Providing for Consideration of H.R. Preventing A Patronage System Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Ensuring A Fair and Accurate Census Act; and for Other Purposes
Floor Speech
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1339 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 1339
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 302) to impose limits on excepting competitive service positions from the competitive service, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Oversight and Reform now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any further amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or their respective designees; (2) the further amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, if offered by the Member designated in the report, which shall be in order without intervention of any point of order, shall be considered as read, shall be separately debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question; and (3) one motion to recommit.
Sec. 2. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2988) to amend title 5, United States Code, to modify and enhance protections for Federal Government whistleblowers, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Oversight and Reform now printed in the bill, modified by the amendment printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived.
Sec. 3. (a) No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution considered pursuant to subsection (b) and amendments en bloc described in section 4 of this resolution.
(b) Each further amendment printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules not earlier considered as amendments en bloc pursuant to section 4 of this resolution shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
(c) All points of order against the further amendments printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules or amendments en bloc described in section 4 of this resolution are waived.
Sec. 4. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
Sec. 5. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the House with such further amendments as may have been adopted. In the case of sundry further amendments reported from the Committee, the question of their adoption shall be put to the House en gros and without division of the question. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.
Sec. 6. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 8326) to amend title 13, United States Code, to improve the operations of the Bureau of the Census, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Oversight and Reform now printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 117-64, modified by the amendment printed in part D of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of further amendment under the five- minute rule and shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived.
Sec. 7. (a) No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part E of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution considered pursuant to subsection (b) and amendments en bloc described in section 8 of this resolution.
(b) Each further amendment printed in part E of the report of the Committee on Rules not earlier considered as amendments en bloc pursuant to section 8 of this resolution shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
(c) All points of order against the further amendments printed in part E of the report of the Committee on Rules or amendments en bloc described in section 8 of this resolution are waived.
Sec. 8. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part E of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
Sec. 9. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the House with such further amendments as may have been adopted. In the case of sundry further amendments reported from the Committee, the question of their adoption shall be put to the House en gros and without division of the question. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.
Sec. 10. During consideration of H.R. 2988 and H.R. 8326, the Chair may entertain a motion that the Committee rise only if offered by the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform or her designee. The Chair may not entertain a motion to strike out the enacting words of the bill (as described in clause 9 of rule XVIII).
Sec. 11. (a) At any time through the legislative day of Friday, September 16, 2022, the Speaker may entertain motions offered by the Majority Leader or a designee that the House suspend the rules as though under clause 1 of rule XV with respect to multiple measures described in subsection (b), and the Chair shall put the question on any such motion without debate or intervening motion.
(b) A measure referred to in subsection (a) includes any measure that was the object of a motion to suspend the rules on the legislative day of September 13, 2022, September 14, 2022, September 15, 2022, or September 16, 2022, in the form as so offered, on which the yeas and nays were ordered and further proceedings postponed pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX.
(c) Upon the offering of a motion pursuant to subsection (a) concerning multiple measures, the ordering of the yeas and nays on postponed motions to suspend the rules with respect to such measures is vacated to the end that all such motions are considered as withdrawn.
Sec. 12.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), 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. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 1339, providing for consideration of three measures: H.R. 302, H.R. 2988, and H.R. 8326, all under structured rules.
For H.R. 302, the rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, makes in order one amendment, and provides a motion to recommit.
For H.R. 2988 and H.R. 8326, the rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform for each bill, makes in order four amendments for H.R. 2988 and three amendments for H.R. 8326, and provides en bloc authority for both bills and motions to recommit for both bills.
The rule further provides the majority leader or his designee the ability this week to en bloc requested roll call votes on suspension bills considered from September 13 to September 16.
Lastly, the rule provides same-day authority through September 30 for a measure dealing with continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2023.
Mr. Speaker, I rise proudly today in support of House Resolution 1339, the rule for three crucial bills, each of which will protect an essential institution in American Government and public life that came under serious attack in the previous administration: our Federal civil service, whistleblowers acting against public corruption, and the Census Bureau. All three bills were marked up and passed by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
H.R. 302, the Preventing a Patronage System Act, is a bipartisan bill led by Congressman Connolly of Virginia and Congressman Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. This legislation will insulate our civil service against partisan political interference and ensure that no future President can fire government experts and civil servants simply to replace them with their own political loyalists and sycophants.
