Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
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.
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 expects to meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. Last votes of the week will be expected 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.
In addition, Madam Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act. This bill is part of a package of legislation coming to the floor to crack down on money laundering and shine a light on the corrosive impact of dark money from Russia and other authoritarian governments on our democracy, a serious national security threat that must be addressed.
Lastly, the House will consider H.R. 4617, Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy, otherwise known as the SHIELD Act. Clearly, we believe that it is extraordinarily dangerous to be having foreign governments, particularly those who are hostile to the interests of democracy and the United States, to be participating in any financial way or any other way in our elections. This bill will prevent foreign interference in our elections and safeguard our democracy.
There also may be additional items that are possible to be brought forward, and we will notify the House and the minority as soon as we have made such decisions.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. I was going to mention Elijah at the end of our colloquy, but it was an extraordinarily sad day to hear of the loss yesterday, in the very early morning, of a colleague who was gentle, decent, honest, of high intellect, and high integrity.
The minority leader, Mr. McCarthy, spoke beautifully, I thought, about sentiments from both sides of the aisle, about Elijah Cummings. He was respected as a man, not only of intellect, but of great civility and kindness. And, yes, he could be tough. He was tough. He was the son of sharecroppers and became a Member of the Congress of the United States.
What a wonderful American story, and what a wonderful, decent, good human being Elijah Cummings was. And he will be remembered as such.
I thank the minority leader and I thank the minority, so many Members, who have served with Elijah on the minority, and, obviously, on a committee as the minority leader, Mr. McCarthy, pointed out, it can be pretty contentious from time to time.
But notwithstanding, Trey Gowdy and others who had served with him, served as either ranking member or chairman, spoke so highly of him. He was a very dear friend of mine for over four decades. He was the first African American speaker pro tem of the Maryland House of Delegates; president of the student government at Howard University, Phi Beta Kappa; and served with such distinction for 23 years in this House, and we will miss him. I thank the Republican whip for mentioning his passing, and how sad all of us are at that passing.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I reject wholly and fully the premise underlying the whip's representation. There is no unfairness in this process.
The Republicans are like the lawyer who does not have the facts, because if he has the facts, he pounds on the facts; or if he has the law on his side, he pounds on the law. But if he neither has facts nor the law on his side, he pounds on the table, Madam Speaker. He makes noise.
The Republicans talk about process, not the substance. And the process, quite interestingly enough, is much of what the Republicans put in the rules that we included in our rules when we adopted them.
And as the whip clearly knows, one of the strongest advocates and defenders of the President of the United States sits there in the hearing, asks questions, can review documents, and could go right back to the White House and to all of your Members and say: This is what happened.
There is no unfairness in this, and no requirement that we have a vote. The committee is doing its job of fact-finding. Frankly, the White House counsel wrote a letter filled with eight pages that clearly misconstrues the status of this process; treats it as if it were the trial. We do not conduct the trial, Madam Speaker. The Senate conducts the trial.
And just as in our legal due process system, when that occurs, the President will have all of that due process, I am sure, extended to him by the House of Representatives. That is not what this proceeding is.
This proceeding is to decide whether there is probable cause to think that the President of the United States has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. We have not made that conclusion yet, and we may not make it if the facts do not lead us there.
As Mr. Schiff pointed out in his letter to all of the Members, there is a very definite reason why grand juries and this committee are doing its process with full participation by the Republican Members of the Select Committee on Intelligence; full participation.
It is because witnesses ought not to be forewarned of what somebody else has said. Why? So that they don't parrot the other witness but tell the truth as they know it to be.
And I will tell the gentleman, the other reason grand juries are in secret is to protect the innocent, so that if there is no probable cause, there will be no assertion that somebody alleged that somebody did something wrong.
But the Republicans have been pounding on process and the reason for that, Madam Speaker, is they don't even want to discuss the substance. Of course, the Acting Chief of Staff did discuss substance. It is on the front page of The Washington Post. Of course we do this.
So I will tell my friend, this process is fair. It is consistent with the rules. It is consistent with the Constitution of the United States. It is consistent with the laws of this country. It is about one of the most serious matters we can deal with, and we don't want to make it a circus.
Yes, the committee is doing its work in camera, so to speak, adducing the facts. And your Members, and, particularly, one of the President's strongest supporters, defenders, and collaborators is sitting in the room every time the hearing occurs--unless he absences himself--and the Members of that committee, which you have appointed--not you personally, but your conference has appointed--are sitting in the room, equal time asking questions.
