Providing for Consideration of H.R. Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act; Providing for Consideration H.J. Res. Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Department of Education Relating to ``Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance''; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Refrigerator Freedom Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, yesterday, the Republican Party released their new platform, and I heard Republican pundits saying that this platform was going to be more moderate. I saw reporters even claiming that Republicans were softening their radical, extreme views on abortion and on same-sex marriage. I even saw one Republican Senator on TV yesterday defending the platform and trying to spin it to make Trump sound like a normal, rational, moderate person, which is an impossibility, by the way.

Then I actually read the platform, and it is more of the same old same old. It is more of the same fear-mongering and divisive politics that they have been pushing for years now. They are not kicking MAGA extremism aside; they are doubling down on it.

Talk is cheap around here. Look at their legislation. Look at the bills before us this week. If someone looks at these bills and thinks the Republican Party is normal or rational or moderate, I think they need to get checked out because they are living in a fantasy world. These bills are getting crazier and crazier the longer they are in charge.

Here is the Republican agenda for this week: more attacks on the LGBTQ community; more attacks on immigrants; more attacks on voting rights because they know they can only win if fewer people vote; more attacks on working families; and more giveaways to special interests and billionaire companies.

There is nothing new here. There is just more division, more destruction, and more disarray.

There has been a lot of talk about Project 2025 lately, the Republican plan to dismantle the government, get revenge on their political adversaries, weaponize the White House, and install Trump as a dictator.

The former President recently made a laughable attempt to try to distance himself from its extremism, and what do you know, now Project 2025 is right here on the House floor because it is what Republicans actually believe.

That is what this SAVE Act is about. It is a voter suppression bill that lays the groundwork for them to undermine the next election so they can justify another January 6-style attempt to seize power even if they lose.

They will use this gotcha bill to say Democrats want to give noncitizens the ability to vote in Federal elections. Let me say now: That is a lie. It is a total lie. It is a lie that Democrats are against preventing noncitizens from voting in Federal elections. That is already illegal. What we are against is making it harder for American citizens to vote, and that is what this bill does.

Republicans in this bill want to require all this new documentation for an individual just to register to vote. They say: Well, you can use your passport.

What about someone who can't afford a $130 passport? What about someone who doesn't have the time to take a day off from work to get their birth certificate? What about someone who recently got married and changed their name so their birth certificate doesn't match their ID?

The Republican answer here is: Too bad. You can't vote.

They are going to disenfranchise millions and millions of people in response to what we know, that there have maybe been a couple dozen cases of voter fraud over the last two decades.

This isn't about voter fraud. Let's be clear. This is not about voter fraud. It is about them trying to cheat in the next election. It is paving the way again for another violent insurrection if their candidate does not succeed.

I should say, Madam Speaker, the key witness in the House Administration Committee on behalf of this bill is one of the architects of Project 2025.

I mean, they are all linked. Let me throw one other thing out there for Members to digest. The chairman of the House Administration Committee, the Republican chairman of the House Administration Committee, I asked him pointblank whether Trump lost the election. He couldn't give me a direct answer. What the hell is wrong with these people?

They are so detached from reality. They are so oblivious to the truth. This is dangerous stuff.

Then, another Project 2025 priority is more giveaways for polluters and attempts to dismantle the entire Federal Government's effort to protect the environment. It is shocking, actually.

They want to take freedom away from women. They want to take freedom away from the LGBTQ+ community. They want to take freedom away from families who want to use IVF, but freedom for fridges? Sign them up. They want freedom for refrigerators and dignity for dishwashers while taking away the rights of actual people. It is sick.

For the record, if somebody wants to keep their 50-year-old refrigerator, go for it. This bill has nothing--nothing--to do with that.

This bill gives billion-dollar companies the ability to cut corners when they make appliances. I guess nothing says freedom to Republicans quite like forcing their constituents to pay more on their electric bills.

Republicans don't want to talk about how extreme they are. The bottom line is, we should want companies to make appliances more efficient. Why? Because it saves consumers more money. The only reason to be against that is to help the big energy companies so they can charge consumers even more.

