Providing for Consideration of H.R. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Authorizing Committee on the Judiciary to Initiate or Intervene in Judicial Proceedings to Enforce Certain Subpoenas

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I hadn't had this in the opening, but I want to disagree with my friend right off the top. The President of the United States does not work for the Congress of the United States. He works for the American people, and he heads up a branch of government that is a coequal branch of government. So, on that, we will have a long discussion.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a very eventful week in the Rules Committee, and it is only Tuesday. Last night, the committee met and reported out a rule that covers two drastically different measures. H.R. 2740 is an appropriations package that covered first 5 and then 4 of the 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2020. We also considered H. Res. 430, a resolution that gives authority to the Office of the General Counsel of the House of Representatives to seek to enforce certain subpoenas for documents through litigation.

Shortly after we finish here, the committee will again convene to consider the remainder of the appropriations package, which will be on the floor as part of a separate rule tomorrow.

Meanwhile, our Members will attempt the miracle of being in two places at once as we continue to debate H. Res. 430, which falls into our original jurisdiction here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 430 comes from a dispute over documents relating to the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. The dispute also stems from the inherent oversight authority of Congress and our ability to perform oversight functions over the executive branch. It falls into the fuzzy boundaries between the branches of governments as to when and how we may compel the executive branch to turn over documents to the legislative branch.

I lay out that framework because there is an important point here that is being lost. The Democratic majority clearly wants to make this dispute entirely about this President, this Attorney General, this White House counsel, this investigation, this subpoena of documents. The Democrats want to focus attention there because they think it helps them politically to do so. But this dispute really shouldn't be about just that. It should, rather, be about the difficult and thorny questions that emerge in a system like ours with three branches of government with checks and balances.

In a sense, what the majority is seeking to do here today is completely unprecedented, both in its intent and in its execution. Consider the only other times the House has filed a lawsuit to seek to enforce a subpoena for documents. It has happened twice before, Mr. Speaker, once in 2007, to seek documents from former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, and again in 2012, to seek documents from then- Attorney General Eric Holder as a result of the congressional investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal.

In both of these cases, the House had already voted to hold both Miers and Holder in contempt of Congress before filing suit, which has not yet happened in this case. In the Miers case, 138 days elapsed from the first document request to the Judiciary Committee voting to hold her in contempt. In the Holder case, it was significantly longer, in that 464 days elapsed from the first document request to the committee voting to hold him in contempt. That was well over a year.

Here, the majority is forcing us to rush forward at a much faster pace. Just 44 days elapsed from the date of the first document request to the Attorney General until the Judiciary Committee voted to hold him in contempt. James Holzhauer has been champion of ``Jeopardy!'' for longer than that.

I don't understand the majority's haste here. Without exhausting all other options--continuing negotiation, discussion, compromise, and turning to a vote on contempt as the last resort--the majority is, instead, pushing this forward into litigation with the executive branch. In doing so, they may well be placing the House in a position that causes significant long-term damage to the institution.

When this matter goes before the courts, it will do so as a case of first impression and under an untested legal theory. In both the Miers and Holder cases, the House previously voted to hold those two individuals in contempt of Congress. Nothing like that has been done here. Using untested tactics like this could set a dangerous precedent that harms us all, Republicans and Democrats, in the long run.

Finally, I would also note that it is not clear what this resolution will ultimately accomplish. Since the House has not yet exercised all the tools in its tool kit, and since it is not clear that the negotiations with the Justice Department and the White House over the documents at issue are at an end, this whole thing may be nothing more than sound and fury. Indeed, given how quickly the majority is rushing into things, it seems unlikely that the only course of action left in the House is to file a lawsuit.

I strongly urge the majority to continue working with the Justice Department and the White House to find a resolution to these issues without resorting to knee-jerk lawsuits that may ultimately damage the House as an institution.

Today, we are also beginning consideration of H.R. 2740, an appropriations package covering 5 of 12 appropriations bills: Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; Legislative Branch; Defense; State and Foreign Operations; and Energy and Water Development. These five bills cover over 70 percent of our total discretionary spending for fiscal year 2020.

To be precise, Mr. Speaker, we were to do five bills. At the last moment, the majority pulled the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. I will let them explain why at their leisure.

As a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee, I am pleased that we are beginning to move the appropriations bills to the floor. Unfortunately, the bills before us have numerous flaws, most notably that they are marked to allocation levels that aren't realistic.

As we move forward through the appropriations process, I think we need to be clear about the challenges we face this year.

At the end of September, fiscal year 2019 expires, and sequestration cuts contained in the Budget Control Act of 2011 will automatically take effect for fiscal year 2020. In order to prevent that, we need to come to a bipartisan, bicameral budget deal that the House, the Senate, and the President can all agree on. If we don't, then it doesn't really matter what fake number the House marks to. Sequestration will hit, and our defense budget will automatically be slashed by 11 percent and our nondefense budget by 9 percent below the allocations of 2019.

