Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, I am encouraged that my amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year passed the House of Representatives by voice vote on July 11, 2019. This important amendment requires the ``Annual Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China'' to include an assessment of (1) China's expansion of its surveillance state; (2) Any correlation of such expansion with its oppression of its citizens and its threat to United States national security interests around the world; and (3) An overview of the extent to which such surveillance corresponds to the overall respect, or lack thereof, for human rights.

This matter is one that I have long been attuned to and concerned about, ultimately leading me to draft and introduce the ``Protect American IPR Act'', which is H.R. 902 this session, and seeks to stop Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property through duties on Chinese merchandise. For this reason, I have been encouraged to see President Trump prioritizing the Chinese stealing of American intellectual property.

Mass and unabated government surveillance does not only offend individual liberties; in the hands of an authoritarian government, it poses the Orwellian threat of the government always watching, and ultimately using this ability, made possible to an unprecedented extent by modem technology, to spy on, steal from, intimidate and persecute not only those it views as ``political enemies'' and ``threats'', but anyone it deems as expedient.

This Orwellian threat is becoming a reality, perhaps nowhere more so than in China, where the government vigorously pursues a national video surveillance network. The affinity of the Chinese government to control its population in part by mass monitoring is not a new phenomenon, but advancing technology makes its prospects more frightening every day for those within and outside of the Mainland.

One internet privacy expert warns, ``What China is doing here is selectively breeding its population to select against the trait of critical, independent thinking''. Since China is a neighbor to many and more importantly an actor on the world stage, that erosion will not simply negatively impact the Chinese, it will spread--it arguably has already. A world with continually less critical, independent thought is a prospect to tremble at.

It is my strong belief that U.S. policy, including defense policy, should by no measure assist, intentionally or unintentionally, the growth of China's surveillance. Instead, it should discourage the expansion of the Chinese government into the rest of the world, while at the same time encouraging greater human rights for the Chinese people, including expectant mothers and Christians and other religious minorities.

I have heard from many individuals who warn against China's rapid expansion and influence into the rest of the world, including Africa and Central America, our nation's own backyard. Although the government-connected interests bring economic promise (and exploitation) to the developing world, they also bring the Chinese surveillance state with them. To counter this very real and growing threat, we need to first understand its scope, its impact for individuals in China as well as those around world, and the extent to which it threatens the U.S. national security interests.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I would first like to point out and to show here, to America, Jaci Hermstad.

Jaci Hermstad is from Spencer, Iowa. Her identical twin sister, in 2011, passed away from an aggressive form of ALS, which we often know of as Lou Gehrig's disease.

The DNA from her sister is part of a treatment for Jaci, who was diagnosed on Valentine's Day of this year with the same disease. And because of the work and the cooperation of the FDA, some wonderful scientists, and a lot of work done by my staff--and I want to stand here and thank Speaker Pelosi for her cooperation--we were able to convince the FDA to grant a waiver so Jaci could receive this treatment.

She is in Columbia University, now, receiving treatments. Her third treatment is this morning, just about as I speak, and it will be a triple dose. And if this works--and she is in my prayers every day--we have opened a path to one day put an end to that deadly and debilitating disease of ALS.

And by the way, she is a spunky gal with a sassy sense of humor, and if you knew her like I know her, you would love her.

This is Jaci. She is definitely in my prayers this day and every day.

Census Questions

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the topic that will be raised by the President this afternoon in the Rose Garden, as I understand, and it is the topic of whether the question of ``Are you a citizen of the United States of America?'' should and could be on the Census.

I have introduced a bill, H.R. 1320. This has been introduced last time and this year, and H.R. 1320 is a bill that has asked these questions. It says:

What is person number one's legal status?

Are you a citizen or a national of the United States?

Are you a lawfully admitted permanent resident?

Are you none of those things, or do you have an other lawful status?

