Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 3) approving the location of a memorial to commemorate and honor the members of the Armed Forces who served on active duty in support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the joint resolution under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 3 by Congressman Roe of Tennessee authorizes the National Desert Storm War Memorial Association to consider sites along or near the National Mall for a memorial to honor the members of Armed Forces who served on Active Duty in support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.

Under the Commemorative Works Act, any memorial proposed to be located on Federal land along or near the National Mall must be approved by Congress after the Secretary of the Interior determines that the proposed work is ``of preeminent historical and lasting significance to the United States.''

The Secretary of the Interior has recommended that the Desert Storm War Memorial Association be authorized to consider sites in Area I for the memorial, and this resolution would provide Congress' approval of the Secretary's recommendation. Congress provided initial authorization for the Desert Storm and Desert Shield Memorial in 2014, and the memorial is to be funded solely by private donations.

History will no doubt continue to debate the political decisions that stopped our forces before they reached Baghdad, but it has already recorded and judged the effectiveness, the heroism, and the devotion of our Armed Forces and their commanders in the field who utterly vanquished the largest army in the Middle East in just 100 hours and who liberated the people of Kuwait from a hideous and sadistic occupation.

This memorial will do more than honor the 382 Americans who gave their lives in the gulf war and ensure that they will not be forgotten. After all, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg:

The honor they earned on the battlefield cannot be added to

or detracted by us, and long after our words are forgotten,

their deeds will be remembered and celebrated.

But this monument will also remind future generations at home and abroad, friend and foe, of what American Armed Forces can do to rescue and protect the weak, and vanquish and punish the guilty, when competently commanded in the field and backed by the full resolve of the American people in a righteous cause.

I urge adoption of the measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), the author of this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the measure.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as we count down the days to the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, a parade of Democrats has appeared on the floor to accuse Republicans of blocking funding.

Have they completely forgotten that the House passed a bill to fully fund the Homeland Security Department back on January 14--31 days ago?

Every House Democrat save two opposed that funding, and, for 31 days, Senate Democrats have blocked it from even being considered.

The fact is that Democrats are willing to block funding for Homeland Security unless they can fund amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. According to a recent ABC-Washington Post poll, the American people want to stop the President's amnesty orders by a whopping 56-41 percent. Nine Senate Democrats have told their constituents they do, too, but they won't.

Those are the facts.

And, as John Adams said, facts are stubborn things.

Mr. Speaker, when we send our soldiers into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation to back them with the full might and resources that our country can muster and to give them the widest possible latitude for action. MacArthur was right:

In war, there is no substitute for victory.

The President proposes something very different: war by half measure; war on the cheap; war with dangerous restrictions on our troops; war with no clear objective other than to pull out in 3 years.

I will not vote for the authorization that the President has requested. Given his obvious irresolution, I think the best immediate course for the United States is to assure that the regional powers currently engaged against the Islamic State have the material support they require.

Mr. Speaker, on March 28, the Orange County Alzheimer's Association will honor four individuals for their extraordinary contributions to advancing research and providing care for this debilitating disease. One of them is Carol Manning, and I would like to add my voice to the chorus of praise for her philanthropic work.

I first met Carol 35 years ago. She and Everett were struggling to raise a family and make ends meet, and yet she still made time to volunteer for many civic endeavors. Today, Carol is president and CEO of TMS, Inc., Print Systems, a $30 million enterprise. And, yes, she and Everett did build that business from scratch with a lot of long hours and hard work and personal sacrifice.

Carol still puts in those long hours, and yet she still makes time for so many worthy causes, Alzheimer's research being just one. On behalf of all of the people whose lives she has made better, I am honored to say thank you, Carol Manning.

Mr. Speaker, amidst all the controversies gripping Congress, certainly, we should all be able to agree that the full faith and credit of the United States should not hang in the balance every time there is a fiscal debate in Washington.

