Providing for Consideration of H.R. Ada Education and Reform Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protecting Consumers' Access to Credit Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Trid Improvement Act of and Providing for Proceedings During the Period From February Through February 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 736 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 736

Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 620) to amend the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to promote compliance through education, to clarify the requirements for demand letters, to provide for a notice and cure period before the commencement of a private civil action, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. No amendment to the bill shall be in order except those printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against such amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

Sec. 2. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3299) to amend the Revised Statutes, the Home Owners' Loan Act, the Federal Credit Union Act, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to require the rate of interest on certain loans remain unchanged after transfer of the loan, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services; and (2) one motion to recommit.

Sec. 3. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3978) to amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 to modify requirements related to mortgage disclosures, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. An amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 115-59, modified by the amendment printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any further amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services; (2) the further amendment printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules, if offered by the Member designated in the report, which shall be in order without intervention of any point of order, shall be considered as read, shall be separately debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

Sec. 4. On any legislative day during the period from February 16, 2018, through February 23, 2018-- (a) the Journal of the proceedings of the previous day shall be considered as approved; and

(b) the Chair may at any time declare the House adjourned to meet at a date and time, within the limits of clause 4, section 5, article I of the Constitution, to be announced by the Chair in declaring the adjournment.

Sec. 5. The Speaker may appoint Members to perform the duties of the Chair for the duration of the period addressed by section 4 of this resolution as though under clause 8(a) of rule I.

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring forward this rule today on behalf of the Rules Committee. The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 620, the ADA Education and Reform Act; H.R. 3978, the TRID Improvement Act; and H.R. 3299, the Protecting Consumers' Access to Credit Act of 2017.

The rule provides for one hour of debate on H.R. 620, equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit and makes in order multiple amendments from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

It also provides for one hour of debate on the two Financial Services bills, with time equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of that committee.

Yesterday, the Rules Committee had the opportunity to hear from my fellow Judiciary Committee members: Mr. Nadler, Mr. Poe, as well as Mr. Langevin. We also heard from Mr. Hill and Ms. Waters on the Financial Services bill.

H.R. 620 received consideration by the Judiciary Committee and enjoyed a rigorous markup process. H.R. 3299 and H.R. 3978 were considered and reported by the Financial Services Committee.

The bills before us today address different topics on different segments of our economy and our Nation, but they have something in common. They are all pro-growth bills aimed at righting wrongs, increasing common sense, and improving the way that the current system works.

I am a cosponsor of H.R. 620, the ADA Education and Reform Act and, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, have had multiple occasions to talk and listen about this bill. It is sponsored by my good friend from Texas (Mr. Poe), and several of my friends from both sides of the aisle have cosponsored this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have cosponsored this bill because I believe the Americans with Disabilities Act is critical legislation. No individual should ever suffer discrimination for any reason, and disabled individuals should have access to businesses and other sites that provide public accommodation. I am a former small-business owner, so I speak from experience running businesses.

Even more importantly, however, one of the main reasons I stand before you on this issue and behind this bill is I am the father of a strong, intelligent, capable, and a little sassy daughter named Jordan. Jordan is 26 years old and has spina bifida. Jordan has been in a wheelchair her entire life. Her first walk and first steps came in a little, pink wheelchair.

Jordan makes this issue personal for me. Discrimination is unacceptable, and it is also unacceptable for opportunists to build a cottage industry of serial litigation on the backs of the disabled, especially when these drive-by lawsuits offer little to no discernible benefit to disabled individuals.

Mr. Speaker, my daughter Jordan helps me understand the importance of access to public space and the danger posed by lawsuits that exploit the disabled community instead of serving its members. I believe that there are good actors genuinely seeking to increase access and call to task those who block access to disabled individuals. Unfortunately, what we are seeing too often is bad actors intentionally exploiting the law for their own financial gain.

When these bad actors, these serial litigants, clog up the courts by drive-by lawsuits geared not at solutions but at profits, they take up time the courts could be using to address issues that truly need remediation. They also undermine the Americans with Disabilities Act. The intent and purpose of the ADA is not to drum up lawsuits; it is to prevent discrimination, increase access, and to protect those with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, the disability community, my daughter included, represents some of the strongest people I know. They have a voice, and they are powerful. Today, we are here making sure the law works better for them and that it isn't being exploited by those who seek to undermine that law.

