis.

I will tell my Republican colleagues, as I have told my Democratic colleagues, it is my intention, as majority of the House of Representatives, to provide for the passage of the appropriations bills through the House of Representatives by the end of June.

The Budget Act requires us to do it by June 30. We have never done it. We haven't done it on our side; the Republicans haven't done it on their side. What inevitably happens is we don't get our work done, and we had a shutdown last year and this year of historic proportions and of historic cost and of historic undermining of confidence in the United States of America here and around the world.

We need to get to work; we need to get to work together; and we need to get this job done. Let's strive to achieve that which I know is achievable.

I have talked to Ms. Granger. I have talked to the ranking member of the Budget Committee here in the House, Steve Womack, a good friend of mine. I have talked to Senator Enzi, the chairman in the Senate. And I have talked to Senator McConnell. I haven't heard from anybody who doesn't think we need to get caps established so that we can do our work for the American people and reestablish confidence in the rational operations of the Congress. It won't be easy, but it is necessary.

Let us not delude ourselves into believing, just a few weeks removed from the longest government shutdown in our history, that the administration's shortsighted approach will lead to anything but another shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. Divided government need not be confrontational government.

I tell people on a regular basis that the Congress is less than the sum of its parts. What do I mean by that? I mean the individual Members have integrity and a willingness to work together, but, as a body, we have found ourselves unable or unwilling to do just that. We are less than the sum of our parts, less than the sum of our Members' intellect and willingness to act responsibly.

We can disagree on details, but we must try to reach agreement on the caps in order to assist appropriators, promote fiscal responsibility, reduce uncertainty, and protect the ability of our military to plan its budget over the long term with confidence.

If OCO is relied upon, in terms of billions of dollars, they cannot do that. It is undermining our national security, as well as undermining the ability to meet our domestic needs.

The Trump-Mulvaney budget proposal was, sadly, a missed opportunity and more of a fiscally irresponsible charade.

I say to my friends on both sides of the aisle: Let us strive to not miss our own opportunity to meet in good faith and produce a budget caps agreement that promotes fiscal sanity, upholds the principle of parity, and allows us to invest in a better future for our country. Certainly, we ought to expect no less of ourselves, and, certainly, that is what our constituents expect of us.

Then, let us proceed to achieve a realistic, fiscally responsible path toward a real, sustainable budget agreement worthy of our duty to our country and constituents and to future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to come together, to reason together, and to establish a plan to proceed, not just for this year, but for a decade to come, that is fiscally responsible, meets the challenges that we have, and seizes the opportunities that are in front of us.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I wanted to speak during general debate, but I will take this time to speak on behalf of this legislation and also to rise in support of the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the American people entrusted Democrats with the majority in part because we pledged to work hard on the issues they care about most, issues affecting their everyday lives.

I am the father of three daughters. They are all extraordinary people. I want them all treated based upon the content of their character, their performance, and the duties that they perform, not on the fact that they happen to be daughters and not sons.

One of the issues we pledged to address was raising wages, and that includes addressing the gender pay gap, which keeps women from earning their fair share and hurts families, children, and all people.

The last time I was the majority leader, which was from 2007 to 2011, we enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to make it easier for women who have faced discriminatory pay and benefits to seek justice.

Lilly Ledbetter had worked hard, and she did not know that she was being paid less than her counterparts doing exactly the same thing she was doing, with exactly the same responsibility and exactly the same expectations. There was no justice in that, but she didn't know it. The Supreme Court said, well, you didn't raise the issue quickly enough.

We also passed the Paycheck Fairness Act in that same Congress, but, unfortunately, the Senate failed to enact it as well.

Now we return to this important work of ensuring equal pay for equal work. Who, intellectually, can oppose that concept? Who, with any sense of fairness and fair play, could oppose that concept and precept?

It is shameful, Mr. Chairman, that, in 2019, 56 years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, we are here fighting for equal pay. A half century later, women still earn, on average, 80 cents to a man's dollar, and, very frankly, minority women earn less than that. That gap is even worse for minorities. Two-thirds of women are now either the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in their households.

Make no mistake, this is an economic concern for families across our country. This is not a woman's issue. It is a fairness issue. It is an every family, every person issue.

