Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am a proud member of the House of Representatives. Yet, at the same time, I am embarrassed that, in somewhat of a Felliniesque nature, we have followed down the rabbit's hole.

Our current President suggests that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Our President has the FBI and the intelligence agencies at his beck and call. He can easily make a phone call and know whether or not it is true; but, instead, he asks Congress to make an investigation, and Congress agrees.

This is absurd. It didn't happen. In fact, his security adviser called the British to apologize for suggesting that the British were listening in at Trump Tower.

Our Nation needs to be more like it was when George Washington was President. He was known to have said: ``I cannot tell a lie.''

We need to be straight with the American people. Microwaves cannot take pictures or surveil your house. The past President is an honorable man and committed no crime. He should not be accused of such.

I hope this Fellini movie ends quickly.

Mr. Speaker, when President Trump was campaigning, he said that these were the worst of times for African Americans, conveniently or ignorantly forgetting slavery and Jim Crow. He said it couldn't get any worse.

Well, it is getting worse with a Justice Department that has already retreated on voting rights and that has empowered private prisons to take advantage of people which are disparately proportionate to African Americans for prison incarceration; a HUD department where the Secretary has said slavery was akin to immigration and where $6 billion is to be cut from the budget; an education department that doesn't believe in public education that has given African Americans a chance for the American Dream; and a healthcare bill that takes away health care from the poorest and makes it to where many will not have health care, and Medicaid will be decimated and possibility eliminated.

These are the worst of times and President Trump, Mr. Speaker, is showing African Americans things can get worse. They are getting worse, and they are on a daily basis.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduced, along with my colleague Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Seat Egress in Air Travel (SEAT) Act, which would direct the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish minimum seat size standards necessary to ensure the safety and health of airplane passengers. The bill would also require each airline to display the space available (size, width, and distance between rows) for each passenger on the airline website. The bill was introduced in the Senate today by Senator Richard Blumenthal, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Ed Markey and Bob Menendez.

Consumers are tired of being squeezed. The average seat distance between rows of seats has dropped from 35 inches before airline deregulation in the 1970s to about 31 inches today. The average width of an airline seat has also shrunk from 18 inches to about 16\1/2\.

This isn't just a matter of comfort. It is about safety and health. The FAA requires that planes be capable of rapid evacuation in case of emergency. Furthermore, doctors warn of deep vein thrombosis which can afflict passengers who don't move their legs enough on longer flights.

Moreover, average seat sizes have been shrinking while the average size of Americans has been growing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average man in 1960 weighed 166 pounds, and the average woman weighed 140 pounds. Now the average man is 196 pounds and the average woman is 166 pounds, and both are about an inch taller.

This just doesn't make any sense.

I hope that Congress will quickly act on this bill to direct the FAA to establish minimum seat size standards to protect the safety and health of airline passengers.

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans have introduced their healthcare plan. The President said it would be better and more cost effective than the Affordable Care Act and it would offer insurance to everybody.

Well, if you believe that, you believe the President has got a secret plan to defeat ISIS which he was going to give us within 30 days, that there were thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering 9/11, and that President Obama was born in Kenya. It is not true.

What the plan they have introduced is is something that will give the wealthy unbelievable tax breaks. The 400 wealthiest people in America will get tax breaks of $7 million apiece; and the Americans who earn $200,000 a year or less will get none of those breaks, but they will pay more for their insurance and get less for it.

The fact is property taxes will go up as less and less people are covered by insurance and they go to emergency rooms for primary care; and as hospitals give more uncompensated care, they have to raise your insurance rates in public hospitals and raise your property taxes.

The American Hospital Association has come out against this. The American Medical Association has come out against this. Next thing you know, the people living the lifestyles of the rich and famous at Mar-a- Lago will come out against it.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, Tennessee lost one of its most outstanding citizens, a person who loved Tennessee as deeply, if not more deeply, than anyone. Douglas Selph Henry, Jr., who served in the Tennessee State Senate in the Tennessee State House, served longer than any person ever did in the Tennessee General Assembly--44 years.

Senator Douglas Henry served 24 of those years with me. He was a gentleman, a scholar, a man who said he was a State man, as distinguished from a Federal man, and he was a public man, going to more events in Nashville in his district and for his community than anybody ever has. There was not an event that Douglas Henry wasn't there and helping to fund.

He was a conservative Senator. We had differences on issues many times. But Senator Henry was a man who you could disagree with, and he was never disagreeable. He was truly a gentleman at all times and a credit to his State and a credit to politics and a credit to his family.

He loved his wife, Lolly, who predeceased him, his five children, and his grandchildren. And though we differed on issues and he was pro- life, he cared about children after they were born, passed the mandatory child seatbelt law, and supported all types of education endeavors and endeavors to support mothers and young children. He was just a gentleman's gentleman. I was honored to spend time with him. It is a great loss to Tennessee. My thoughts go out to his family.

