Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, while we are on recess, the city of Memphis, Tennessee, will be the center of civil rights history as the 50th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., will be memorialized on April 4 in Memphis, where he was slain.

At the Lorraine Motel where he was staying and killed, a great civil rights museum has sprung up like a phoenix from the ashes, the great history of the civil rights movement. At that spot, at the same time he was killed, there will

be a bell ringing, and there will be civil rights leaders from all over the country in Memphis to mark the occasion: our own John Lewis, Andrew Young, Danny Glover, and Cary Kennedy. There are so many that I shouldn't start, but they will be there to honor Dr. King's memory.

Dr. King's dream is not fulfilled yet. We need to continue to work to make his dream fulfilled in this country to where everybody, regardless of their race or their gender, for that matter, or their sexual orientation, has an opportunity to climb ladders of opportunity to participate in the American Dream and have a successful life and be a part of the middle class, if possible.

I hope everybody will give some thought to Dr. King and his dream on April 4.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, I addressed this House on the issue of Mr. Mueller and his important investigation in the Special Counsel's Office.

I am concerned, as we leave on Thursday or Friday, that the President could fire Mr. Rosenstein--who has authority over Mr. Mueller--or fire Mr. Sessions and put somebody in who will jeopardize Mr. Mueller's investigation.

Accordingly, a bill I have, H.R. 4669, was filed in December to protect Mr. Mueller. It gives him due process rights--if he is fired-- to go to court before a three-judge Federal panel to show that he was fired for purposes which were political and not relating to his job performance.

I am filing a discharge petition today. I will be filing it in 10 minutes, asking all Members of the House to sign it; to bring this bill to the floor immediately for a vote so that we can protect the special counsel, protect Mr. Mueller, and protect America.

God Bless America.

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Would it be appropriate to announce to the House that there is a discharge petition at the desk for H.R. 4669 to give Mr. Mueller due process rights in case he is fired for other than good cause?

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill I introduced today to designate the U.S. Postal Office at 1320 Autumn Ave. Memphis, Tennessee as the ``Judge Russell B. Sugarmon Post Office.''

Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1929, Judge Russell B. Sugarmon is heralded for his contributions to the City of Memphis and his work to reverse the tide of racism in Tennessee, paving the way for future black leaders in the area and inspiring their efforts to increase their representation in elected, Democratic bodies.

In 1959, Russell Sugarmon became the first African-American in Memphis to run for a major city office when he ran for Public Works Commissioner. Sugarmon's tenacity to overcome racial opposition to his candidacy paved the way and inspired other African-Americans in Memphis to seek public office. In 1966, he was elected to the Tennessee General Assembly, becoming the second African-American in Tennessee to be elected to the Assembly post Reconstruction. From 1976 to 1987, Sugarmon was a Referee in the Memphis Juvenile Court System before being appointed to serve as a judge for the General Sessions court. Judge Sugarmon was subsequently elected and re-elected to the bench and held his seat for 20 years until his retirement in 2006.

Working alongside notable Memphis pioneers and leaders in the fight for racial justice and equality, Judge Sugarmon was instrumental in using the courts to desegregate public transportation, restaurants and public facilities and the desegregation of Memphis public schools. Both the NAACP and ACLU have honored Judge Sugarmon for his contributions to Memphis. He was most recently awarded the 2014 be the Dream MLK Legacy Award.

As a trailblazer for African-American stewardship in public office and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, it is only fitting that we enshrine our recognition of his contributions to the City of Memphis and the African American community by naming the 1320 Autumn Ave. Post Office in Memphis, TN in honor of his legacy.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure in honoring Judge Russell B. Sugarmon, an exemplary American and titan of his time.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to talk about the events of Friday night and concern for the continued special counsel position of Robert Mueller.

On Friday night, late, the Deputy Director of the FBI, Mr. Andrew McCabe, was fired. I haven't seen the IG report. Nobody has seen it. It won't be available until April. But it is concerning that, that late at night, people were working at Justice to fire a career employee and possibly deprive him of his pension.