Democrats ran on a platform of raising wages, as I said. We are focused on making sure that more working families can make it in America. That is what this bill will help achieve.

I am proud that every member of the Democratic Caucus--let me repeat that, every member--234 members of the Democratic Caucus have signed on as cosponsors of this bill because we believe it is fair; because we believe it is right; because we believe it is good for families; and, yes, because we believe it is good for the American economy.

Rosa DeLauro is on the floor, and I want to thank the gentlewoman. We hear the phrase, ``Keep the faith.'' Rosa DeLauro has kept the faith year after year, not only with women of America, but with the families and children of America who rely on women's wages for the quality of their lives, and their partners', and their spouses'.

I thank the gentlewoman, Rosa DeLauro, for all that she has done for our country in keeping the faith.

I also thank my dear friend and my colleague from my neighboring State of Virginia, Chairman Bobby Scott, for his faithfulness, for his focus, and for his bringing this bill to the floor so early in our session.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to observe April 2, which is Equal Pay Day. It is a day symbolizing how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year--essentially, 3 months of free labor. Not in this body, because we are all paid the same in this body. We comply with this bill. That is the good news.

The bad news is, women, on average, have to work not 12 months but 15 months to earn what men earn in 12 months. That is what that language meant.

I urge my colleagues to vote today to make this the last Equal Pay Day and pass this bill to ensure the promise of economic equality for all.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all--drop the ``men''-- that all are created equal. That view maybe self-evident, but it is not self-executing. Let us act upon it today.

Madam Speaker, this House suffered a tremendous loss a year ago. Louise Slaughter was not just a Congresswoman and Rules Committee Chair and Ranking Member. She was a respected colleague and a dear friend. She and I served together for more than thirty years in this House, and I will always remember her for her tenacity, her confidence, and her determination to make the American Dream attainable for everyone in this country.

Louise's drive to fight for better conditions for working people in New York and in our country can be traced to her childhood. The daughter of a blacksmith from a Kentucky coal mining town, she grew up with a thorough understanding of the challenges faced by those working hard and trying to make it in America. Those experiences shaped her as a legislator in her adopted home of upstate New York, where she fought to ensure that communities had safe drinking water, clean air, and economic opportunities.

In Congress, Louise dedicated herself to these same causes while promoting human rights and freedom abroad. We served together on the Helsinki Commission at the end of the Cold War, and I fondly recall traveling with her to the former Soviet Union, where we shared the experience of meeting with leaders and citizens of the newly independent states yearning to embrace American-style democratic institutions. I got to know her late husband Bob on those journeys and remember him fondly as well.

Back home, Louise made a difference for our country in Congress, serving as the Chairwoman and Ranking Member of the Rules Committee. In that position, she helped shape nearly every piece of legislation passed when Democrats held the Majority from 2007 to 2011, including the Recovery Act, Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, and student loan reforms. Working Americans owe Louise Slaughter a debt of gratitude for being their champion and fighting so hard over the years on their behalf.

As we remember Louise, let us remember her for the courage she displayed, for her indefatigable nature, and for her wisdom and wit. I join with my colleagues in marking the one-year anniversary of her passing, and I extend once more my condolences to her family. I thank Rep. Tonko for leading the House's tribute, and I thank Rep. Morelle for continuing his predecessor's commitment to outstanding service for the people of New York's Twenty-Fifth District.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the House passed H.R. 1, major legislation to strengthen voter access, address the corrosive influence of dark money in politics, institute national redistricting reform, and hold public officials accountable to higher standards of ethics and transparency.

Taking the next step, this week is sunshine week on the House floor. The House has already passed several pieces of legislation this week to modernize government and increase transparency, accountability, and good governance. They include measures aimed at shining a light onto Russia's malign activities around the world and the suppression of democracy within its own borders.

The resolution we now have before us expresses the sense of Congress that the American public ought to have transparency when it comes to the investigation into Russia's interference in our elections and efforts to undermine our democracy. It says that the special counsel's report ought to be made public to the fullest extent of the law and that Congress should see all of it.

Nearly 9 in 10 Americans believe the special counsel's report should be made public, and we have heard that from Republicans in Congress as well. I hope this will be a bipartisan vote to tell the American people: You have the right to and ought to know the results of this report.

