Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, let me just mention, we just had a vote, and, obviously, I was disappointed in the outcome. I was the sponsor, probably as the gentleman knows, of the Help America Vote Act, which created the Election Assistance Commission. The Election Assistance Commission bill, the HAVA bill, passed with a big bipartisan vote and was signed, as the gentleman knows, by President George W. Bush in a very bipartisan effort.
The premise was that, for 200 years, the Federal Government had not participated in assisting the States in running Federal elections. I will repeat that. The vote for President, the vote for Senate, and the vote for the House were all done through State administrations with no participation by the Federal Government.
In 2002, the Congress and the President made a determination that we would contribute to making sure that our elections ran correctly. The gentleman will remember the issue of hanging chads and the question of whether or not votes were properly counted. It was of great concern across the aisle. So we passed the legislation.
Unfortunately, however, we have not continued to pursue that. And today's vote, we have a greater challenge today. The challenge in the 2000 election was inappropriate administration, domestically, of our election. The problem in 2016, as Speaker Ryan pointed out and the Intelligence Committee found and the intelligence community has found, was that there was clearly an outside attack on America by Russia, and perhaps others, to undermine the integrity of our elections.
The vote that we held just a few minutes ago was about the Federal Government continuing to partner with the States to ensure the integrity of our election system and its safety from outside attack, interference, and undermining.
I hope, Mr. Leader, that we could visit that issue. I hope the Senate visits that issue. Perhaps we can visit it in conference, and, together, Republicans and Democrats could join together in an effort to work with our partners in the States to ensure the integrity of the administration of our election and to ensure that votes are cast correctly, counted correctly, and reported correctly.
As the sponsor of that bill that was cosponsored, as the gentleman may remember--no, you weren't here in '02--by Bob Ney of Ohio, but overwhelmingly supported on both sides of the aisle, I hope that we could move ahead, in the weeks ahead, as we move toward the November 6 election, to make sure that Americans--Democrats, Republicans, independents, all others, and not only in this country but around the world--have confidence in the results of our election.
Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether the gentleman wants to respond to that. I yield to my friend.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observation.
I would simply be constrained to say, I listened to Mr. Frelinghuysen. I listened to his opposition to the MTR. The pretense that the amendment that was offered is somehow a procedural or nonconsequential amendment is incorrect. Mr. Frelinghuysen didn't even try to make the argument. He said it was a good bill; we ought to pass it. Fine. The amendment would have not undermined the bill in any way.
Now, there is a provision in that bill, as the gentleman knows, to, in effect, undermine the agreement that was made last year, with respect to the funding levels, by putting $500 million into a grandchild's or a children's fund by the chairman of the subcommittee. It is a little bit like your rescissions.
The gentleman who put that in voted for a $2 trillion deficit- creating document and put $500 million in a trust fund to bring down that deficit. I know my friend is happy that that will, at that rate, take 4,000 years to fill that $2 trillion hole.
So I disagree with my friend that the amendment would have had any adverse effect on the bill that was passed.
Now, I voted against the bill, but the bill passed the House of Representatives. Nothing would have adversely affected that bill. I appreciate what the gentleman said about last year's action, which I supported, which I thought was correct, and which I appreciated the Congress taking.
Next, Mr. Speaker, we had a vote on ICE. The gentleman can argue it one way or the other. I know you criticized us; we criticized you. The fact of the matter is, what it did not deal with--and you will indicate that there was a bill that dealt with this in a fashion. But, again, I would remind you that your pledge, through your Speaker, was to take issues head-on, one at a time, discretely, not confuse them.
I would urge the leader, the Speaker, and the majority party to bring a bill to the floor that deals simply with an issue with which we believe the overwhelming majority of Americans agree: Do not rip children from the arms of their parents. Do not estrange children from their parents for weeks and months. Do not traumatize children, perhaps permanently, by this policy of separating children.
I would hope and urge the majority leader to bring a bill to the floor that would deal with that discrete issue.
Mr. Nadler has a bill, H.R. 6135, to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from pursuing this policy of separating families. John McCain has said that that policy of separation offends the dignity and decency of the American people. That is John McCain, former candidate for President in your party, Mr. Leader, and I would agree with him on that issue.
I would urge the leader to bring a bill to the floor to deal with this issue directly, and I believe--perhaps I am wrong--that it would receive a very significant majority of support in this House.
I would ask the gentleman, is there any plan to bring such a bill to the floor in the near future?