The civil service system was created in the 19th century with the explicit purpose of ending the so-called spoils system and ensuring that Federal employees are hired, promoted, and fired based on their qualifications and performance, not their political party connections or the political favors and services they are willing to render to elected officials.
The merit-based Federal workforce exists to effectively implement Federal laws and programs passed by Congress and signed into law by the President and translate those laws and programs into concrete results and benefits for the American people. Professional civil servants, like scientists, engineers, meteorologists, statisticians, economic researchers, and policy analysts must be able to do their jobs and advise government officials and the public based on empirical methods, facts and data, not ideological filters and bars of political correctness, and without fear of retaliation and discharge for political reasons.
But the previous administration attempted to turn our civil service, Mr. Speaker, into a top-down political and ideological party machine, the kind that the original architects of civil service tried to dismantle in the 19th century. In October of 2020, the former President issued Executive Order 13957 to create Schedule F, a sweeping new employment category for career civil servants who work on public policy issues. Schedule F specifically targeted about 50,000 presently nonpartisan policy experts, many of them holding advanced degrees and having served for decades as policy experts across different administrations with Presidents from different political parties.
For these civil servants, Schedule F would have stripped away their rights, their merit-based legal protections, and their professional independence. Civil servants transferred into the new Schedule F could have been fired and replaced at any time for any political or ideological reason or for no reason at all given by a hostile administration. The 50,000 civil servants deemed to be involved in formulating policy could have been swept up in a Schedule F political purge and replaced with unqualified loyalists and flunkies, with potentially catastrophic consequences for national security, the continuity of governance, and the evenhanded and effective enforcement of Federal laws and programs.
The President already has the opportunity to appoint more than 4,000 political appointees. But Schedule F sought to go much further in radically transforming the civil service into an instrument of the chosen political ends and designs of the President.
Thankfully, President Joe Biden rescinded the order in January 2021. However, several top Republicans have already expressed support for picking up right where the previous administration left off with a new Schedule F.
Our civil servants must be hired based on their merits and then evaluated based on their actual job performance in office, not their political party membership, not their ideological viewpoints, and not their political campaign activism. Indeed, there are already processes in place for evaluating Federal employees' actual job performance, which is why in 2021, more than 10,000 Federal employees were removed from their jobs for not living up to job expectations. That is how you deal with people who are not actually doing their jobs. This bill is precisely about ensuring that civil servants will be evaluated based on their job performance and not the partisan political goals or extracurricular demands of a particular administration.
As a member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, which considered this legislation carefully and reported it favorably and the proud Representative of tens of thousands of Federal workers in Maryland's beautiful Eighth District, I am proud to advance this bill and urge all of my colleagues to support its passage on a bipartisan basis. We have an urgent mandate to protect the historic merit-based civil service and the integrity of the Federal Government against anyone who would turn the clock back more than a century to allow Presidents to convert our Federal workforce in service of agreed-upon Federal laws and programs into an instrument of personal ambition, campaign reelection, or party patronage.
Now, turning to H.R. 2988, the bipartisan Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act of 2021, led by Chairwoman Maloney. This is another piece of critical legislation in defense of another critical democratic safeguard.
Whistleblowers are a great American institution and an important mechanism for guaranteeing the integrity of government. Our protection of whistleblowers reflects the fact that in our system of government, we have checks and balances all the way down. An individual Federal employee can hold even the most powerful government officials accountable to the rule of law, which binds all of us. Whistleblowers in American history have exposed self-dealing, bribery, kickbacks, sweetheart contracts, lost and stolen Federal property, national security failures, criminal coverups, other political corruption, war crimes, rape and sexual harassment in the military, major public health violations, episodes of environmental and toxic contamination, and the systematic waste or pilfering of taxpayer dollars.
This bill will improve current protections for whistleblowers by clearly prohibiting retaliatory investigations and other actions against Federal employees who share information with Congress, the House of Representatives, or the Senate, or with their supervisor. The bill limits the public disclosure of the identity of whistleblowers and extends whistleblower protections to new categories of Federal officers and employees, including Public Health Service workers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's commissioned officers.