Mr. Speaker, this week marks the 25th Anniversary of the massacre of hundreds of people in the town of Khojaly in what was the largest killing of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians in the course of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Khojaly, which is located in the Nagorno- Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, was once home to 7,000 people. That was before Armenian armed forces descended on the town in a final attempt to take over the city on February 26, 1992. 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.

Even though a ceasefire went into effect over two decades ago, more than 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, remain occupied and more than 1 million Azerbaijanis remain refugees unable to return to their home villages. Ongoing violence along the line of contact surrounding occupied Azerbaijani territory reinforces the urgency of robust American participation in the Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group as it works toward a peaceful resolution of the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict.

Azerbaijan is the only country that borders both Russia and Iran, and yet Azerbaijan has been a strong partner of the United States and its allies in security and energy matters. This cooperation has included: 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 has outstanding relations with Israel.

I invite my colleagues to join me and our Azerbaijani friends in recognizing and remembering the horrible events that occurred during

the Khojaly Massacre twenty-five years ago. As Azerbaijanis in all parts of the world commemorate the massacre and continue to grieve the loss of loved ones, let us commit ourselves to supporting non-violent efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and of reforms that promote peace and stability throughout the Southern Caucasus region.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, and I appreciate the kind words that Chairman Goodlatte and my friend, Mr. Collins, have tossed my way.

We do get along up here, amazingly enough. People think that we all just fight all the time and we have nothing no common. There are some big issues that do divide us, and that is why you have competitive elections with two parties and two different debates. But most folks up here get along, and are friends, and we do have legislation that we can work on, and this is one of those places where Mr. Collins and Mr. Goodlatte and other members of the Judiciary Committee worked with me and others to bring this bill to the floor.

The Equal Access to Justice Act will allow Americans to recover attorneys' fees and costs when they win a lawsuit against the Federal Government. This will enable ordinary citizens, veterans, seniors, small business owners, advocates for clean air and clean water, et cetera, to fight unfair or illegal government actions without fear of having to pay court costs and without fear of having attorneys' fees that they otherwise might not be able to afford.

The law has been a success. However, in 1995, an important reporting requirement was removed from the law, and it made it harder for the public to see how much money the government had awarded. Our bill, H.R. 1033, the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act, restores the law's tracking and reporting requirements of payments awarded so the American people can have access to this important information. It will do this by requiring the group called ACUS, an acronym, which we have too many of up here, but this one is the Administrative Conference of the United States, a highly respected nonpartisan agency which was greatly championed by Justice Scalia, to post in an online database the fees and costs awarded in these cases. The database would also include the number and nature of the claims involved. The availability of this information will help keep the public informed and help Congress to conduct better oversight.

I thank my Judiciary Committee colleague, Doug Collins from Georgia, for his partnership on the bill. I would like to thank Representatives Schrader and Collin Peterson for their support for this bill on our side of the aisle, as well as Jason Chaffetz, Liz Cheney, Paul Gosar, and Raul Labrador on the Republican side, as well as Chairman Goodlatte.

And I would like to recall the work of our former colleague, Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis, who had this bill in the past, and we worked together to try to make it a bipartisan effort and pass it. She worked doggedly on the legislation for years, and I know that she will be pleased that we are building upon her efforts. And while she is no longer here, she is truly in a better place, Wyoming, I think it is, a nice place.

I urge the House to pass the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act. And I was pleased the Cats won.

Mr. Speaker, today I introduced, along with my colleagues Reps. Robert ``Bobby'' Scott, Carolyn Maloney and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Tax Return Preparer Accountability Act of 2017, which would provide explicit authority for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to protect taxpayers from unscrupulous tax cheats masquerading as bona fide tax preparers.

As we near April 15th, millions of taxpayers will pay someone to help them fill out their tax returns. Many of these tax preparers are honest and trustworthy. But, unfortunately, too many of them take advantage of their customers or help their customers engage in tax fraud themselves.

In Memphis, my Congressional district, a company named Mo' Money Taxes was caught charging taxpayers deceptive and outrageous fees and cheating them out of their refunds. The company also helped some customers prepare fraudulent returns that claimed bogus deductions and cheated the public of needed tax revenue. Fortunately, the Department of Justice has shut down the tax preparer company but there are many businesses just like them cheating taxpayers and the government alike.

The IRS issued rules in 2011 regulating the tax return preparer industry by requiring them to register with the IRS and meet certain education and testing standards. However, a federal court held that the IRS did not have the authority under existing law to issue these regulations and they could not come into effect.

That's why I introduced the Tax Return Preparer Accountability Act because it's important that anyone who assists in filing federal taxes is sufficiently trained and maintain a certain level of professional conduct.

I hope that Congress will quickly act on this bill to ensure that these dishonest business practices cannot continue, and protect the pocketbooks of middle-class families.

