Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendments to H.R. Usa Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 981 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 981
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6172) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to prohibit the production of certain business records, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendments thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a single motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendments. The Senate amendments and the motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided among and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary and the chair and ranking minority member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question.
Sec. 2. Any motion pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII relating to H.R. 6172 may be offered only by the Majority Leader or his designee.
Sec. 3. Notwithstanding the order of the House of May 22, 2020, if a veto message is laid before the House on House Joint Resolution 76, then after the message is read and the objections of the President are spread at large upon the Journal, further consideration of the veto message and the joint resolution shall be postponed until the legislative day of Wednesday, July 1, 2020; and on that legislative day, the House shall proceed to the constitutional question of reconsideration and dispose of such question without intervening motion.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 981, providing for consideration of Senate amendments to H.R. 6172. The rule makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendments.
The rule provides 1 hour of debate on the motion, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary and the chair and the ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The rule provides that any motion pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII relating H.R. 6172 may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee. Finally, the rule allows for consideration of a possible veto message on H.J. Res. 76 on July 1, 2020.
Madam Speaker, the protection of civil liberties has always been a uniquely American value. I opposed the original PATRIOT Act and subsequent reauthorizations because I believe they crossed the line and compromised Americans' fundamental right to privacy.
We can prevent crime and terrorism without our government collecting data on law-abiding citizens. I have said that whether there has been a Republican President or a Democratic President in the White House.
This has not been a partisan notion, either. There are Members on both sides of the aisle who have consistently said the same. When I worked with my colleagues Mark Pocan and Tom Massie to introduce what was called the strongest antisurveillance bill to date, it was done with bipartisan support.
It is no surprise, then, that I don't support the underlying bill either. Every day, we ask Americans to choose between their right to privacy and a false sense of security. That is not a choice we should have to make.
Having said that, other Members in this Chamber--Democrats and Republicans--feel differently, and it is the Rules Committee's job to advance legislation to the floor.
A FISA reauthorization recently passed this Chamber with the support of over two-thirds of our Members. I did not support it. The Senate strengthened the bill, but quite frankly, it is not strong enough for me, though I do appreciate some of its reforms.
Now, each Member will have to decide where they stand. I know the President hasn't made this process easy. He has thrown a last-minute wrench into the process with his tweeting. If this bill passes, it will go directly to his desk. I am not sure if he will sign it or not. I am not sure he knows, quite frankly.
But we are giving every Member the chance to cast a straight up-or- down vote. Ultimately, the House will have worked its will.
I have said many times that I oppose this bill. The Government of the United States should not be able to go on fishing expeditions against citizens who haven't even broken the law. That is not a radical idea. To me, that is a fundamentally American idea. I don't want seemingly unlimited and, in my view, unconstitutional powers in the hands of President Trump and Attorney General Barr or any administration.
This Attorney General, quite frankly, has no respect for the rule of law. That is my view. I don't trust him.
I don't care whether it is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. We can, and we must, fight terrorism and deter wrongdoing in a way that better respects Americans' civil liberties.
Madam Speaker, this is a serious matter. It deserves to be handled more responsibly than by a late-night tweet.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I oppose the underlying bill. It has nothing do with the Mueller investigation into the collusion between Trump operatives and the Russians.
Quite frankly, I look back at that episode in our history with great concern. A foreign power intervened in our election, and people close to the President lied about their interaction with the Russians, including General Michael Flynn, whom my colleague just referred to. He lied to the FBI, but he doesn't need to worry because the President is going to pardon him, or at least alluded to pardoning him because he is his friend.
It is that kind of lack of respect for the law that has me concerned about giving more power to this administration to be able to surveil American citizens.
By the way, the Attorney General is recommending a veto on this because he thinks it is too restrictive. He wants more power. This Attorney General wants more power. Give me a break.
Madam Speaker, people have differences of opinion on the underlying bill. There are Democrats who strongly support it, and there are Democrats who oppose it. There are Republicans who strongly support it, at least they did until the President did his tweet last night, and Republicans who oppose it. So, people can vote however they want to vote.
But my opposition to the underlying bill is longstanding, and I am not going to sit here and listen to somebody try to rewrite history as to what happened between the Russians and Trump operatives. What happened should disturb every American, Democrat or Republican.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to thank the gentleman for reading from Webster's Dictionary to all of us, but I want to read from the Constitution. And let me quote: ``Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.''