This hearing is fair, judicious, and thoughtful. And the attempt to besmirch the chairman of the committee is shameful. He is a fair and experienced Member of this body who has conducted himself as he should.
It is our constitutional responsibility, Madam Speaker, to see the facts behind conduct that may rise to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. We don't know that to be the case, but if it is, we will meet our duty to the Constitution, to the laws of this Nation, and to the American public.
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Mr. HOYER. That is your rule.
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Mr. HOYER. That is your rule.
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Mr. HOYER. That is your rule, Mr. Scalise.
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Mr. HOYER. That is your rule in the Republican rule that we adopted.
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Mr. HOYER. That is your rule in the Republican rule that we adopted.
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Mr. HOYER. Fine. We are going under your rules.
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Mr. HOYER. When we were in the minority, we were not allowed to do what you are requesting to do. We were not allowed to do it----
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Mr. HOYER.--in any of the hearings.
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Mr. HOYER. These are your rules, Mr. Scalise.
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Mr. HOYER. Ask your counsel.
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Mr. HOYER. Ask your counsel if those are your rules.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, apparently, he does not want to answer----
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Mr. HOYER.--about it being his rule.
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Mr. HOYER. Does the gentleman not trust Mr. Nunes?
Apparently, there is no answer to that question.
Mr. Nunes is the ranking Republican and very close friend, associate, and defender of the President of the United States. He is there to hear every word. My presumption is he also can tell every word to his colleagues.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker----
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, he yielded to me. Is he reclaiming his time and shutting me up?
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Mr. HOYER. You didn't answer it. But if you want to answer----
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Mr. HOYER. Do you trust Mr. Nunes?
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. He hasn't answered my question yet, but I will assert again----
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Mr. HOYER. I assert, again, to anyone who is listening, we are operating----
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Mr. HOYER.--with respect to that under the rules that the Republicans adopted in their rules package and applied to our side when we were in the minority, Madam Speaker.
The same rules that they imposed upon us they are now complaining about because they don't think they were fair. Apparently, they thought they were fair when they were applied to the Democratic minority. But, apparently, now those same rules--their rules they adopted and voted for--are not fair because they are in the minority.
Very frankly, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. What is fair to the goose is fair to the gander.
They are your rules, Mr. Scalise. You ask your counsel. We adopted your rules on the issuing of subpoenas--your rules.
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Mr. HOYER. We are in an exercise of our constitutional responsibility----
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Mr. HOYER. Is the gentleman going to let me answer?
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Mr. HOYER. The answer is that we are involved in exercising our constitutional responsibility to oversee, to make sure that the laws of this Nation and the Constitution of this Nation are honored in practice and in spirit but particularly in practice.
Let me ask the gentleman a question. Do you think it is okay to ask foreign leaders to interfere in our elections?
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Mr. HOYER. Certainly. It is your time, you yielded to me, and I am asking a question.
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Mr. HOYER. You want to talk about process. That is substance.
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Mr. HOYER. Do you want me to read you the transcript?
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Mr. HOYER. Who appointed Mr. Mueller?
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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. HOYER. When he is talking about the whistleblower, is that the person that the President of the United States said ought to be treated as if he had done treason?
And we know what we do to those who commit treason.
Is that the whistleblower you want outed? Is that the whistleblower you want to expose to that kind of danger? Is that what you are talking about?
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I would ask the whip----
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, there is no such rule. None.
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Mr. HOYER. But Mr. Scalise believes, Madam Speaker, the more he repeats it, somebody will believe it.
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Mr. HOYER. Have you yielded to me?
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Mr. HOYER. Have you yielded to me?
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Mr. HOYER. There is no such rule. There are no requirements for any committee to undertake any investigation that you have to have a rule passed by this House.
And the gentleman apparently thinks that, by having an investigation and an inquiry, somehow that is an impeachment; it is not. He is absolutely right.
To impeach would have to have a vote of this House. Clearly, that is correct. That is consistent with the Constitution and the laws of this country. There is nothing that says--other than the Republicans who repeat it ad nauseam because they are hopeful that some people will believe what they say, that somehow it is unfair that Democrats and Republicans are sitting together as the constituted Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence looking at this matter.
Everybody has a right to ask a question in that room. All Members have a right to review the materials.