Mr. McCabe believes the reason he was fired was because of his knowledge of Mr. Comey's conversations with the President, and his own conversations with the President, and his being a corroborating witness. I don't know what the cause was, but the process was awful. It was rushed, and it seemed to violate the due process rights of this career Federal employee.

And then to watch the President of the United States, a multibillionaire, spike the ball on being able to deprive a 20-year Federal employee of a pension was cruel, un-American, and mean- spirited. It was a shot across the bow at other government officials who are doing their jobs--Justice Department officials, FBI officials, law enforcement officials who love this country and put their lives on the line--and that if they don't agree with the Mueller investigation continuing; or if they see concerns about the United States President and his campaign and some involvement with Russia or with obstruction of justice, or violations of emoluments clauses; that they too risk their jobs and risk their pensions, and risk their financial security.

It is a scary time in America, and we are looking at the abyss.

In December, I was concerned about this as well. And Representative Walter Jones from North Carolina, a Republican, and I, have a bipartisan bill, H.R. 4669, which has a Senate companion filed, and is bipartisan as well, by Senator Tillis and Senator Coons, which is S. 1741; and it gives the special counsel due process if he is fired for causes that are not objective--related to his job and the performance of his duties.

But it means he couldn't be fired for politics and he couldn't be fired to squelch an investigation concerning the very fundamentals of this country and allegiance and adherence to the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America for which we have all taken an oath to uphold. Nothing is more sacred.

If the President has done nothing wrong, as he has said on many occasions, and he has tweeted recently about Mr. Mueller and said it is a ``witch hunt'' and said there is no collusion. If there is no collusion, if there is no obstruction of justice, if there are no violations, the President should, as Representative Trey Gowdy has said, welcome the continuation of the investigation to clear him.

As Representative Trey Gowdy said: He is not acting like a man who is innocent. And Representative Charlie Dent has said similar things.

If you have nothing to hide, why stop an investigation if there is nothing to find? And if there is something to find and something for the American people to know about, and for Congress to know about and act on, then it is incumbent on us to protect Mr. Mueller and protect that investigation.

That is why we have these bipartisan bills. I know there is Democratic support for these bills, but there hasn't been Republican support that I know of, beyond Senator Tillis and Representative Walter Jones.

I call on Speaker Ryan to schedule this bill, have it scheduled in Representative Goodlatte's committee, my committee, the Judiciary Committee, for a hearing, or bring it directly to the floor for a vote.

I call on Representative Goodlatte to schedule the bill for a markup and have it voted on.

But, more importantly, I call on my Republican colleagues to stand up for America and stand up for their oath of office.

We get along, Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are good people, too. They have different thoughts on certain issues and different perspectives than most Democrats and I do. But we all believe in an America that should not be capitulating to Russia, and an America that shouldn't be seeing the Constitution shredded and laws violated.

So I call on my Republican colleagues to look into their soul, look into their heart, remember their oath. Sign on to H.R. 4669, as Representative Walter Jones has, and stand up for America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the DUI Reporting Act, a bill I introduced today with my colleague Steve Chabot

along with the support of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and a bipartisan coalition of Representatives from across the United States.

If enacted, it would address the loophole in our nation's drunken- driving laws that enables repeat DUI offenders to be charged and tried; as first-time offenders because of inconsistent reporting.

Currently, when police make a drunk driving arrest, they don't always have access to information about all of the driver's previous arrests for driving under the influence.

The reason is because not all police report DUI arrests to either the National Crime Information Center, or ``NCIC'' for short, or the Next Generation Identification database, or ``NGI,'' which are the national crime databases that can be made instantly available to police right from their patrol cars.

The consequences of this lack of reporting can prove tragic. Just a few years ago there was a terrible accident in northern Mississippi, just outside of my Congressional District. Two teenagers from Memphis were killed when the car they were driving was struck by a drunk driver who had accrued seven DUI charges since 2008 and had been allowed to plead guilty five times to a first-offense DUI.

When the law enforcement officer ran the suspect's driving record in the national database, his past DUI convictions never showed up.

