Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, if the Statue of Liberty could cry, she would be crying today. As I stand here, there are 2,300 babies and kids who were ripped away from their parents by our government and are in detention facilities across America.

America was a country founded by people fleeing persecution. We are a land of immigrants. President Ronald Reagan called us ``that shining city upon the hill.''

Unfortunately, Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen have perverted that grand legacy and have now engaged in the functional equivalent of kidnapping.

You can believe in any God or no God at all and conclude that ripping kids away from their parents is immoral. I believe in Jesus Christ. Every single thing in the Gospels and what Christ taught goes against the policy of family separation.

Imagine being a mother and father and losing your child to the government and not knowing if you are ever going to see your child again, the horror of that.

Imagine being a child; when you are young, your parents are likely the most important people in your life. Imagine being ripped away from your mother or father and not knowing if you are ever going to see them again, and then being placed in a detention facility with strangers. Imagine the horror and fear you will see doing that. What must that sound like?

(Audio being played.)

For what reason, Madam Speaker?

Cite the rule, Madam Speaker.

There is no rule that says I can't play sounds.

Why are you trying to prevent the American people from listening to what it sounds like in a detention facility?

These are babies and kids in a detention facility. Why do you not let the American people hear what they are saying?

There is no rule in the House that says I cannot play sounds from a detention facility.

Read the rule. It does not say I cannot play sounds from a detention facility.

Why are we hiding this from the American people?

Why are we hiding it from the American people?

Why are we hiding it from the American people?

We have 2,300 babies and kids----

We have 2,300 babies and kids in detention facilities who were ripped away from their parents. I think the American people need to hear this.

Madam Speaker, I think the American people need to hear this ProPublica tape of a detention facility of babies and children who were ripped away from their parents.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen brazenly told the American people that there was no policy of family separation. Then she reversed and said there was a policy, but she is not going to apologize for defending it. Then she reversed again and said it is actually not a policy, that only Congress can change the laws on it.

Yesterday, the executive order by Donald Trump puts her statements very clearly in the spotlight as all lies. Her credibility has been shredded. She needs to resign.

By the way, there are 2,300 babies and children still separated from their mothers and fathers. That is evil. That is sinful. We need to know where those children are and how we are going to reunite them.

Mr. Speaker, 20 days ago, I led a letter to Secretary Nielsen, along with other Members of Congress, asking very basic questions:

How do you make sure that some of those kids are not put with child molesters?

How do you make sure we reunite those kids with their parents?

She still has been unable to answer those questions. She needs to go. She needs to resign. She is a national embarrassment, and she is executing an evil policy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the prestigious career of Dr. Michael Langberg who retired from Cedars Sinai Hospital on May 1, 2018 after 37 years of service. Dr. Langberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Cedars Sinai Hospital, was also a permanent member of the California Department of Public Health's health care-associated infection advisory committee. He leaves behind a legacy of better quality care, improved health policy, and collaboration with hospitals around the country to ensure patient safety, particularly for those of limited means or with complex medical needs.

Dr. Langberg has always been a strong advocate of quality care and making it available for poorer communities. He is a highly respected national leader on patient safety and health care quality, who led the work at the American Hospital Association to review new care policy, identify potential unintended consequences, and convey those issues to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). His work also laid the foundation for the provision in the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act that directed CMS to include an adjustment to the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program to recognize the impact of sociodemographic factors on readmission rates.

In addition to Dr. Langberg's many successes, he has been an advocate for sharing both successes and failures in order to disseminate best practices and advance improvements in quality and safety, which has helped many hospitals across the nation learn how to keep patients safe and improve quality in care. Dr. Langberg has been an invited speaker at the Health Management Academy, the National Patient Safety Congress, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and has testified before the California State Senate on physician quality performance in order to help legislators craft better public policy that supports improvement in health and health care.

For these reasons, I am delighted to recognize Dr. Michael Langberg and offer thanks for his selfless commitment to his community.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gallego for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, what Congressman Gallego didn't say is, first of all, both of us are veterans, and we serve on Active Duty in the United States military because we believe in this country, we believe in America, we believe we are an exceptional nation.

But Scott Pruitt has made a joke of Federal service. He is under 12 investigations. He has wasted taxpayers' money, he has used taxpayers' money to enrich himself, and he has used taxpayers' money to help his wife.

Based on what Congressman Gallego said about this lotion thing, he had his personal security detail, paid for at taxpayer expense, drive around to Ritz-Carltons to try to find lotion. That is why I have a picture here of the Ritz-Carlton lotion.