What he doesn't like is the rule that they put in place, Madam Speaker, about who can call witnesses.
They said the minority could not call witnesses unless the chairman and the committee approved of it. That is their rule, not our rule. We adopted our rule. We kept that rule in.
I asked the gentleman, Madam Speaker, a question. Does he believe it is right for a President of the United States to seek foreign interference in our elections? He has not answered that question.
Here is the--it is not a transcript. It is a report of the conversation, which came from the White House. I would hope we could count on its accuracy.
President: ``I would like you to do us a favor, though.''
What do you think ``though'' means?
Yes, I know you want something, but I would like to you do a favor, ``though.''
Mulvaney: Aid withheld to press Ukraine.
Now, he doesn't say what it was for. I get that. But you don't think President Zelensky had any doubt: I would like you to do a favor.
Now, the whip, Madam Speaker, has not answered my question whether he thinks it is appropriate for a President to ask a foreign leader for help in the elections, whether it was the 2016 or the 2020 elections. I happen to believe it was the 2020 elections.
He talks about Hunter Biden; he talks about Joe Biden all the time. So it would not be an unreasonable conclusion that that is what he was talking about.
Let me ask you another question.
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Mr. HOYER. Before I do that, let me say, collusion, by the way, my friend, is not a crime. What, however, Mr. Mueller did find is that there was reason to believe that there was obstruction of justice, which is a crime. He said, however, that, under Justice Department's rulings, he could not indict the sitting President, so he referred it to us.
Now, he is not a special prosecutor, as Mr. Schiff pointed out. The special prosecutors who precluded the two most recent impeachment proceedings, by the way, did their work in secret. They did their work as a grand jury does their work.
And, by the way, I don't think the gentleman is a lawyer, but in the grand jury, people under investigation do not have the right either to question, present evidence, or have counsel present in a grand jury. That is the prosecutors trying to find out whether there is probable cause that a crime has been committed by A, B, or C. And at that point in time, if the grand jury agrees, an indictment is laid down, and then all the due process rights to which Mr. Cipollone talked about in his letter--he did go to law school, and I don't know how he wrote that letter. It has been panned by almost every legal scholar that has reviewed it.
But I will tell my friend, do you believe it is appropriate to need a favor--clearly about the elections, whatever election. Do you believe it is appropriate for us to ask a foreign leader to involve themselves in our elections?
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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I know he is very interested in reading the whole thing, so let me read him some more of the report we got from the White House.
The other thing: ``There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.'' So: ``Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it''--that doesn't sound to me like the 2016 election--``if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me.''
What do you mean he doesn't mention Biden? I will give you a copy of this, if you would like, if you want to read the whole--I have read the whole thing.
What do you think Giuliani was talking about? 2016? No.
Two of his compatriots, of course, million-dollar bail; the Ambassador, fired. Why? Because she wouldn't cooperate with making a foreign leader complicit in the elections of the United States of America. She had the courage to come testify, as did the security adviser for Russia from the White House in this administration.
Now, frankly, Madam Speaker, I don't think this is the time to argue the case. The time continues to be finding out the facts, finding out the facts. And those facts, every day, are more instructive, whether it is Mr. Giuliani, the President's lawyer, who was substituted, Madam Speaker, for the State Department--a private State department.
The gentleman still hasn't answered my question: Is it appropriate? I want a favor. And oh, by the way, the Bidens, you know, that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, you really ought to look at them.
Everybody who has looked at this has said, including the present prosecutor--or the recently present. I don't think he still is the prosecutor, but the subsequent prosecutor said: We looked at this. Nothing there. Nothing there.
That wasn't acceptable, of course, to the President of the United States, so he kept beating on it. And he had $391 million needed by our Ukrainian friends to defend themselves against the Russians, otherwise known as Putin.
Maybe Putin didn't want that money to go to Russia, to go to Ukraine, Madam Speaker.
We just did a resolution for which Mr. Scalise voted, and that resolution essentially said that the actions taken the other day by the President in a phone call with the authoritarian leader of Ukraine helped Russia, helped Iran, helped Syria----
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Mr. HOYER.--and hurt our allies in the fight against ISIS, and has now reached an agreement that the President claimed some victory on where the Turks got everything they wanted and our allies are going to be pushed out.
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Mr. HOYER. No, sir.
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Mr. HOYER. No, I did not make that assertion.