This Nation now staggers under $18 trillion of debt, nearly $7.5 trillion of it run up during this administration. The interest on that debt is one of the fastest growing components of the Federal budget.

If there is ever any doubt of the security or reliability of that debt owed by this government, interest rates would quickly rise, and our precarious budget situation could rapidly spin out of control.

Ernest Hemingway put it this way. He asked:

How do you go bankrupt? Two ways. First gradually, then

suddenly.

So it is with nations.

The debt limit is how we regulate the Nation's debt. It is the national equivalent of a credit card limit. That limit has to be periodically adjusted. It is appropriate for Congress to take responsibility when it is raised. When it is raised, it is also appropriate for Congress to review and revise the policies that are driving that debt.

The fundamental problem under both Democratic and Republican Congresses is that this process is fraught with controversy--the bigger the debt, the bigger the controversy; the bigger the controversy, the more credit markets are likely to be spooked into demanding higher interest payments to meet their greater risk. Given the size of our debt, that could produce an interest tidal wave that could sink our budget and our Nation along with it.

I am, today, introducing the Default Prevention Act with 43 cosponsors to guarantee that the sovereign debt of the United States Government will be paid in full and on time, under any circumstances, even total political gridlock.

It simply provides that if the debt limit is reached, the Treasury Secretary may continue to borrow above that limit for the sole purpose of paying interest and principal that is due. It is an absolute guarantee that the debt of the United States will be honored.

Most States have various laws to guarantee payment of their debts. Three years ago, in testimony to the Senate, Ben Bernanke praised these State provisions for maintaining confidence in their bonds.

This act passed the House in the 113th Congress, but it was never taken up by the Senate. Now, we are approaching the expiration of the government's current borrowing authority. We will soon have serious discussions over the level of our debt and the additional measures necessary to bring that debt under control. We all hope these discussions will go smoothly, but we all know that sometimes they don't.

The Default Prevention Act says loudly and clearly to the world that no matter how much we may differ and quarrel, the sovereign debt of this Nation is guaranteed, and their loans to this government are absolutely safe.

Last session, the Democrats opposed this measure, charging that it is an excuse not to pay our other bills. Do they actually suggest that all these other States--that have guaranteed their sovereign debts for generations, some for centuries--have ever used these guarantees as an excuse not to pay their other bills?

On the contrary--by providing clear and unambiguous mandates to protect their credit first, they actually support and maintain their ability to pay for all of their other obligations.

The most outrageous claim the Democrats made was that this measure paid China first. What nonsense. More than half of our debt is held by Americans, often in American pension funds. This act actually protects Americans far more than Chinese or other foreign investors.

Whether our loans come from China or Timbuktu, from Grandma's pension fund or Johnny's savings bond, without the Nation's credit, we cannot meet any of our other obligations.

Principled disputes over how the debt limit is addressed are going to happen from time to time. Just a few years ago, then-Senator Barack Obama vigorously opposed an increase in the debt limit sought by the Bush administration.

When these controversies erupt, as they inevitably do in a free society, it is imperative that credit markets are supremely confident that their loans to the United States are secure.

Providing such a guarantee could prevent a future debt crisis and give Congress the calm it needs to negotiate the changes that must be made to bring our debt under control before Congress authorizes still more debt.

I urge its speedy consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my deep disappointment in the address by the President last night in this Chamber.

Twenty years ago, President Clinton was in a similar position. He realized his policies weren't working; they had just been overwhelmingly rejected by voters and he faced the first Republican Congress in 40 years. So in his State of the Union Message 20 years ago, President Clinton changed course, proclaiming: ``The era of Big Government is over.'' And he made good on that proclamation. He reached across the aisle to the Republican Congress, and together they achieved some amazing things for the American people.

Together, they reduced Federal spending by a remarkable 4 percent of GDP. They reformed entitlement spending--in Bill Clinton's words, ``ending welfare as we know it.'' They approved what amounted to the biggest capital gains tax cut in American history. They produced the only four balanced budgets that we have seen in 50 years.

