Providing for Consideration of H.R. Terminating Cdc Requirement for Proof of Covid-19 Vaccination for Foreign Travelers; Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Disapproving the Action of the District of Columbia Council in Approving the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Disapproving the Action of the District of Columbia Council in Approving the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANGWORTHY. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 97 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 97

Resolved, That 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. 185) to terminate the requirement imposed by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for proof of COVID-19 vaccination for foreign travelers, 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 Energy and Commerce or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. No amendment to the bill shall be in order except those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such amendment may be offered 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. All points of order against such amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. 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. 2. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 24) disapproving the action of the District of Columbia Council in approving the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022. All points of order against consideration of the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their respective designees. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the joint resolution to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit (if otherwise in order).

Sec. 3. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 26) disapproving the action of the District of Columbia Council in approving the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022. All points of order against consideration of the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their respective designees. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the joint resolution to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit (if otherwise in order).

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Mr. LANGWORTHY. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), 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. LANGWORTHY. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 97 provides for consideration of three measures: H.R. 185, H.J. Res. 24, and H.J. Res. 26.

The rule provides for H.R. 185 to be considered under a structured rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their designees and provides for one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I should point out that in only our second week after organizing, this Republican majority has already tied House Democrats in the number of times a structured rule makes in order more minority amendments than majority amendments. In the 117th Congress, House Democrats only reported one structured rule making in order more Republican amendments than Democratic amendments. Clearly, House Republicans are delivering a more open and transparent legislative process for the American people.

The rule further provides for consideration of two measures, H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 26, under closed rules with 1 hour of debate each equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their designees.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

H.R. 185 would finally end the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's proof of COVID-19 vaccination requirement for foreign travelers entering the United States.

This legislation should receive broad, bipartisan support. After all, it was President Biden in September 2022 who acknowledged that ``the pandemic is over.''

Life has returned to normal across the country. Yet, despite the world moving on from the pandemic, this administration persists in retaining an unnecessary vaccination requirement for those visiting the United States.

Maintaining this mandate has led to great hardship for many Americans, including those in my own district in western New York. People have been separated from their family, their friends, and loved ones for years. It is time that we acknowledge that these vaccine mandates do not definitively stop the spread of COVID. It is time for Congress to act where this administration refuses and finally end this mandate.

Additionally, the rule before us provides consideration of H.J. Res. 24, a resolution disapproving of the District of Columbia's Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, a law which would allow noncitizens of the U.S. to vote in D.C.'s local elections.

Citizenship is at the core of our society. It represents an acceptance of duties and privileges, including the right to vote. The oath of allegiance for newly naturalized individuals includes the following: ``I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty.''

These aren't just words. This is a pledge of loyalty to this country and an assumption of responsibilities as a citizen.

With the enacting of the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, the District of Columbia has violated the core idea of what it means to be a citizen of this great country.

America is not a geographic expression where the concept of citizenship and sovereignty is meaningless or relative. We are a sovereign nation and a sovereign people. It is Congress' right and responsibility to step in and right a wrong that threatens one of the pillars of our democracy--the right of citizens to vote.

Finally, this rule provides before us the consideration of H.J. Res. 26, disapproving of the District of Columbia's Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022.

In the past few years, murders, rapes, carjackings, robberies, and theft have skyrocketed here in our Nation's Capital. The District of Columbia's law enforcement remains understaffed and overwhelmed by the soaring rates of violent crime. Residents have routinely registered this concern, as a recent poll showed 75 percent of D.C. residents sought more police officers and safer streets.

Yet, the D.C. Council, in their infinite wisdom, chose not to heed the concerns of D.C. residents or its many visitors and, instead, approved the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, a bill patterned after the disastrous policies already implemented in Democratic-led cities across this country.

The Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022 will drastically reduce sentences for violent offenders and make it easier than ever before for those offenders to obtain early release. To be clear, when I say ``violent offenders,'' I am referring to those convicted of murder, rape, and other seriously horrific crimes.

Additionally, D.C.'s revised criminal code provides a right to a jury trial for a slew of misdemeanors, forcing the court system, already strained, to take on a new workload. Not only does this deprive Americans of their right to a speedy trial, but it will also deny victims resolution and closure against perpetrators of serious offenses as they face an overwhelmed and understaffed justice system.

Democratic leadership in most major cities across this country are trading the safety of Americans for the lawlessness of their pie-in- the-sky policies that, in reality, let violent offenders go, reduce sentences, avoid prosecution, and deny victims justice.

Just downstate from my own district, New York City has seen its crime rate skyrocket by 22 percent since this time last year alone. Arrests linked to shootings and homicides jumped 12 percent in just 1 year.