There is also this thing, by the way, known as the internet. You can just go on the internet and search for Ritz-Carlton lotion. The first link will take you to the Ritz-Carlton shops, and he could have just ordered it without using his taxpayer-funded staff to drive around to find this lotion. This is just an example of the joke he has made of Federal service.

Mr. Gallego and I are going to break down for the American people today the top 10 scandals of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Mr. Speaker, number nine is the dinner reservation. It was publicly reported that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt asked the security detail to turn on lights and sirens so that they could drive him down the crowded traffic streets of Washington, D.C., and get him to dinner at Le Diplomate restaurant.

That is an abuse of taxpayer funds, and that is not what sirens are for. They are for actual emergencies, not to make sure that a Trump Cabinet official can make his dinner reservation on time.

Mr. Speaker, number six is the lotion, which we have already talked about. But what we didn't talk about is, in

using his security detail, you should know, this is a really expensive security detail 24/7. They have already spent $3.5 million on that security detail in 2017.

This is, again, just a waste of taxpayer funds. No other Cabinet official has this kind of security, and it is something that we really should look at if we had a functioning GOP House oversight structure.

Unfortunately, the majority here in the House has refused to look at EPA's Scott Pruitt scandals, and I don't even know how they can defend him at this point.

Number four, the $43,000 soundproof phone booth: So EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is so paranoid that he wasted $43,000 of your taxpayers' money to build a soundproof phone booth for him to make phone calls.

So if the President doesn't want to fire EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for his corruption, I think the President should just fire him for being super weird, right? You have got Scott Pruitt using a security detail to get lotion at the Ritz-Carlton, to have his staff trying to find used Trump Hotel mattresses, and he has built this private phone booth. That is just creepy and strange.

Number two is the sweetheart condo deal with lobbyists.

So Scott Pruitt got this deal with lobbyists that no ordinary American could have gotten. It was a $50-a-night deal on a condo in Washington, D.C., near the Capitol, and market rates were much higher than $50 a night.

But in addition, he structured a lease so he only had to pay for the nights that he was there. So many nights that he wasn't there, the landlord just had to eat those costs. That is not a lease that any normal American could have gotten.

The reason that Scott Pruitt got this is because he was dealing with these lobbyists, who also lobbied on issues before him. This is what most people would call corruption.

And before we go to the last one, which is about the Chick-fil-A restaurant, I just want to say the fact that Chick-fil-A--I can't even say this without laughing. Maybe Ruben Gallego can talk about this with a straight face.

Again, Congressman Gallego and I served on Active Duty in the military. We are veterans. We believe in this country. That is why we are up here.

Some of the things we said today may have sounded funny, because we are trying to point out the absurdity of why EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is still in office.

Scott Pruitt has wasted taxpayer funds, he has abused taxpayer funds for his personal profit, he has abused his relationship with lobbyists to personally profit, he has also abused his relationships to help his family profit.

Scott Pruitt, at the end of the day, is not just an embarrassment to us, he is an embarrassment to the Republicans in this House, to the Democrats in this House, to the Trump Cabinet, and to the United States of America.

Scott Pruitt has to go.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding.

Since the beginning of this Congress, we have had more infrastructure weeks than I can count, but we have yet to take up a comprehensive infrastructure bill. America desperately needs that.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that for the next 10 years, we need $4.6 trillion of infrastructure funding just to keep pace. Over $2 trillion of that is not funded.

So, for example, 53 percent of our public schools need funding to make repairs. More than 18 million Americans drink from water systems that fail to meet Federal lead tests. Forty percent of rural America and those on tribal lands lack broadband access.

The President has designated week after week as Infrastructure Week, but this House majority has yet to consider a serious infrastructure proposal. When it comes to infrastructure, the President and this GOP majority has been all talk, no action. America deserves better. We have to fix our roads and highways, water infrastructure, schools, transit systems, and VA facilities. We have to have key principles for this infrastructure.

First, we have to create millions of new jobs through investments in 21st century projects. We also need to emphasize public investment over corporate giveaways and the selling of public goods. We need to embrace 21st century clean energy jobs, including expanding solar and wind power, promoting energy efficiency, and modernizing the energy grid.

We also need to ensure that investments are not paid for at the expense of Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. We need to not weaken or repeal existing environmental laws.

H. Con. Res. 63, which embodies all of these principles, is supported by more than one-third of the House, with 157 cosponsors. We need to bring this proposal up rather than considering partisan appropriations bill that cut funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency and repeal protections that keep our waterways clean without offering a meaningful opportunity for debate.