And the economy blossomed. We enjoyed one of the longest periods of economic expansion in our Nation's history.

It wasn't a bipartisan lovefest. They clashed bitterly on matters great and small. Yet their accomplishments produced prosperity for our Nation and ensured President Clinton's popularity that endures to this day.

President Obama thus has a working, proven model to salvage the last 2 years of his failed Presidency, and instead, he is squandering it. The President says he wants to sock it to the wealthy by placing new and heavy taxes on investment. But the simple truth of the matter is, when you tax something, you get less of it. When you tax investment, you get less investment at precisely that time when our economy desperately needs greater investment for more and better-paying jobs.

A smaller percentage of our people are working today than at any time in more than 30 years. Until last year, median family income had fallen throughout this administration. The American people don't want more government handouts. They need more jobs and better jobs, and that means more investment, not less. They need a job market that isn't flooded with millions of illegal immigrants undercutting their wages and opportunities. Indeed, it was recently estimated that the number of illegal immigrants working in direct defiance of Federal law is as much as the net increase in jobs throughout this administration. Most Americans are not getting ahead.

We now suffer the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, and American businesses are fleeing from it.

Who would have thought that socialist Sweden would today be considered a tax haven compared to the United States? Our people need those American jobs back in America.

Yet the President seeks to raise taxes still further at a time when the Federal Government is already extracting record tax revenues from our people. The percentage of our economy now consumed by Federal taxes is well above the 40-year average. Our economic problems are not the fault of taxpayers for not paying enough taxes.

The President says he wants to help the middle class, but the proposals he set before us last night would drag the middle class still further down the dark road of debt and doubt and despair that we have been on. If higher taxes and more burdensome regulations were the path to prosperity, we should be enjoying a new economic golden age today. If higher government spending and soak-the-rich policies were the antidote to income inequality, we should today be enjoying an egalitarian paradise.

The reality is these policies have never worked. They have suppressed what should have been a robust economic recovery. They have increased the economic inequalities in our society. They have buried our children under a mountain of debt that will stalk them for the rest of their lives.

The answer to income inequality and economic stagnation is genuine economic growth that requires reducing the burdens that government has placed on our economy. It worked when Bill Clinton did it, when Ronald Reagan did it, and when John F. Kennedy did it. In fact, Kennedy was right: a rising tide lifts all boats. Yet Barack Obama clings obstinately to the opposite policies. It shouldn't surprise us that he is getting the opposite results.

He had a fleeting opportunity last night to bend to the will of the voters, reverse these policies, and redeem his place in history. Instead, Whittier's words seem appropriate this morning:

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, this saddest are these:

``It might have been.''

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, this is Placer County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Davis, Jr. You may have heard of him. He was gunned down on October 24 of last year in one of the most shocking murder rampages in the history of that county. He was murdered on the 26th anniversary of the day that he lost his father, a Riverside County sheriff's deputy, in the line of duty.

The suspect, who also killed a Sacramento sheriff's deputy and wounded an innocent bystander, should never have been here. He was a convicted felon who had entered our country illegally from Mexico. He had been twice deported for his crimes, only to reenter time and again over our unsecured border.

I met with Michael Davis' grieving family this weekend, including his remarkable mother, Debbie, and his sole surviving brother, Jason, who also serves as a Placer County sheriff's deputy. The message they asked me to convey today is that this is not about immigration--in fact, Jason spends his free time working with at-risk Latino children, many from immigrant families--rather, this is about the rule of law, including respect for our immigration laws for which this family has sacrificed so much.

We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws and not of men. That means the President is sworn to enforce the laws, not to make them. He doesn't get to change or to repeal laws by decree or decide who must obey the law and who gets to live above it; yet that is precisely what he has done.

In so doing, he has placed the public safety and the Nation's security at great risk. This measure begins to walk back these unconstitutional orders, secure our borders, repair our Nation's sovereignty, and recover the rule of law.