Today, small businesses face legal fees and complex technical jargon when presented with an impediment to access. Most businesses want to fix such issues and would, but instead of being able to make this issue right, they are forced into court before they have the chance to do so. In some examples of these serial lawsuits, the issues have not even been perceptible to the human eye; in others, building codes have changed--and yes, even the ADA--yet business owners have been hauled into court before they have a chance to respond or to fix the problem.

H.R. 620 ensures businesses have the opportunity to fix any access issues once they have been made aware of them. It provides notice and a cure period and clarifies the requirements for demand letters. It also provides training for business owners and State and local governments so that they can better understand proper ADA compliance.

The number of ADA title III lawsuits has skyrocketed in recent years. Since 2013, there has been a 132 percent increase in the number of lawsuits in Federal courts. H.R. 620 addresses this problem in a smart way that maintains the integrity, purpose, and key provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act while ensuring there is a chance to fix access issues.

This bill does not take away an individual's right to sue for access. This bill does not overturn the ADA. It does give business owners a chance to fix ADA problems quickly. Some owners may not even actually realize they are not in compliance. Codes have changed, and there are literally hundreds of pages of compliance.

That, however, is not an excuse for willful noncompliance. Far from it. But it is a reason that good actors who may need to update their accommodations should have a chance to do so.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that this bill has bipartisan support and that the Rules Committee made in order several amendments from Members on both sides of the aisle so that we can consider ideas to even further strengthen this legislation. I would ask that all Members listen to that amendment debate because these amendments do have an impact on this bill, and I would encourage them to be a part of that.

H.R. 620 makes sense and focuses on fixing issues rather than spending money on trials or, better yet, extorting money from businesses with no thought of helping those with disabilities.

We also have a chance to consider some other commonsense measures today with the two important Financial Services bills also provided for by this rule.

H.R. 3299, the Protecting Consumers' Access to Credit Act, was introduced by Mr. McHenry and Mr. Meeks, and reported by the Financial Services Committee with bipartisan support. Similar language was included in the House-passed CHOICE Act last year.

This legislation codifies the ``valid-when-made'' doctrine, a longstanding legal principle that, if a loan is valid when it is made with respect to its interest rate, then it does not become invalid or unenforceable when assigned to another party. This bill is a response to the 2015 decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Madden v. Midland, which appears to have ignored the longstanding legal principle.

The decision in the Madden case created instability and uncertainty in the secondary credit market, and restricts the availability of loans to borrowers, particularly those with less access to traditional lending sources. It has also led to regulatory uncertainty and fallout for fintech lenders. My home State of Georgia has an increasing presence in fintech, and H.R. 3299 provides a legislative fix that increases certainty and supports economic opportunity.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss 3978, the TRID Improvement Act, which incorporates numerous important provisions from several smart Financial Services bills. It was introduced by Congressman Hill from Arkansas, and takes steps to provide important regulatory relief and make capital markets more competitive and efficient.

Dodd-Frank led to an explosion of regulations and requirements that ultimately have squeezed access to capital, created hurdles to smaller market entrants, and imposed burdens on small businesses, startups, and investors.

One especially critical provision is H.R. 3978, the language authored by Mr. Duffy from Wisconsin. This provision prohibits the SEC from compelling the production of source code or similar intellectual property without a subpoena. The SEC has had a data breach, and the GAO has been critical of its cybersecurity.

I think Mr. Duffy and Mr. Hill, along with my colleague David Scott from Georgia, are right to recognize that we shouldn't be forcing SEC registered entities to hand over their highly sensitive source code without due process protections. This legislation ensures normal processes can be followed to access this information is needed, but prevents unnecessary disclosures of this intellectual property.

Mr. Speaker, source code for security and other financial entities is similar to what the Coke recipe is to Coca-Cola, or the doughnut recipe is to Krispy Kreme. It is critical intellectual property that represents the backbone of a company. This bill makes clear that this sensitive and highly valuable information doesn't have to be simply handed over to the SEC with the hope that the information remains secure.