One of my Republican colleagues, Representative Mike Turner from Ohio, said in February the report has to be made public.

Susan Collins of Maine said: ``The American people deserve to know what the findings are of Mr. Mueller.''

``I believe the report should be released,'' said Senator Collins.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me, Mr. Nadler, Republicans, and Democrats on supporting this resolution and in calling for transparency. Let's come together in a bipartisan vote to make it clear that the American people deserve to know the full extent of what Russia--of what Russia--has done in the objective of subverting and undermining our democratic institutions.

I thank the chair for bringing this resolution to the floor. I urge all of us to support it. Let's send a unanimous message to the Russians and to any other country or entity that would try to subvert our democratic elections that that will not be tolerated.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As I have expressed, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond), my friend, would like to have a moment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I know that I speak on behalf of all the Members of the House to wish Virgil Godspeed, great success in the future, and great happiness.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning- hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business today.

The House will also consider H. Con. Res. 24, expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress.

I thank the gentleman for his question. I want to put it in context.

For the first time in history, we started this Congress with a government shutdown. For the first time in history. The business was not completed, the government was not fully funded, and it was necessary for us, as we began this session, to have numerous votes to open up the government. We didn't get a lot of help from your side of the aisle on doing that, and it was not about a debate; we had considered six bills that essentially had been agreed to. There was clearly a disagreement on Homeland Security.

But let me remind you, on H.R. 1, the largest bill that we considered during the last Congress, you brought that to the floor and you had no committee hearings. Not a single committee hearing. You had no witnesses. No member of the public was able to testify. It was a closed rule, and zero amendments were made in order.

Now, let me make a comparison for you on H.R. 1, the bill we just passed. This bill had five hearings across several committees, 19 witnesses testified, the primary committee of jurisdiction had markup, and 72 amendments were made in order.

Now, H.R. 1, last Congress, zero Democratic amendments made in order. Now of course there were no Republican amendments made in order either because it was a closed rule, no amendments at all, no hearings, no committee hearings, no witnesses.

So that we have, as we said we would, had a process, opportunity for the public to testify, opportunity for amendments to be made in order. I forget exactly how many amendments you said, Republican amendments, but that is, whatever that number was, whether it was 10 or 15 or 25 or 35, more than we had in order.

As the gentleman knows, the last Congress was the most closed Congress in history. In history. We did not see a single open rule, not one under Speaker Ryan, not one. I am committed to ensuring, however, that we have a limited amount of closed rules.

Again, the gentleman is correct, the government was shut down and we had rules that we put forward to get the government open. It was not an amendment to say partially open this. It was, let's get it open.

So that my answer to the gentleman is we said what we were going to do on bills. We had 72 amendments on this bill. The proportion of amendments, the gentleman's concerned about, certainly want to make sure that we have substantive amendments considered from both sides of the aisle; that was done here. The gentleman thinks not enough, but as I said, it was, as opposed to zero, a substantial increase.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Of course, we both know, certainly since the time I have been here, that motions to recommit, on both sides of the aisle, have been gotcha amendments. They have been amendments to use for political ads to talk about partisanship. Both sides did that, understand.

So is there consternation about them? There is. Did you have an MTR today? You did. It was a difficult MTR. Of course, it dealt with a problem that does not exist at the Federal level, and it said so in the resolution, that there was not a problem that they were solving, just a sort of a sense that local communities ought to be directed what to do.

Having said that let me go back to the gentleman's question again. You said you had nine amendments. We had zero. So you could say it was 900 percent, 9,000 percent, but whatever you want to say, on H.R. 1 in your Congress and H.R. 1 in our Congress and all those figures, I think, are probably lost on the public, but what is not lost on the public or the press that has covered it extensively, last Congress was the most closed Congress in history, just as the Government being shutdown at the beginning of this Congress was the first time that happened in history, because you didn't get your job done.

But I would tell the leader, I understand the rights of the minority. We want to honor the rights of the minority, and, yes, there is a lot of discussion, but as you know, nothing has been done, and I am sure those discussions will continue.