Michael Davis died for these principles. The least we can do is to vote to restore them.

Section 5:

``Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.''

Section 6:

``This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.''

Mr. Speaker, the constitutional issues involving the

President's executive orders on amnesty far transcend the issue of illegal immigration. The President's action strikes at the very heart of our separation of powers. The Constitution reserves to Congress alone the power to enact and alter law, and it charges the President with the responsibility to faithfully execute those laws.

If the President can seize legislative power in this manner and then boast to an audience that he, himself, has changed the law, then the separation of powers becomes meaningless, and our constitutional Republic will have crossed a very bright line that separates a nation of laws from the unhappy societies where rulers boast that the ``law is in their mouths.''

If this precedent stands, every succeeding President, Republican and Democrat, will cite it as authority to make or alter law by decree. This cannot be allowed to happen.

The question occurs: What can the House do?

Well, it took its first step last week by passing H.R. 5759 that declares the President's action unconstitutional and null and void. This was a symbolic act since the bill is subject to Presidential veto, but it was a warning that the President should have heeded. Obviously, he has not.

What else can the Congress do?

One of the fundamental checks held by Congress is the power of appropriation. It can close the purse by forbidding the use of Federal funds to proceed with this unconstitutional act.

I realize that is a very difficult thing to do with a dysfunctional Senate, but a temporary funding measure into January or February would protect us against the prospect of a government shutdown while we try to engage the Senate to rise in defense of the Constitution. And if the Democratic Senate will not defend our Constitution, and I am afraid that is a strong possibility, a few weeks from now the Republican Senate certainly will.

Why in the world would we want to lock in Federal spending through next September that reflects the priorities of the Democratic Senate that voters just thoroughly repudiated last month? Why in the world would we want to so greatly weaken our position to insist on the complete defunding of the President's unconstitutional act in the next congressional session just 3 weeks hence?

Meanwhile, it is imperative that the House take every action available to engage the Supreme Court to resolve this constitutional crisis. Several States have already filed suit, and the House needs to join them. In addition, the House needs to vote as an institution to challenge this act directly. This is too important to be treated as an afterthought on current litigation over ObamaCare. It needs to be voted on separately, unequivocally, and now.

Since the earliest days of our Republic, the Supreme Court has invalidated legislative acts that conflicted with the Constitution. Now it must be called upon to invalidate an executive act that strikes at the very core of our Constitution. Regardless of the ideologies of individual Justices, I cannot believe that any of them would sit idly by as the Executive seizes such fundamental powers from the legislative branch.

On behalf of the House, the Speaker announced last month that we would fight this act tooth and nail. To adjourn tomorrow, having taken only a symbolic vote, while abandoning our actual powers to challenge this act undermines the credibility of the House majority.

Elements on the extreme left argue that this act was justified due to congressional inaction over immigration reform. They fault the House for not adopting a Senate immigration measure, but they forget the House passed a strong immigration bill this summer and the Senate refused to consider it.

Since when has congressional disagreement over legislation been license for the President to legislate himself? This argument abandons the Constitution and the rule of law for the expediency of one-man rule. We should recognize such arguments for what they are: the authoritarianism of the extreme left. We should reject these arguments and those who make them.

Mr. Speaker, the Roman Republic died when Julius Caesar seized the legislative authority of the Roman Senate. Repeated acts of usurpation went unchallenged until the constitutional structure of the Republic simply disintegrated.

Let that not be the epitaph of the American Republic. Of this crisis, let history record that men and women of good will on both sides of the aisle joined together to defend the Constitution that they swore to uphold, and that this generation passed that Constitution and all of the freedoms it has preserved, intact and inviolate, to the many generations of Americans who followed.

Mr. Speaker, California's regulatory drought was causing enormous economic damage and human hardship long before the historic natural drought that has now stricken the State. And through all of those years, the House has passed legislation repeatedly to address it.