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Mr. HOYER. Of course, I supported that policy. Now, the reason I was going to reclaim my time, very frankly, Mr. Leader, I have done some research on bills you voted against. I could go through them and pick out this, that, and the other that everybody in the world was for, and I could say you voted against it. I have not done that.
The reason I have not done it is because I don't think that would be intellectually honest on my part, because I know that there are things I would pick out that you clearly supported but you didn't support some parts of the bill and, therefore, indicated your objection by voting against them, which is exactly what I did in the omni. The gentleman, my friend, knows that to be the case.
My friend brings up CHIP all the time. My friend knows that I have supported CHIP at its very inception and in every step of the way of its development and reauthorization. My friend knows that, but he continues to pretend, because I voted against the omni, that I voted against CHIP. I didn't like the omni. I thought the omni was wrong. Very frankly, I think I was correct in that vote.
Now, the omni passed, and it passed with a very substantial number of Democratic votes. I didn't lobby against the omni with my Members. I did indicate that I did not agree with things you had left out and did not put in the omni, and I, frankly, did not agree with some things that were in the omni.
Having said that, let's not go back and forth. I can get a lot of bills the same way and show that you voted against motherhood and apple pie in this bill, that bill, and the other bill. You know that to be the case. I would hope we can stop doing that.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks a lot about law enforcement, correctly so. We ought to honor those who protect us and who put their life and limb at risk daily to do so. We ought to honor them whether they are ICE agents, whether they are Border Patrol agents, whether they are DIA agents, whether they are members of the Armed Forces, whether they are members of the sheriff's departments or police departments in our various communities around the country. We ought to have compassion for those who are victims whom they are protecting and compassion for those whom we lose in the performance of their law enforcement duties.
There is not a Member of Congress who has been at more memorial services for law enforcement officers that we have lost through the centuries than I have, period.
Yesterday's vote was because of the patently political nature of the resolution that was offered. The majority leader says he wanted to offer a bill of one of our Members who suggested the elimination of ICE--small number. And that Member, apparently, according to the majority leader, told him: Look, I am going to vote ``no'' on that if you bring it to the floor, obviously trying to raise a point about wanting to stop the policies and practices--not the ICE agency, but the policies and practices of ripping, literally ripping children from the arms of their fathers and mothers and estranging them at places that neither knew where the other was.
The gentleman talks about the opioid epidemic being on the front page. It is there, and properly so, because it is a crisis, and we have dealt with it in a bipartisan way, which was correct to do so. We believed it was underfunded for some period of time. We have come up with some more funds. We are glad about that.
But he did not answer my question, and he distracted us from the focus. There was a bill, which we didn't like, because the bill had a lot of other stuff in it, which is why the Speaker said we ought to consider things discreetly, individually, one at a time. Don't confuse and obfuscate the issue.
So bring a bill to the floor that says that the policy that the President was pursuing, that he then changed--and the courts have now interjected themselves; we don't know for how long--to say that we ought not, that is not who we are as Americans, Mr. Speaker.
These 2- and 3- and 4-year-old children whom we see on the front pages of our paper, they are not MS-13. There is not a Member on this floor who will defend MS-13. There is not a Member on this floor who does not want to see the folks who gain some status by being an MS-13 caught, stopped, and taken out of our country if they are not citizens of this country, not a one of us. So that is a red herring dragged across this floor back and forth yesterday and today.
Mr. Speaker, you would think that we could say that America's values do not support taking children, small children, infant children. An instance was cited on the floor yesterday where a mother was nursing her child and that child was taken from her and the mother was put in handcuffs.
Is that America? Is that the compassionate country of which George Bush talked? Is it that bright and shining city on the hill of which Ronald Reagan spoke? I think not, Mr. Speaker.
Lastly, I know that flood insurance is going to expire July 31. I see the ranking member, Ms. Maxine Waters, on the floor. I know she has been working on this with Mr. Hensarling. Does the leader know whether or not that bill might be coming to the floor or some extension coming to the floor next week?
I yield to my friend.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman knows damn well that is not the case, and I am tired of hearing him demagogue about that. I expect him to do it between now and the election, but the gentleman is not honest when he does it, and he knows that, Mr. Speaker.
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Mr. HOYER. He says something about the Democratic Socialist Party--it is my time. It is my time, Mr. Speaker.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, it is my time.
This is the most autocratic Congress in which I have served. It has had the most closed rules. And the majority leader brings to the floor his version of what he wants to say and how he wants to characterize it. No consultation with us, no amendments allowed, and then we say we are not going to vote against ICE agents. We honor the work that they do. We honor the sacrifices they make. We honor the critical role they play in defending our country and enforcing our laws.
