Legislative Program
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I know we all continue to mourn the loss of our colleague, Elijah Cummings. We still see the flowers sitting in the spot where Elijah used to sit.
Yesterday, I thought we had a very appropriate remembrance of our colleague in a special way, remembering who he was, the special person he was, the giant that he was, the leader--sometimes in a very boisterous way, sometimes in a gentle way.
But Maya, his wife, and his three children are in our prayers, and will continue to be as we remember that great loss that we experienced and will continue to remember.
I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, as we all remember him, it is that style. It shows the example for all of us that you can be tough, you can fight for the things you believe in--we ought to all come here to fight for the things we believe in--and that means we are not always going to agree.
But he always treated people fairly, and the fact that even as he had some of those tough confrontations with people like Chairman Gowdy and Jim Jordan, that those people who went toe to toe with him respected him, and mourn his loss equally as we all do, I think it says a lot about his character and that he is able to leave a strong legacy as a champion for the things he believed in. But even his adversaries that he fought with on the other side hold deep regard for the kind of person he was. Again, he was a great example for all of us to, hopefully, try to emulate as we move forward with some of the other challenges that we are facing.
I do want to ask the gentleman about the latest efforts to try to get some kind of fair process in where we are with this impeachment inquiry. There are hearings going on behind closed doors. Many of my colleagues have tried to attend some of those hearings and have been turned away if they are not on the committees of jurisdiction. Colleagues that have tried to go and read things like the Volker testimony have been turned away, denied the ability to do that.
So there is a real concern that there is an attempt to impeach a President of the United States, remove a President who is duly elected, using a process of secrecy, behind closed doors, where one person is setting the rules, breaking with the tradition that we have always had with the only three other times in our country's history where an impeachment inquiry began in the House.
In all of those cases, they laid out rules of fairness, where people were able to ask questions on both sides. People were able to call witnesses on both sides. Even the President would be able to have an opportunity to have somebody there to also question people. That has always been the case, and, yet, it is not the case here.
Very serious questions of fairness have been raised, and I would ask the gentleman: Are we going to finally get beyond this secret, closed- door, Star Chamber process of impeachment and go to something that is ruled in fairness? I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, with all due respect, this process is rotten to the core. The gentleman can talk about process, and he can talk about facts. The facts point out that this process is shrouded in secrecy.
Madam Speaker, you literally have a chairman who was running around for 2 years during the whole Mueller investigation saying that he had ``more than circumstantial evidence'' that there was collusion between the President and Russia. And then the Mueller Report comes out, and there were no charges. There was no collusion. In fact, the chairman never showed his secret evidence. If he had evidence ``more than circumstantial''--his quotes--then he should have shown it to the American people. But he didn't because there was no evidence.
Those were the facts. If the facts were there, Madam Speaker, you know he would have shown that evidence. It didn't exist.
Instead of moving on and taking care of the work of the people of this country, it is another witch hunt. It is another fishing expedition in secret.
The gentleman talks about fairness, why is it that voting Members of Congress are being denied access to the room?
The press doesn't have access to these hearings that the gentleman calls fair. He calls them fair. There was never even a vote of this House to start an impeachment inquiry. It was a decree from the Speaker in The Washington Post in September: ``Therefore, today, I am announcing''--the Speaker of the House--``I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.''
That is a decree by the Speaker of the House. That has never happened before. The other three times when there was an impeachment inquiry, it was started with a vote of the full House. Everybody was accountable-- no Star Chamber, no one or two people in this country who think they can run the entire process and deny the people the right of a duly elected President to serve because they just don't agree with the results of the 2016 election.
They never showed high crimes and misdemeanors. The majority has never shown high crimes and misdemeanors. They are just looking around for something.
The majority calls witnesses. They talk about fairness and who is in the room. Our side cannot call witnesses. Do you think that is fair?
Our side, the President's own counsel----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. The gentleman will have an opportunity----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. The gentleman made a lot----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. This is your rule. You are in charge of the House.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. This is your rule. You are in charge of the House.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. You are the one who made the official decree.
This is my time. I will yield time to the gentleman in a moment.
If he wants to talk about fairness, let's lay out the facts because these are the facts: Our side cannot call witnesses. The majority could change that rule today.
I would ask the gentleman: Would you be willing to change the rule to let our side call witnesses and to let the President's counsel be able to question witnesses who are, in secret, making charges against him to try to literally undo the results of a duly elected President? Would the gentleman be willing to change the rules to do that?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. These are your rules. You are the majority party.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. We never tried to impeach a President----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE.--with all due respect.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. And in all three cases where there was an impeachment-- --
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE.--the rules allow for both sides to have fairness.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. You think fairness is you being able to control everything and not letting the other side----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate it, Madam Speaker.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. So let's look at the process. Let's look at the facts.