Finally, after years of inaction, the Senate produced a modest measure to provide very limited flexibility for water managers to deal with it. This bill largely reflects those provisions. It is a temporary, stopgap measure that suspends no environmental laws and no regulations. It simply tasks Federal water managers to conserve our water for beneficial human use to the maximum extent possible once all State and Federal environmental and water rights laws have been fulfilled. Let me repeat: the bill explicitly requires all environmental laws and regulations to be adhered to. All the House added to the Senate bill are provisions to strengthen water rights for areas of origin by adding Federal protection over these rights.

During the worst drought in California's history, we continue to release billions of gallons of water from our dams just to adjust river temperatures for the fish. Sadly, this bill doesn't even affect this wasteful practice. But during the next year and a half, it does give limited flexibility to water managers within these laws. That is important because we are getting some rainfall this season, and once all of the environmental laws have been fulfilled, we desperately need to store what surplus remains for what could be another very dry year.

To take that surplus above and beyond what is needed to meet all of our environmental mandates and dump it into the Pacific Ocean, as my colleagues on the left suggest we should do, is nothing short of lunacy. The fact that this very modest bill has evoked such apoplexy from the left is a measure of just how extreme and out of touch they have become. I wish this bill did much more, but it is a start.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life, achievements, and service of World War II veteran Bill Bastian.

Bill joined the United States Army in 1942, serving during the height of the Second World War as an officer in the 203rd Engineer Combat Battalion. Throughout the course of the war, Bill served as company commander, assistant operations officer, and battalion motor and liaison officer.

He was among the brave soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

After the invasion, Bill served as communication liaison officer. He risked his life to ensure that communications remained intact throughout the American advance in France.

He was redeployed to Belgium just before Christmas of 1944, where he faced the brunt of the German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge. During the invasion of Germany, Bill helped construct the bridge over the Fulda River between Frankfurt and Kassel.

As instrumental as this project was, Bill Bastian's contribution to protecting our country's ideals was far greater. He was a proven leader, who valued the resourcefulness of the Americans he commanded. Bill noted that most of the recruits did not even know how to drive a car when they joined the service, but by the end of the conflict, they could operate large machinery, build roads, and repair equipment.

Bill once remarked: ``Americans are people that can look at a job, figure out how to get it done, and then get the job done.'' This is the same manner in which he led his life after the Army.

Bill was more than a soldier; he was a loving husband to his wife of 63 years, Melba. After her passing, Bill devoted his time to leading tours of the Normandy beachhead and the French cemeteries where many of his former comrades are buried. In recent years, Bill's moving radio commentaries have kept the stories of his generation's sacrifice alive.

This brave veteran's service and devotion to the United States and to liberty lives on in the freedom enjoyed by all Americans. It is my privilege to rise in honor of the life and service of Bill Bastian.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this question transcends the issue of illegal immigration. The President's action has crossed a very bright line that separates the American Republic, which prides itself on being a nation of laws and not of men, from those unhappy regimes whose rulers boast that the law is in their mouths.

It is true that throughout the Nation's history, Presidents have tested the limits of their authority, but this is the first time a Chief Executive, who is charged with the responsibility to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'' has asserted the absolute power to nullify or change these laws by decree.

Under our Constitution, the President does not get to pick which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore. He does not get to pick who must obey the law and who gets to live above the law. He is forbidden from making laws himself. ``All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.''

Whether we choose to recognize it or not, this is a full-fledged constitutional crisis. If this precedent is allowed to stand, it will render meaningless the separation of powers and the checks and balances that comprise the fundamental architecture of our Constitution, that have preserved our freedom for 225 years. If this precedent stands, every future President--Republican and Democrat--will cite it as justification for lawmaking by decree.

The measure before us is the first act of this Congress to restore the balance of powers within this government. The President would be well advised to heed it before sterner measures are required.