The bill also contains provisions to ensure a timely and fair procedure for whistleblowers facing discrimination and retaliation. Currently, the backlog at the Merit Systems Protection Board means that some whistleblowers may wait years for a hearing to be scheduled on their claims. This bill grants whistleblowers access to a jury trial in Federal district court if the Merit Systems Protection Board does not render a timely decision in their case.
Whistleblowers are integral to government transparency and accountability in our country. I strongly support this bill to ensure whistleblowers can come forward without fear of reprisal or punishment.
The last bill before us, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 8326, the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act, also led by Chairwoman Maloney, will protect the Census Bureau against future efforts at political interference, and it will ensure the Bureau's independence in the performance of its essential duties.
The Census is a constitutional mandate and imperative. The U.S. Constitution requires an actual enumeration of the whole number of persons in the country for apportioning Representatives among the States and Congress. The Census is an expression of the original principle that democracy must rest on the Jeffersonian idea of the consent of the governed. And, therefore, we need to know everyone who is here and part of the sovereign people of the Nation. The Census determines congressional apportionment of House seats and the allocation of trillions of dollars of Federal spending. Even many businesses in the private sector rely on Census Bureau statistics to guide their decisions.
The previous administration's spectacular contempt for our constitutional system was on full display during its many efforts to interfere with the 2020 Census for purposes of political gain. The effort to complete a comprehensive and effective Census was undermined at every turn by efforts such as the unlawful plot to add the citizenship question to the short form, which was struck down by the Supreme Court, or the installation of a record-breaking number of highly partisan political appointees to the ranks of the Bureau's leadership. The reforms contained in the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act will safeguard the integrity of the Census count against this type of sinister political interference in the many years to come.
Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear my good friend from Pennsylvania make his presentation. I was surprised that he described these three bills as completely irrelevant, given that one is about protecting the integrity of the Federal civil service, a force of more than 2 million people who are doing the work of the American people in the National Park Service, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, and so on.
I don't know what is completely irrelevant about that. Nor do I understand what is completely irrelevant about protecting the rights and our encouragement of Federal workers to be whistleblowers when there is massive waste, fraud, abuse, or exploitation taking place with the taxpayers' money. That is an essential purpose of government.
We have a government that is an instrument of the will of the people, and we have a lot of public policies that are being enforced, but we want to make sure that they are being enforced correctly and that the people's taxpayer moneys are being respected.
The whistleblowers are helping us do that in blowing the whistle on hundreds of millions of dollars of waste, corruption, and abuse that have taken place. Why we would turn a blind eye to that and describe it as completely irrelevant is beyond me.
Of course, the Census is foundational to the workings of American democracy, and we want to prevent precisely the kind of political finger-pointing all over the Census Bureau and our laws that we saw in the last administration.
I am just curious whether the gentleman really believes that if the current President suggested that we take 40,000 or 50,000 Federal workers who presently have civil service protection and put them directly under his control for political appointment, he would think that is a good idea because our legislation will prevent any President in the future from doing that, including this Democratic President, any future Democratic Presidents, any future Republican Presidents or Independents or anyone else.
We don't think that is a good idea, and I can't believe that my good friend from Pennsylvania would just be agnostic as to that proposition.
Let me just say, finally, about the whole question of what is relevant and what is irrelevant, it seems like all we are hearing from the other side is embodied in the big statement coming out of the Senate from Senator Lindsey Graham, saying it is time for a national Federal ban on abortion that could even be exceeded by the States.
Now, originally, they said: Well, Roe v. Wade is settled precedent, and we accept that.
Then, they packed the Court with their Justices, who were determined, hellbent, on overturning Roe v. Wade, and they did it.
Then, we heard from our friends across the aisle: Well, this is a matter for the States. Let the States decide.
Now, we hear from our colleagues in Congress that, no, they want a national criminal ban on the right of women to make their own decisions about their health, their families, their careers, and their futures.
Then, they will even allow States to go beyond that to completely ban abortion, which is, of course, the essential pro-life position which we have heard from our colleagues across the aisle. That is what they are focused on.