The spending levels in these appropriations bills are not just ambitious; they are unrealistic. Not only are the funding levels for many of these bills too high, so high that the Senate and the President will never agree to them, but the allocations the Appropriations Committee used reflect the misguided notion that any increase in defense spending must be matched by an increase in nondefense spending that is more than twice as high.

That is simply not a realistic assessment of our national priorities or the fiscal limitations imposed on us by our rising national debt. The defense provision of this bill, for example, comes in at $8 billion less than the President told us was needed to adequately fund the military, maintain readiness, and be prepared to confront international threats.

After years of severe underfunding of our Armed Forces and at a time when threats are emerging everywhere around the globe, spending less than the administration asks for on defense in order to push more money into domestic programs is not a wise course of action.

I am disappointed that the majority chose to strip out pro-life provisions that have been carried in appropriations bills for years. Instead, they added controversial pro-abortion riders that virtually guarantee no Republican support whatsoever for this package.

As the former chair and current ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I am familiar with the need for compromise on that particular piece of legislation. But by pushing forward with blatantly partisan riders like these, the majority is guaranteeing the outcome of these bills: dead on arrival in a Republican-led Senate and no chance of getting a Republican President's signature.

In the coming months, I hope we work through these problems, as we did last year, frankly. If the majority intends to move forward with unrealistic spending levels and insists on maintaining partisan riders, then we are simply guaranteeing a failed appropriations process.

Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, our failure has consequences. A best- case scenario is a yearlong continuing resolution that funds the government at the exact same level as the current year. That is the best scenario if we fail. The worst-case scenario is another government shutdown or sequestration that automatically cuts all government funding levels. Neither of these is a good outcome for the House as an institution, for the Federal Government, or more importantly, for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, although I cannot support either bill before us today, I am hopeful that, eventually, we will reach a bipartisan, bicameral compromise on spending that the vast majority of Members in this House can support. That requires realistic funding levels and elimination of partisan riders from this package. The spending package before us today may be a worthy starting point, but it will take hard work and compromise to move the final bill that can become law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KEVIN HERN of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague from Oklahoma, and I thank my friend from Maryland who reminds us that our President was constitutionally elected and that our President was elected by the way our Constitution describes and outlines, and we thank our President for the work he is doing.

Mr. Speaker, I cosponsored an amendment with Congressman Cole to remove a dangerous poison pill in the appropriations bill that would block the free exercise of rights for the American people. Congress has long supported robust protections for rights of conscience. The right to follow your conscience on deeply held religious and moral beliefs is a foundational value of our country. In a free society like ours, adherence to one's convictions should not be just tolerated but encouraged. Our forefathers fought like hell to liberate our country from a monarchy that mandated what to believe and how to behave.

How soon we have forgotten. It happens in small increments, with small, minor changes here and there, but they grow larger and more invasive. Someday you will find yourself back under the yoke, with an oppressive government telling you what to believe and how to behave.

This conscience rule is absolutely necessary to preserve the freedom of expression that we hold dear in our country. The rider in the Labor HHS bill eliminating this rule is a poison pill and does not belong in an appropriations package.

The Trump administration has vigorously supported the right for our people to act on their religious and moral convictions. President Trump's leadership on this issue has encouraged millions of Americans who have seen these protections start to slip away in the past decade.

Who are we to force people to act against their convictions and religious beliefs?

It is a slippery slope to despotism, but I think some of our colleagues would have us go down that road in pursuit of some greater good. I can assure you that forcing the American people to work against their convictions and beliefs will lead us to nothing but destruction, and I guarantee that this bill will never be signed into law if this language remains.

This amendment must be made in order so that we can debate it and remove the poison pill from the final bill. Otherwise, the time my colleagues have spent on the Labor HHS bill is a giant waste of time because it will never make it to the President's desk.

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Mr. COLE. My good friend is the most eloquent advocate for life in this Chamber.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule.

Earlier this year, Mr. Speaker, President Trump made it clear in a letter that he will veto any piece of legislation that undermines or nullifies any pro-life policy, regulation, or rule.

The bill facilitated by this rule reverses several life-affirming pro-life policies, including conscience protection, Title X reform, the protecting life in global health assistance, and more.

No one, Mr. Speaker--including doctors, nurses, and LPNs--and no entity like a hospital or a health insurance plan should ever be compelled against their will into performing, facilitating, or subsidizing abortion.

First, the approps bill overturns the conscience protection final rule, leaving many at risk of pressure, harassment and coercion.

Second, in late February, HHS promulgated the Protect Life Rule to reassert portions of President Ronald Reagan's Title X rule, including ending co-location of abortion clinics with family planning clinics subsidized by Title X.