The seizure of legislative authority by the executive proved fatal to the Roman republic. Now that is happening in our own time. Let that not be the legacy of this administration.

For more than two centuries, Americans have successfully defended our Constitution, and now history requires this generation to do so again, which it does beginning with this measure today.

Mr. Speaker, the genius of our Constitution can be found in the separation of powers that has preserved our freedom for 225 years.

The American Founders recognized that what had gone so terribly wrong in Europe was that the same organ of government that made the law also enforced that law and adjudicated it. All the powers were in the same hands. They wanted to protect their new Nation from such a fate.

So they divided the powers of government. Congress, and Congress alone, makes the law. ``All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.''

You want many voices in that decisionmaking process. You want a great, big, messy debate. That is the Congress.

Once that decision is made, it needs to be carried out by a single will, a single branch, headed by one individual whom the Constitution commands to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' One person does not get to make the law in this Republic. The President is called upon to enforce the law.

Fundamentally, that means he does not get to pick and choose which laws he will enforce and which laws he will ignore. He does not get to pick and choose who must obey the law and who gets to live above the law. And he does not get to change laws or make laws by decree.

That is the difference between the American Republic that prides itself on being a nation of laws and not of men and the European despots of old who boasted that the law was in their mouths.

Mr. Speaker, last week the President asserted an entirely unconstitutional power to nullify existing immigration law by ordering the executive branch to simply ignore it. Further, he has ordered 34 million green cards to allow businesses to hire illegal immigrants, despite Federal law that explicitly forbids their employment.

Throughout our Nation's history, executives have tested the limits of their power, but this act crosses a very bright line. Fortunately, the American Founders anticipated that some day a President might attempt to subvert the Constitution in this manner, and they provided a variety of defenses available to both the legislative and the judicial branches.

The legislative branch has the power of the purse, but that power is temporarily constrained by the partisan division between the House and the Senate. Fortunately, the American people have acted to end that division in January.

But I fear that any confrontation between the executive and the legislative branches could ultimately end in stalemate. The third branch of government, the judiciary, must be brought into this process.

Since our earliest days, the Supreme Court has guarded our Nation from unconstitutional acts by both the legislative and executive branches, and that role is desperately needed now. I believe there is no substitute for Congress doing everything within its power to invoke judicial intervention.

I cannot believe that even the most devoted liberals on the bench can be comfortable with this brazen act of usurpation. Assuming the Court stands with the Constitution, the President would have no choice but to back down or face a catastrophic public and congressional backlash.

Whether we choose to recognize it, this is a full-fledged constitutional crisis. If allowed to stand, this precedent renders meaningless the separation of powers and the checks and balances that comprise the fundamental architecture of our Constitution. If it stands, every future President, Republican and Democrat, will cite it as justification for lawmaking by decree.

The seizure of legislative authority by the executive is fatal to a republic such as ours. Indeed, it was Julius Caesar's usurpation of the Roman senate's legislative prerogatives that brought down the Roman republic and began four centuries of dictatorship. Once the rule of one man is established over the rule of law, it is a very difficult thing to stop.

Unlike every law that is passed under our Constitution, the Constitution itself has no penalties for those who break it. The reason is that the Constitution was written to be self-enforcing, but that only happens if the powers of government are evenly balanced. The Founders relied on each branch acting to keep those powers in balance. Now, in our time, that responsibility is ours.

Mr. Speaker, on October 24, Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County Detective Michael David Davis were wantonly gunned down in one of the most cold-blooded rampages in the history of either county. By all accounts these were exemplary law enforcement officers, fathers, husbands, sons, and neighbors.

Deputy Oliver spoke his last words as he approached a car in a parking lot for the simple purpose of asking if he could help a couple who appeared to be lost.

How is it going? he said.

The gunman and his accomplice next gunned down a bystander who was too slow in turning over his car keys as the couple hijacked his car. Miraculously, the bystander survived a gunshot wound to the head but vividly remembers the smile on the gunman's face as he pulled the trigger.