Mr. Speaker, I am here with Congressman Ruben Gallego. I would like to talk about national security and how the President of the United States may be inadvertently giving away classified information.

The President, through public reporting, shows that he is unwilling to swap out his cell phones. There is a big problem with this.

Last term, I was involved with this flaw called the SS7 flaw. It is something that allows foreign powers and criminal syndicates affiliated with foreign powers to listen in on your cell phone just knowing your cell phone number, and there is no real good way to stop it. Our concern is that if the President finds it too inconvenient to deal with this issue of his cell phones, then his conversations could be listened in on by other foreign nations or by criminal syndicates.

We also find this somewhat ironic and hypocritical when the Republican-

controlled Congress, last term, went to great lengths to talk about the potential damage of having a private email server for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This is a very similar concept. These are cell phones from which foreign powers can get the actual conversations of the President of the United States.

We just want the White House, the Secret Service, and other agencies to talk to the President and say: Look, you just have to deal with operational security. You are their most highly-valued target in terms of intelligence information that foreign powers want; and, please, for our national security, swap out your cell phones.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gallego for his comments.

Both of us served Active Duty in the United States military-- Congressman Gallego served in combat--and we both know that one of the most important things to our military is operational security and protecting our communications and making sure that they are secure.

Donald Trump is the Commander in Chief of our military. If there is anyone that needs to have their communications secure, it has got to be our Commander in Chief.

Unfortunately, the President and the Republicans here that enable him are allowing him to have unsecured communications. That is really going to be harmful to our national security.

This is not some sort of theoretical flaw that exists. The Federal Communications Commission has issued a report saying that this flaw where foreign powers can listen in on our cell phone communications is real, it exists.

People have used it not just to listen in, but also to do nefarious things. A bank earlier this year lost millions of dollars because of this flaw.

So, again, we urge the President and the Republicans here to change the President's behavior, to do oversight on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to conclude this segment. I thank you for listening.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, Paul Ryan promised regular order when he took over the speakership. He has broken that promise repeatedly. We have voted on bills here on the floor that violated the standard committee process.

The majority has employed a technique called marshal law that allows them to bring up bills with little to no notice, and now we know we have the most closed Congress in U.S. history. The majority has blocked all amendments on most bills. That is a disgraceful way to run the people's House.

Twenty-three amendments of mine have been blocked--simple amendments. One of them basically says, hey, the Federal Government should invest more in cybersecurity. We can't even get a debate on that.

Really?

Another amendment I have deals with anticorruption, and whether you have a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent, you don't want corruption. You don't want members of the executive branch making money off the taxpayer's dime.

So one of these amendments basically says we are not going to reimburse the President or other members when they go and spend money on Mar-a-Lago or other Trump properties and have the Federal Government pay money there because that flows to the President or his immediate family. Can't even get a vote on that. Why? Because the Republican leadership knows it would pass.

We need to open up this Congress and have a debate. We came here to debate ideas, not to block them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the life of Lawrence ``Larry'' Clark--a beloved husband and former mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes--who passed away on May 2, 2018 at the age of 69. It was an honor for me to have known Larry.

Larry was born on January 19, 1949 in Orange, California. Larry double majored in both psychology and sociology at California State University, Fullerton. Later, Larry also received an MBA from California State University, Dominguez Hills. After graduating, Larry began a 40-year career with the federal government where he was able to work with several agencies such as the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the communications and information systems field. Before being elected to the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council in 2001, Larry served on the View Commission and Planning Commission. Due to his passion to serve the public and his perseverance seen through his dedication and hard work, Larry was elected for a second term. While in his second term, he was appointed twice to the California State Coastal Commission. Larry was elected as mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes in 2008, and served for two years.

After retiring from the federal government in 2012, Larry was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Despite his diagnosis, Larry went on to volunteer with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN), create the PanCAN Survivor Council, and serve on the Executive Committee for PurpleStride Los Angeles. In 2013, Larry received the Spirit of Hope award at the PanCAN's Evening with the Stars gala for his advocacy on behalf of the nonprofit organization and was shortly appointed one of five national ambassadors for PanCAN. Larry fought cancer with tremendous courage, grace and dignity.

Larry is survived by his wife of 24 years, Becky, and their two corgis Milo and Katie, whom I hope take comfort in the way Larry lived his life as a deeply thoughtful, compassionate and moral citizen. May his memory be a blessing to us all.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the career of Mr. Tony Coroalles who is retiring on May 31, 2018. Tony's 15 years of service establishes him as the longest serving City Manager in the history of the City of Calabasas in Los Angeles County.