Third, H.R. 2740, the underlying bill, repeals and bans future promulgation by any President of protecting life in global health assistance, a significant reiteration and expansion of President Reagan's Mexico City policy, a policy designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayers are not funding foreign NGOs that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Mr. Speaker, why is this so important? Because women and children, both home and abroad, deserve better than the violence of abortion.

The humanity of the unborn child is beyond doubt, yet the pro- abortion movement, like some kind of modern-day flat Earth society, continues to cling to outdated, indefensible arguments cloaked in euphemism. Even the seemingly benign word ``choice'' withers under scrutiny.

Choice to do what?

Dismember a baby?

Take pills to starve a child to death and then forcibly expel her or him from the womb?

Inject chemical poisons that kill the baby?

At the end of this process, Mr. Speaker, important policies embedded in the approps bill will be signed into law, but reversal of pro-life policies will be vetoed. This legislation will be vetoed and the veto will be sustained by this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule immediately to bring up H.R. 3056 for consideration under an open rule.

The bill provides $4.5 billion of funding to address the immediate humanitarian crisis on the southern border. This is a crisis of significant proportions, Mr. Speaker.

Our facilities for holding new arrivals, particularly children and the vulnerable unaccompanied minors, are already at the breaking point. Simply put, we need more resources, and we need them today.

This is not the first time we have needed to provide supplemental appropriations for this purpose. Back in 2014, then-President Barack Obama asked us for $3.7 billion in supplemental resources for precisely the same purpose. He got it. At the time, we had 60,000 unaccompanied minors who arrived in 2014. We face a similar and, frankly, larger humanitarian crisis today.

President Obama was right to request supplemental funds to deal with the crisis then. We would be right to appropriate supplemental funds to address that similar crisis now.

Mr. Speaker, my friend made reference a little bit earlier to amendments. He talked about the total number of amendments, but he left out the distribution of amendments. So, as the House considers this rule, I think we ought to take a look at how the Rules Committee has handled making amendments in order so far this Congress.

The rule on the floor today is making 106 amendments in order, out of 540 submitted, with hopefully more to come with tomorrow's rule.

Today's rule includes 22 amendments sponsored solely by Republicans. Sadly, this is considered an improvement over the majority's previous efforts.

With today's rule, in total, this Congress, 73 percent of all amendments made in order have been sponsored solely by Democrats--73 percent. Just 16 percent are sponsored by Republicans, with 11 percent bipartisan.

How does this compare with the last Congress? When Republicans were the majority party, 45 percent of all amendments made in order were sponsored solely by Democrats. Only 38 percent were sponsored solely by Republicans, with another 17 percent being bipartisan.

At the beginning of this Congress, the Democratic majority repeatedly promised a new, robust, and open process at the Rules Committee. They pledged that good ideas would be welcomed, no matter where they came from, and that thoughtful amendments would not be blocked.

Unfortunately, they have a long way to go to keep that promise. I think the numbers speak volumes.

We are 5 months into the 116th Congress. Should we expect this trend of shutting out minority party ideas to continue? Should we expect the same course of action in our rule tomorrow and in our rule on the second appropriations package next week and in other rules in the weeks and months to come?

When will the promises made by the Democratic majority be kept? If not now, when?

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to the rule. The rule will make in order two measures: H. Res. 430 and H.R. 2740.

H. Res. 430 is a premature and ineffective resolution that will push the House forward into untested and ill-timed litigation with the executive branch over the subpoena of documents. While the House has an important oversight role to play, we must be careful to exercise that role wisely and carefully, lest we cause long-term damage to the institution.

H.R. 2740 is a package of 5 of the 12 outstanding appropriations bills that use unrealistic allocation levels and eliminate longstanding pro-life protections that must be restored before these bills can garner any Republican support.

I actually look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and the Senate as we move forward in the appropriations process, and I urge the majority to compromise with the Senate and the White House in order to achieve a final spending deal that avoids drastic sequestration cuts or, worse yet, another government shutdown.

I think that is actually the great lesson of the appropriations process, Mr. Speaker. We know we can do this. We did it last year, and we did it pretty well together.

But my friends have to get past the idea that they can impose their will on a Republican Senate and a Republican President. They are simply not going to be able to do that. They are going to have to bargain to a middle ground and compromise.

In the Appropriations Committee, as a rule, we do that, and we do it pretty well. I am hopeful that we can continue going forward on that front.

I am concerned, however, that the vitriol, if you will, that we see in the investigative and oversight efforts of our friends will spill into that process and lead us into a very difficult situation in September.

So, as we move forward on the appropriations front, again, I hope all of us relearn the virtues of compromise, understand that we were all sent here by the American people, that we have to work with one another to accomplish something, and that none of us can impose their will on the other.

With that, I look forward to working with my friend and with his colleagues and, certainly, through the appropriations process to making sure that the government is appropriately funded and well governed.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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