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned constitutional expert and dean of Berkeley School of Law, discussing the view that the remote voting process we are considering today would, in fact, be constitutional.
In the letter, the dean says: ``The Constitution bestows in each House of Congress broad discretion to determine the rules for its own proceedings. . . . This authority is expansive and would include the ability to adopt a rule to permit proxy voting. Nothing in the Constitution specifies otherwise.
``Moreover, if this were challenged in court, it is very likely that the case would be dismissed as a political question. The Supreme Court has ruled that challenges to the internal operation of the Congress are not justiciable in the Federal courts. . . . Indeed, I have written, the Court often `has held that congressional judgments pertaining to its internal governance should not be reviewed by the Federal judiciary.' '' Berkeley Law, May 13, 2020. Chairman McGovern and Ranking Member Cole, House Rules Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman McGovern and Ranking Member Cole: I have been asked for my view as to whether the House of Representatives could constitutionally adopt a rule to permit remote voting by proxy. As explained below, I believe that this would be constitutional and it is very unlikely that any court would invalidate such a rule, especially in light of the current public health emergency.
My understanding is that the system of remote voting by proxy that is being considered would have some key features:
Low-tech remote voting process through proxy voting;
Some number of Members would be present on the Floor for debate and in-Chamber voting;
Proxy would be used to establish a quorum and to register the yeas/nays;
The proxy holder would be another Member of the House;
The proxy holder would have NO discretion on the vote. Instead, the proxy holder would be required (through the rule and accompanying regulations) to cast the vote in accordance with the specific and exact instruction from the Member.
The Constitution bestows on each House of Congress broad discretion to determine the rules for its own proceedings. Article I, section 5 of the Constitution says: ``Each House may determine the Rules of its proceedings.'' This authority is expansive and would include the ability to adopt a rule to permit proxy voting. Nothing in the Constitution specifies otherwise.
Moreover, if this were challenged in court, it is very likely that the case would be dismissed as a political question. The Supreme Court has ruled that challenges to the internal operation of Congress are not justiciable in the federal courts. See Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892). Indeed, I have written, the Court often ``has held that congressional judgments pertaining to its internal governance should not be reviewed by the federal judiciary.'' Erwin Chernerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies Sec. 2.8.5 (6th ed. 2019).
Especially in the context of the current public health emergency, it is highly unlikely that any court would review and invalidate the procedures adopted by the House of Representatives that would allow it to conduct its business without endangering the health of its members and its staff. Every branch of government is devising new procedures to accomplish this. The Supreme Court, for example, will conduct oral arguments by telephone for the first time in its history. I am sure that the rules will ensure that the votes cast by proxy are accurate and carefully recorded.
I hope that this is helpful. Please do not hesitate to let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, Erwin Chemerinsky.
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Mr. McGOVERN. I include in the Record a letter from Deborah Pearlstein, constitutional law professor from Cardozo School of Law.
In her letter, which I strongly recommend all of my colleagues read in full, Professor Pearlstein writes: `` . . . I believe adopting procedures to allow for remote voting under these extraordinary circumstances is not only lawful, but essential to the maintenance of our constitutional democracy.''
``The Constitution . . . contains no specific requirement of physical presence for Members to vote. What the Constitution does instead--as the courts have repeatedly recognized--is leave it up to each House of Congress to `determine the Rules of its Proceedings.' ''
``Indeed, it is just such constitutional flexibility that has enabled Congress to embrace the various informal solutions it has adopted over the years to `do business,' including relying on Members to give `unanimous consent' to a vote even if something less than an actual majority of Members is physically present on the floor.''
``Finally, the temporary remote voting procedures . . . bear an entirely `reasonable relation' to the goal you aim to achieve, namely, ensuring that Congress preserves the ability to vote in a way that maintains the institution's representative character, protects the transparency of its operation, and fairly and accurately reflects the will of the American people.'' Cardozo Law, April 16, 2020.
Dear Chairman McGovern: Thank you for your statement today recommending the implementation of temporary remote voting procedures in Congress during this tragic pandemic. As a professor of constitutional law, and a scholar who has written extensively on separation of powers issues in U.S. Government, I believe adopting procedures to allow for remote voting under these extraordinary circumstances is not only lawful, but essential to the maintenance of our constitutional democracy. Recognizing that specific procedures for remote voting may still be in development, the analysis offered here focuses foremost on the broad scope of Congress' constitutional authority to regulate its voting procedures.
