Susan A. Davis

Mr. Chair, I want to first thank my colleague from California for her work to undo the damage the President has done to transgender servicemembers and our Armed Forces.

This ban endangers transgender soldiers and tells all transgender Americans that they are not fit to serve their country. The Harry Truman amendment will reverse the President's harmful ban and protect transgender soldiers from further discrimination.

Though the administration cited concerns over readiness, unit cohesion, and medical costs to justify its ban, it has been unable to back up its claims.

Mr. Chair, transgender troops have served openly at home, overseas, and in combat zones since 2016 without incident, a finding supported by the Chief of Staff of every service branch.

The Truman amendment extends Federal protections to transgender soldiers and makes it unlawful to exclude anyone from service based on their gender identity.

Transgender servicemembers, as my colleague noted, testified in the House that serving openly dramatically improved their quality of life and their service to our country.

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise today to support the amendment offered by my colleague from California (Ms. Speier). It provides our servicemembers with medically accurate educational resources to help prevent unintended pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

The courageous Americans who put their lives on the line for our country deserve the best wellness education we can offer, and keeping them healthy helps maximize our military's readiness.

This commonsense amendment is recommended by the Pentagon's nonpartisan Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and, therefore, there should be broad bipartisan support. I encourage my colleagues who support our troops to vote for it.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the SAFE Act.

No matter what my colleagues conclude about the Mueller report, I think we can all agree it shows our elections are under foreign attack.

What would happen if a foreign government actually succeeded in changing the results of a Federal election?

All bad actors have to do is break through the defenses of even one-- even one--of the over 10,000 election administration jurisdictions in our country.

As we all know, questionable results in just one county can derail an entire Presidential election and throw our country into a tailspin.

Election security is national security. Election machinery is the machinery of democracy.

The SAFE Act gives States what they need to upgrade and maintain safe and resilient election infrastructure.

In the House Administration Committee, we debated whether paper ballots are the safest way to go. It does seem ironic that our answer to cybersecurity, in fact, is old school, but we know what works.

As Oregon's Secretary of State Dennis Richardson said, ``You can't hack paper.'' We can recount and audit paper ballots with a certainty that we just don't have with machines.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to file a supplemental report on the bill, H.R. 2500.