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Mr. HOYER. What I said was that we are going to obviously have, and the committee is having, a hearing on that very matter without a vote of this committee, because it is their responsibility. And your minority member, Mr. McCaul, is for that resolution that is going to come out on the Turkish sanctions.
My point to you is there was no vote of this body that they should do that. They are doing their responsibility as the Select Committee on Intelligence, as the Committee on the Judiciary, as the Committee on Foreign Affairs, as the Committee on Oversight and Reform. They are doing their duty.
When they reach a conclusion, they will come and report to us. And they will report, perhaps, no finding, or maybe they will report they have findings and, as a result, this body will vote.
But the gentleman has still not answered my basic question: Do you think it is correct for a President of the United States--clearly, if you read this--you wanted to read the whole thing; you read the whole thing. Clearly, almost everybody who has read it--almost everybody who has read it, even some of Mr. Trump's friends whom he is now mad at have read it and said: Look, this was not proper.
I am asking, Madam Speaker, whether the whip thinks it is proper to ask a foreign leader to interfere in our elections.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, we did that yesterday, as you know.
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Mr. HOYER. It is your rule.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, Mr. Scalise ought to know this is not like any other one.
I am not sure about Johnson. There was a special prosecutor in the Nixon case. Nixon fired the first one, Mr. Cox, you will recall. Mr. Jaworski succeeded him.
There was a special prosecutor in the Clinton case. All of them did-- not exactly, because all the Republicans are in the room that are on the committee, members of the committee.
It is a Select Committee on Intelligence. The Intelligence Committee operates that way, consistent with their rules and with your rule. You continue to say we ought to change the rule. It is your rule that we adopted in our own rules. You didn't like it. You liked it when it was applied to us, but you don't like it when it is applied to you.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, the whip continues to ignore the fact that there were very different circumstances. There were two special prosecutors with respect to Nixon and one special prosecutor with respect to Mr. Clinton. That was a radically different position than we find ourselves in today.
Mueller, by the way, was appointed by the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, a Republican appointed by the President of the United States, Mr. Trump--not our guy. He appointed him.
Now, he dismisses that the special--he is not a special prosecutor, but I forget exactly what his title was. In any event, he wasn't a special prosecutor, but he did, in fact, find that there was reason to believe that there was obstruction of justice.
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Mr. HOYER. That is inaccurate, Madam Speaker. That is inaccurate.
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Mr. HOYER. Why didn't he file a charge? And if you read the report, as I am sure you did----
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Mr. HOYER. He said: I didn't file a charge because I cannot file a charge against the President of the United States under Justice Department rules.
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Mr. HOYER. He was an employee and working for the Justice Department. He was under the aegis of the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He was not an independent actor, a special prosecutor. He was an employee of the Justice Department.
And the rules that Mueller followed under the Justice Department are that you cannot indict a President. He said, however, the Congress can take action. He said that. He said we were the proper authority to take action in a case like this.
We are doing that.
He puts a lot of emphasis on ``inquiry.'' Investigation, inquiry, hearing--it is a fact-finding process in the pursuit of our constitutional duties to find out whether high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed by the President of the United States.
It is a hearing. It is an investigation. Call it an inquiry. The Speaker said ``inquiry.'' I adopt that language--investigation, hearing, whatever the language is.
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Mr. HOYER. But the substance of these charges--and I asked him about one. He hasn't answered the question of whether he thinks it is appropriate to ask a foreign leader for a favor. He says, no, he didn't ask for a favor.
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Mr. HOYER. Why did he mention the Bidens?
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Mr. HOYER. That is reaching.
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Mr. HOYER. Because that was the subject of the discussion, Madam Speaker.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, we adopted the rules adopted by the Republican majority in the last Congress dealing with this subject.
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Mr. HOYER. Of course not. You are talking about subpoenas and right to documents.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, he is talking about subpoenas; he is talking about the right to see documents.
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Mr. HOYER. I am willing to follow the rules that you imposed upon us.
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Mr. HOYER. We didn't have an impeachment inquiry.
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Mr. HOYER. No, the rules of the committee in terms of subpoenas and witnesses. We are following that rule. He complains about it.
Madam Speaker, he hasn't answered the substantive question. They don't have an answer to the substantive question.
Clearly, the testimony that was given yesterday by the Acting Chief of Staff clearly indicated putting leverage on Ukraine to get something we want, and, clearly, the President mentions the election of 2020.