Mr. Speaker, I had a town hall in Memphis on Saturday. We had over 1,000 people there, and over 10,000 people live streamed on Facebook. Many were concerned about Russia's influence with this administration.

Something smells. It would be like a vegan going and talking about how much they were supporting the Beef and Dairy Council, or that Chick-fil-A cow going up and saying: Eat more chicken.

There is something else to it. There is an ulterior motive.

This President's love affair with Russia, his constant support for Russia and Putin--one of the most villainous leaders on the face of this Earth--spells a problem. We need to get to the bottom of it, and one way we will find out is through his taxes.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the President to release his income taxes to the American people. It is so important to us having confidence in his administration and to our government's ability to withstand an evil power, as Ronald Reagan called them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Putting Our Veterans Back to Work Act, a bill I introduced earlier today to help veterans gain skills for good paying jobs by reauthorizing the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP). The VRAP program, signed into law in 2011 and expired in March 2014, provided training for education that led to high demand occupations, including management, business and financial operations, protective service, construction and transportation among other careers. In the two years of the implementation of VRAP, the Department of Veterans Affairs approved over 126,000 applications, of which, 76,000 veterans enrolled in a training program.

The Putting Our Veterans Back to Work Act extends the authority of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide rehabilitation and vocational benefits to members of the Armed Services with severe injuries or illnesses, extends rehabilitation programs for persons who have exhausted their rights to unemployment benefits under state law and reauthorizes collaborative veterans' training, mentoring and placement programs.

This legislation builds on our vow to hire our nation's heroes by directing the Secretary of the VA to establish a Federal web-based employment portal containing information on Federal programs and activities concerning employment, unemployment and training programs that are geared towards veterans. This legislation also directs the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to award grants to hire veterans as firefighters and law enforcement officers. Finally, the Putting Our Veterans Back to Work Act directs the heads of executive agencies to consider favorably as an evaluation factor for civilian and defense contracts at or above $25 million, a prospective contractor with a workforce of at least 5 percent veterans.

The men and women who signed up to defend America and our values, whether they served during Vietnam or more recently in Iraq or Afghanistan, are owed our gratitude and our promise to support them as they transition to civilian life. I urge my colleagues to pass the Putting Our Veterans Back to Work Act to ensure that our heroes are afforded meaningful employment opportunities. This is a promise that we must keep.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Streamlined and Improved Methods at Polling Locations and Early Voting Act, also known as the ``SIMPLE'' Voting Act for short. I introduced this bill earlier today.

This is a scary time for voting rights. We are witnessing an assault on voting rights the likes of which our nation has not seen since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The President is alleging, without evidence, that there is widespread voter fraud in our country.

We know where this is heading. It is just the latest attempt to turn back the clock on voting rights since the Supreme Court overturned a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

In the name of protecting Americans from supposed in-person voter fraud, a fraud that is virtually non-existent, States have been enacting voter ID laws. The real reason for these laws, however, has been anything but election integrity. It has been about partisan politics and discrimination.

But don't take my word for it. Take the words of legislators like the then-Pennsylvania House Majority Leader who boasted in 2012 that the state's newly enacted voter ID law would allow Mitt Romney to win his state. While speaking about his legislature's accomplishments, he said, ``Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: done.''

Or take the more recent comments of a freshman Republican Wisconsin state representative last year who, while being interviewed about the 2016 election, said, ``And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.''

Or take the word of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit which said that new provisions of a voter ID law in North Carolina, ``target African Americans with almost surgical precision[.]'' According to the court, the law imposed cures for problems that did not exist, and ``Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the State's true motivation.''

The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy. It is sacred. Yet, sadly, we have an ugly history in this nation of efforts to limit people's ability to access this constitutional right.

We need to make it easier for people to vote, not harder, and that is why I have introduced this bill today.

If enacted, the SIMPLE Voting Act would require states to allow early voting for federal elections for at least two weeks prior to election day, and to the greatest extent possible ensure that polling locations are within walking distance of a stop on a public transportation route.

It would also require that sufficient voting systems, poll workers and other election resources are provided, that wait times are fair and equitable for all voters across a state, and that no one be required to wait longer than one hour to cast a ballot at a polling place.

None of this should be controversial. This is all common sense, or at least should be, to those who want to help more Americans to vote.

I urge my colleagues to pass this bill.

Mr. Speaker, today during National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, I introduced the Stop, Observe, Ask and Respond (SOAR) to Health and Wellness Act along with my colleagues Representatives Adam Kinzinger, Tony Cardenas and Ann Wagner. It is a companion to S. 1446, which was introduced by Senators Heidi Heitkamp and Susan Collins. This bipartisan bill supports efforts underway at the Department of Health and Human Services to combat human trafficking by directing the Secretary to establish a pilot program to be known as `Stop, Observe, Ask and Respond to Health and Wellness Training' to provide training on human trafficking to health care providers at all levels.

Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery that uses force, fraud or coercion to lure millions of men, women and children in countries around the world annually, including here in the United States. Human trafficking includes both sex and labor trafficking, and generates billions of dollars in profits each year, making it the second most profitable form of transnational crime behind drug trafficking.

Recognizing the key indicators of human trafficking is the first step in identifying victims, providing life-saving help and bringing traffickers to justice. Human trafficking, however, is a hidden crime and victims rarely seek help because of cultural barriers or out of fear of their traffickers or law enforcement.

While victims are often difficult to identify, a reported 68 percent of trafficking victims end up in a health care setting at some point while being exploited, including in clinics, emergency rooms and doctor's offices. Despite this, out of more than 5,680 hospitals in the country, only 60 have been identified as having a plan for treating patients who are victims of trafficking and 95 percent of emergency room personnel are not trained to treat trafficking victims.

Our bill aims to ensure health care professionals are trained to identify and assist victims of human trafficking, and help close the gap in health care settings without plans for treating trafficking victims. I want to urge my colleagues to pass this important legislation so that health care professionals can better identify trafficking victims, provide victim centered care and help bring perpetrators of human trafficking to justice with the help of law enforcement as well as social and victims service agencies and organizations.

Mr. Speaker, this is a time I never thought I would experience. I am a proud Member of the United States Congress, and I proudly took my oath to support the Constitution. In the last 10 days, we have seen alternative facts stated as something that has become part of America--right out of ``1984.''

This executive order, the administration says, is not directed to Muslims; yet it has a waiver for Christians and other minorities, which means it is directed at Muslims. It is unbelievable that they can put something on paper and then tell you not to believe what is on paper. This is a violation of the First Amendment; it is a violation of everything America is known for in its not discriminating on the basis of religion; and it is a shame that we have come to alternative facts, alternative Constitutions, and alternative mindsets.

God bless the United States, and God save the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the John Tanner Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act, a bill I introduced earlier today.

The President of the United States has said our elections are ``rigged.'' When it comes to the drawing of Congressional districts, he may well be right.

In most states, districts are drawn by the state legislature, and as a result, whichever party controls the state legislature ends up drawing Congressional districts specifically designed to maximize the number of Congressional seats that party can win.

In other words, the elected officials choose the voters, instead of the voters choosing the elected officials.

If enacted, the John Tanner Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act would fix this by requiring states to use bipartisan redistricting commissions to draw maps. No single party would get to control the process.

Historically, both parties have engaged in gerrymandering to some extent or another. But that does not make it right.

In a representative democracy, the people need to be able to freely and fairly choose their elected representatives.

Unfortunately, that is not always happening.

In 2012, Democrats received more than 1.1 million more votes across the country than Republicans for the House of Representatives, but because of the way the maps were drawn, Republicans won almost 54 percent of the House seats.

In 2016, it has been estimated that Republicans won approximately 51 percent of the votes cast across the country for the House of Representatives, but won more than 55 percent of the House seats.

This is not what the Founders envisioned. They designed the House of Representatives to be the Congressional chamber that most accurately reflects the views of the people.

The failure of the House to more accurately reflect the will of the electorate is a formula for the electorate to lose faith in the institution. It makes people cynical and discourages them from participating.

We can do better.

A democracy is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas. The playing field is supposed to be fair and competitive, not gerrymandered and monopolized.

I urge my colleagues to pass this bill, and help restore some much needed faith in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that after the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, the Eric Garner killing in Staten Island, and so many other, similar tragic events around the country, we still don't have reliable statistics about when, where and against whom law enforcement uses deadly force is shameful.

Even FBI Director James Comey has said it is, ``ridiculous that [he] can't tell you how many people were shot by the police last week, last month, last year.''

If we are serious about addressing excessive force, we need to know the full scope of the problem. For example, how often is deadly force used? Are minorities disproportionately the victims? Could other, non- lethal measures have been taken?

That is why today I am introducing the National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act. It would require collection of this type of information. Although a provision of the 1994 Crime Bill requires the Attorney General to collect statistics on the use of excessive force, there is no enforcement mechanism and the federal government has been unable to gather data from many local police departments. Since excessive force can be difficult to define, this bill would be limited to just instances where deadly force is used.

Specifically, this legislation would require any law enforcement agency receiving federal funds to provide data to the Department of Justice on when each instance of deadly force occurred, including the race and gender of both the victim and the officer involved. It would also require an explanation as to why law enforcement felt deadly force was justified and any non-lethal efforts that were taken before deadly force was used.

The Department of Justice would make this data publicly available but would not disclose any personally identifying information.

This is information the public should already have. The fact that we don't is absurd. I urge my colleagues to fix this problem and pass the Deadly Force Transparency Act without delay.