Yes, if you think it is fair that you can control everything and deny the ability for Members of Congress to go in and see what is happening behind closed doors in that room, if you think it is fair to deny the ability for both sides to call witnesses--hey, you get to call your witnesses and you think that is fair, and you don't want anything to be disclosed.
You talk about innocence. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty. You think the President should have to go prove his innocence time and time again, with anonymous sources in many cases citing things that are inaccurate, that have been disproven. But you can lay false claims out, and the chairman can lay false claims out, and then the President has to go prove his innocence.
Time and time again, we see that even with these selective leaks that are coming out of your committee--which shouldn't happen--many of those are disproven too, but the damage is done.
Just like when the chairman opened up the committee hearing with a parody, stating things that were false that were not part of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky, giving his own version of it that was false while the public was watching on TV thinking that was the transcript, that is disingenuous. That is not a fair process, but that is what happened.
Just today and yesterday and every day, we have had of members of our party--I don't know if any members of your party have tried--but members of our party who wanted to try to go down there and read the Volker testimony or sit in the hearings were turned away because the process is going on in secret.
This is not fairness. This is not how it has always been done. If you really think it is unfair, and you think the rules should be changed, you do get the control over that. I will write the rule with you, and we will vote for it together. We could pass that rule today.
In fact, I filed a rule change with Ranking Member Cole of the Rules Committee to allow Members access to these hearings.
Madam Speaker, I would ask the gentleman: Would you be willing to schedule this rule for the floor so we could have more fairness in this process?
I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Well, let me ask the gentleman: Would he allow----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Well, you asked a question. Could I answer the question?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I am trying to answer it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I would trust Mr. Nunes to have equal access to call in witnesses, just like Chairman Schiff does, to subpoena people. Chairman Schiff can do that, and Mr. Nunes cannot.
Why is Mr. Nunes denied those same rights that the chairman has?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I would trust him to run that same fair process.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. But he is denied that.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. With all due respect, the goose is being cooked behind closed doors because you started an impeachment inquiry by decree. You could change the rules today.
If this is an impeachment inquiry, if it is--and I would ask the question: Are we in an impeachment inquiry right now?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Of an impeachment? Is it? Yes or no? Is it an impeachment inquiry?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I would ask him. It is a yes or no question, but I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Is the gentleman yielding?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. So as the so-called whistleblower----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. As the so-called whistleblower complaint started with leaks to the press, where they said there were quid pro quos in the phone call with Zelensky, that is where this all started----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. So a phone call, this was before the transcript was released, there were all of these insinuations.
And this is a pattern, by the way, we have seen even going back to the Mueller investigation. And again, I cited the chairman running around, saying he had more than circumstantial evidence----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE.--of collusion, and there was no collusion.
So now we move on to this claim of quid pro quo. Well, first of all, you can name all the whistleblowers you want--you won't. You won't even allow the whistleblower to be interviewed, someone who is trying to take down--someone who was deemed to have a political bias is trying to take down a President of the United States in secret----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE.--behind closed doors with innuendos.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Absolutely. I would absolutely yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. First of all----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. If you would yield, if you are talking about the whistleblower, we are talking about a whistleblower, again, who is deemed to have a political bias who got all of their information secondhand.
And oh, by the way, the standard for being a whistleblower used to be firsthand information and, secretly, days before the whistleblower complaint was filed, after going to Chairman Schiff's staff and working with partisans to develop the whistleblower complaint, they changed the rules for even designating what is a whistleblower so it could allow secondhand information.
Who changed that rule? Boy, we would sure be curious to find out. But you don't want us to find all that out because you are holding all of this in secret.
Shouldn't we know what is really going on and what is behind this so- called whistleblower complaint that has been debunked?
So many of those claims were debunked. There was no quid pro quo. In fact, the two people who were on the phone call, the ones who are really in question here, both said there was nothing wrong, both of them.
In fact, Zelensky said there was no pressure. He wasn't even aware that any funds were being held up. He praised the President for selling Javelin missiles to Ukraine, which, by the way, Barack Obama would not sell when he was President of the United States. He withheld the Javelin missiles that Ukraine was asking for to defend themselves against Russia.
Again, we talk about Russia. Who stood up to Russia? President Trump stood up to Russia by allowing Ukraine to buy the Javelin missiles to bust the tanks. Barack Obama wouldn't sell those. I don't know why he wouldn't allow Ukraine to stand up to Russia. I don't know why Barack Obama allowed Russia to interfere with our elections and didn't do more to stop it.
