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Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. Expressing the Sense of Congress That A Carbon Tax Would Be Detrimental to the United States Economy

Floor Speech

Date: July 18, 2018
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Foreign Affairs Elections

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask Mr. McGovern a question so we can get some clarity on where we are right now.

As I understand it, one position is that the State election systems are fine, they don't need any infusion of Federal help. And then there is another position, which you are advancing, which is that we need to put in hundreds of millions of dollars in order to secure the elections to prevent a repeat of the cyber sabotage and the cyber invasion that we experienced in 2016. And yet we are not getting a chance to vote on that. Is that right?

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Mr. RASKIN. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

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Mr. RASKIN. Well, why can we not vote on that? The American people are demanding that we defend our elections against foreign attack. Why can we not even vote on that in the House of Representatives?

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Mr. RASKIN. I just saw dozens of our colleagues ask unanimous consent that they reconsider that position so the American people can have a hearing on whether or not we are going to have real elections in 2018. Have you been able to discuss it with the other side about whether they would be willing to entertain another unanimous consent motion so we can actually have a debate on this?

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Mr. RASKIN. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this, but this is a point of national emergency right now. This is our democracy, this is our Constitution that is at stake. And as I understand it, every State of the Union wants election infusion funding coming from the Federal Government and needs it in order to fortify against cyber attack.

In my State, in Maryland, we just were able to determine that a private vendor that is one of the lead contractors in our election system has Russian ties and is being controlled by someone very close to Vladimir Putin. So we need an infusion of Federal help to fortify our election.

So please continue and do whatever you can with the Republicans just to allow us a vote on the floor.

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