The next victim was Detective Michael Davis. You may have heard of him. On the very same date 26 years earlier, Michael Davis' father was killed in the line of duty as a Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy. Michael was 16 years old at the time.

Mr. Speaker, I wish there were some words of consolation to offer the grieving families of Danny Oliver and Michael Davis, but there are limits to our language, and words fail us when they are the most needed, but I know this: that the esteem and gratitude that our communities hold for these two officers and the sympathy we feel for the terrible losses their families have sustained could be seen most vividly and eloquently in the solemn faces of literally thousands of ordinary citizens who lined the funeral route for these officers or who stood silent vigil outside the church where they were mourned.

As I looked at the law enforcement officers from throughout the country who had come to honor these fallen peace officers at their funerals, it occurred to me that Deputy Oliver and Detective Davis and their many brothers and sisters in law enforcement are the business end of all of the highest principles of this amazing Republic of ours--a society that proudly proclaims itself a nation of laws.

We often speak of the rule of law, but who among us is willing to lay down our lives for it? Michael Davis was. Danny Oliver was. Because of their sacrifices, this rampage ended without a single civilian death. They protected us, but did we do everything we could to protect them? Their assailant had repeatedly entered this country illegally. While here, he had been apprehended for committing other crimes and had been repeatedly deported, only to easily recross the border without even being challenged. That is a subject for another day.

On this day, we should reflect on the agony of the Oliver and Davis families, who have lost devoted husbands and fathers. We should reflect on the extraordinary courage of our peace officers who bear growing and mortal risks every day to protect the peace that we too often take for granted.

Michael Davis' brother Jason eulogized his older brother. Jason is also a Placer County Deputy and was on the scene only minutes after his brother had been shot. Their third brother, Christopher, had died in 1998 in an accident as he, too, had been preparing for a career in law enforcement. And Jason, who had been present 26 years before when his mother was told of his father's death, who 16 years ago had informed their mother of Chris' death, and who days before had told her of Michael's death, looked at his grieving mother and asked the question if all of their pain justified their family's commitment to law enforcement. Without hesitation, he answered, ``Yes.''

I don't know where we get men like Danny Oliver and Michael Davis, but I know what we owe them. Of course, we owe them our gratitude and every honor that we can bestow upon them, but most of all, we owe it to them, to their families, and to their fellow officers to be just as devoted to the rule of law as they were. If we, the people, would do that, then we will have proven Jason Davis right--that their extraordinary devotion to these principles is as justified as it is noble.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the Jewish Community Center of Granite Bay, California, and join in celebrating the commissioning of a new community Torah scroll.

Opened in 2005 as a local home for Jewish life in Placer County, the Chabad House Jewish Community Center serves as a center of education and support to the local Jewish community and an inspiration to people from all walks of life.

The Granite Bay center is a branch of the International Chabad movement, which seeks to promote a greater awareness of education, morality and decency among all people. Chabad serves the community through a wide variety of services and programs, including by making the beauty of Jewish principles and heritage accessible to all Jews, and by bringing Jewish traditions into their daily lives.

As part of this effort, the Chabad House Jewish Community Center has commissioned a professional scribe in Israel to write a Torah scroll in the traditional method, which dates back thousands of years.

The Torah, a sacred text over 3,300 years old, contains the Five Books of Moses and is the most precious article in Jewish life. Its guidance provides a strong foundation for morals in today's global society.

On October 26, 2014, members of the Jewish community gathered with rabbis and community leaders in Placer County to witness the first letters of the Torah being inscribed.

Mr. Speaker, since the inception of our nation organizations like the Chabad House Jewish Community Center have been the bedrocks of their communities; and bastions of civic engagement upon which our society depends. As George Washington stated in his Farewell Address: ``of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.''

We are fortunate to have the Chabad Jewish Community Center as a pillar of religious and moral teachings in our community and I am proud to join in honoring this auspicious occasion.