Legislative Program
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Maryland for walking through those items.
I first want to start by sharing and associating myself with the comments made by my friend from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) about the loss of our dear friend, Sam Johnson.
Sam and I got to be close friends, and I can picture him sitting right over there by General Lafayette's painting, in his scooter, as he was voting and sharing stories with friends in his last few months when he served here with us with distinction for so long, and the conversations and just the understanding of a giant that we served with, someone who served our country, spent 7 years in the Hanoi Hilton, as we talked about.
They never broke him. They probably broke every bone in his body trying, but he and those other brave men in that prison never once faltered in their love and dedication to our country and to their family.
He missed his wife. We know now he is with her and in a special place, and we are all better for having served with Sam Johnson. He truly is missed and was a special friend.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Speaker as well for leading that tribute, and I am sure at some time in the future we will spend an appropriate amount of time here on the floor where colleagues can share those stories about someone that everybody ought to know. We know we have some giants like John Lewis and Sam Johnson who we got to serve with. Sam left and now is no longer with us. John still is and, obviously, he is going through his own battle, and we pray for John as well.
But as we have our battles of the day politically, it is good to remember the special people that get to make up this body and become part of this great institution in which we have the honor to serve. So I appreciate the Speaker and the leader allowing us to have that moment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if anybody wants to have a good read, his book, ``Captive Warriors,'' tells the story of those years in the Hanoi Hilton; not only the unbreakable bond of those heroes that he served in that prison with, but also the unbreakable love between he and Shirley. She never wavered from her love of him, 7 years removed, while some of that time she didn't even know if he was alive.
He loved her till the day she died and till the day he died because he mourned her death every day since, and it was something for all of us--again, as we have our daily battles here--just to know the special kind of people that we get to serve with, and he was surely one.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, we have worked together to help try to address the problems within our country, both economically and the health side, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, large businesses, and State and local governments.
Trillions of dollars have already been spent. When you think just about the hundreds of billions of dollars that we sent to States through various means, whether it is direct aid, the $150 billion package that we have sent to States, we see that each State got a large share of that money, billions of dollars in some cases for each State.
I don't know one State that has spent all of their allotment. Many are working to try to figure out if they are going to help local governments or not. It was surely our intention here that it wouldn't just be for States, that 45 percent of that money should be available for local governments as well. I would urge Governors to respect that intent of this body.
Rather than continuing to look to Washington, I think States need to start looking within and saying: How can we work to safely reopen our States, and how have other States done it successfully if other States are behind?
We have models out there. That is why we always say the States are the great incubators of democracy. We all have smart people in this country who are figuring this out. States that are reopening successfully that aren't seeing spikes in their hospitals have done things and used protocols working off of guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to successfully get their economies back open again.
No economy is back open at the level it needs to be, and that is why we need to encourage everybody to safely reopen so that the real answer to States that have budget problems is to start getting their economies going again; get people back to work again; get people out having their checkups with their doctors again, their immunizations for the children who aren't getting immunized, the cancer treatments, the mammograms, and the colonoscopies that were being skipped for months. We are seeing studies that are coming out from very well-respected health experts who are talking about the real health danger of having shut-ins and people not getting out again.
We have to weigh all of this, and we have to keep encouraging the great progress we are seeing from some of these great drug companies here in America that are working on a cure, that are finding therapies that are effective for COVID-19 with the help, by the way, of some of those trillions of dollars that we have spent here in Washington to find, hopefully, a vaccine. Even Dr. Fauci is talking about the possibility of a vaccine being available soon. We need to make sure that we are working to help ramp up production when that is found so that we can make it available to anyone who wants to take it.
We need to be also focused on holding China accountable. We need to be focused on bringing production back to America of PPE, which was in short supply in those critical weeks after we found out China, while they were lying to the world about this disease, with the WHO joining in with them, was stopping and blocking the export of PPE, which they make the lion's share of, including American companies in China that weren't even allowed to sell PPE back to us when they had orders in place to do so.
So, we should be investigating that. I am sorry that that is not happening here.
We should be addressing how we can bring more of that manufacturing back to America to create new jobs for Americans making our own protective equipment for our frontline workers like doctors and nurses. Unfortunately, that focus hasn't been there.
But the real issue is: What should Congress' role be in this? Shouldn't Congress be leading the way in showing people how to safely reopen and do our work?
While we have had only a limited number of opportunities to come back here and vote directly on the House floor, it has been a smooth process. It has been a process that has been safe for Members, staggered votes where social distancing, which is still the standard that everybody should be practicing, is able to be exercised in a safe and effective way.
Clearly, we had a very big difference on the proxy voting, and I think we have already seen abuses of that process. But the real issue is: When are we going to get back to a functioning, regular schedule for the House of Representatives?
A major company here, Disney, announced yesterday they are going to start opening their parks again in a few weeks. You have the National Basketball Association talking about playing games again, whether or not there are fans in the stands. When you talk about a sport that can't exercise social distancing, they are working on protocols right now to test players and to allow games to go on. We all know the physical nature of a sport like basketball or even football. Hockey is talking about coming back. NASCAR is already racing again.
As all of these things are happening and these ideas and these great ways to safely get different parts of our economy open again, we don't even know what the schedule of the House is and when the House will actually be back voting again.
The Armed Services Committee could be in a large room in the Capitol that is sitting vacant right now, debating the National Defense Authorization Act, so we don't get caught bringing up legislation at the midnight hour. We can actually start working on that now. That work can be done here in Washington. It doesn't have to be done remotely.