And then it follows up and says: If you have other lawful status, what is that status? Are you here on a green card? Are you here on a student visa? Are you here on a work permit of some kind?

So, we need a full inventory of the population of the United States. That

was the purpose of the Census, not only for redistricting, but so that we could see how America is growing, in what ways America is growing.

And, by the way, we are establishing immigration policy here in the United States Congress by an enumerated power in our Constitution, I might add, and we are doing that with people on that side of the aisle saying: We don't want to know any more than how many homo sapiens we can count within the shores of the United States of America. But they want to know a lot of other minutia if it helps them politically.

So I brought this legislation forward, and we know that there was a case before the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court looked at that case.

I looked back at the short form Census in 2010 when Barack Obama was President. And here is what it asked. It wants to know: What is your name? What is your phone number?

I mean, how detailed do you have to get?

We are only asking are you a citizen or are you not a citizen is what the Commerce Department has decided to ask. I think there should be more details.

But the Obama Census short form said:

What is your name?

What is your phone number?

What is your birthday?

What sex are you?

I point out they didn't ask your gender. They ask sex because that is actually definitive.

And what is your ethnicity? What is your race?

Do you have an unmarried partner?

And if you have children, they ask this question:

Are they biological or adopted sons or daughters?

So they want to know, are they boys or girls and were they born into the family or were they adopted into the family. By what means are they part of your dependents?

But you can't ask a question: Are you a citizen of the United States?

All of these questions and many more, and we can't ask the question: Are you a citizen of the United States?

The Supreme Court found that the executive branch was granted the authority by the United States Congress--and that is the Commerce Secretary himself--to form the questions on the Census. This is a constitutional authority that was specifically granted to the executive branch of government by the United States Congress. But the Court says: You have the authority to ask the question, but we think you have the wrong reason to ask the question. So now we are remanded back to the lower court to come up with a better reason.

Here is my reason: We want to know how many citizens are in America. That is all you need to ask. It is simple as it can be.

And they are well within the law; they are well within the Constitution. It is just that the Obama-appointed judges don't seem to be reading the Constitution and the law, and they seem to have political motives.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

I rise today to honor Jaci Hermstad. She has given me so much inspiration.

I want to start, though, with the early, sad part of this story. This is a sad story with a happy part in the middle of it right now, Mr. Speaker.

Jaci's identical twin sister, Alex, was diagnosed with a very severe and aggressive form of ALS. That took place in 2005. Then, by 2010 and 2011, my staff and, especially, Sandy Hanlon in our Sioux City office, were working with the Hermstads to do those things we could do, in a limited fashion, admittedly.

On St. Valentine's Day of 2011, sadly, Jaci's identical twin sister, Alex, passed away at age 17. Now, that is 8 years ago. About 2015 or so, Jaci and her mother, Lori, came to my office to talk with me about ALS, this dreaded Lou Gehrig's disease, that always ends up fatal. It always ends up in a sad, tragic ending. They had experienced that with Jaci's identical twin sister.

Even more sadly, there was news that symptoms showed up in Jaci late last fall, around the holiday time. By Christmas she couldn't get up the stairs any longer, and again, on St. Valentine's Day of this year, Jaci was diagnosed with the aggressive form of ALS that her identical twin sister had passed away from.

Now, they had donated some of her sister's tissue to science, and two significant companies, Columbia University, and Dr. Neil Shneider began doing DNA work on that preparing a treatment for Jaci. This treatment wasn't available for Jaci soon enough in her view, her family's view, or in my view. The FDA had to work through their regulations. As we worked through that, it looked like Jaci couldn't get this potentially miraculous treatment before perhaps September or October. At the rate of the digression of her condition, it didn't look like she was going to be with us long enough to receive the treatment.

Some of us went to work to step up and help Jaci. I got involved on April 13 of this year when my wonderful district staff person, Andrea Easter, who had been working with the family all along, brought me up and we did a fundraiser there at the Spencer AG Center on April 13, a Saturday.