Tony was born in Havana, Cuba in 1952 and immigrated with his family to San Francisco when he was young. Tony grew up in San Francisco and received his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of San Francisco. In 1974, Tony enlisted in the United States Army and after 27 years of service earned the rank of Colonel before he retired from the military in 2001. When Tony was selected as the City Manager of the City of Calabasas, he described his experience in the Army as instrumental in preparing him for the job.

Tony once stated about his military service, ``I ran all the Army bases in Alaska--I was essentially the city manager for the Army in Alaska. I did that for a little over two years . . . Before that, I had done the same thing in a smaller installation . . . I had two tours in the Army in city management.''

After Tony's retirement from the military in 2001, he worked as the Assistant General Manager for the Department of Recreation and Parks in Los Angeles. Tony managed all of the parks and open spaces in the city of Los Angeles as well as the 1,200 full-time employees and 4,000 part- time employees of the department.

When Tony was hired as the City Manager of the city of Calabasas, then Mayor James Bozajian said that the city council chose Tony not only for his experience, but for his ``ideas and his sense of direction'' for the city of Calabasas. Focusing on delivering quality services to the city's residents, Tony oversaw the installation of a new `smart' irrigation system which saves money by actively responding to weather conditions, as well as the construction of separate senior and civic centers. These new structures and systems, along with improving the city's roadways and streetscapes, has not only improved service delivery in the Calabasas community, but brought it closer together.

Tony and his wife Patty will be moving to Lake Oconee, Georgia to be closer to members of their family. I would like to thank Tony for everything he has contributed over the course of his career with the city of Calabasas.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. Michael Langberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Dr. Langberg will retire from his post at Cedars in May, after having served the patients of Los Angeles and, in fact, patients around the nation, since 1981. He leaves behind a legacy of better quality care, improved health policy, and collaboration with hospitals around the country to make care safer, particularly for those of limited means or with complex medical needs.

Dr. Langberg is a highly respected national leader on patient safety and health care quality. When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services crafted the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, he led the work at the American Hospital Association to understand the proposed policy, identify potential unintended consequences--especially those potentially affecting poorer communities--and convey those issues to CMS so that the agency could refine its approach and improve the program. His work laid the foundation for the provision in the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act that directed CMS to include an adjustment to the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program to recognize the impact of sociodemographic factors on readmission rates.

Dr. Langberg has testified before this body on patient safety and quality issues and before the California Senate on physician quality performance--all in an effort to help legislators craft better public policy that supports improvement in health and health care. He is a permanent member of the California Department of Public Health's health care-associated infection advisory committee, seeking to prevent the emergence and spread of infections in my state, and he serves on the Board of Directors of the Hospital Quality Institute in California.

Dr. Langberg has been an advocate for sharing both successes and failures in an effort to disseminate best practices and advance improvements in quality and safety. He has been an invited speaker at the Health Management Academy, the National Patient Safety Congress, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. By freely speaking of both the successes and challenges encountered by this nationally esteemed hospital, Dr. Langberg has helped many other hospitals across this nation learn how to keep patients safe, improve the quality of the care they deliver, and be attentive to health risks patients may experience after they have left the hospital, particularly poorer patients and those who live in communities with relatively few health care providers.

For these reasons, I am delighted to recognize Dr. Michael Langberg and offer thanks for his dedication and service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the service of Dr. Jason Chao to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), and I congratulate him on his retirement.

Dr. Chao, Primary Advisor to the Ambassador of the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), has been serving TECRO for the past 25 years. Throughout his esteemed career, he has been the chief congressional liaison officer and the principal escort officer for congressional delegation trips. Many Members of Congress and congressional staff have learned more about Taiwan because of Jason's work.

Dr. Chao has consistently shown wisdom, professionalism, passion, and dedication during his many years of service. He has also been instrumental in helping steer the promotion of bilateral relations and the exchange of cultural and economic growth between the ROC and the United States.

We will miss Dr. Chao, but we are excited for his future endeavors and we offer him our sincere thanks for his many contributions to the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.

Mr. Speaker, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent, you don't want corruption in your government. Unfortunately, multiple members of Donald Trump's Cabinet have engaged in massive fraud, waste, and abuse, largely by using taxpayer funds on luxury private air travel.

