Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning- hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business today.

The House will also consider H. Con. Res. 24, expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his question. I want to put it in context.

For the first time in history, we started this Congress with a government shutdown. For the first time in history. The business was not completed, the government was not fully funded, and it was necessary for us, as we began this session, to have numerous votes to open up the government. We didn't get a lot of help from your side of the aisle on doing that, and it was not about a debate; we had considered six bills that essentially had been agreed to. There was clearly a disagreement on Homeland Security.

But let me remind you, on H.R. 1, the largest bill that we considered during the last Congress, you brought that to the floor and you had no committee hearings. Not a single committee hearing. You had no witnesses. No member of the public was able to testify. It was a closed rule, and zero amendments were made in order.

Now, let me make a comparison for you on H.R. 1, the bill we just passed. This bill had five hearings across several committees, 19 witnesses testified, the primary committee of jurisdiction had markup, and 72 amendments were made in order.

Now, H.R. 1, last Congress, zero Democratic amendments made in order. Now of course there were no Republican amendments made in order either because it was a closed rule, no amendments at all, no hearings, no committee hearings, no witnesses.

So that we have, as we said we would, had a process, opportunity for the public to testify, opportunity for amendments to be made in order. I forget exactly how many amendments you said, Republican amendments, but that is, whatever that number was, whether it was 10 or 15 or 25 or 35, more than we had in order.

As the gentleman knows, the last Congress was the most closed Congress in history. In history. We did not see a single open rule, not one under Speaker Ryan, not one. I am committed to ensuring, however, that we have a limited amount of closed rules.

Again, the gentleman is correct, the government was shut down and we had rules that we put forward to get the government open. It was not an amendment to say partially open this. It was, let's get it open.

So that my answer to the gentleman is we said what we were going to do on bills. We had 72 amendments on this bill. The proportion of amendments, the gentleman's concerned about, certainly want to make sure that we have substantive amendments considered from both sides of the aisle; that was done here. The gentleman thinks not enough, but as I said, it was, as opposed to zero, a substantial increase.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Of course, we both know, certainly since the time I have been here, that motions to recommit, on both sides of the aisle, have been gotcha amendments. They have been amendments to use for political ads to talk about partisanship. Both sides did that, understand.

So is there consternation about them? There is. Did you have an MTR today? You did. It was a difficult MTR. Of course, it dealt with a problem that does not exist at the Federal level, and it said so in the resolution, that there was not a problem that they were solving, just a sort of a sense that local communities ought to be directed what to do.

Having said that let me go back to the gentleman's question again. You said you had nine amendments. We had zero. So you could say it was 900 percent, 9,000 percent, but whatever you want to say, on H.R. 1 in your Congress and H.R. 1 in our Congress and all those figures, I think, are probably lost on the public, but what is not lost on the public or the press that has covered it extensively, last Congress was the most closed Congress in history, just as the Government being shutdown at the beginning of this Congress was the first time that happened in history, because you didn't get your job done.

But I would tell the leader, I understand the rights of the minority. We want to honor the rights of the minority, and, yes, there is a lot of discussion, but as you know, nothing has been done, and I am sure those discussions will continue.

But I understand the gentleman's point. We used the motion to recommit. You have used the motion to recommit. There is no proposed change currently under consideration.

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Mr. HOYER. I tell the gentleman, I have heard that question raised before.

You removed Mr. King from the committees after 10 years of comments, speeches, and support for groups that did not comport with what we said yesterday in terms of rejecting bigotry and prejudice and hate. Ten years.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As I have expressed, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond), my friend, would like to have a moment.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I know that I speak on behalf of all the Members of the House to wish Virgil Godspeed, great success in the future, and great happiness.

We have now twice taken action to make clear that hate and prejudice and bigotry are not the policies of this Congress, of this country, and should not be the policy of any of our Members, rhetorically.

Debating policy, having differences of opinion are clear. I don't know whether the gentleman heard my speech on the floor, but I could not, I think, have articulated more forcefully that anti-Semitism is unacceptable, that anti-Semitism has led to grievous results, unacceptable results, the Holocaust, of course, being the most horrific.

I made that very clear. The resolution made that very clear. And yes, it did include other forms and other objects of hate and prejudice and bigotry.

And I was disappointed that 23 of your Members voted against it. Every one of my Members, without exception, voted for that resolution. So that resolution, I thought, that got over 400 of us, spoke very strongly to our opposition to anti-Semitism, to racism, to sexism, to Islamophobia.

And I haven't seen any resolution on the floor of the House when you were in charge that responded to the President of the United States stoking Islamophobia.

I saw no resolution. I saw no resolution on the floor when the President of the United States made a comment that, well, there are bad people on both sides, in Charlottesville--those holding Swastikas; those who were saying we are not going to allow the Jews to take over; those who had racist epithets and who, in fact, of course, killed one of the participants. I saw no resolution. We ultimately did get to a resolution.

But I would say to my friend, frankly, those of us on our side of the aisle think that the President too often uses words and actions that undermine the sentiment of the resolution that I voted for, that you voted for, and the overwhelming majority of the House voted for saying that is not and should not be the policy of the United States.

I won't go into more specifics, but the gentleman, I am sure, knows that I could.

What is positive is that yesterday some 400-plus of us voted to say to America and to each of our citizens and those who view America as a beacon of liberty and justice that we reject out of hand any comments, any actions that would be recognized by most people as stoking bigotry and prejudice and hate.

So, yes, that language you are talking about, as introduced, was not a final product. The final product came about through a lot of discussions and addressing the hate and bigotry and prejudice that is directed at too many people who are somehow viewed as different.