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Mr. HOYER. Are you reclaiming your time?
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Mr. HOYER. The gentleman mentioned the Justice Department. Mr. Barr is essentially Mr. Trump's lawyer. Mr. Trump mentioned him in the transcript, too--it is not a transcript; it is a report of the call-- and said: Talk to Barr, and he'll come over there with you and talk about this corruption, i.e., Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, not CrowdStrike.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, the Justice Department refused to investigate this case, notwithstanding the waterfall of facts and information that raise questions.
We haven't resolved the answers to those questions, but we are investigating them because it is our constitutional responsibility.
And I would say to my friend: We could go on for the next 5 hours talking about this. We would not agree. You would continue to talk about process. My perspective is we are pounding on the table because the facts don't want to be discussed.
The only reason I brought up Turkey is because, by a vote of 354-60, we said the actions of the President of the United States were inappropriate and dangerous and helped our enemies, not our allies. That is what we said in that resolution, and, very frankly, two-thirds of the Republicans voted for that because they were concerned about our national security interests.
We are concerned about our national security interests when a President of the United States is talking to a foreign leader, talking about elections, past, present, or future--inappropriate, in our opinion, and, we think, inappropriate in the minds of the American people. But we will see, and we will have a vote on that at some point in time.
But, first, we are going to find out what the facts are, and we have witnesses coming forward to give us those facts, with every Republican member of the committee able to be there, able to question witnesses, with equal time because we believe that is fair.
And, very frankly, he says: Well, they don't have a right to call witnesses. They do have the right to suggest calling a witness, and the committee can vote on it, under the Republican rules that we adopted.
So, Madam Speaker, I would hope that perhaps we could go on, perhaps, to something else because we are not going to reach agreement on this.
We are going to continue to have what we believe are fair, proper, consistent with the rules, consistent with the Constitution of the United States, consistent with the laws of the United States of America, to find out whether this President has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
And then, when we conclude an answer to that question, every Member of this House will have availability of all the information. And, very frankly, Mr. Schiff says in his letter to all of us, that once the witnesses have been concluded that we can see that. What he doesn't want is to have the witnesses reading one another's testimony and parroting it. That is a fair thing, to make sure that we don't have one witness just simply adopting the testimony of another witness. We want the truth, not parroting of other information.
So, I would hope we can move on. I am prepared to continue to speak about this, but I don't think we are going to reach any conclusion beyond what we have already stated on both sides.
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Mr. HOYER. The polls reflect that the public believes we ought to be doing what we are doing.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, we have moved over 250 bills to the Senate. A number of those are very important bills in the sense that they affect a large number of people.
We passed making permanent the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and 133 Republicans voted for that bill. It sits, languishing, in the United States Senate, led by a Republican leader.
We passed that anti-hate resolution, and 173 Republicans voted for that.
We passed comprehensive background checks, and only 2 Republicans voted for that. And 90 percent of America--90 percent of America-- supports that bill. It sits, languishing, in the United States Senate, unattended.
We have passed 96 percent of the funding of government prior to June 30--96 percent. It hasn't been done before. It sits.
Not a single bill has passed the Republican-led United States Senate--not a single appropriation bill.
We passed a number of bills to make sure that the ACA was stable and preexisting conditions--Republicans didn't vote for that. Well, actually, eight did. It sits, languishing, in the United States Senate.
We passed a bill on climate action, what the Joint Chiefs of Staff say is one of the major challenges to our security. Three Republicans voted for that. It sits languishing in the United States Senate.
We passed disaster relief. That did pass.
We passed a lot of health legislation and prescription drug legislation. We said that prescription drug companies can't pay generics not to bring their product to the market. It is called ``pay to delay.'' We passed that. It sits languishing in the United States Senate.
Now, it either sits languishing in the United States Senate because Mitch McConnell is against all of those or it sits languishing so the Republicans can say: You haven't done anything. All you are doing is impeachment.
That is baloney.
Madam Speaker, we had a markup yesterday on a major bill that is going to save $345 billion, according to CBO, and bring prescription drug costs down for every American. It was marked up yesterday. We are going to bring it to the floor before we leave here this work period, and we are going to pass it.
I don't predict how many Republicans are going to vote for it, but I predict this: It will sit languishing in the United States Senate.
We passed the Equality Act so that every American would be treated consistent with our declaration that all are created equal, not just some. It sits languishing in the United States Senate.