These are the concerns that we would ask: Is there going to be a time when the majority leader would put out a new schedule that actually shows what our voting pattern will be?
We know, obviously, when you look at May, April, and even June, clearly, that has changed. But at some point, will it be mid-June? Will it be July?
Again, if NBA players can be playing basketball in July, can't we have a regular schedule by then that the House will be conducting business?
We have seen the Spanish flu, and people had to get here with horses and buggies, yet they figured out how to do it.
Can we lead the way again in showing people how to safely do our business with a consistent schedule that right now doesn't exist?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if I could ask the gentleman on the voting and whether it is in committee, clearly, there are rooms here in the Capitol--we have seen the Rules Committee utilize the Ways and Means Committee where they are able to be spread out at distances well beyond the safe standards of social distancing, well beyond 6 feet where you can have in-person hearings where the back and forth of a debate and the votes that would go with it where a proxy vote doesn't really fit that situation can occur. I would hope that we do that.
This shouldn't have been a partisan exercise. I know early on we talked about trying to find a way to conduct our business where both parties would agree, and the minority leader and the Speaker were talking about doing that, and we thought that would be how it would end up. Of course, that wasn't what happened with the proxy voting. But even my friend just mentioned that if somebody proxy voted, then it would be for health reasons. Yet, yesterday, the first time where this new experiment that has never been done in over 230 years was conducted, there were Members who voted by proxy signing a document saying that they couldn't be here to physically attend proceedings, yet it turns out they were in other places. In some cases, it took them longer to get to a rocket launch than it would have taken them to get here to the United States Capitol, in clear violation of the intent of proxy voting. That literally was just on the first day.
I don't know if the gentleman is going to revisit proxy voting. But, clearly, we have seen most people can come here and do the work. Even some who chose not to could have been here.
What message does that send to the country when we should be the ones leading the way to safely reopen?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would just say that, clearly, we have a disagreement on how business should be conducted on the House floor, specifically as it relates to proxy voting and whether or not we can be here physically doing the job. And, clearly, when we are at home in our districts, we are finding other ways to get work done, to communicate with constituents, to communicate with people all around the Nation. Using technology, it has definitely helped the ability for us to do it, but it is not the same thing as when we are here.
The other side of that, because one piece of it is the ability to be here--and, clearly, we have the ability to be here. There are flights. If somebody is not comfortable flying, they used to take horse and buggy. They didn't have planes, and yet they found a way to get here in tougher times. But then you look at the message that we are trying to send. And, yes, there are some places that you don't have traffic on the road because their officials have chosen not to open as aggressively as others, using safety protocols.
No one is talking about compromising safety, but there are many States that have shown how to safely reopen on a much wider scale where you can get people back out doing the things that they want to do again, and that is the real issue. You are watching aspects of the private sector, you are even watching other levels of government, large cities, large States that are reopening and doing it successfully, not overrunning their hospitals.
Most of our hospitals are telling us they want more patients. They want the people who normally would be getting their checkups and immunizations and even hip replacements and things that are part of their life cycle, their quality of life, and their ability to live with cancer treatments and things like that that aren't being done. There are people dying right now because they are not being tended to.
In my home parish, I actually talked to my coroner about this. He took a 6-week period--just 2 weeks ago, took a 6-week period and took that exact 6-week period a year ago, and there was a 42 percent increase in non-COVID-related deaths, just in my home parish. This year, more--Madam Speaker, 42 percent increase--because people aren't going out, aren't going to the doctor. If they had chest pains, they weren't going to a doctor because the doctor's office is closed, where they could catch it, and so they were dying in their house.
These are real numbers from the coroner. I mean, there is a problem that is created by not allowing people to go about their lives again in a safe way.
So we ought to be leading the way, leading the way to show people how to do it. And, again, we have had votes here on the House floor before proxy voting in the midst of this pandemic, and it went very smoothly. And if there are better ways we can find to do it, we will do it.
But we followed all the protocols of the Attending Physician. I didn't hear of any Members complaining about that process. Everybody went about it their own way, practicing the social distancing that we all encourage. Yet we are not doing that on a consistent basis, and that doesn't send the right message.
As the gentleman reworks the schedule, and I hope it is done soon, I hope it takes into account the fact that it is important for us to show the rest of the country that we can be here doing our job.
Yes, there are things that we are going to do remotely. There are things we always do remotely. If we are on a 3-week schedule in D.C. and 1 week back home in our districts, it is important that we go back home to stay in touch with the people who actually elect us, the people who make this country work so that we can come back here and represent them better.
But we do have to come back here and do the work. You can't phone it in sometimes. You can't do that remotely. There are certain parts of our job where we actually have to be here.
In the rough-and-tumble of a legislative process, things change on the fly; and if you are back home or going to some other event somewhere else because you choose not to come here, it is kind of hard to say you gave your proxy to somebody and then things change 2 minutes before a vote. It is going to be hard for that person to know how to change their vote by proxy when they are not here.
So there are flaws in there that don't need to be there because we have proven we can be here. I just hope that that is taken into account when the new schedule is being worked out, and, again, hopefully released as soon as possible so that as other people and industries and groups are starting to show how they are going to come back safely, we can do the same thing--not last. Clearly, we are not going to be first now, but hopefully, as other people are making those decisions, we can be part of that, not at the tail end of it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source