As with much else in the Constitution, the description the text provides of how Congress is to fulfill its legislative ``duties'' once members have been elected is relatively brief. Article I, Section 5 provides that there must be ``a Quorum to do business,'' which the Constitution defines as constituting simply ``a Majority'' of each House. The same Section likewise specifies that each House must keep a ``Journal of its Proceedings,'' which must be published ``from time to time,'' and which may, if a sufficient number of members desire, reflect how every member voted ``on any question.'' The Constitution adds that neither House can adjourn for more than three days, or move the session to some other place, without the consent of the other House--a provision designed to prevent a single House from thwarting all congressional action by simply absenting themselves indefinitely.
There can be little question that the Framers imagined the legislature would do its work while assembled in some physical location. In 1787 when the Constitution was drafted, they could scarcely have imagined any other functional way of proceeding. Various other constitutional provisions thus refer to Congress as ``meeting'' (Art. I, Sec. 4) or ``assembling'' (Art. I, Sec. 3), and one even provides a mechanism by which members can compel ``the Attendance of absent Members,'' (Art. I, Sec. 5) meaning presumably those members not otherwise present where Congress is meeting. Of course, none of the clauses in which those terms appear address how Congress casts or counts its votes. Indeed, neither the document itself nor any Supreme Court decision defines what counts as ``attendance'' or ``assembling,'' much less how such ``attendance'' may be taken, or such ``assemblage'' may be accomplished. The Constitution equally contains no specific requirement of physical presence for Members to vote. What the Constitution does instead--as the courts have repeatedly recognized--is leave it up to each House of Congress to ``determine the Rules of its Proceedings.'' (Art. I, Sec. 5) As the Supreme Court explained in United States v. Ballin, 144 U.S. 1 (1892), so long as there is a ``reasonable relation between the mode or method of proceeding established by the rule and the result which is sought to be attained,'' the content of those rules are ``beyond the challenge of any other body or tribunal.''
Indeed, it is just such constitutional flexibility that has enabled Congress to embrace the various informal solutions it has adopted over the years to ``do business,'' including relying on members to give ``unanimous consent'' to a vote even if something less than an actual majority of members is physically present on the House floor. But while such well settled procedures are surely constitutional, they may not always function to advance the system of majority rule the Constitution so plainly contemplates. As we recently saw when Congress enacted a substantial stimulus bill just last month, it is possible for one House member, acting alone, to single- handedly defeat the manifest preference of the bipartisan majority by insisting upon an actual demonstration that a majority of members were ``present'' (a term contained in House Rules, not in the Constitution itself). This forced House leaders to make a choice the Constitution cannot be understood to compel--between surrendering the will of the majority to the demands of a single man, or insisting, as they did, that Members jeopardize their safety (and thus their ability to effectively represent their constituents going forward) by defying lawful public health restrictions to travel and meet in Washington, D.C.
It is precisely in order to avoid such absurd results that Congress has embraced a variety of measures throughout its history to adjust to developing technologies and changing demands. Thus, for example, current House Rules provide that in the event the existing electronic voting system is ``inoperable,'' the Speaker may direct the vote to be conducted through alternative methods, including through the use of ``tellers'' designated by the Speaker to ``record the names of the Members voting on each side of the question.'' The teller system was an innovation put in place before the current electronic system was available, one among key reforms designed to strengthen Congress' ability to maintain a public record of Members' votes. The particular challenge of ensuring that Congress could continue to operate during the outbreak of infectious disease was indeed the subject of one of Congress's first efforts to provide for alternative rules of operation. Following Congress' return after the yellow fever epidemic that devastated the then-capital of Philadelphia in the summer of 1793, Congress adopted a law providing that in circumstances when ``the prevalence of contagious sickness'' made it ``be hazardous to the lives or health of the members to meet at the seat of Government,'' the President could ``convene Congress at such other place as he may judge proper.'' If Congress can delegate to the President the power to move congressional operations entirely, surely it can reserve for itself the lesser power to make whatever far more modest amendment to process is required to ensure Congress is able to vote in the same, extraordinary circumstances.