It was a cold and chilly day when we arrived there. There were pickups parked on either side of the road to the Spencer AG Center. It looked like we were going to a farm sale there were so many vehicles there.

They had only expected maybe 100 people, and the Clay County Cattlemen were there to flip maybe 100 burgers and put out a basket for people to put a check in. They thought they could raise $3,000 to $5,000 just as a token, as a way to help.

The story about that day is, it turned out that there were over 1,000 people who came. And they raised in the end, the last report I got, was over $200,000.

I sat with Jaci that day and talked about her dreams to build a riding arena and train horses for therapy for others and to be able to help people.

She is a cowgirl, Mr. Speaker. I committed that I will come up and grade that arena on the house, and I will be on the machine to do it. I look forward to that day.

But we had more work to do. So that story that day got us all energized. We kept her in our prayers every day. By May 2 we had a meeting with Dr. Woodcock and the FDA.

We moved along even further. By May 20 I introduced a private bill. I tried to convince my Senators to do the same. They thought there would be an objection to a UC in the Senate.

I brought this to Speaker Pelosi. She was terrific to work with. We had several meetings all together, with Steny Hoyer and with her staff. Before that bill could come to the floor for a unanimous consent request, the FDA opened the door and Jaci went wheels up January 5 to go to Columbia.

She received her first treatment on June 11, and today, starting 5 minutes from now, Mr. Speaker, she will receive her second treatment. There has been no noticeable digression in her condition. I am hopeful and prayerful that it will improve. We have a chance here at a miracle.

So many people worked so well together to get this done, including the press people around the Spencer, Iowa, area. I want to especially mention Stella ``With the Good Heart'' Daskalakis. I always call her Stella ``With the Good Heart.'' She has done so much, along with KICD Radio, KTIV, KUOO, and KSFY in Sioux Falls.

Mr. Speaker, I am so grateful for everyone who has formed a link in this chain of miracles. We are on our way to an extraordinary miracle. We will keep Jaci in our prayers this day as she receives her second treatment for ALS.

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 3, according to the rule.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer my King amendment No. 3, and what it does is it strikes section 126 in the underlying bill.

Section 126 is notwithstanding language that prohibits the executive branch from using any of the funds in the Department of the Treasury's forfeiture fund, the Civil Assets Forfeiture Fund, to be used for anything, to build a wall or a road that might support a wall on our southern border.

The language is very expansive in the bill. It says none of the funds ``may be obligated, expended, or used to plan, design, construct, or carry out a project to construct a wall, barrier, fence, or road along the southern border of the United States, or a road to provide access to a wall, barrier, or fence constructed along the southern border of the United States.''

Mr. Chairman, my amendment strikes that language, and it does so with the idea in mind that we have a President who was elected with a mandate to secure our border. This has been an ongoing battle for the last 2\1/2\ years, and still the resources are short.

I think we should have done a better job in the previous Congress to get that money into this project, but the President is going where he can to find the resources to keep his campaign promises. So I certainly want to support that by striking that language and allowing the President to then have access to what amounts to $601 million that would be generated, be freed up by my amendment.

And it recognizes this, that the U.S. Treasury has about $13.6 billion that is allocated to it under this underlying bill; and this small piece of money here is not a lot of money, but it does send a message that it is going to get harder and harder for the President to build a wall if we don't strike this language. And I want to support the President's mission to do that.

It is ironic, I think, that we are spending today--and I am the only one in Congress that I know of who tracks this spending, but we are spending at least $6.7 million a mile for every mile of the 2,000 miles of our southern border to secure that border.

Just doing the math in my head, quickly, that turns out to be about $13.4 billion. Almost the exact same amount that is freed up to the Treasury, we are spending to secure the border for something probably less than 50 percent efficiency. When you build a wall, it is 99-point- something percent efficiency.

We need to let the President be the President. He has declared a national emergency, and we need to strike this language from the bill so the President has the latitude to do that which the people have elected him to do.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Graves).