But I understand the gentleman's point. We used the motion to recommit. You have used the motion to recommit. There is no proposed change currently under consideration.

I tell the gentleman, I have heard that question raised before.

You removed Mr. King from the committees after 10 years of comments, speeches, and support for groups that did not comport with what we said yesterday in terms of rejecting bigotry and prejudice and hate. Ten years.

We have now twice taken action to make clear that hate and prejudice and bigotry are not the policies of this Congress, of this country, and should not be the policy of any of our Members, rhetorically.

Debating policy, having differences of opinion are clear. I don't know whether the gentleman heard my speech on the floor, but I could not, I think, have articulated more forcefully that anti-Semitism is unacceptable,

that anti-Semitism has led to grievous results, unacceptable results, the Holocaust, of course, being the most horrific.

I made that very clear. The resolution made that very clear. And yes, it did include other forms and other objects of hate and prejudice and bigotry.

And I was disappointed that 23 of your Members voted against it. Every one of my Members, without exception, voted for that resolution. So that resolution, I thought, that got over 400 of us, spoke very strongly to our opposition to anti-Semitism, to racism, to sexism, to Islamophobia.

And I haven't seen any resolution on the floor of the House when you were in charge that responded to the President of the United States stoking Islamophobia.

I saw no resolution. I saw no resolution on the floor when the President of the United States made a comment that, well, there are bad people on both sides, in Charlottesville--those holding Swastikas; those who were saying we are not going to allow the Jews to take over; those who had racist epithets and who, in fact, of course, killed one of the participants. I saw no resolution. We ultimately did get to a resolution.

But I would say to my friend, frankly, those of us on our side of the aisle think that the President too often uses words and actions that undermine the sentiment of the resolution that I voted for, that you voted for, and the overwhelming majority of the House voted for saying that is not and should not be the policy of the United States.

I won't go into more specifics, but the gentleman, I am sure, knows that I could.

What is positive is that yesterday some 400-plus of us voted to say to America and to each of our citizens and those who view America as a beacon of liberty and justice that we reject out of hand any comments, any actions that would be recognized by most people as stoking bigotry and prejudice and hate.

So, yes, that language you are talking about, as introduced, was not a final product. The final product came about through a lot of discussions and addressing the hate and bigotry and prejudice that is directed at too many people who are somehow viewed as different.

The remarks to which the gentleman referred were pointed out very clearly as being remarks which had been used through the millennia as ways to diminish the integrity of Jewish citizens and to imply that somehow their support for Israel was an indication of their lack of loyalty to their country. You and I both know that was used for centuries, millennia, to marginalize Jewish citizens and to make them feel unwelcomed and rejected.

So I think the resolution was a good thing for us to do. It passed overwhelmingly. I am sorry that 23 of your Members decided not to vote for it.

Let me go back to the MTRs.

We had a very strong statement that your side offered on anti- Semitism. And you all voted for it; we all voted for it. Not a single Democrat voted against it. And when it came for final passage, I don't recall how many Republicans, but it was the overwhelming majority of your caucus voted against it.

So offering an amendment, having the amendment adopted, which we accepted because we thought that it was important to make that powerful statement against anti-Semitism, we adopted it.

Unfortunately, when it came to the real vote--not the political gotcha vote, but when it came to the real vote--your side all voted against it--or if not all, pretty close.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me say I reject out of hand the premise that we didn't speak directly to anti-Semitism in the resolution that was adopted yesterday, period. It spoke strongly to that.

Not only did it speak strongly, but if the gentleman heard my remarks, they were very strong with respect to an absolute rejection of anti-Semitism.

Now, apparently, the problem is we also spoke against racism. We also spoke against xenophobia.

I mentioned the President on xenophobia, the denigration of the dignity

of immigrants who have been so important to this country at the highest levels of our government, the allegations of widespread criminal activity in a broad bush. That resolution yesterday spoke to that.

It spoke about Islamophobia. It spoke about hatred of immigrants, of LGBT members of our society. It spoke against discrimination and hate. And, yes, it spoke directly about anti-Semitism, as it should have.

As I was absolutely committed, and the Members of this House were absolutely committed--save 23. I don't know why that 23 voted against it, but they did, not on our side of the aisle.