This is shameful. A DUI somewhere should be recognized as a DUI anywhere. It should not matter where you were caught driving drunk. If you drive drunk, previous offenses should be recorded and penalties should increase so innocent lives can be saved.

The accrual of multiple first-time DUI offenses is unconscionable and must be brought to an end.

Our bill will save lives by enacting common-sense, bipartisan reforms to harmonize reporting standards for DUI offenses across the states.

I urge my colleagues to help pass it quickly.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Angus McEachran, the editor of The Commercial Appeal, the daily newspaper of my hometown of Memphis. McEachran died Monday at 78. Known as a rough and tough, no-nonsense newspaperman, McEachran started off as a copy boy at the Memphis newspaper and presided over two of its signature stories as Metro Editor--the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and the death of Elvis Presley in 1977.

Over the years, he nurtured the careers of hundreds of reporters, editors and photographers and opened opportunities for African Americans and other minorities while broadening the scope of the newspaper's reporting to more accurately reflect the whole community. After Memphis, he was executive editor, then editor, at The Birmingham Press Herald before moving on to become editor of The Pittsburgh Press where the newspaper won back-to-back-Pulitzer Prizes for investigative journalism in 1986 and 1987. Returning to his hometown of Memphis as editor and president of The Commercial Appeal in 1993, he added a third Pulitzer.

Mr. McEachran retired in 2002 having worked his entire career in the Scripps Howard chain of newspapers. I extend my condolences to his family and friends across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate two tragic events in Azerbaijani history. 2018 marks the 28th anniversary of the ``Black January'' killings and the 26th anniversary of the Khojaly massacre.

On January 19, 1990, the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet Presidium declared a state of emergency in response to the growing national independence movement in Azerbaijan, and Soviet troops moved into the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. They fired indiscriminately at peaceful demonstrators, and destroyed critical infrastructure, like medical facilities. When Soviet troops left the city on January 20, more than 130 people were dead, over 700 were injured, 841 were arrested, and five were missing. Human Rights Watch released a report on the incident, later named Black January, stated that, ``indeed the violence used by the Soviet Army on the night of January 19-20 constitutes an exercise in collective punishment. The punishment inflicted on Baku by Soviet soldiers may have been intended as a warning to nationalists, not only in Azerbaijan, but in other Republics of the Soviet Union.''

On February 26, 1992, Armenian troops descended on the town of Khojaly, located in the Nagomo-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. During their advance, Armenian armed forces massacred over 600 unarmed people, including 106 women and 83 children, and left less than 2,000 survivors. Hundreds more became disabled due to their horrific injuries. More than one hundred children lost a parent and 25 children lost both parents. At least 8 families were completely killed. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict remains unresolved.

In spite of these tragedies, Azerbaijan has emerged as an independent nation with a growing economy. It is also a strong ally of the United States; U.S.-Azerbaijani cooperation efforts include playing a leadership role in nonproliferation issues; providing troops to serve shoulder-to-shoulder with U.S. forces in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan; allowing transit of non-lethal equipment used by coalition forces through Azerbaijan to Afghanistan; construction of the Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian Sea to Italy, thereby providing Europe with an alternative to Russian energy sources; and supplying 40 percent of Israel's oil. Azerbaijan also has a thriving Jewish community and is an ally of America's ally Israel.

I urge my colleagues to recognize the sacrifices of the Azerbaijani people in their steps toward a free market economy and democracy, and to work together to facilitate peace in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict.

Mr. Speaker, we have been out of session for a week, and much has happened in America. Of course, the most dreadful thing is Parkland, Florida, and the Douglas High School. I shed quite a few tears thinking about those students and looking at the teachers who lost their lives.

The system failed. The FBI failed to follow up. Apparently, the sheriff's department failed to follow up. Mr. Speaker, our President failed because he failed to see the problem that we have in this country is not giving teachers guns, but giving teachers more respect and giving them more counselors and giving them more aid to be able to teach. He failed to see that the problem is not just in schools, where it is so important and there have been shootings and killings, but there are killings in Texas churches and in Las Vegas concerts, and by people over 21 years of age.