Mr. Chair, just some concluding thoughts on this.

This underlying bill is an increase of $793.9 million more than last year, and it is $484.4 million more than requested by the administration. There are plenty of resources in this underlying bill to take care of the obligations that this Congress has to the people of this country, but they also have an obligation to secure our border and restore the respect for the rule of law.

The chaos that we have on the border is not just something that is reflecting back on us in the United States. I am hearing many laments about the individual tragedies, though we are counting them on one hand, for the most part. I asked the Secretary of Homeland Security under oath just late last year, Kirstjen Nielsen at the time, whom I respect and appreciate, how many died on the way to our southern border.

She said: I don't have the data for that. I will get it to you.

I said: It will be too long for that. I want your best estimate. How many died on the way from Central America to the southern border?

Her answer finally came: Congressman, it would be thousands and thousands.

That is the history of what we are trying to shut off here. They will keep coming until we end up deciding that we are not going to accept them anymore. We must secure our border if we are going to be a sovereign nation. This is a piece of it.

I support the President. I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I rise today to honor the life of Frank LaMere. Frank LaMere was a leader for the Winnebagos, who had land on both sides of the Missouri River in the Sioux City area, and also for Native Americans, especially in the upper Midwest.

Over the years, our lives interacted multiple times. I had the opportunity to work with him and see the gentleness of his nature.

I will say that he mellowed out in his later years, but he never let up. He never took his foot off the throttle. He just found a smoother way to get to the goals, which were to help out his Native American people.

He was a model of dedication to selflessness, and he also had more than his fair share of tragedy, loss, and demons to fight.

Over the course of his life, he demonstrated that no matter the obstacles, he could rise above them, as we could rise above those and do the most good we can with the tools we have to work with.

He overcame addiction himself. He had dedicated his life to being a voice for the voiceless, including securing housing, food, and other necessities for the people whom he did such a good job representing in the area.

Yet, tragedy still exists in our communities, and Frank LaMere saw the need to address those situations. We collaborated on a couple of important things together. They were the passions of Frank LaMere who passed away on Sunday evening.

The imagination and the dream that he had was to build Hope Street, which would be a treatment center and housing center primarily for Native Americans who are drug addicted or alcohol addicted.

That project, by the way, has the language that allows it to qualify in this appropriations bill that we have before us this week.

Also, the second project that was a very, very important project was when Frank and I had a chance meeting in the airport in Omaha, and we began to discuss these things, too, that were on his mind, that brought about the bill that is now H.R. 184. That is the Winnebago Land Transfer Act.

In 1865, the United States Government and the Winnebago Tribe signed a treaty that granted that land on both sides of the Missouri River to the Winnebago Tribe. As the river changed and situations changed-- actually, I shouldn't say both sides of the river. It was the Nebraska side of the river. When the river changed, that meant that a lot of that land actually ended up in Iowa.

The Corps of Engineers came in 105 years later and condemned that property for their own project. It was a takings, and I believe it was an unconstitutional takings. In doing so, they never compensated them for that land, and they didn't use that land for the project for which they had intended.

So, over time, the Winnebagos were able to put the money together to go to court. The statute of limitations had expired. The court ruled that, if they were going to rule on the issue, they would grant the land back to the Winnebagos, but it was beyond their jurisdiction because of the statute of limitations.

The only thing that puts that land back is an act of Congress, and that is the Winnebago Land Transfer Act, H.R. 184. If we can conclude that this week or next week, it will be the time that we have finished the biggest part of the work of Frank LaMere. We should do so to honor his life.

One of the things that he was quoted as saying, and this was at the services for him: ``If you haven't been marginalized at least once a week, then you probably haven't done very much.''

I can identify with that, Madam Speaker, and I can identify with the life of selfless work of Frank LaMere.

We honor his life. Let's honor his life in this Congress this week or next.