Meantime, the President signed, this week, the Inflation Reduction Act, which will dramatically lower healthcare costs for tens of millions of Americans and, finally, overturn the Republican ban on the government negotiating in the Medicare program with Big Pharma for lower prescription drug prices.
We are actually making progress. They want to drag everyone into their insatiable efforts to ban the right to abortion in America.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues tempt me to wander afield from what we have come here to talk about since they want to talk about seemingly everything else. So let me try to respond to a few of the points that have just been lobbed in our direction.
First, they seem to want to assign responsibility to the President of the United States for the inflation rate. But then, surely, they will assign responsibility to the President of the United States for the unemployment rate, which now stands at around 3.5 percent, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. You have got to go back a half century to find the kind of job situation that President Biden has brought to the United States of America.
Last week, we learned that payroll employment is up by 315,000 in the month of August alone. Since President Biden came into office, we have added 668,000 manufacturing jobs.
Now, it is true the President has been fighting inflation ever since he got into office. Why?
Well, the economy started to come roaring back--not just in America, but all over the world in the wake of the pandemic. So we saw a tremendous demand with broken supply chains. So what happens under the law of supply and demand? The prices go up. But, unlike our colleagues who seem to want to chortle about it and use it as a campaign talking point, President Biden and the Democrats have been acting to bring inflation down. Every single day.
Yesterday's Consumer Price Index data showed continued progress in bringing global inflation down here in the U.S. economy. Gas prices are down an average of $1.30 a gallon since the beginning of the summer. Price increases slowed at the grocery store this month. Still too high. But real wages went up again for a second month in a row, giving hardworking families more breathing room.
It is amazing to me that some of the time has been delegated to one of our distinguished colleagues who seem to want to blame these global economic conditions arising from COVID-19 and the pandemic and broken supply chains, as well as Vladimir Putin's filthy imperialist war in Ukraine, which fortunately, the people of Ukraine, with the support of a lot of people in this body--but not everybody--is starting to win. And we have seen dramatic reversal of fortune in that war as the democratic forces are beating Vladimir Putin and the autocrats in Russia.
But in any event, we just heard someone who wanted to blame all of these global economic conditions on an SEC regulation, which we are not here to discuss and, therefore, unfortunately, I can't address. I might agree with the gentleman, for all I know. It has nothing to do with the legislation before us, and it is hard for me to believe that that is the source of inflation around the world or the unemployment, which now is practically at the bottom level that we have ever seen in over a century.
But in any event, Mr. Speaker, back to the point at hand, I thought we were going to be distracted with Republican calls to ban abortion across the country. Well, the polls must be teaching them something because I am not hearing about abortion today.
For many years, all I heard from them was abortion is murder, and the millions of persons who are being murdered by abortion. They demanded the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, and they got their way.
Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham introduced legislation for a national criminal ban on abortion. But, of course, the so-called pro- life forces want to go further in the States and ban it completely. A lot of them don't even want to allow exceptions for rape or incest.
I thought our colleagues were going to explain what their position really is. I would invite them to do so as long as they don't want to talk about the legislation before us today.
Why don't they tell us what their position on abortion is, because America wants to know.
I think their position has changed somewhat. They are singing a somewhat different tune since the people of Kansas, by 20 points, destroyed their anti-choice agenda, and explained to them in numerical terms that the people of America are on the side of freedom and the rights of women and men and families to make their own decisions and not to have those decisions be made by Lindsey Graham, one Senator, who yesterday pronounced that he chose 15 weeks as the right point to criminalize abortion. He chose that himself.
What is their position now? America wants to know. What is their position?
Do they support a national criminal ban on abortion? Are they going to allow any exceptions for rape or incest? What is their position on it, if they don't want to talk about the legislation at hand?
Meantime, the Democrats continue to fight for lower drug prices, for a record, unprecedented, historic investment in renewable energy.
We are addressing the problems of the future. At the same time, we are defending the integrity of the Federal civil service and our workforce, which was compromised and abused in so many ways by the last administration.