So don't say we haven't done anything. Don't say impeachment is taking all of our time. It is not. We have one committee right now-- other committees also--one committee now that is giving attention, as it should. But the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and so many other committees are dealing with substantive issues to make sure the lives of our people are better for the people.
I could read another 30 bills like that languishing in the Republican-led United States Senate.
We are doing our work. The government was shut down when we took over, the first time in history the government was shut down when a new Congress was sworn in--the first time. We spent 30 days just opening up the people's government.
We passed appropriations bills. But not one has passed the United States Senate, led by the Republican leadership in the United States Senate. So sad.
We ought to be doing our business. We are doing our business. We are doing the people's business. We are making their lives better, and we are going to continue to do it. And we can do the same as well in dealing with the constitutional protections and the protections of our national security dealing with the President of the United States.
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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. HOYER. You know how this process works. Let them pass whatever bill they want; we will go to conference. We have our position; they have their position. It is led by your party. They haven't passed a single bill.
You talk about getting a 302(b). We sent them an offer 30 days ago. We haven't heard any response. Your party runs that.
You want to pass those bills? You think they are wonderful bills? Tell Mitch McConnell: Pass those bills and send them over here. Let's see what we do with them.
We have a two-House legislature. Madam Speaker, the Republicans control the Senate. Let them pass a bill.
You say everybody is for it? Then it ought to pass. But don't say Democrats aren't passing. We passed appropriations bills. We have passed substantive bills on prescription drugs. We have passed substantive bills on healthcare. We have passed substantive bills on education. We have passed a substantive bill on the environment. We have passed climate change protection. We have passed lots of bills.
Now, if they don't like those bills, pass their own bills and send them over here, Madam Speaker. We will have a conference, and we will try to resolve it. That is how the legislative process works.
Don't say that we have to do your work and our work. We have a perspective, exactly as you did when you were in the majority, and you jammed us over and over again.
We are not trying to jam you. You had a perspective; we had a perspective. You passed your perspective. You knew the President of the United States, when it was President Obama, that he wasn't going to sign those. You knew the Senate wasn't going to pass them. Your position was, however: No, that is our position. We have a right to do that.
You were right. You had a right to do that.
But you want to deny us that right, like you want to deny us following your rules that you say are unfair.
Madam Speaker, I don't get it. We have done our work. We will continue to do our work. We will continue to do our work on both sides of the ledger, doing our constitutional duty and doing our legislative duty, which may be one and the same.
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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, it is a two-House legislature. One is led by Republicans; one is led by Democrats.
The reason we don't have 302(b) is because the Senate couldn't agree with itself on 302(b)s.
I talked to Mitch McConnell in January of this year. Mitch McConnell comes out of the Appropriations Committee; I come out of the Appropriations Committee. Both of us said that we need to get 302(a)s, which is the big number. You then subdivide it into 12 different committees. He agreed that we ought to do that, but he said that we have to have the President agree.
Very frankly, the Acting Chief of Staff, who served in this body, did not want to do that. The leadership of the Republicans had as much trouble with him as we had with him. Just ask Mr. Boehner and Mr. Ryan. He didn't want to have a deal. He wanted a CR. Actually, he wanted less than a CR because he wanted to go back to the sequester numbers.
That is why we don't have a 302(b), because neither the White House, Madam Speaker, nor the Acting Chief of Staff would agree.
Mr. McConnell said: I am not going to do anything the President of the United States won't do.
Unlike being the independent, Article I body that we ought to be, acting independently and then sending it down to the President, and he makes a decision as to whether he wants to sign it or not, we are simply saying, in the United States Senate: If he won't agree with it, we won't put it on the floor. He doesn't have to veto it.
The public has to be so extraordinarily confused and angry about our unwillingness and inability to get our work done.
Madam Speaker, we have done our work. The Senate hasn't sent us anything. It is not like they have sent us something that we have rejected in a partisan way. They haven't sent us anything. They are too busy appointing judges that they think will reflect their ideological point of view.
So I am frustrated, along with the citizens of this country.
Everybody here who wants to do a 1-minute or a 5-minute is really frustrated. I get that. I am hopeful we can end this because we are not going anywhere.
But we are going to continue to do our job. We are going to continue to pass legislation that we think is for the people, to make their lives better, to focus on them, not us. We are going to focus on the Constitution and the laws of this country, to make sure that they are faithfully executed and carried out.
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