My Republican friends don't want to talk about how they want to ban abortion nationwide and take away the right to choose in every State. They don't want to talk about how their own members want to ban IVF. They don't want to talk about their obsession with attacking the LGBTQI+ community. They want to turn the clock back on voting rights. The legislation that we are seeing on the floor today is just more of the same.

While Republicans desert the American people in service to Donald Trump, Democrats will remain committed to doing our job: lowering the cost of living, standing up to the special interests of big corporations, protecting the right to vote, and defending the freedom of our constituents. We are proud to stand on the side of democracy, on the side of the American people, and on the right side of history.

Madam Speaker, this is just an awful rule. I will say more about that later.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I don't even know where to begin after all that.

Madam Speaker, I request unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the CATO Institute titled: ``Noncitizens Don't Illegally Vote in Detectable Numbers.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, at a press conference on the SAVE Act, the Speaker of the House said: ``We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in Federal elections, but it has not been something that is easily provable. We don't have that number.''

Madam Speaker, this body legislates based on facts--at least, it is supposed to--not on intuition. Maybe it is time for House Republicans to get serious about their jobs and stop making laws based off of absurd conspiracy theories.

If my Republican friends want to talk about protecting elections, maybe they ought to start telling the truth about the last election. Let me remind my colleagues that the leader of their party tried to submit fraudulent slates of electors to steal the last election.

That is voter fraud, Madam Speaker. That is what voter fraud looks like.

My friends on the other side of the aisle said not a thing after court after court upheld the fact that we had a free and fair election, but the former President actually submitted fraudulent slates of electors to try to change the results of the last election.

The gentleman from Texas went on about the cost of living and blamed the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those bills were passed in the aftermath of a pandemic to save our economy and to save American families from going bankrupt.

Madam Speaker, I remind the gentleman that inflation is coming down faster in the United States than in any other country in the world, but if he is blaming the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan Act for increased high inflation in countries like China and other countries in the world, that is absurd.

Let me just say one other thing because this is the rule that we are talking about here today. Republicans are emboldening our adversaries and abandoning our allies. They held up aid to Ukraine for 9 months, doing irreparable damage to the fight against authoritarianism.

By the way, I should also point out to those who dragged their feet on Ukraine that Russia bombed a children's hospital in Ukraine. Deal with that. Another war crime, yet we had Republicans holding up the Ukraine aid package. The Ukrainians are fighting against authoritarianism.

Speaking of authoritarianism, we have here four more closed rules, four more completely closed rules. Putin would be proud of some of the most authoritarian rules I have ever seen. They must have learned that from their patron saint, Donald Trump.

On the one structured rule here, they made only Republican amendments in order, no bipartisan amendments nor Democratic amendments, even though many of them were rule compliant. Republicans just want to shut this place down. They said ``no'' to everything.

If this is what my Republican friends consider a fair process, wow. I mean, we have a bill that we think will disenfranchise millions of American citizens in terms of voting.

The ranking Democrat, Mr. Morelle, had an amendment that he offered that was totally rule compliant. We ought to at least have that debate. The majority can vote to suppress the vote all they want, but we ought to have that debate and get people on the record. The Republicans of the Rules Committee said no.

What is the majority afraid of? Are Republicans afraid of a little debate on some of these important issues?

We have a different definition of ``fair'' because this process, once again, makes a mockery of this institution and once again shows the majority's disdain for democracy. The Rules Committee continues to be a place where democracy goes to die.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, sadly, this place is becoming a forum for trivial issues to get debated passionately and important ones not at all. I would say to the gentleman who just spoke that--and he should know this--that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections. It is already the law, but I feel like we have to point that out to my Republican friends.

In listening to the way he spoke with such passion about dishwashers and refrigerators, I feel I need to remind the viewing audience that this is not Home Depot. This is supposed to be the United States Congress where we are supposed to be tackling serious issues that are confronting the American people, and, unfortunately, under this Republican leadership, we never do that.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 12, a bill that would restore the nationwide right for providers to provide abortion care and for patients to receive care.