Finally, the temporary remote voting procedures as you have sketched them thus far appear to bear an entirely ``reasonable relation'' to the goal you aim to achieve, namely, ensuring that Congress preserves the ability to vote in a way that maintains the institution's representative character, protects the transparency of its operations, and fairly and accurately reflects the will of the American people. By keeping remote voting procedures tied as closely as possible to the existing system, the proposed approach protects Members' ability to participate in votes regardless of geographic location, technical knowledge or means; minimizes the risk of foreign or other unlawful interference in the vote; and maximizes Congress's ability to fairly reflect the will of the majority of the people even during the present crisis. The proposed approach contains essential safeguards to ensure that Members' preferences are fully and accurately recorded; as you emphasized in your recent statement, Members designated to submit voting cards on behalf of other elected Representatives may only act pursuant to the direct, express instruction of the elected Representative, retaining no discretion in carrying out the ministerial function they play in the modified voting process. As ever, Members remain subject to all the disciplinary powers the House possesses to ensure the appropriate exercise of their duties.
In short, with limited reforms that maximize Members' ability to represent the wishes of their constituents, while minimizing disruption and confusion in House operations, Congress can succeed in preserving the essential constitutional function of the legislative branch even amidst an unprecedented pandemic. It is a critically important initiative in these extraordinary times.
As ever, I thank you for your efforts, and for the opportunity to share my views.
Sincerely, Deborah N. Pearlstein, Professor of Law.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, about the process, let me just say, I hear from my friends. They like to talk about the 230 years of tradition as though the House has never made any changes to the way it operates in these last 230 years. That is just simply not true. So many of our most basic functions have changed drastically since the first Congress, from the way we vote to the way we count a quorum.
If a legislative body does not have the ability to respond to the challenges it faces, then how can it survive and how can it be functional?
The challenge we are facing today is not permanent. I could argue that the House has made several more sweeping and permanent changes than this before. For one, the way we vote today looks nothing like how our predecessors voted in 1789. Now we cast our votes in the Chamber by electronic device.
Our predecessors recognized that the House needed to advance with technology. For decades, they called on the House to implement a more efficient and advanced voting system. They were afraid we would seem archaic compared to foreign and State governments. Does that sound familiar?
Right now, we are watching as legislatures in our States take responsible action to respond to this pandemic by implementing remote voting procedures and as parliaments around the world advance to meet this challenge head-on. What are we doing? We are struggling to even come up with an agreement that we need to do something--something. Anything.
But voting electronically is not the only change we have made in response to technological advancements. Now, our floor proceedings are broadcast on C-SPAN. Members grappled with questions of how broadcasting the House would fundamentally change this body, but the desire for accountability and transparency won the day.
Change is not always bad. And, of course, there were safeguards attached to this that preserved the integrity of the House: Proceedings cannot be tampered with and cannot be used for political reasons and so on.
Other changes we made over the years include the provisional quorum after 9/11. And that is not the only time we made changes to our quorum requirements.
Other changes were deciding when a quorum is required. For decades, Members raised points of order that a quorum is not present during debates. The House has even expanded the Speaker's ability to adjust the numbers of the whole House to account for those living, incapacitated, or resigned.
How we count a quorum today is not the same as how we counted a quorum in the first Congress. We have made changes to our quorum rules as recent as 15 years ago.
Here is the deal: What we are facing today doesn't have to prevent us from legislating. We should not be afraid to adapt and respond to these challenges and to do so in a safe manner. If anything, we have 230 years of precedent of us adapting to the changing world around us. There is nothing wrong with that.
But we don't have decades to make these changes. We need to make them now, because we are in the midst of a pandemic. Hopefully, we are seeing the end of it, but according to this administration's own CDC, we may see a surge in COVID-19 cases in the fall. We may be in a more difficult situation. We need to be prepared.
So no one is suggesting any permanent rules changes here. Everything that we are putting forth is temporary and will be tied to the duration of this pandemic. Full stop.
Let me just say this, finally. Proxy voting is constitutional. The experts have said so. We aren't going to stop the work of the people's House so that another branch of government can weigh in on our internal proceedings.
I get it. My Republican friends have another agenda. They would prefer that we do not get work done during this difficult time. It is in, I think, their political interests, I guess they have decided, to slow the work down of Congress.