Madam Speaker, today, I rise to recognize, June 19th, 2019 as Juneteenth National Freedom Day. Juneteenth, or the ``19th of June'', recognizes the day, in 1865, in Galveston, Texas, when Union Army Major General Gordon Granger announced freedom for all slaves in Texas.

Major General Granger's arrival in Galveston occurred more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and enforced by President Lincoln. Upon the issuance of General Order No. 3 by Major General Granger, the former slaves, and now free men and women celebrated ecstatically. Currently, 46 states recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday.

In 2002, I proposed ``An Act relating to the designation of a Juneteenth National Freedom Day'' in the Iowa Senate. That bill was enacted by the Iowa General Assembly and was signed into law by then Governor Thomas J. Vilsack. The proclamation encouraged all state governmental entities, civil organizations, educational institutions to ``observe the day ... (the third Saturday in June) in a manner that emphasizes the meaning and importance of the Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery and to recognize and celebrate the importance of [Juneteenth] to every person who cherishes liberty and equality for all people.'' This historic legislation was passed unanimously by the Iowa State House and Senate, and the signature by Governor Vilsack designated Iowa as the seventh state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday.

Madam Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to recognize Juneteenth National Freedom Day and I hope we, as a Congress, continue to recognize and to acknowledge this important piece of American history and the advancements we have made since then.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding to me, and I rise to address an issue that is within the underlying bill and express my gratitude and support for the efforts on the part of the subcommittee chair, Congresswoman Betty McCollum, in particular.

We have a situation in Sioux City, Iowa, and in that Siouxland area, much of that Native American population there are the Winnebago. Of course, they have their problems, Madam Speaker.

One of those problems is drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. And some of the resources that have traditionally been delivered through the Indian Health Services have been suspended over the last years. And, without the note, I am going to say it is 7 or 8 years--something like that--given the meetings that I have been to.

We asked that language be included in the report language in the underlying bill that is directed by this rule. Of course, that report language includes $81 million altogether for the Urban Indian Health Program, $29,685,000 above the enacted level. So there is an improvement in that. Then there is money there also, $1,429,000, for current services, et cetera.

But the foundational language that I appreciate being in here so much is: ``The committee recognizes nonprofit organizations such as the Siouxland Human Investment Partnership that help American Indians in urban areas outside of the Urban Indian Health Program and encourages the service to offer technical assistance to such organizations whenever possible and within service authority.'' I very much appreciate that language.

There is additional language that sets aside and says that: ``The Interior appropriations bill includes $2 million available for 11 grants or contracts with public or private institutions services to provide alcohol or drug treatment services to Indians, including alcohol detoxification services.''

We are in the process of building what we are calling Hope Street, which is going to be a location that allows them to go directly to that facility for that kind of help.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to conclude with this: The lead on this effort has been Mr. Frank LaMere. He had been a statesman for the Winnebagos for years and also for Native Americans in a broader sense, especially in the upper Midwest.

He tragically passed away 2 days ago. His funeral is today. He worked on these projects for a lifetime.

It is very fitting that we take action on one of his initiatives here in this Congress today. And I am hopeful that we will be able to take up H.R. 184, which also transfers the land back to the Winnebagos that they should so rightfully have.

Madam Chair, I seek recognition to take up amendment No. 9 made in order by the rule.

Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to take up amendment No. 9. What it does is, it addresses the circumstances of the underlying bill and strikes lines 14 through 18.

Lines 14 through 18, the effect of that language is that it prohibits the U.S. Census from asking the question as to whether a respondent to the Census is a citizen of the United States.

There are people who have political reasons to want to prohibit asking that question, but this great Nation of the United States of America has an obligation to know what percentage of the people within the United States, all of whom will be counted in this Census--the qualifier to be counted in the Census of the United States is be a Homo sapien, and that is all.

