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. RESCHENTHALER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman and my good friend from Maryland for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the rule before us today provides for consideration for three pieces of legislation that are laser-focused on a President who has not been in office for almost 2 years now.

Meanwhile, yesterday's CPI reading came in higher than expected, registering an 8.3 percent year-over-year increase. That is another 40- year high, literally the highest in my lifetime.

It is abundantly clear that Democrats are focused on their efforts of political gamesmanship, hoping to distract the American people from the absolute failures of the Biden administration.

Let's just go through these bills. The first bill, H.R. 302, makes it even harder for the President to remove insubordinate Federal employees in policy-making roles. All this legislation accomplishes is further shielding unelected career bureaucrats from accountability to the American voter, who are footing the bill for their salary. The Federal Government should be responsive to the voters and their elected Representatives, not the whims and the ideological leanings of unelected bureaucrats.

Additionally, this rule provides for consideration of H.R. 2988, the Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act. Let me start by just saying that the need to protect whistleblowers is one of the most bipartisan points of agreement in Congress. However, this legislation does nothing to protect actual whistleblowers. There is a significant difference lost in this bill between retaliation against legitimate whistleblowers and the consequences in response to unacceptable actions taken by a government employee.

Finally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 8326, Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act. Yet, this bill does everything but ensure a fair and accurate Census. Specifically, H.R. 8326 provides the director of the Census Bureau with unprecedented power and authority to make all operational, statistical, and technical decisions for the Census.

Further, this bill constrains the ability of future Censuses to include critical questions, including a citizenship question, ensuring that future Censuses will be unfair and inaccurate.

Instead of focusing on real-life issues facing everyday Americans, House Democrats this week are focusing on three bills that are completely irrelevant to the multiple crises created by Joe Biden's policies.

In fact, two of these bills have already passed in the House this Congress in larger packages. The failed policies of the far left and the Biden administration have plunged our economy into a recession. And, yes, it is a recession. They have stolen wages from the American workforce, they have destroyed seniors' retirement savings, and they have left families with the highest food prices since 1979. Let me repeat that. Grocery prices surged 13 percent in August, the largest increase in over 40 years.

Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of Americans say that inflation is the most important issue facing the country, but you wouldn't know it by the bills the Democrats are prioritizing and running on the floor this week.

I think it is time my Democratic colleagues listened to the people and work with Republicans on real economic solutions, rather than doubling down on these dangerous, reckless, out-of-control spending and far-left policy bills, the same policies that have created the crises that we are now facing.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will double down on the comment that these bills are irrelevant. They are absolutely irrelevant in that two of them are superfluous. One has already passed. One passed in an amendment to the NDAA, and the other one is an unprecedented grant of authority to the Census, which is completely inappropriate. So, yes, these bills, I would argue, are irrelevant.

Do you know who would think they are irrelevant? Any person you talk to on the street. If you go up to somebody filling up their gas tank, and you ask them about these three bills, these are irrelevant to their lives. They are worried about the price of gas.

If you ask somebody at a grocery store who is trying to feed a family about these bills, these bills are irrelevant to their grocery bill.

If you are talking about real wages and fighting the loss of wages and inflation, these bills are irrelevant to that. A lot of blue-collar workers want wages to increase like they did under the last administration, not decrease like they are today.

So, yes, these bills are absolutely irrelevant to everyday Americans.

But let's just talk about the high cost of inflation. Inflation is the top concern reported by businesses and voters alike. However, instead of working to lower costs for businesses and workers, the SEC proposed burdensome new rules requiring businesses to disclose extensive climate-related data and additional climate risks.

That is why if we defeat the previous question, I will personally offer an amendment to the rule to immediately consider H.R. 8589, which would prohibit the SEC's woke climate rule from ever moving forward.

Mr. Speaker, we keep hearing that inflation is a global issue, like somehow it is not Biden's fault and the fault of far-left Democrats-- which it is.

The reason why this is a global issue--and remind my friends on the other side of the aisle--is because we are the world's largest GDP. We also just happen to be the world's reserve currency.

So, of course, when we have inflation, the world will have it. That is just economics. So it is amazing how the principles of economics are just cherry-picked to make points. But I would remind my colleagues of those two facts. In short, we are exporting the inflation.

Now, as far as what we are doing to cause the inflation, well, it is pretty simple. We have injected trillions of dollars into the economy. That causes inflation. And then to double down on the failed policy, Joe Biden unilaterally, and I would argue unconstitutionally, canceled the debt of a swath of college students so you now have even more liquidity in the market because of them.

And the sick irony here is that the guy that is driving the pickup truck, the guy that went to school to be a plumber, an HVAC repairman, that guy is now subsidizing the lawyer who is driving to his downtown job in a BMW. That is what is so perverse about what is happening.