Well, do you know what? The American people want us to work in times that are normal and in times like this when we are in the middle of a pandemic. And so I would urge my colleagues to reject the motion of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and instead vote to get our work done.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, let me put it this way: I think there are certain Members of your conference who are interested in slowing the work of this democratic majority down. And I think that the constitutional arguments are certainly on our side on this, and I think that there is another agenda, quite frankly, that is being pursued by some. I am not going to attribute that to you or anybody else.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I don't even know what the heck the gentleman from Virginia is talking about. We debated this. Nobody is ceding their power to anybody here. We had this debate. Read the resolution.
Members who cannot be here are very much engaged and are directing their wishes very directly, like they would by casting the vote here. So I don't even know what the heck we are talking about here, but I guess it is a good talking point on their side, but it just doesn't reflect reality.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Speaker of the House.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Nobody is turning over their solemn duty to another Member of Congress, and if my friend would read the proposal which passed the House, if he had paid attention to the debate that we had, he wouldn't be mischaracterizing what, in fact, we are doing here.
Nobody is turning over their solemn power to anybody. Members have to participate directly just like they would on the House floor. They have to pay attention to the proceedings. They cannot give their votes in advance. On a previous question, people have to respond just like they would in real time as if they were here on the floor.
So, this is just not true. It is not accurate.
Again, we have had this debate. The House has spoken, and we are moving forward with remote voting by proxy today.
By the way, we didn't get through the pandemic of 1918 in the way the gentleman just kind of characterized. In fact, that was an example of why we need to do something because, during that time, we weren't meeting. During that time, a bill actually to try to get more doctors to rural areas to help people get through it couldn't get passed in the House, and a lot of people died as a result of it.
So, I don't look at the Spanish flu of 1918 as somehow a model that we ought to employ now. That is an example of how this institution failed, and people died as a result of it.
We are now in another pandemic. Hopefully, this is short-lived. Hopefully, the President is right that, tomorrow, everything will be perfect. But we are also being told that, actually, things could get worse in the fall. That is what happened during the Spanish flu, by the way. The fall was worse.
We need to be prepared, and that is what we are going to do. We are going to do the people's business, and the people who can get here, they can get here. If they can't, for whatever reason, because flights have been canceled because they are living in areas where there has been a terrible surge in COVID-19, we will adjust accordingly.
Again, this is temporary, and it is not meant to displace the way we do business here on a regular basis, and it is totally constitutional. Constitutional scholar after constitutional scholar has validated that, so I would say to the gentleman that I reject the way he has characterized what we have done here because it is just not accurate. It is not accurate.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the majority leader of this House.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I have been here for a while now, and I have never quite heard anything like that; I mean, blatant mischaracterization of what the facts are.
The gentleman suggested, not once, but several times, that the rules allow staff members to vote for other Members in this Chamber. That is just not true. I mean, no matter how you want to look at it, it is just not true. But the gentleman repeated that falsehood over and over and over and over again.
I asked him to yield so I could read the end of the sentence that he didn't want to finish, which is: ``And that Member must confirm the instruction by telephone to the Member serving as proxy before the vote may be cast on their behalf.''
The gentleman knows that that is not true but, yet, here he comes to the floor and he repeats over and over again something that, in the written instructions, in the guidelines that he was referring to, says the opposite.
I mean, are things that broken here that we cannot even agree on the basic facts?
I get it. You don't like what we are doing here, that's fine. But let's not misinterpret and twist and distort what we are trying to do here.
Yeah, the gentleman had a plan. We actually delayed moving forward on trying to change the rules to operate remotely because the gentleman said that he was willing to work with us to try to figure out whether we could come to some sort of accommodation.
And you know what his plan was? His plan was we all come back, and all the Members in this Chamber get prioritized, over all of our constituents, and we get tested every time we come back, so that we can operate here safely.
So my doctors, and my nurses, and my first responders, and those who work in our grocery stores, and those who work in homeless shelters and in food pantries, who can't get tested, we are all so special, according to the minority leader, that we should be prioritized and go to the top of the list. And that was part of his plan.
Forget about it. I don't know about your constituents, but my constituents would find that totally unacceptable, and it represents a tone-deafness that I haven't heard in a long time here.
When he talks about no accountability in this process, I don't even know what the hell he is talking about, I really don't.
And again, the idea that somehow staff could vote for Members? That is absolutely not true. Absolutely not true.
I don't even know how to respond to what the gentleman just said. It makes you understand why so many people are cynical when they look at this Chamber and they see the exchanges that go on here.