So we have several categories: We have categories of U.S. citizens who need to be counted; we have categories of lawful permanent residents who need to be counted; we have categories of visa holders who will be counted; and we have illegal aliens who also will be counted.

I wanted our Commerce Secretary to go further and to count each of these categories separately and ask the question: If you are a citizen, say so; if you are a noncitizen, but you are lawfully present in America, tell us by what legal authority you are; and if you are unlawfully present, give us that answer, too, so we can look at the whole cross section of the 30 million Americans that we are and understand the configuration of our people.

Our Founding Fathers called for a mandatory Census at the end of every 10 years for the purpose of reapportionment and redistricting; and so it has been so very important that, for redistricting purposes, when we count the American people, we know what categories they fit in.

The Commerce Department has dialed this down from the bill that I introduced, and they simply asked to separate the difference between U.S. citizens and noncitizens, which puts illegal aliens and other visa holders in the same category.

I think we should go further, but all we are going to get is citizen or noncitizen, and that is what the Commerce Department has called for.

The legitimacy of that question is important, and it is important that we understand that the voices in this Congress be the voices of American citizens, not the voices of illegal aliens.

There was a study that was done two Censuses ago that showed that six congressional districts in California, theoretically, could have been represented by all illegal aliens. So that diminishes and dilutes the votes and the representation of American citizens.

Furthermore, when electoral votes are cast for the votes of President of the United States, those electoral votes are added up. They also total illegal aliens in the United States of America.

So, for this, I bring this amendment to correct this language, which is in the underlying bill, and assure that we count citizens separate from all the rest and remind people that, even though I would like to be able to count legals and illegals in separate categories and visa holders in separate categories, that isn't even proposed by our Census Department.

This is a mild approach by the Trump administration and is seeking to be undermined by the language that exists in the underlying bill.

Madam Chair, I appreciate the attention, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote on June 11, 2019 as I had another commitment that did not allow me to make it back to D.C. in time for votes. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: ``no'' on rollcall No. 245; ``no'' on rollcall No. 246; ``no'' on rollcall No. 247; and ``yes'' on rollcall No. 248.

Madam Speaker, I regrettably missed the vote series on June 10th, 2019, due to previously planned travel that prevented me from being in Washington. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 242, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 243, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 244.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, the ranking member, for yielding.

Listening to the debate here, the first thing that I think was missed in

this discussion was the subject of amnesty. This bill is clearly amnesty, and it is amnesty for a large chunk of people, whether they do the math at 2 million, 2.2 million, 2.7 million, or whatever that number may be north of that. Whenever we have had amnesty in this country, it has always been a lot more than was calculated.

I recall those days back in 1986 when Ronald Reagan let me down. He only did it twice in 8 years, but this was one time.

I watched the debate in the House and the Senate on whether to grant amnesty to roughly a million people. All along, I believed that the wisdom of the House and Senate would prevail, and they would understand that amnesty destroys the rule of law.

I listened carefully, and the debate went the other way. The bill was sent to the President's desk.

But I was confident that Ronald Reagan would see the principle and protect the rule of law and veto the amnesty act. Well, we all know he signed it that day in 1986. He regretted it after that, as did many of his Cabinet members, but that was a big mistake.

This is an amnesty bill, and it goes a long way toward the destruction of immigration law. When you send out an advertisement that if you can get into America, you get to stay in America, people are going to keep coming here. It doesn't stop until they have to go back home again to tell those folks whom they had recently left that they didn't get to stay in America, to discourage the rest of them.

Here is an example: In a briefing from Francis Cissna, the recently retired Director of USCIS, he gave us these numbers. He said of 100 percent of those who apply for asylum, there will be 60 percent who show up for their asylum hearings. That surprised me. I thought the number would be maybe 95 percent that wouldn't show up. Sixty percent show up; 40 percent do not.

Of the 60 percent, 10 percent get asylum. That amounts to 6 percent of the whole. Forty percent don't show up. Fifty-four percent then get assigned a deportation hearing, and they don't show up at all.