And I agree with the gentleman. Hopefully, we can continue to not use this as a political football, as I think it is being used.

And I am not going to cite some of the remarks of the minority leader with respect to Mr. Soros, Mr. Steier or others, Mr. Jordan, Mr. King. There was a difference, Mr. Speaker. We didn't wait 10 years.

Initially, we acted--the entire Democratic leadership--with a very pointed and direct letter that anti-Semitism was not acceptable, period. No confusion.

And within days, we put a suspension bill--which, by the way, the rules are waived on suspension bills. As the gentleman knows, you don't necessarily have to give 72 hours. But there were 72 hours that that was being discussed, and people knew it was being discussed, and the leader--and the whip has referred to that.

But I hope that nobody would diminish what we said yesterday about anti-Semitism, or racism, or any other kind of ism.

Let us not diminish what we did yesterday. I think this was a good week, Mr. Speaker, for the House of Representatives. We spoke about making sure that voting rights were protected for every American, and not only that, protected, but facilitated, made easier to register and to vote so that all Americans could express their opinion on the policies of their country and their State, and their municipality, or whatever office they were voting for.

It was a good day to say that we are going to have redistricting which is not run by the politicians, and I have been one of them that has done it so everybody understands that. Every State, not just a few, would have to have a redistricting process that was fair and balanced, and not just the politicians drawing their own districts.

It was a good day, Mr. Speaker. It was a good week, because we also spoke about making sure that we have campaign finance that discloses to everybody who the contributors are. It is ironic, Mr. Speaker, that I was here when we considered McCain-Feingold and the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate both said: ``You don't need caps. You don't need to limit spending. What you need is disclosure. Let people know who is contributing.''

Well, of course, Citizens United undermined that pretty substantially, and we have millions and millions of dollars nobody knows where it comes from, so this bill did that.

This bill also said that we ought to have better ethics. We ought to not be serving on boards of profit-making corporations while we are making policies that affect them in this House. And, yes, it said the President of the United States, as every President since I have been a Member of Congress which has been since 1981, should disclose their tax returns so that the people know, are they acting in their own interest, or in the people's interest.

We called this bill the For the People Act, for voting rights, for fair registration, for campaign finance that is honest and above board and transparent, and for good ethical behavior by us and by the President.

So I disagree with my friend, the minority whip. I think this was a good week. In some ways, it was a tough week, but it was a good week. I am very pleased that not only did we adopt that resolution against hate, and prejudice, and bigotry against all, including and very pointedly, starting out with anti-Semitism.

We also adopted a bill that will give more trust and faith to the American people in their government and more access to the ballot box. It was a good bill. It was a good week.

Will the gentleman yield on that point?

Mr. Speaker, why in his comment did he mention three Americans of Jewish descent but didn't mention the Koch brothers, and by the way, didn't mention the gentleman from Nevada?

Exactly. The three Jews that were mentioned were all Democrats, and the Koch brothers were not mentioned.

I agree with that.

Of course not.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I urge both sides, when the leader of our Government says things that clearly offend minority groups of all stripes that we speak out. I think that is a good thing for us to do, and I am sure that we can be joined together to do exactly that.

I would also ask the gentleman to perhaps observe the extraordinary diversity representing all of America on this side of the aisle. You ought not to be surprised that in representing that diversity, they bring forward issues that we tried to also address in a resolution that said hate, bigotry, and prejudice is wrong. It is un-American.

Unfortunately, none of us have ancestors today that were free from pursuing hateful policies. We ought not to be, as I said on the floor, too sanctimonious. We are a Nation that allowed slavery and went through an extraordinary Civil War to eliminate that blot on ``We hold these truths to be self-evident.''

So, yes, we have a lot of diversity on our side of the aisle, and that diversity is representing its people. They are Americans, but they represent a number of Americans who are perceived as different than other Americans for some designation, either because of race, gender, color, sexual orientation, or immigrant. You name it.

Yes, we have a lot of diversity on this side of the aisle, and we tried to respect that diversity and make sure that every American knew when they read this resolution; we are against discrimination against anybody.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his yielding and his comments.

Let me simply add, we can honor that by our words and our actions today, and tomorrow, and every day thereafter.