I get it; we have disagreements on issues. We have disagreements on whether we should move forward on with FISA or not. I have disagreements with my own leadership on that. Those are honest disagreements, but they are based on conviction. They are based on fact.
You can disagree with whether or not we should be able to operate remotely during extraordinary times like pandemics. I get it. We can argue about the constitutionality. I think we are on strong constitutional grounds. You can argue the opposite point of view.
But to makes things up, to come down here just to twist what we have done here, it is just unacceptable. It is unacceptable. We all ought to be better than that.
We are trying to figure out a way to operate during a very difficult time in our country where, probably today, over 100,000 people will have lost their lives.
And notwithstanding the President of the United States trying to downplay that and say, no big deal, you know, it is not much of anything.
It is a big deal. I have lost valued members of my community to this disease, and I know you have as well.
So we are trying to get through this and, hopefully, this is short- lived and, hopefully, we can get back to business as normal as quickly as possible. But if this comes back in the fall, we need to be prepared.
So, under this proposal, if you want to be here you can come here and we can operate in person. But as we are all finding out, that is difficult, even in committee hearings.
The Rules Committee is the smallest committee in the House, and we can't even meet in the Rules Committee room. We are meeting in the Ways and Means Committee room or the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee room, which are among the biggest committee rooms in the House because we are all trying to follow the advice of the Attending Physician.
So we can debate whether this is the best way to move forward or not. That is fine. But let's not make things up.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me thank my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Woodall). This is his last term and, believe it or not, I am going to miss him. He is a spirited debater.
But I want to say, and I say this sincerely, I appreciate his advocacy for his point of view. I usually disagree with it, but I know it is based on principle and conviction, and he sticks to the facts. He doesn't come to the floor and make things up. He actually sticks to the facts. We have disagreements on those facts, and that is the way debate should be. It should be based on what is real, what are the facts.
Madam Speaker, as you heard today, this is a difficult issue, the underlying legislation that we are dealing with with regard to FISA. It is one that cuts across party lines, and many Members have strong opinions.
As I said earlier, I opposed the original PATRIOT Act and subsequent reauthorizations. I appreciate the work of many of my colleagues in getting reforms included in the underlying bill that are badly needed. I think we need to do much more to truly respect all Americans' fundamental right to privacy.
I think it is a false choice to suggest that either we can fight terrorism and wrongdoing or uphold the right to privacy.
There has been a lot of debate on both sides of the Capitol, and the President has weighed in recently. The Attorney General has suggested that the President should veto this bill not because the Attorney General wants more reforms like the ones that the Senate put in or the ones that have been suggested. It is quite the opposite. The Attorney General doesn't want any more checks and balances put in place.
As I said earlier, that scares me because I don't trust him. I just don't.
Now, the House will have a chance to work its will. My vote on the underlying bill will be ``no.'' But I respect many of my colleagues who feel strongly that we ought to move forward and approve the bill that originated in this House then went to the Senate where additions were made in the Senate, and now it is back to the House. So, this has been a process that has not been short-circuited in any way, shape, or form.
But I think that given the fact that the Senate passed this with 80 percent of the Senate voting in favor of it--again, I would have voted ``no'' if I were in the Senate. But 80 percent of them voted in favor of it. Madam Speaker, you can't get 80 percent of the Senate to agree on lunch, yet they voted affirmatively on this.
We voted in the House. Two-thirds of this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans, voted ``yes.'' I voted ``no.'' But the idea that somehow there isn't strong support to move forward I think is not justified by the facts.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule so we can move forward.
I would again differ with my friends on the previous question. I think what we did to try to accommodate the reality that we are faced with during this COVID-19 crisis was responsible and deliberative. We attempted to work in a bipartisan way.
In fact, many of the parts of this proposal reflect Republican suggestions. I regret that we did not come to a conclusion that we all could agree on, but as I said before, the minority leader's insistence that somehow we all be prioritized in terms of testing was a nonstarter. His insistence that he had veto power over everything and that he would use that veto power so we couldn't operate remotely was also a nonstarter.
We need to do our work, and we need to do it in a way where all Members during this pandemic can participate.
The material previously referred to by Mr. Woodall is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 981
At the end of the resolution, add the following:
Sec. 4. H. Res. 965 shall have no force or effect until such time as the ongoing litigation into the constitutionality of proxy voting is complete.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
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