But we should be getting to the bottom of that, yet we are not because it is all a focus of secrecy, drib-drab, selective leaks to try to give a false narrative. Our Members can't go talk to our other colleagues about some of the things that happened in these hearings. It is all secret.
We want it to be opened up. In fact, that is why I filed a rule change.
Again, I would ask the gentleman: Would he support a rule change that would allow all Members to participate and be involved in at least sitting in on these hearings to see what is really going on if you are going to ask people to impeach the President of the United States?
Again, it has always been done with a vote of the House. Now it is being done by a decree from the Speaker. And you won't answer the question of whether or not, yes or no, it is an impeachment inquiry.
The Speaker said it is an impeachment inquiry, but we have never voted on it. Why don't we ever vote like we did all other times to set real rules of fairness?
They always set rules of fairness where both sides got to participate. Real due process, which is part of our Constitutional duty, is being denied in secret. That is what is happening in that room right now.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. There is.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Well, why are Members being denied entrance to the room?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. They are being turned away today.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Would the gentleman yield on that specific accusation he just threw out?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman for yielding because there were many things that were thrown out there that need to be addressed.
First of all, the Department of Justice disagreed with Mueller's assessment that he didn't have the ability to bring charges. He had full authority to bring any charges, and he brought zero charges.
Mueller had full authority to bring charges and brought zero because he found nothing, and Justice even said he didn't have----
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I am going to yield in a moment after I go through the different claims the gentleman made.
It is real interesting that the majority leader read selectively from that conversation between President Trump and Zelensky on: Will you do me a favor?
So let me read you the full sentence, because you are trying to take one context and shift it somewhere else, which has been done over and over by Chairman Schiff and others.
So let's start. This is President Trump:
I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say CrowdStrike.
That is the sentence where he said: I would like you to do us a favor.
Not ``me,'' ``us.''
Please read the transcript. That is what he said.
And when he said, ``I would like you to do `us' a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,'' the corruption was going on in Ukraine. The interference from Russia, much of it was emanating from Ukraine in 2016. We know that. Don't deny it. Don't try to hide that.
``I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say CrowdStrike.''
He is not talking about Biden. He is not talking about some future election. He is talking about the company that was looking into the corruption and the interference by Russia in the 2016 election. We still haven't gotten to the bottom of that. This is part of it. This absolutely went through Ukraine.
And, by the way, in the NDAA, a law that is on the books today that the gentleman voted for and I voted for, the law requires that, when the United States of America is giving money to a foreign country, they have to make sure that they are looking into whether or not there is corruption. And so he is absolutely looking into the corruption, because we are sending hundreds of millions of dollars over there.
And before they sent the hundreds of millions, the law--not his personal preference, the law--says he has to look to make sure there is no corruption. That is in the NDAA law that we passed last year. That is current law.
And so the President is complying with the law asking him ``do us a favor''--us, not him. Please make that note accurately. And then he asks about CrowdStrike. Not Biden, CrowdStrike.
We all know what CrowdStrike was involved in. They were involved in looking into some of the illegal activity that Russia was participating in to try to interfere with the 2016 election.
We still haven't gotten the answer to that. I wish your committee would be spending more time on that so that we can stop it from happening again.
And so that is what he was talking about. That is the context. It is not accurate, it is not fair to try to read it out of context and then go attribute it to something else, because many have done that.
``I would like you to do us a favor.''
And then he says, all of this stuff that was happening in Ukraine, ``they say CrowdStrike.'' That is what he asked about.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. With all due respect, the resolution does not say that.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would hope the gentleman is not trying to conflate Ukraine with Turkey and Syria and the Kurds.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Because you just made that assertion, and that is not-- --
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. The gentleman did.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Well, first of all, there were no foreign leaders being asked to interfere with elections. Russia was trying to interfere with our elections when Barack Obama was President.
President Trump is in this phone call and in other actions trying to get to the bottom of how the Russians interfered to make sure it doesn't happen again. And he also has legal authority in the NDAA to focus on decreasing corruption as it involves taxpayer money, and that was what they were discussing on that phone call as well.
But getting back to the issue of the hearings, because the gentleman keeps talking about the hearings and what this committee might produce, as if they are having hearings on a bill to lower drug prices--which, by the way, we could be focusing on lowering drug prices. There was a unanimous bill that came out of committee to lower drug prices.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. But the gentleman won't bring that bill to the floor that would pass and be signed into law today, and families across America would be paying lower prices for drug costs. But we don't get that opportunity because they are focused on an impeachment inquiry.
And, again, it was the Speaker's own words. She said this is an impeachment inquiry.