We are defending the rights of whistleblowers to tell the truth about what is taking place in terms of political and public corruption and not to have to face retaliation from their supervisors. We are defending the institutions of democracy, including the Census, against all of the kinds of machinations and corruption and political abuse that we saw in the last administration.
We are glad that the Supreme Court struck down their last interference with the Census by trying to paste questions outside of the rule of law on the short form. This legislation is designed to protect the integrity of the Census along with the civil service, along with the whistleblowers.
But as long as my dear colleagues and friends don't want to talk about the legislation at hand, please clarify for America what their plan is to take away the health rights of American women and their families. Are they supporting the plan we heard yesterday announced by Lindsey Graham for a nationwide Federal criminal ban?
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the very distinguished gentleman from Kentucky purported to speak for what Americans are worried about. Undoubtedly, many Americans are worried about inflation, which is why this administration has been taking strong action not just to get jobs for everybody who wants a job and good jobs and union jobs for people, but also to bring inflation down.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a New York Times article titled ``U.S. Gas Prices Have Fallen for 91 Straight Days, a Relief for Consumers.'' [From the New York Times, Sept. 13, 2022] U.S. Gas Prices Have Fallen for 91 Straight Days, a Relief for Consumers (By Isabella Simonetti)
The price of gasoline continues to fall steadily, easing pressure on American consumers as the cost of filling a tank continued to tumble from record levels reached earlier in the summer.
Gas prices fell 10.6 percent in August, which helped moderate still-sky-high inflation, Tuesday's Consumer Price Index report showed.
The energy index, which tracks gasoline and electricity among other energy sources, dropped 5 percent last month, as electricity and natural gas prices rose.
After peaking at $5.02 in June, gasoline prices have dropped for 91 straight days, and the national average stood at just over $3.70 a gallon on Tuesday, data from AAA show. But analysts point to a few reasons this streak of declines is unlikely to continue.
Because they're determined by oil prices, gasoline prices are also susceptible to a wide range of challenges, like hurricanes that knock out drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine by curbing its ability to sell crude on the global market.
While gas prices are down, the overall energy index still remains up 23.8 percent over the 12 months that ended in August. Electricity prices alone jumped 15.8 percent, representing the largest 12-month increase since August 1981, the inflation report said. The jump in electricity prices is largely attributable to the high cost of natural gas, said Laura Rosner-Warburton, an economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives.
As winter approaches, other fuel prices could influence inflation data. The cost of heating a home with natural gas, the most common source of home-heating fuel in the United States, is expected to jump more than 25 percent from last year, to $952 for the six months from October through March, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
``You would expect that a hard winter could create a significant increase in demand in price of natural gas,'' said Bryan Benoit, U.S. national managing partner of energy at Grant Thornton. ``And then of course all of this is further exacerbated by what's going on with the war in the Ukraine.''
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Mr. RASKIN. I want to talk about some of the other things that Americans are worried about since my colleague purported to speak for Americans because I saw a poll recently saying that Americans are worried about the attack on democracy and voting rights.
Part of that may be the fact that some of our colleagues seem to be ambivalent about whether or not to denounce the rampant violence that was unleashed against this institution, this body, on January 6, 2021, when thousands of rioters came and attacked our officers, wounding and injuring more than 150 of them, breaking their jaws, their necks, lost fingers, strokes, heart attacks, concussions, and contusions. And, of course, the former President says that his mob actually greeted the police with hugs and kisses.
Some of our colleagues shamefully have followed the former President in trying to whitewash the worst episode of domestic mass insurrectionary violence ever unleashed on the Capitol of the United States with an attack on the Vice President, Mike Pence. We heard those words, ``Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence,'' bouncing off of the walls of the Capitol and against the Congress of the United States.
So, yes, people are worried about the state of our democracy with so many members of the GOP following Donald Trump in not only his terrible big lie, the first time we have ever seen that in American history, but also the big lie encompassing this mob violence and this insurrection against the Government of the United States.
Do you know what else Americans are worried about, Mr. Speaker? Americans are now worried about State politicians and Federal politicians trampling the rights of women. For more than a half century, women have had a right to make their most intimate procreative and reproductive decisions with their families, with their husbands, with their partners, with their ministers, and with their church leaders.