Now let's just talk about gas prices.

My colleague and my friend from Maryland said gas prices are down. Yeah, they are down from like a week ago; they are not down from January 2021 when they were less than $2.50 a gallon. So let's continue to move that goalpost.

You can't argue that gas prices are up. Americans know gas prices are up. They are feeling the pain at the pump. They are also feeling it in the higher cost of all energy and food.

Finally, blaming Putin on gas prices and issues. Yeah, Putin is partially to blame, but who encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine? That would be Joe Biden by his surrender of Afghanistan.

Let me be clear that any weakness on the foreign stage is an indication of aggression. When Joe Biden showed weakness by abandoning the Bagram Air Base, by leaving our allies on the ground to predations of the Taliban, that was weakness, and Putin seized on that to invade Ukraine.

Instead of giving the Ukrainians the MiGs they needed, the proper military supplies they needed, we decided to go halfway. Joe Biden didn't fully commit. Now we have a protracted war in Ukraine, which is going to lead to a humanitarian crisis not only in Central Europe but all across Africa, for example, and higher energy prices here.

Mr. Speaker, but that is all traced back to Biden being weak on foreign policy.

Mr. Speaker, I let my good friend from Maryland know that I like him, too, and I would certainly clarify the remarks on Putin.

I will denounce Putin right now. Remember, I was the one calling in the beginning of this conflict for a no-fly zone to be established led by the United States. I don't think there is anybody more hawkish on Russia and the Ukraine issue than myself on this side of the aisle. So, to say that I was up here defending Putin is ludicrous.

We, of course, needed to beat Putin. We should have been much more engaged from the beginning of this conflict, not just to send a message to the Russians but to send a message to the Iranians and a message to the Chinese vis-a-vis Taiwan. But I could go on.

I would say it is a total mischaracterization of my position to say that I am up here saying good things about dictator Putin.

I remind my friend from Maryland about the history of this building. In 1814, it was literally burned to the ground. In the seventies, Puerto Rican separatists stormed in and detonated a bomb. So, let's just get the historical context in place.

As far as denouncing violence, everyone on this side of the aisle has denounced political violence consistently. The inconsistency is from my friends from across the other side of the aisle who cherry-pick when they denounce political violence.

I remember that during the entire summer of 2020, my friends across the aisle treated the destructive BLM and antifa protests that caused $2 billion worth of damage, they treated those protesters with kid gloves. You had the current Vice President paying the bail for the protesters. You had the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, saying: ``The whole point of protesting is to make people uncomfortable. . . . To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable, that is the point.'' Those are the words of the Democrats, not of us. We could go on.

Chris Cuomo, CNN host: ``Please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.'' The last time I checked, that was a Democrat.

New York BLM cofounder Hawk Newsome said in response to Eric Adams trying to put plainclothes police officers on the street: ``There will be riots; there will be fire; and there will be bloodshed.''

It sounds to me that the political violence and the support for the rhetoric that is coming to support political violence and upheaval are coming from one side of the aisle, the Democrat side of the aisle.

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Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, the CPI just released yesterday shows that prices have increased 8.3 percent from August of last year. Real wages are down 2.8 percent. The cost of electricity has skyrocketed 15.8 percent. That is the most since 1981, the most since I was alive.

As of August, nearly one quarter of all Americans reported forgoing basic needs like food and medicine just to be able to afford their energy bill. This number will only get worse because we are going to face even higher costs to heat our homes this winter, with natural gas prices nearing a 14-year high.

Yet, Democrats want to focus their efforts on, again, I would call it, irrelevant legislation that has already passed the House. It will not provide any relief to American workers and American families.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the rule.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

This is a 5-minute vote.