Banning bump stocks, which was the response to Las Vegas, is right and good and needs to be done by law to be done legally. Banning assault weapons being purchased by under 21-year-olds is good, but we need to ban assault weapons for everybody, for the 58 victims in Las Vegas as well as the victims in that church in Texas--and high-capacity magazines. We need to let the CDC study. We need to act.

God save America and the Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today in support of the Stop, Observe, Ask, and Respond to Health and Wellness Act, which is the acronym SOAR.

In April of 2016, I worked with the Department of Homeland Security to host a Human Trafficking Awareness Training program in Memphis at the University of Tennessee. We gathered State and local law enforcement, first responders, healthcare workers, faith-based groups, and educators to discuss the importance of and strategies to combat human trafficking. This event solidified my stance and activated me to go forward with the legislation to address the human trafficking that is occurring in the United States.

Shortly after, I was proud to introduce this bipartisan bill along with my colleagues: Congressman Kinzinger from Illinois, Congressman Cardenas from California, and Congresswoman Wagner from Missouri in the House, as well as Senators Heitkamp and Susan Collins in the Senate.

Human trafficking is the second fastest-growing crime in Tennessee, and it is amazing that every 2 minutes someone in the United States is entered into human trafficking. Every 2 minutes. In 2016, 8,042 cases were reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline,

with 110 of those occurring in Tennessee. Those are just the cases that were reported. Human trafficking remains a hidden crime, and victims rarely seek help because of cultural barriers or due to fear of their traffickers, law enforcement, or of being deported, because many are imported into our country to engage in sex crimes.

In April 2016, I joined with the Department of Homeland Security in hosting our conference in Memphis, and from there came our legislation. The SOAR Act directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a program to provide training to healthcare providers at all levels on human trafficking.

Trafficking victims often end up in healthcare settings, and because traffickers want to maximize profits, victims will not have health insurance and will not often follow up on treatment. And pimps and johns will beat up the women, and they will end up in a public healthcare facility because they don't have insurance.

Mr. Speaker, 57 percent of trafficking victims report physical injuries, and nearly all report having faced either sexual abuse or physical violence. These injuries caused a reported 63 percent of trafficking victims to go to the emergency room when they are being exploited. Many victims also end up with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and are at high risk of pregnancy. As a result, nearly 88 percent of trafficked victims are seen by a healthcare provider at some point and, more likely than not, it is in an emergency room. So these are the people we seek out most to train and see the signs of trafficking to be able to report it to law enforcement and help these ladies out of the situation they are in.

Despite this, out of more than 5,600 hospitals in the country, only a handful have a plan for treating patients who are victims of trafficking, and over 95 percent of emergency room personnel are not trained to identify trafficking victims. As a result, it is estimated that only 1 percent of human trafficking victims are identified when they seek emergency care.

We must encourage healthcare professionals to be alert to possible instances of human trafficking when victims appear in clinics or doctors' offices for needed care, and we must provide them the additional training and resources to accomplish this goal.

I am proud to work on the SOAR to Health and Wellness Act and I urge my colleagues to help pass it today. I thank my cosponsors and the Republican leadership for scheduling this bill.

Mr. Speaker, in the wake of the release of President Trump's outrageous budget that slashes funding for programs that help reduce crime and reduce recidivism, I rise in support of the Fresh Start Act, a bill I reintroduced earlier today that will bring positive reform to our criminal justice system.

If enacted, the Fresh Start Act would allow certain individuals who have been convicted of nonviolent offenses, have paid their debt to society, and are now law-abiding members of the community to petition courts to have their nonviolent conviction expunged from their records.

A criminal record, even for a minor, nonviolent offense, can pose as a barrier to employment, education and housing opportunities--the very things necessary to start one's life over.

This is not only bad for rehabilitated offenders, it is bad for their families and for the communities in which they live.

The Fresh Start Act would give nonviolent offenders a chance to start over again, a chance to become productive members of society.