In Chicago, Illinois, the homicide rate is up a whopping 34 percent from 2019.

In San Francisco, businesses from mom-and-pop shops to national retail chains have closed their doors. They have laid off workers because they can't afford to stay open in a city whose leadership refuses to prosecute basic offenses like theft and shoplifting.

Now, not to be outdone, the District of Columbia has chosen to import these dangerous and disastrous policies.

Just last week, only a mile or so away from this Capitol, a gunman went on a rampage at the Potomac Avenue Metro Station. A Metro employee, 64-year-old Robert Cunningham, was killed, and three people were injured.

This tragic event is just one more in a wave of violent crime that has swept across the District of Columbia in recent years. Yet, the D.C. Council seems unperturbed as it steamrolls ahead with a policy that will only make the District, its residents, and the many visitors to this city, our Nation's Capital, less safe.

Residents of D.C. have the same rights as other Americans to be secure in their homes and to be protected against crimes committed against their lives, their families, and their property. Putting violent offenders back on the streets and reducing sentences for violent crimes will only endanger the lives of D.C. residents.

It is our duty as Members of Congress, as laid out in the D.C. Home Rule Act, to disapprove of a policy like this that threatens the safety of this city's residents.

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

As we talk about following the science, I have to ask the question: France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, they don't have a vaccine mandate for their visitors.

Are they following the science?

Are they in great peril?

Back to the matter of public safety. I think it is very important to point out that in letters to the leadership of this great body, the National Fraternal Order of Police, a union representing the men and women of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, they are proudly standing against the wrongheaded policies in the District of Columbia that overrode their Democratic Mayor's veto on this very legislation, as well as the D.C. Police Union itself in a letter to Speaker McCarthy doing the same.

Are they wrong? I don't think so.

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Mr. LANGWORTHY. Mr. Speaker, as a reminder, the resolutions before us today, they are not about the question of D.C. statehood. These are based on current law and not what we would like the law to look like as it relates to the District of Columbia.

Under the Home Rule Act, Congress has the ability, the responsibility, to provide oversight and review of policies enacted by the D.C. Government.

Let's also remember that the District of Columbia isn't just another town or locality. It is a Federal district. It is our Nation's capital. We have an obligation to protect the residents of this country in our Nation's capital.

The criminal justice revisions, as well as weakening the protections for the elections in the District of Columbia by opening it up to foreign nationals, go and fly directly in the face of that.

Mr. Speaker, if individuals would like the power to vote in our elections, they must go through the legal process to become U.S. citizens, like the millions before them did.

Ask yourself: Should we be extending the right to vote, no matter at any level, to the CCP members who work at the Chinese Embassy?

Should we extend the right to vote in elections in this country to members of the Russian Federation staff at their embassy?

That would happen under the D.C. voting rights legislation.

If individuals attack, kill, steal, and destroy property, they should be punished for those offenses, not let off the hook. These are basic tenets of our society, of our democracy, and of this great Nation.

The District of Columbia is the seat of the Federal Government, and as such has a special place in American society. Congress has a clear responsibility under the Home Rule Act to block policies that jeopardize the democratic rights and the lives of American citizens.

We have an opportunity today not just to provide much-needed oversight to D.C.'s disastrous policies but to also finally end a draconian vaccine mandate that has kept families and friends apart.

Let's remember that around the world, other countries have ended their own COVID-19 vaccine mandates for air travelers. Europe, Canada, and elsewhere no longer require Americans to arrive with a proof of vaccination.

Why has the administration persisted in upholding this mandate?

With the proof about the vaccine's true efficacy and limitation in preventing the spread of COVID, why have they so obsessively upheld this mandate or any of the others, for that matter?

The time has come for Congress to step in and to remind the administration that the pandemic is over and allow families and friends and loved ones to reunite after years of forced separation.

The material previously referred to by Ms. Scanlon is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 97

Strike the first section after the resolving clause and insert the following:

That 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. 185) to terminate the requirement imposed by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for proof of COVID-19 vaccination for foreign travelers, 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 the amendments specified in this section and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five- minute rule. The amendment printed in section 4 of 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 and shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such further amendment may be offered 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. All points of order against such further amendments are waived. 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. 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 one motion to recommit.

Insert at the end the following:

Sec. 4. The amendment referred to in the first section of this resolution is as follows:

``At the end, add the following:

``This Act shall not be effective unless and until the date on which the Director of the Congressional Budget Office certifies that this Act will not result in a decrease to Social Security benefits.''.
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