And so you are trying to play it both ways. You are trying to say, oh, it is just the committee doing a normal hearing.
It is not a normal hearing. Every time there has been an impeachment inquiry, there were rules laid out by the House through a vote of all Members of the House--all three times. Even going back to Andrew Johnson, they voted in the House; for Clinton, they voted in the House; for Nixon, they voted in the House, and both sides had fairness, both sides could call witnesses. That is not the case today. Only Chairman Schiff gets to call witnesses.
Oh, gee-whiz, other people can question Schiff's witnesses, but why can't everybody question Devin Nunes' witnesses or Jim Jordan's witnesses? Because they are not allowed to come forward under your rules.
And, again, we have a rule, 103(a)(2).
You cannot say that Members are not being denied entrance. The rules of the House, which you are in the majority, you can change, we can change. But every time there has been an impeachment inquiry, all three times, this House established those rules.
And so you want to deem an impeachment inquiry by the Speaker's decree, not a vote of the House. Well, if you are going to do it, then do it the fair way that it has always been done, where both sides can call witnesses, both sides can issue subpoenas, the White House can actually have counsel to ask questions to witnesses.
Some who have made statements that have been deemed inaccurate, you won't allow the people who were there who can deem it inaccurate to come testify because you don't want both sides of the story. You want to be able to present some one-sided report and say: Here, this shows us what we wanted.
Because if a prosecutor wants to go and find somebody guilty, they can meander around and look, but that is not the way it is supposed to work. It is supposed to work where the prosecutor sees something wrong, then they go out and, in a fair process, find it.
That is the Justice Department, by the way, the judicial branch, that does it. Adam Schiff is not a prosecutor in this case. He might have been a prosecutor in his previous life, but he is a chairman of a committee in Congress now. He is not a prosecutor, but he is acting like one, and he is doing it in secret, without fair rules.
I can't go into that hearing, and you can't go into that hearing. Rank-and-file Members can't go into that hearing. They are being denied, today, the ability to do it.
And you could change that rule. If it is truly an impeachment inquiry--and, again, you won't answer the question yes or no, but the Speaker said it is. If it is, then treat it like every other impeachment inquiry where there is fair due process on both sides, not just your side.
You might like the fact that only you can call witnesses, but you know that is not fair. You know that is not a fair process. And it is not how it has been done in all other cases.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. So I would just ask the gentleman, would he be willing to treat this impeachment inquiry, as the Speaker designated it, like all of the other impeachment inquiries in the history of this Congress that have been held, in a fair process?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. We never had an impeachment inquiry. We are talking about an impeachment inquiry, which has been done before--there is precedent--three times, and it has always been done the same way.
You are now having an impeachment inquiry, but you are treating it as if it is a secret, closed-door hearing, which it is not.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. He filed no charges. He had authority. He filed no charges. He found nothing that rose to the level of filing charges that he had the full authority to do.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. That is accurate. Did he file a single charge? Please name it, because I haven't seen the charge because it doesn't exist.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. So you are acknowledging he didn't.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. And the Department of Justice disagreed with that, but he had the authority.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. But an impeachment inquiry is different.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. He asked for a favor to look into CrowdStrike. Again, read the sentence.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. A lot of people are asking about the Bidens, by the way.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I don't think that is anything new.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. CrowdStrike was the subject of the favor for us, for our country, to find out how Russia interfered with the elections.
By the way, all nine Republicans of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Chairman Schiff accusing him of ``withholding the existence of documents from the minority.''
So, you want to talk about fairness. Maybe it is fair for you to withhold information from the minority members of a committee during an impeachment inquiry--withholding information, hiding it, keeping it in secret, turning away other Members of Congress from even walking into the room. And you are going to defend that?
We would join with you today to establish rules of fairness. You don't have to make them up. You don't have to reinvent the wheel because, in all other three impeachment inquiries, they did it the same way where both sides had true fairness.
If you think fairness--just because you have the might doesn't make it right. You have the majority, so you can call your witnesses and shut everybody else out and ``withholding the existence of documents from the minority;'' that is not the way to conduct an impeachment inquiry. And those are your rules.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. With all due respect, we never adopted impeachment inquiry rules. We never did.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. The last time it was done was during Bill Clinton's time in office. That was the last time it was done.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I am talking about fairness, both sides having equal access to call witnesses, to counter things that are said that are inaccurate, which are, right now, not being allowed to happen.
Again, it is in secret. Nobody can see. You can make claims or statements about fairness. The minority members of the committee have just said it is not fair.