The remarks to which the gentleman referred were pointed out very clearly as being remarks which had been used through the millennia as ways to diminish the integrity of Jewish citizens and to imply that somehow their support for Israel was an indication of their lack of loyalty to their country. You and I both know that was used for centuries, millennia, to marginalize Jewish citizens and to make them feel unwelcomed and rejected.

So I think the resolution was a good thing for us to do. It passed overwhelmingly. I am sorry that 23 of your Members decided not to vote for it.

Let me go back to the MTRs.

We had a very strong statement that your side offered on anti- Semitism. And you all voted for it; we all voted for it. Not a single Democrat voted against it. And when it came for final passage, I don't recall how many Republicans, but it was the overwhelming majority of your caucus voted against it.

So offering an amendment, having the amendment adopted, which we accepted because we thought that it was important to make that powerful statement against anti-Semitism, we adopted it.

Unfortunately, when it came to the real vote--not the political gotcha vote, but when it came to the real vote--your side all voted against it--or if not all, pretty close.

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Mr. HOYER. First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me say I reject out of hand the premise that we didn't speak directly to anti-Semitism in the resolution that was adopted yesterday, period. It spoke strongly to that.

Not only did it speak strongly, but if the gentleman heard my remarks, they were very strong with respect to an absolute rejection of anti-Semitism.

Now, apparently, the problem is we also spoke against racism. We also spoke against xenophobia.

I mentioned the President on xenophobia, the denigration of the dignity of immigrants who have been so important to this country at the highest levels of our government, the allegations of widespread criminal activity in a broad bush. That resolution yesterday spoke to that.

It spoke about Islamophobia. It spoke about hatred of immigrants, of LGBT members of our society. It spoke against discrimination and hate. And, yes, it spoke directly about anti-Semitism, as it should have.

As I was absolutely committed, and the Members of this House were absolutely committed--save 23. I don't know why that 23 voted against it, but they did, not on our side of the aisle.

And I agree with the gentleman. Hopefully, we can continue to not use this as a political football, as I think it is being used.

And I am not going to cite some of the remarks of the minority leader with respect to Mr. Soros, Mr. Steier or others, Mr. Jordan, Mr. King. There was a difference, Mr. Speaker. We didn't wait 10 years.

Initially, we acted--the entire Democratic leadership--with a very pointed and direct letter that anti-Semitism was not acceptable, period. No confusion.

And within days, we put a suspension bill--which, by the way, the rules are waived on suspension bills. As the gentleman knows, you don't necessarily have to give 72 hours. But there were 72 hours that that was being discussed, and people knew it was being discussed, and the leader--and the whip has referred to that.

But I hope that nobody would diminish what we said yesterday about anti-Semitism, or racism, or any other kind of ism.

Let us not diminish what we did yesterday. I think this was a good week, Mr. Speaker, for the House of Representatives. We spoke about making sure that voting rights were protected for every American, and not only that, protected, but facilitated, made easier to register and to vote so that all Americans could express their opinion on the policies of their country and their State, and their municipality, or whatever office they were voting for.

It was a good day to say that we are going to have redistricting which is not run by the politicians, and I have been one of them that has done it so everybody understands that. Every State, not just a few, would have to have a redistricting process that was fair and balanced, and not just the politicians drawing their own districts.

It was a good day, Mr. Speaker. It was a good week, because we also spoke about making sure that we have campaign finance that discloses to everybody who the contributors are. It is ironic, Mr. Speaker, that I was here when we considered McCain-Feingold and the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate both said: ``You don't need caps. You don't need to limit spending. What you need is disclosure. Let people know who is contributing.''

Well, of course, Citizens United undermined that pretty substantially, and we have millions and millions of dollars nobody knows where it comes from, so this bill did that.

This bill also said that we ought to have better ethics. We ought to not be serving on boards of profit-making corporations while we are making policies that affect them in this House. And, yes, it said the President of the United States, as every President since I have been a Member of Congress which has been since 1981, should disclose their tax returns so that the people know, are they acting in their own interest, or in the people's interest.

We called this bill the For the People Act, for voting rights, for fair registration, for campaign finance that is honest and above board and transparent, and for good ethical behavior by us and by the President.

So I disagree with my friend, the minority whip. I think this was a good week. In some ways, it was a tough week, but it was a good week. I am very pleased that not only did we adopt that resolution against hate, and prejudice, and bigotry against all, including and very pointedly, starting out with anti-Semitism.

We also adopted a bill that will give more trust and faith to the American people in their government and more access to the ballot box. It was a good bill. It was a good week.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I urge both sides, when the leader of our Government says things that clearly offend minority groups of all stripes that we speak out. I think that is a good thing for us to do, and I am sure that we can be joined together to do exactly that.

I would also ask the gentleman to perhaps observe the extraordinary diversity representing all of America on this side of the aisle. You ought not to be surprised that in representing that diversity, they bring forward issues that we tried to also address in a resolution that said hate, bigotry, and prejudice is wrong. It is un-American.

Unfortunately, none of us have ancestors today that were free from pursuing hateful policies. We ought not to be, as I said on the floor, too sanctimonious. We are a Nation that allowed slavery and went through an extraordinary Civil War to eliminate that blot on ``We hold these truths to be self-evident.''

So, yes, we have a lot of diversity on our side of the aisle, and that diversity is representing its people. They are Americans, but they represent a number of Americans who are perceived as different than other Americans for some designation, either because of race, gender, color, sexual orientation, or immigrant. You name it.

Yes, we have a lot of diversity on this side of the aisle, and we tried to respect that diversity and make sure that every American knew when they read this resolution; we are against discrimination against anybody.

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