Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. McClain).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. Greene).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, we have heard time and time again that the Democrats say this is not a violation of due process; not a violation of our constitutional rights. It most certainly is.

Remember the basics here. Someone doesn't like you. They file a complaint. There is a hearing within 24 hours, a hearing that you are not allowed to attend, you are not allowed to be there to face your accusers. The government takes your gun or guns. Several days later there is a real hearing--well, a real hearing with a lower standard. The burden of proof for the government is not beyond a reasonable doubt to deny you your constitutional right. It is a clear and convincing standard. So a lower standard to take away your fundamental liberty when you didn't commit any crime. If that is not a violation of due process, I do not know what is.

Title I of this bill, it will all be administered by the Biden administration Department of Justice, the same Department of Justice that got a letter from a leftwing political organization and, 5 days later, sent a memorandum to every single U.S. attorney in this country saying this: Set up a dedicated line of threat communication on parents; use counterterrorism measures against moms and dads who had the nerve to show up at a school board meeting and speak up for their kid.

Then, 16 days after that memorandum went out, the FBI sends an email out and says: Put a threat tag, a designation, a label, on moms and dads who did show up at school board meetings who someone filed a complaint about on that snitch line, and investigate them. That same Biden administration Justice Department will be administering this law.

That is why we are so against this measure and why it is so darn dangerous. They can say all day long it doesn't violate due process; it most certainly does, and it is going to be administered by a Justice Department that has already proven they are willing to go after parents who speak up for their kids.

That is why this bill is so terrible, why Republican Senators are pushing this and, as Mr. Gaetz from Florida said, trying to bribe States to implement this when we have the history of the Biden Justice Department and know what this thing is going to look like and how it is going to violate due process. That is what is wrong with this legislation and why Republicans are so darn against this thing.

I hope they will come to their senses, stand up for the law-abiding American citizens and their fundamental liberties, and vote this thing down.

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, the Fifth Amendment states: ``Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.''

It is the paradox of the American experience that so many who swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, the supreme law enshrining our fundamental rights, are so often predisposed to strip those rights, always with noble motive.

Weeks ago, the Biden Department of Homeland Security formed a Disinformation Governance Board to become the arbiter of right think, even since disbanded. Bad idea.

In 2020, State Governors ordered the healthy to stay out of their churches for fear of the virus. Do you remember?

In 1971, the Department of Justice obtained a TRO, a prior restraint, to abridge freedom of the press by forbidding The New York Times to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers. Lower courts approved that, too.

In February 1942, another progressive Democrat, FDR, issued an executive order to intern U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese descent. It was greatly popular; 60 percent of Americans polled supported sending their fellow American citizens to concentration camps. It was approved not just by lower courts but by the United States Supreme Court in Korematsu, 1944. It took until 2018 for it to be repudiated. Look again at what you justified.

The long-existing Baker Act provides due process. New York had a red flag law and did not detect the Buffalo shooter.

The fierce urgency of now meets the protections of fundamental rights in the United States Constitution, and they must be vindicated.

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close.

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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