H.R. 3978 includes numerous other key provisions, including recognizing unique needs of emerging growth companies and tailoring regulatory burdens accordingly, and requiring the CFPB--the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--to allow for more accurate and clear calculations to be provided to consumers when they purchase lenders and owners title insurance policies.

Mr. Speaker, today, you are seeing a theme. You are seeing a rule that provides for numerous bills that make commonsense changes to the current system to spur growth and simply increases fairness. And you are seeing bipartisan bills, including bipartisan amendments, that will be coming forward on this in support of these bills.

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of things that we can agree or disagree on here, but one of the things, from my position, especially with a daughter who has a handicap--this is not an insult to disabilities. It is actually keeping them from being abused and used by folks who don't even have a disability suing and asking for money and not really caring if the issue gets fixed or not.

At the end of the day, which would somebody rather have: a person in a wheelchair have something fixed, or have someone pay an attorney off so that they can make some money?

Let's at least put this in context of what it truly is.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

Mr. Speaker, I think the interesting thing is, as has been expressed by a couple of our speakers, especially on the Financial Services bills, these are bipartisan pieces of legislation that have come back. They have been vetted. They came before not only this body, many of them through the CHOICE Act, previously, but also have been coming back. And something that is really interesting is the bicameral, bipartisan process of making sure that capital and these Financial Services bills are actually something that we can move and can improve.

But I do, again, take a little bit of exception. And look, rhetoric is rhetoric, but deceit is also deceit in the sense that we don't talk about, especially in this ADA--I am not sure how opposing a bill that is designed to make improvements for folks and in protecting trial lawyers who can get people who do not even have disabilities to sue or to send a demand letter to get money without ever requiring that the business actually solve the problem. That is what has been missing in this debate today.

They can actually send a letter, say: Here is where our problem is. We are going to sue you, but if you send us X amount of dollars, that will do away with it--never concerned at all if the decision is actually making a difference in the business or the location. They don't care.

And, in fact, if you want to oppose this, then you are just actually, frankly, saying: That is a good idea. I like that. Let's just pick on businesses, and at the end of the day, you know those folks with disabilities, they are just our key to making more money.

That is wrong. My daughter is not a money-making proposition. That has got to cease.

We can disagree on ways about this. My friend from Rhode Island and I have talked about this a great deal. We are of the same mind and same agreement. We may disagree on somehow this is it and how to get there, but at the end of the day, the ADA is still there. The ADA is not going away. The ADA is not being gutted, and nobody is asking folks with disabilities to get law degrees. A lot of them have, and they are making a difference.

But one of the greatest emphases to a business that may have an impediment, they may have put something in the way, is for somebody with a disability to say: By the way, I can't get in here.

And most every business on Earth does not want to stand at the door and say: I don't want disability folks in my business.

No. They want to fix it because they want to do business. To say anything else is simply, unfortunately at times, tending to scare people for the wrong reasons.

If you want to defend trial lawyers and others who are willing to sue with nondisabled people, to sue businesses taking Google photographs of Google Maps and saying, ``This is a business that we are going to extort something from,'' then vote against this bill, but then explain to somebody in a wheelchair why you are using them and allowing these folks to use them for their profit motive. That is wrong.

We can find a lot of ways to find agreement here, but let's at least look at the situation on how it is.

So, with these Financial Services bills, they provide regulatory relief. They reduce unnecessary burdens. They are bipartisan. I am urging my friends and colleagues to take a look at the amendments because there are a lot of amendments that are going to come forward on these, especially the ADA bill and others.

Look at that. Listen to it. Talk about it. But at the end of the day, never forget what is actually happening here, and what we are actually seeing is something that we can make a difference in and we are looking to make a difference in.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this rule and the underlying bill.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Polis is as follows: An Amendment to H. Res. 736 Offered by Mr. Polis

At the end of the resolution, add the following new sections:

Sec. 6. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3440) to authorize the cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain individuals who are long-term United States residents and who entered the United States as children and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec. 7. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 3440. ____ The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''

The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule . . . When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.''

In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia.

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