Democrats have been calling repeatedly for investigations into Trump's ``Cabinet of Corruption.'' Unfortunately, the Republican- controlled House has largely protected these officials at every turn. So I am going to highlight to you some of the more egregious examples, and we have added up the numbers.

Representative Torres gave very specific examples, but we are going to give you the big numbers so you understand how much corruption there is.

It all started with former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who spent half a million dollars of taxpayer funds on private and military jet travel for no good reason. He could have taken commercial. He chose not to.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin looked at that and must have said ``what a great idea,'' because he doubled that spending. He spent nearly $1 million of taxpayer funds on at least seven military jets, for no good reason, because he could have flown commercial, just like his predecessors.

And then we have Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who took multiple trips that added up to thousands of dollars on expensive private jets, as well as about $139,000 to renovate his office doors.

Then we have former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who spent $122,000 of taxpayer funds on a trip to Europe with his wife, largely to do sightseeing.

But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, he takes this to a whole new level. He is so creative in his corruption. You will be very impressed to hear how ingenious he is.

First of all, he spent over $40,000 on a private phone booth of your hard-earned taxpayer funds. For most Americans, we know there is a very simple way to make private phone calls from your office; it is called closing the office door. But no, he didn't do that. He spent your hard- earned money to have this private phone booth for him to make his phone calls.

Then he managed to find a way to live here in Washington, D.C., cheaply, by getting a below-market rate condo deal, $50 a night; and then he structured the lease so that the landlord had to keep the condo open for the entire time for 6 months, but he only had to pay for the days that he stayed there. No ordinary citizens could have gotten that lease.

Then he spent over $200,000 of your hard-earned taxpayers' money, on, again, first class travel and chartered flights.

The Trump administration's ``Cabinet of Corruption'' is sticking Americans with a raw deal. Democrats believe that hardworking Americans deserve a better deal, and my bill, the SWAMP FLYERS Act is very simple. It will prevent administration officials from using taxpayer funds for private air travel, ensuring that government officials are not using your hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund their lavish lifestyles.

If my colleagues care about protecting our tax dollars and preventing these obvious abuses, they will vote ``no'' on the previous question and call up H.R. 3876, the SWAMP FLYERS Act, for a vote.

Mr. Speaker, as has been said, music is the lifeblood of culture that can transform world views, transport listeners, and inspire social movements.

Ensuring that the law keeps up with music and its changing forms is crucial. With the support of music publishers, artists, songwriters, streaming services, and other stakeholders, the Music Modernization Act will propel the music industry into the 21st century and beyond. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the act.

I want to thank Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Nadler, as well as Representatives Collins, Jeffries, and others for their hard work on this bill.

As the Representative for California's 33rd Congressional District, these issues hit close to home. My district sits at the heart of California's music industry. It is home to thousands of brilliant songwriters, publishers, engineers, record producers, recording artists, and musicians.

I am proud to have worked with such a unique and engaged community. They make up different threads of the industry's fabric, but share a common goal of developing solutions to some of the most complex and longstanding copyright issues facing our country. Today, we honor that legacy by moving Federal music copyright forward.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Gallego and I both served in the Active Duty U.S. military because we believe America is an exceptional country, the best in the world. But what really bugs us is the fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayers' funds and taxpayers' money, and the culture of corruption in this administration starts at the top with the President. So I am just going to go through some numbers--these are facts--of how much Donald Trump has wasted of taxpayers' money.

He has spent over $58 million on 95 trips to golf clubs, including Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, and other Trump-owned properties. Every time he takes one of these trips, according to The Washington Post and Politico, it costs about $3 million, with all the staff and everyone that has to go and travel with him. In addition, $137,000 was used for golf carts for the Secret Service between January and October 2017 alone.

At least $190,000 of taxpayers' money was used for Trump brothers' business trips in the first 3 months of 2017; $17,000 for custom rugs in the Oval Office; over $12,000 on a custom conference table for the West Wing of the White House from, by the way, the same company used by President Nixon.

So this corruption starts at the top, and now you are going to see, as you go along through the Cabinet, the fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayers' money.

Mr. Speaker, and then we have Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who spent $139,000 of taxpayers' money to renovate some office doors; $39,000 for a helicopter tour of national monuments in Nevada; $12,000 on a private jet from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spoke to a hockey team owned by a major donor, to his home in Montana; as well as a taxpayer-funded security detail that also accompanied him and his wife on their personal vacation to Greece and Turkey at considerable taxpayer expense.

Mr. Speaker, and now we have Veterans' Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who spent over $122,000 of taxpayer funds with his wife to go to Europe for their primary purpose of sightseeing. David Shulkin has been fired.