Then, they gerrymandered the Supreme Court. They kept Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court by not even giving him a hearing over on the Senate side.
Then, what do you know, Mr. Speaker? They followed what the RNC was asking for in all of their platforms for all of these years: Overturn Roe v. Wade. They overturned Roe v. Wade.
Then, we heard from our colleagues: Well, we just want the States to decide.
But, yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham unveiled what the real plan is: a nationwide criminal ban on abortion, and if they can go further in the States, they will go further in the States.
We have Republican proposals all over America to completely ban abortion from the moment of conception, which is the pro-life orthodoxy, which is life begins at conception.
We heard it in the Judiciary Committee. We have heard it in the Oversight and Reform Committee. We have been hearing it for years. But now they have fallen strangely and demurely silent. Why is that? Part of it is because of the good people of Kansas, who showed them just where America is on this.
America is a country committed to individual freedom and the rights of the people to make their own decisions and not having busybody, theocrat politicians in State capitals telling them how to make their own decisions about their careers, about their lives, about their families, and about their healthcare--and certainly not allowing Lindsey Graham to dictate to the women of America what their destiny will be.
They won't say a word about it. They will talk about an SEC regulation nobody heard of that we are not here to talk about today. They will blame Joe Biden for global inflation. They will blame Joe Biden for Vladimir Putin's filthy, imperialist invasion of Ukraine.
I hear them denouncing Joe Biden. They won't denounce Vladimir Putin for 1 second.
I would happily yield 1 minute if they would denounce Vladimir Putin, but they won't do it. We have heard people over on their side cheerleading for Vladimir Putin. I heard the gentlewoman from Georgia say: Russia wins.
Guess what? Russia doesn't win. The people of Ukraine are winning today, and the people of America are with the people of Ukraine. We are on the side of democrats, small d democrats, all over the world against the autocrats like Putin, against the theocrats like people who would dictate to the women of America their own health decisions.
We are against the tyrants, the bullies, and the despots. We are against Presidents who get into office and try to dictate the political decisionmaking of individual members of the workforce and try to push their ideological program into the government. We are for defending whistleblowers; we are for defending the Census; and we are for defending democratic institutions in America.
I am just shocked that I hear from my good friend from Pennsylvania, someone I like and someone I trust, that he actually is defending Putin against Biden and blaming Joe Biden for Putin's long-running plan to invade Ukraine. That is a remarkable thing to me, and I hope we can have that clarified.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Kentucky spoke about what his constituents are interested in. Apparently, they are interested only in the question of inflation.
My constituents are interested in that and are satisfied about the fact that we have had more than 90 days of decline in gas prices and that this administration is fighting to reduce inflation, including with the Inflation Reduction Act, which dramatically reduces healthcare costs, saying that nobody will have to spend more than $35 a month on insulin--no diabetic in America--and no one in the Medicare program will have to spend more than $2,000 a year on prescription drugs, generally.
How is that for getting inflation down?
But that is not all they care about. They care about women's right to choose and the GOP assault on the freedoms of the people, something which our colleagues maintain their demure and uncharacteristic circumspect silence about today. They didn't want to talk about this new GOP plan to ban abortion all across America. That is what we heard yesterday from Senator Graham about his plan for America.
My constituents want freedom in America. They want democracy in voting rights. They don't want to see violence unleashed against the Capitol of the United States, against school boards, against State capitols, or any of the political violence we have seen from whatever source. I am happy to denounce all of it.
I wish my colleagues would denounce political violence when it comes to our very doors, when it enters this Chamber, rather than playing follow the leader with the former President who has disgraced himself as the first President in U.S. history to be impeached twice and continues to be embroiled in all the political corruption investigations all over the country, as it has been shown that he egged on armed protesters to come to try to attack this body, to drive Vice President Pence out of the body, and to drive us out of the body, as well, interfering with a Federal proceeding.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this rule and the previous question.
The material previously referred to by Mr. Reschenthaler is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 1339
At the end of the resolution, add the following:
Sec. 13. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the bill (H.R. 8589) to prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing the proposed rule titled ``The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors''. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services; and (2) one motion to recommit.
Sec. 14. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 8589.
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Mr. RASKIN.
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