The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 219, nays 209, not voting 4, as follows: [Roll No. 425] YEAS--219 Adams Aguilar Auchincloss Axne Barragan Bass Beatty Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Rochester Bonamici Bourdeaux Bowman Boyle, Brendan F. Brown (MD) Brown (OH) Brownley Bush Bustos Butterfield Carbajal Cardenas Carson Carter (LA) Cartwright Case Casten Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Cherfilus-McCormick Chu Cicilline Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Cooper Correa Costa Courtney Craig Crow Cuellar Davids (KS) Davis, Danny K. Dean DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DelBene Demings DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Escobar Eshoo Espaillat Evans Fletcher Foster Frankel, Lois Gallego Garamendi Garcia (IL) Garcia (TX) Golden Gomez Gonzalez, Vicente Gottheimer Green, Al (TX) Grijalva Harder (CA) Hayes Higgins (NY) Himes Horsford Houlahan Hoyer Huffman Jackson Lee Jacobs (CA) Jayapal Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson (TX) Jones Kahele Kaptur Keating Kelly (IL) Khanna Kildee Kilmer Kim (NJ) Kind Kirkpatrick Krishnamoorthi Kuster Lamb Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lawson (FL) Lee (CA) Lee (NV) Leger Fernandez Levin (CA) Levin (MI) Lieu Lofgren Lowenthal Luria Lynch Malinowski Maloney, Carolyn B. Maloney, Sean Manning Matsui McBath McCollum McEachin McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Mfume Moore (WI) Morelle Moulton Mrvan Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Neguse Newman Norcross O'Halleran Ocasio-Cortez Omar Pallone Panetta Pappas Pascrell Payne Peltola Perlmutter Peters Phillips Pingree Pocan Porter Pressley Price (NC) Quigley Raskin Rice (NY) Ross Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (NY) Ryan (OH) Sanchez Sarbanes Scanlon Schakowsky Schiff Schneider Schrader Schrier Scott (VA) Scott, David Sewell Sherman Sherrill Sires Slotkin Smith (WA) Soto Spanberger Speier Stansbury Stanton Stevens Strickland Suozzi Swalwell Takano Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tlaib Tonko Torres (CA) Torres (NY) Trahan Trone Underwood Vargas Veasey Velazquez Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Coleman Welch Wexton Wild Williams (GA) Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NAYS--209 Aderholt Allen Amodei Armstrong Arrington Babin Bacon Baird Balderson Banks Barr Bentz Bergman Bice (OK) Biggs Bilirakis Bishop (NC) Boebert Bost Brady Brooks Buchanan Buck Bucshon Burchett Burgess Calvert Cammack Carey Carl Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Cawthorn Chabot Cline Cloud Clyde Cole Comer Conway Crawford Crenshaw Curtis Davidson Davis, Rodney DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Donalds Duncan Dunn Ellzey Emmer Estes Fallon Feenstra Ferguson Finstad Fischbach Fitzgerald Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flood Flores Foxx Franklin, C. Scott Fulcher Gaetz Gallagher Garbarino Garcia (CA) Gibbs Gimenez Gohmert Gonzales, Tony Gonzalez (OH) Good (VA) Gooden (TX) Gosar Granger Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Green (TN) Greene (GA) Griffith Grothman Guest Guthrie Harris Harshbarger Hartzler Hern Herrell Herrera Beutler Hice (GA) Higgins (LA) Hill Hinson Hollingsworth Hudson Huizenga Issa Jackson Jacobs (NY) Johnson (LA) Johnson (OH) Johnson (SD) Jordan Joyce (OH) Joyce (PA) Katko Keller Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) Kim (CA) Kinzinger Kustoff LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Latta LaTurner Lesko Letlow Long Loudermilk Lucas Luetkemeyer Mace Malliotakis Mann Massie Mast McCarthy McCaul McClain McClintock McHenry McKinley Meijer Meuser Miller (IL) Miller (WV) Miller-Meeks Moolenaar Mooney Moore (AL) Moore (UT) Mullin Murphy (NC) Nehls Newhouse Norman Obernolte Owens Palazzo Palmer Pence Perry Pfluger Posey Reschenthaler Rice (SC) Rodgers (WA) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rosendale Rouzer Roy Rutherford Salazar Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sempolinski Sessions Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smucker Spartz Stauber Steel Stefanik Steil Steube Stewart Taylor Tenney Thompson (PA) Tiffany Timmons Turner Upton Valadao Van Drew Van Duyne Wagner Walberg Waltz Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams (TX) Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Zeldin NOT VOTING--4 Allred Budd Cheney Rose

So the resolution was agreed to.

The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress Baird (Bucshon) Barragan (Correa) Bass (Correa) Bush (Bowman) Cardenas (Correa) Conway (Valadao) DeSaulnier (Beyer) Dingell (Kuster) Fallon (Nehls) Gaetz (Cawthorn) Higgins (NY) (Pallone) Johnson (TX) (Jeffries) Jones (Beyer) Kirkpatrick (Pallone) Lawrence (Beatty) Lawson (FL) (Evans) Levin (MI) (Correa) McEachin (Beyer) Miller (WV) (Kim (CA)) Moore (WI) (Beyer) Newman (Beyer) Payne (Pallone) Pingree (Kuster) Rice (NY) (Deutch) Schiff (Deutch) Schrader (Correa) Scott (VA) (Beyer) Scott, Austin (Cammack) Stansbury (Pallone) Stevens (Kuster) Tlaib (Bowman) Upton (Katko) Wexton (Beyer)

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