I shall also note that Secretary Tom Price, who was also in the Trump Cabinet, spent huge amounts of taxpayers' dollars on first-class flights. He was also fired.

Oh, that is correct Sorry. I took your spot.

Well, there are just so many folks.

The next person we have is former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also was fired. He spent $12 million of taxpayers' money in fees to consultants in an attempt to downsize and restructure the State Department.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, but wait. There is more on Scott Pruitt.

In addition to his waste of taxpayers' money, he also got a sweetheart deal

from lobbyists in Washington, D.C. He was able to get a lease for just $50 a night--something you can't really get anywhere near Capitol Hill--and he only had to pay on the nights that he was there, even though the lease said that the landlord had to keep it open for 6 months--it was on demand and he could go there any time--oh, and, by the way, his daughter could also basically stay as well. When you put out the numbers, that agreement was two to three times less than what any ordinary citizen could have gotten.

This culture of corruption has now led to a Cabinet of corruption. I don't care whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent, this is just not acceptable. It is time that the American taxpayer speak out and tell the Trump administration: We have had enough. You need to start firing these officials who are wasting taxpayers' money and getting sweetheart deals for lobbyists.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, in fact, this administration has fertilized the swamp. It is tremendously, bigly huge right now. We have lobbyists who have inappropriate deals with Cabinet officials, we have Cabinet officials spending a lot of taxpayers' money to live up their luxury lifestyle of first-class jets, of luxury hotels, and of trips they don't need to take. This is simply not acceptable. This is exactly the opposite of what the President ran on, and the voters are going to know this this November.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, Congressman Gallego and I are writing an open letter to the American taxpayers that is going to contain all of these facts, with the sources cited, so that the American people can see for themselves the huge waste of taxpayers' money from the Cabinet of corruption.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the life of Mr. Steven Bochco--an accomplished Los Angeles television writer and producer--who passed away on April 1, 2018 at the age of74.

Steven was born in New York City on December 16, 1943 to Mimi and Rudolph Bochco, both artists in their own right; his mother was a painter and jewelry designer and his father was a violinist. Steven attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and attended New York University for a year before transferring to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. During summer vacations between his junior and senior year of college, Steven got a job at Universal Television in Los Angeles, which led to a job and cross country road trip that would forever change his life.

During his time at Universal, Steven's first writing credit came from expanding an already filmed one-hour drama into two hours by adding backstory about the characters when they were kids. Steven later remarked that, at the time, he was, ``so naive about the business that it didn't even occur to me that my name would be up on the screen. Suddenly when this thing was finished and I went to see it, it said, `Written by Rod Serling and Steven Bochco.' That was my first professional writing credit.''

In 1971, Steven wrote his first 90-minute television episode for the Steven Spielberg-directed installment of Columbo entitled `Murder by the Book,' which led to his first of 34 Emmy nominations and a lasting friendship of 47 years with Mr. Spielberg. After 12 years with Universal, Steven left in 1976 to work for the late television executive, Grant Tinker, at his company MTM Enterprises, where he would develop a ground-breaking show about the personal lives of police officers, Hill Street Blues. Hill Street Blues established broadcaster NBC as a powerhouse on Thursday nights and the shows' first round of Emmy nominations resulted in being awarded 8 out of 21 nominations. Hill Street Blues would eventually be nominated for 98 Emmy awards during its nearly 150-episode run.

After five seasons of Hill Street Blues, Steven was fired from MTM because he refused to sacrifice quality storytelling in order to save on costs. Ever ambitious, Steven turned down an offer to become president of CBS's entertainment division and signed an unprecedented six-year, 10-series deal with ABC and a deal with 20th Century Fox to create the 15-time Emmy Award winning show, L.A. Law. Steven subsequently founded Steven Bochco Productions and, with David E. Kelly, created the beloved Doogie Howser M.D. with ABC Studios. Later describing the business of hour-long television drama as being `in the toilet' in 1991, Steven set out to create 1992's critically-acclaimed NYPD Blue which would ultimately earn 20 Emmy awards throughout its run.

Steven's prodigious career was defined by the rare creative control he was able to exert on his projects and productions. His portfolio of work has contributed greatly to the canon of American television through the dark and gritty realism he was able to portray about the lives of our country's public servants and public defenders .

Steven is survived by his wife of 17 years, Dayna, his children Jesse, Sean and Melissa, his grandchildren Wes and Stevie Rae, and his sister Joanna Frank. May his memory be a blessing to us all.