But, Mr. Leader, we are not going to take it or leave it. We are not going to vote ``no'' on a resolution that purports simply to honor our ICE agents. If it were simply that, it may have been a different matter.
But, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the majority leader would stop talking about--there are some people in his party who say absolutely absurd things at the very highest level of his party, and I haven't brought them up.
Mr. Speaker, I asked a simple question. The Speaker of this House said he was going to bring issues to this floor individually, vote them up or down. I asked the leader: Will you bring a bill to the floor which will stop the separation of children from their parents? He says he did. 113 of his colleagues on his side of the aisle thought it was a bad bill and voted ``no.''
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, they didn't vote ``present.'' I voted ``present'' because I wanted to say to the leader, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take it or leave it.
He wants to make me look like I am not for law enforcement when I have been for law enforcement in the 50 years I have been in public office, without fail--without fail.
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Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
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Mr. HOYER. I voted ``present,'' Mr. Speaker, because I was not going to take it or leave it. I was not going to just take what the majority leader wanted to shove down my throat and the throat of others. Because, Mr. Speaker, the rhetoric in that bill--and let me say to the leader, Mr. Speaker, he and I worked on a lot of resolutions regarding Israel, and we want to keep the Congress united on Israel, and we keep the Congress united on Israel.
How do we do it, Mr. Speaker? We work on the language. We work on the language of the whereas clauses and the resolved clauses so that we can create a broad majority. We could have done that with the ICE bill, easily--easily--an overwhelming support for their role and for their courage and for their character.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I asked about the bill that deals with flood insurance. I think the gentleman has told me that that is going to come to the floor, and I am prepared to yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't know who ``we'' is. Somebody who introduces a bill on either side of the aisle doesn't make it a ``we'' bill.
And the reason they brought the nonbinding resolution to the floor, when they really wanted to bring the bill to the floor, is because it wouldn't have served their political purposes because everybody on our side of the aisle would have voted ``no.'' He knows it. That is why he didn't bring it to the floor, for politics; not for principle, for politics.
And to his credit, I understand the Speaker didn't want to bring it to the floor either. At least that is what is reported in the papers.
Now, Mr. Speaker, my question has still not been answered.
There have been more closed rules in this Congress than any Congress in recent memory, during the time I have served. Now, there have been a lot of bills passed, and we passed them on bipartisanly. We had about six, seven, eight, or nine naming a post office the other day.
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Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
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Mr. HOYER. Isn't that wonderful.
I voted for all of them, either by voice vote or by card. They were bills that we all agreed with.
But more closed rules on this floor, including today's bill that we passed, than any Congress in recent memory.
My question to the majority leader was: Will he bring to the floor a free-standing bill which provides that children will not be separated from their parents--which John McCain says is inconsistent with the decency of the American people--so that we can vote on that proposition and that proposition only. The majority leader has not answered that question.
He talks about voting ``present,'' which he didn't like. I am sorry he didn't like it, but I would vote ``present'' again to express my opposition, the only way it was possible to do, because, unlike his characterization, I did not want to say to ICE agents, ``I do not respect you.'' Therefore, I did not want to vote against a resolution, the resolved clause of which I agreed with.
But it didn't deal with the most critical issue. It could have--it didn't--and it is nonbinding. To argue about that is to dissemble about the question that I asked.
I am prepared to end this because I don't think we are going anywhere. I don't think I am going to get an answer from the majority leader, and I don't think he will bring it to the floor, free-standing, any more than he will bring a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which is so necessary to this country, to the floor, no more than he will bring a Dreamers protection act to this floor.
He is gesticulating, Mr. Speaker, as if: What do you mean by that?
He brought a bill to the floor that he said solved the problem that 113 of his Members voted against. It got over 300 votes against. That is not a viable option to bring to the floor. He knew it was going to fail. He knew it was another message bill.
So I asked him: Will he bring that bill to the floor individually, discretely, to protect these children, or not? I haven't gotten an answer to that.
The second thing I asked him, which he did answer, is that we are going to bring a bill to the floor, apparently, hopefully, to protect those who live in flood zones and who are going to have trouble getting flood insurance on August 1. He says he will bring that to the floor.
Now, I am prepared to close and to yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, this has gone on longer than it should have. But it has given us time to look at a MILCON-VA vote on May 15, 2008, in which the majority leader, on a substantive vote, not a resolution that was nonbinding, but a substantive appropriations bill, voted ``present.''
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