So, you can make it fair. You can bring a rule up that we would support that would actually allow both sides to have the same access to information and witnesses. You could do that right now. And I would ask the gentleman, would he be willing to do that?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. On impeachment inquiries?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. This is an impeachment inquiry. You just admitted it is.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. And the Chief of Staff talked about corruption, which is the law, by the way. The law says we have to root out corruption.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. They did.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Well, if both sides wanted the truth, they would let all witnesses be able to come forward. You shouldn't be so insecure in your claim that you won't even let somebody come and give an alternative view of some of the secondhand and, in many cases, thirdhand information, by people who have a political bias.
Madam Speaker, the gentleman hasn't answered the fundamental question of the precedent that you are trashing and rolling over and running backward over is that there have been three--only three in the history of our country--impeachment inquiries.
All of them started with a full vote of the House, and all of them had rules of fairness where both sides could participate.
That is not the case here. That is not fairness. It is surely not how it has been done all the other times. Maybe you think the other three times it was done wrong and you have got a better way, but the public doesn't buy it. That is not fair when you only let one side tell their version.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. The polls reflect that there is going to be an election next year, and they want to decide the next President. They don't want the Speaker and Chairman Schiff to be deciding, behind closed doors, who the next President will be. That is not how we should be conducting business.
We should be moving on to other issues, like those bills that would lower drug prices, like bills that will address so many other problems that families are facing, where there is actual work, bipartisan work, that is being done by relevant committees. And they are moving bills out, and none of them are moving through this House in a bipartisan way that could become law.
So, we sit here, just days away from a potential government shutdown, and what is the focus? The focus is on a one-sided, closed-door impeachment inquiry instead of those issues.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, on so many of those bills that the gentleman mentioned, the gentleman failed to point out the poison pills that were attached to those bills to ensure that they went out in a partisan way.
Case in point is the bill the gentleman mentioned last night. I was there in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Again, you take a package of bills--here are two different alternatives. People wonder why Congress can't get things done.
You had a package of bills to lower drug prices that every Republican and every Democrat on the committee voted for, worked for months to put together--good work, sincere, dedicated work by the people on the committee of jurisdiction--passed out of committee unanimously to lower drug prices.
Then, last night, you saw a package of bills on drug prices that resulted, ultimately, in socialist-style price-setting, and it went out on a party-line vote. Not one Republican voted for it.
If you can imagine, in divided government--which we are, Democratic House, Republican Senate with a 60-vote requirement, and a Republican President. If you want to pound on a table and make statements, you can send out party-line vote after party-line vote and say they are over there in the Senate, because you know, just as well as everyone else knows, those bills won't become law.
But if you look at the bills that came out unanimously, why is it that you send out the party-line vote to the Senate instead of taking the bill that came out of committee unanimously that actually would get signed into law by the President?
Months ago, that bill would be signed into law, and families would be paying lower prices for drugs today. But you won't send out the unanimous bill. You send out the party-line bill.
That is what happens over and over. People see it.
You talk about government funding. We are 16 days away from a shutdown, and you haven't even gotten an agreement with the Senate on a 302(b) number--in other words, how much we are going to spend.
You are going to have to have some give and take. You are going to have to work with the other side. But that work is not happening because you are focused on a secret, behind-closed-doors impeachment inquiry.
It would be helpful if we had that 302(b) number and you went and got the agreement, so go over there and talk to them.
But don't just send them party-line bills. Send them bills that are serious and have a chance to get signed into law. You know which bills those are.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, hopefully, we can get that 302(b) number. Hopefully, Madam Speaker, if we want to talk about some of these bills, I would love if the majority leader would bring the package of bills that came out of committee unanimously, where every Republican and Democrat came together, not with poison pills, but to show that we can actually govern in a way that a bill can get signed into law, not party-line games.
We all know the issues with the Senate. We can both agree on the differences we have with how the Senate operates, where they require 60 votes, which means, in order to do anything, both sides--not one side, but both sides--have to come together.
NDAA, first time in over 40 years where an NDAA bill came out that sets the rules for our Department of Defense funding in a partisan way, it should have never been that way. It has never happened that way before.
Hopefully, we can find a way to come together and address some of these real problems and have real fairness.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Maybe we would both agree that it might be helpful if the four leaders--the Speaker, the minority leader, the Senate majority leader, and Senate minority leader--got in a room and agreed not to leave until they come up with an agreement so we can actually do our business and not wait that 60 days.
The Secretary of Defense has made clear how damaging it is to our defense if we don't have a DOD appropriations bill passed and signed into law by the time this funding expires, how it hurts our men and women in uniform.
Hopefully, they would all agree to go and have that conversation and, ultimately, get that resolved. Then, we can take care of more of the people's work.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source