The bill allows offenders to apply for expungement to the court where they were sentenced and allows the United States Attorney for that District to submit recommendations to the court. Applicants who are denied could reapply once every two years. Once seven years have elapsed since an offender has completed their sentence, expungement would be automatically granted. However, sex offenders and those who commit crimes causing a loss of over $25,000 would not be eligible for automatic expungement.

Finally, the bill would also encourage states to pass their own expungement laws for state offenses. States that pass a substantially similar law would receive a 5 percent increase in their Byrne funding while those that do not would lose 5 percent of their Byrne funds.

It is one thing to convict someone of a nonviolent crime. It is quite another to condemn him to a de facto life sentence for it.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, this House generally jumps into action once there has been a mass shooting by having a moment of silence. Today we didn't even have a moment of silence because the House knows that those are meaningless acts that don't have any effect on our schoolchildren who have been the victims of 18 school mass shootings this year.

It is shameful this Congress has not dealt with no fly, no buy. If you are on a terrorist list, you can still buy a gun.

It is a shame this Congress passed a law that takes away from individuals who get Social Security who may be mentally ill the ability to buy a gun.

We don't even have studies on what has been happening in trying to protect schoolchildren. It is a shame.

We need to act. American schoolchildren are at risk, and I am ashamed at what this Congress has failed to do: take action.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the late Memphis native Richard K. ``Kirk'' Bowden, a deputy U.S. marshal who protected some of the most important Civil Rights pioneers of the 1960s. Mr. Bowden was one of a small group who protected James Meredith when he travelled off campus after integrating the University of Mississippi in 1962. Bowden later guarded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1963 March on Washington at which he delivered his ``I Have A Dream'' speech.

Mr. Bowden died January 20 at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He was 82.

Mr. Bowden was a graduate of Douglass High School in Memphis and attended what is now LeMoyne-Owen College before joining the U.S. Air Force criminal investigations division from 1954 to 1958. He served as an officer with the Washington, D.C., Police Department before joining the Marshals Service, from which he retired in 1987. He later returned on contract until 2017.

I met Mr. Bowden several times through the years at Douglass alumni events and appreciated his professionalism and commitment to the Douglass Red Devils.

I wish to pay my respects to Mr. Bowden and thank his family for his long and dedicated service to his community, his country and Douglass High.

Mr. Speaker, due to a flight delay on February 5, 2018, I was unable to vote on Roll Call numbers 51 and 52. If present, I would have voted yes on H.R. 4547, and would have voted no on approving the journal.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to note the passing of South African jazz trumpeter, composer and anti-apartheid activist Hugh Masekela, who died January 23 after a long fight with prostate cancer. Mr. Masekela, 78, was honored in October at the 26th annual National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Awards in Memphis although he was too sick to make the trip from Johannesburg and the award was accepted by his son, Salema Masekela, in his place.

Masekela was an integral part of the African jazz scene in the 1950s and '60s with his band the Jazz Epistles. In response to South Africa's oppressive apartheid, which prevented large gatherings of black people from legally attending his bands' concerts, he went into exile in 1964, at the age of 21, first in Britain and then in the United States. In 1968, he had an international No. 1 hit--``Grazing in the Grass.'' He was also known for ``Bring Him Back Home,'' an anthem calling for the release of the future South African President Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years for his anti-apartheid activities, and ``Soweto Blues.''

Masekela collaborated with a variety of activists and entertainers including Harry Belafonte, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin and Paul Simon, with whom he toured on the ``Graceland'' album concerts with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. He released more than 40 albums in his career and toured internationally until last year.

``My biggest obsession is to show Africans and the world who the people of Africa really are,'' he said on his official website.

In 2012, he participated in UNESCO's International Jazz Day at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York City with Richard Bona of Cameroon, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Danilo Perez, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Heath, Zakir Hussain of India, Angelique Kidjo of Benin, Lang Lang of China, Romero Lubambo of Brazil, Shankar Mahadevan of India, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Hiromi Uehara of Japan.

Masekela returned to South Africa in 1990 when Mandela was freed and has been a vocal voice for freedom. I join fans and activists around the world in paying tribute to a giant of African culture and the arts.