With bill after bill, House Republicans are letting the American people know who they are. Every opportunity they get they try to inject poison pill riders to ban IVF, to restrict access to abortion care, and to make life harder for the American people. As I have said before, they want to turn back the clock on our rights.

Just look at Project 2025, a dystopian plan for the future of our country crafted by former Trump administration officials. They want to cut your earned benefits. They want to cut school meals, and, yes, end access to abortion care. They even want to take mifepristone off the market completely.

Madam Speaker, we must bring H.R. 12, the Women's Health Protection Act, to the floor to let them know that we will not let them turn back the clock on the American people.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), to discuss our proposal.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, let me remind people what we are here about, as well, a voter suppression bill, we are here to talk about freedom for household appliances, and we are here to attack the LGBTQ+ community. That is what these bills are all about before us today.

Madam Speaker, this article describes Project 2025, a policy wish list for a second Trump term cooked up by some of Trump's closest allies at the far-right Heritage Foundation. It is chilling. It is a chilling window into what may await us come January should Mr. Trump win.

The items on Project 2025's agenda are straight-up dystopian. They want to take complete control of the Department of Justice and end the independence of all Federal agencies. They want to take mifepristone off the market which would amount to a virtual nationwide ban. They want to slash efforts to combat climate change, implement inhumane border policies and fire thousands of government employees.

I am just scratching the surface here. You can read it for yourself, Madam Speaker. I urge people to download it and to read all the information on it.

If that wasn't horrifying enough, the architects of this atrocious Project 2025 are also threatening political violence to all who oppose them.

Just last week, Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, said that the second American Revolution will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.

Madam Speaker, Donald Trump literally incited an insurrection to stay in power. He claimed he would be a dictator on day one of his second term, and the Supreme Court just granted him full immunity for acts committed while in office.

Is anyone here stupid enough to believe he won't act on these threats?

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), who is a member of the Rules Committee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. I didn't think I was.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, the House Republicans' bills would give freedom to refrigerators but restrict freedom for American citizens to vote.

Last week we marched in parades and celebrated our Nation's 248th birthday. Democracy and elections are at the core of that celebration. However, this week, Republicans welcomed us back to Washington with a bill that chips away at Americans' most sacred right, the right to vote.

This bill is consistent with Project 2025, the extreme Republicans' blueprint they want to implement in a second Trump Presidency. Project 2025 is their proposal to restrict democracy, restrict women's freedoms, and favor the wealthy. Remember that, Madam Speaker. These bills favor the wealthy and corporations over consumers.

Project 2025 would do away with the Department of Education and destroy Social Security.

The architects of Project 2025 are the same people who served as experts for the bill we are hearing this week. We don't need to wonder if these extreme proposals could become a reality because the Republicans are showing us that when they are in charge they will go after our freedoms, our voting, and our planet.

Rather than celebrate the record-high turnout of our last Presidential election in 2020, the Republicans' SAVE Act, which is actually a voter restriction act, would decrease voting access for Americans citizens.

Republicans don't like mail-in and absentee voting, so they go after that.

If this bill becomes law, a recently married woman who changed her last name couldn't use her birth certificate to register to vote because her name would no longer match. If this bill becomes law, a military ID--imagine that--a military ID would not be enough for that servicemember to vote. Our men and women sacrifice so much. They risk their lives. Why would Republicans make it harder for them to vote?

Perhaps it is because military servicemembers voted in bigger numbers for President Biden than Trump than they had expected.

If that wasn't enough, their voter suppression bill would also make it more difficult for Native Americans to vote. They would not accept Tribal IDs. Imagine, the first Americans being restricted from their ability to vote.

I believe that they are going after the very communities that voted against Trump last November with these bills.

But, wait, Madam Speaker, that is not enough. Once again, Republican bills favor big corporations over consumers. Republicans want to roll back popular energy efficiency standards because they favor the richest corporations. While the Nation swelters and the heat kills, Republicans ignore the climate change only to protect their biggest benefactors. They don't care about saving folks money on their energy bills.