When you add 40 percent, 54 percent, and 6 percent, that is 100 percent of them who get to stay in America.

I recall a night when I was in Serbia in the middle of that huge, epic migration. I asked the chief of police, who was directing traffic, loading trains to go off to Germany out of Serbia, when and why this ever stops. The first thing he said was the international answer of, ``That is beyond my pay grade.'' But then, as I pressed him, he said it only stops when the people receiving them stop receiving them.

That is the principle here. We have to decide what we are going to do here. Whom are we going to say no to? I haven't heard anybody define, especially on the other side, whom we might say no to. This is just the people that we want to say yes to, or at least as far as the left wants to say yes to.

There is a report that, before the last census, with an average 710,000 in a Member's congressional district, at least six districts in California were comprised, figuratively, of illegal aliens. That means that illegal aliens in California had more representation in the United States Congress than any one of 23 States that have less representation. That is something to keep in mind as this debate moves on.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think this bill goes anywhere, but if it does, it could be the destruction of the rule of law and the fracture of the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Texas yielding to me.

Madam Speaker, I came to the floor to highlight the disasters that we have in the Midwest.

I recall back in 2011 when the Missouri River was 11 miles wide at its widest and 5 to 6 miles wide most everywhere else, all the way through Iowa and down across Missouri. It was a secret flood because you couldn't drive there. You had to fly over to see it.

We have some of these similar circumstances this spring, although it has gotten a little more of the press. We had more water come down below Gavins Point than ever before. It wiped out a lot of ag land on the Iowa side and more so, even, on the Nebraska side.

We have critical infrastructure that has got to be reconstructed. We have got to protect some of these communities that have been nearly wiped out. This Corps of Engineers, in particular, has 41 breaches on the levees just on the Iowa side of the river.

I urge that we get to a conclusion and adoption of a final package on this disaster relief.

But I would point out, Madam Speaker, that this message from the White House said that Congress should not use natural disasters as a pretext to engage in unnecessary spending outside the agreed upon discretionary spending caps.

I am hopeful that this gets worked out between the House and the Senate. We need the relief, and we need it very soon.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote on February 26, 2019 due to my flight being delayed on account of inclement weather. Had I been present, I would have voted no on Roll Call No. 90, no on Roll Call No. 91, no on Roll Call No. 92, and no on Roll Call No. 93.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote on February 25, 2019 due to inclement weather preventing my scheduled air travel from Iowa to Washington, D.C. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

YES on Roll Call No. 88, and YES on Roll Call No. 89.

Madam Speaker, on January 15, 2019, the House of Representatives considered H. Res. 41, a resolution rejecting white nationalism and white supremacy as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States. I voted for the resolution because it cited accurately the misquote of my words by The New York Times and because I wholeheartedly agree with the rejection of white nationalism and white supremacy.

I write today to emphatically correct the quote once again to align with what I actually stated to The New York Times reporter and on the floor of the House of Representatives. As I stated on the House floor, what I actually said was `` `White nationalist, white supremacist-- (there is a dash here as a pause) Western civilization, how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and civilization'--that is the end of the quote--just to watch `Western civilization' become a derogatory term in political discourse today?''

According to my actual words, the question ``how did that language become offensive?'' clearly referred only to the term ``Western Civilization''. I was not asking how the terms white nationalist and white supremacist have become offensive. If there is any doubt as to the accuracy of this accounting, I would direct you to the CSPAN video of my floor remarks from that day, January 15, 2019.

As the descendant of abolitionists and Union soldiers who fought and died to purge this land of the crime of human slavery, I well know why certain terms--such as white nationalist and white supremacist--are offensive. And I always have and always will reject them completely.

I stipulate that the Record reflects precisely my words, which are those of a man who loves his country and all its people and will continue to work for the betterment of our society for all Americans, who are all endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and are equal under the law.