Restraining Excessive Seizure of Property Through the Exploitation Civil Asset Forfeiture Tools Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chairman yielding me the time, the ranking member for being here, and also Mr.
Roskam and Mr. Crowley, both for their sponsorship and cosponsorship of this legislation.

H.R. 1843, the Clyde-Hirsch-Sowers RESPECT Act is one of those things that you really, at times, have a hard time understanding why we are debating on the floor of the House. It is that much common sense. And as my grandmother used to say: Common sense is not common.

So here we are. If anyone has any doubt about the need to restrain the forfeiture power of the IRS, they need to look no further than what happened to one of my constituents, as has already been mentioned, Andrew Clyde, whose namesake is on the bill. He is a law-abiding small business owner who served multiple combat tours. He had and has a successful gun store in northeast Georgia when the IRS seized his business bank accounts under a little-known procedure called civil asset forfeiture.

Now, we already talked a moment about just what that means, but let me go into a little bit more depth about that. What actually happened here is that Mr. Clyde was not charged with a crime when they seized his assets. In fact, he was never charged with a crime. In fact, the government's only allegation against him was he regularly made large cash deposits.

In other words, following what his own insurance would protect when he made those off-premise accounts, he was following good business practices. Despite this, the IRS had the audacity to negotiate with him about how much of his own money they would give back to him. The law, as it stands today, gives them the authority to do so; thus, the need for the legislation.

Now, rules have been changed and put in place, but this needs to be codified. I sat with Mr. Clyde on several occasions and talked about this case, and to hear the pain in his voice when he had to spend $100,000 in legal bills, plus, at the same time, to get the IRS to give back his money, he had to beg the government for his own property.

No one should have had to go through this, and that is why I respect the authors of this legislation, and I appreciate their hearings and concern about this. Because whether it is a bakery, a gun store, or any business, no American should have to face the IRS or the Justice Department when they have never been charged with a crime--they were never charged with a crime--and had their money taken from them.

This is one that I am proud of to see an American who stood up and said: No, this is not right.

Unfortunately, it cost him money, but today, this wrong is being righted. We are going to continue to see this pushed through.

Mr. Speaker, I respect Andrew Clyde, his business, and all the others who stood up and said: This is not right.

I applaud the authors, and I say: Now is the time to finish this.

Let's make sure that this never happens to another American citizen.

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