Sadly, it doesn't end there.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. At a time when women demand that we have reproductive freedoms, Republicans instead brought us a bill to give refrigerators freedom. Republicans say that it is overreach to regulate home appliances, but they will regulate women's bodies. We say no, we are against these bills. We are against Project 2025. We urge Americans to see what they are doing and what they intend to do.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I respond to the gentleman from Texas by saying: When Democrats speak of freedom, we are talking about freedom for people, not for dishwashers.

The gentleman raised the issue of Project 2025 as somehow it is the product of some distant think tank.

Madam Speaker, I would include in the Record a list of all the former Trump administration officials who are architects of this atrocious document.

I also point out for the record that the key witness in the House Administration Committee on this horrific voter suppression bill is one of the coarchitects of Project 2025.

The gentleman tried to take a swipe at the Center for American Progress. I think they actually have good ideas, but the Center for American Progress doesn't want to install Joe Biden as a dictator, unlike what Project 2025 wants to do with regard to Trump.

Madam Speaker, we know that there is a lot that we can do when you have competent leadership in control. Look at the last Congress when the Democrats were in charge. We invested to rebuild our neglected infrastructure of airports, roads, bridges, and ports in our communities.

Many of my Republican friends voted against it, but my colleagues on the other side of the aisle take bows and issue press releases when the majority gets the money and a project is happening in their district.

We brought manufacturing back to the United States, passing the Chips and Science Act to drive innovation and create good-paying jobs. We made the largest investment in climate, protecting our water and our air. We strengthened our supply chains and set up new programs to support minority businesses. We ensured that our veterans got healthcare that they earned during their service.

I would say to my friends: It is possible for us to deliver for the American people, though I haven't seen much of it yet this year. All we have done is vote on bills that destroy and dismantle progress, that further polarize this country. Now the far-right fringe are forcing us in a way that we are plummeting toward a costly government shutdown in an effort to get their extreme agenda through.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, is the gentleman prepared to close?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Okay. I will give you copies of what I am saying so you can have them.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Madam Speaker, at the end of the day, it is not just about the legislation here. It is about two competing visions for America.

Democrats want an economy that lifts all people up. We are fighting for workers. We want opportunities for kids, success for families, and dignity for seniors. We want democracy to be secure at home and around the world. We have a vision of a better future and an idea of how to get there.

The bills today show, once again, that Republicans are more interested in division and taking us backward and turning back the clock on reproductive freedom, on voting rights, on lowering prices, on holding big corporations accountable. On all these things and more, the majority wants to drag us back. That is what their party now stands for. That is why we are wasting time with more misguided MAGA junk instead of working together to get things done for the American people.

I know those who are watching this debate maybe think this is a little bit strange, the topics that we are talking about here today. I think my Republican friends are confused what House they are in.

Again, they are not in Home Depot. They are in the House of Representatives. We ought to be debating big issues. We ought to be moving this country forward. Instead, we are dealing with this garbage. This is a waste of time. It is a waste of time.

I get it. Republicans are beholden to the most extreme elements of their Conference, but we could actually find common ground and get stuff done. We don't have to agree on everything to agree on something. Surely there are some things we can agree on that we have in common that we can move forward to help move this country in the right direction.

Instead, it is all the same old same old. Every bill that comes to the floor has all these anti-abortion riders, anti-LGBTQ riders, anti- anything-that-is-good riders. This has to stop. This has to stop. We can do better.

Again, I respectfully suggest to the chairman of the Rules Committee that one of the ways we could do better is that the gentleman can open up the debates a little bit more. We have four completely closed rules and no opportunity for any amendments. There is one structured rule, and only Republican amendments are made in order. All of the bipartisan and Democratic amendments, totally rule compliant, were shut out.

That is not the way to find common ground. That is not the way to move legislation forward in the way where it will eventually become law. We can do better. We have to do better. If not, I will say the American people in November, I think, will make a different choice, and we will be able to get back on the right track.

Madam Speaker, again, I wish we were doing something more substantive here today other than talking about refrigerators and dishwashers. I wish we were doing something more positive other than trying to repress the vote in this country, but it is what it is.

Madam Speaker, I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote down this rule, to open up this House, and to reject these awful, awful garbage bills.

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source