Providing for Consideration of H.R. Midnight Rules Relief Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I will take a moment to recognize my colleague, Chairman Michael Burgess.

First, I will let him know that he and his family will remain in our prayers during the difficult time that he is now dealing with, and we all will keep your daughter in our prayers, as well.

As he also mentioned in his opening remarks, this is the last time that he will be managing a rule on the House floor before his retirement. While it is no secret that Congressman Burgess and I have rarely agreed on issues before us--we probably can't even agree on what to have for lunch--I have always respected his dedication. I have always respected his diligence and his service to this institution, and I know how much he loves this country.

I know I speak for all of us when I say that we appreciate his years of hard work and we wish him all the very, very best. We look forward to working with him in other capacities. He has placed his official portrait right in front of me in the Rules Committee, so I will constantly think of him.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, now for the matter at hand while we are all on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could stand here today under different circumstances and I wish I didn't have to open my remarks with the news of another senseless tragedy, but here we are again. Yet another school shooting, this time at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. Innocent people killed; innocent people injured just days before Christmas.

Let's think about that for a moment.

Innocent people killed and injured while the Republican leadership in this Congress does absolutely nothing about the epidemic of gun violence in this country. Nothing at all. It is shameful.

How many times are we going to let this happen? How many more shootings before we decide enough is enough? This House should be moving heaven and earth to pass legislation to save lives. Instead, Republicans are wasting more time on yet another bill that does nothing and will go absolutely nowhere.

This so-called Midnight Rules Relief Act that we are considering is not about helping the American people. It is not about protecting kids from gun violence. It is not about making our communities safer. This bill is about one thing only: giving handouts to corporate special interests.

Republicans are gutting critical protections that keep our air clean, water safe, and economy fair because they want to give corporate special interests free rein to pollute, cheat, and exploit the system. This is about helping billionaires and big donors at the expense of everyone else.

While we waste time on this nonsense, kids continue to die in classrooms and parents continue to live in fear every time they drop their children off at school.

We should be voting on the assault weapons ban. We should be voting on universal background checks. We should be closing dangerous loopholes that allow deadly weapons to fall into the wrong hands.

Republicans don't want to do any of that. Why? Follow the money. Follow the money. Look at who the NRA donates to.

That is how Washington works. It is all one big giveaway for the special interests and those at the top who want to profit off gun sales.

I find it shameful. It is horrific that Republicans refuse to break free from the grip of the gun lobby.

Instead, we are here debating a bill that helps billionaire corporations and hurts everyday Americans. That is what we are doing in this Chamber today. What a disgrace, Mr. Speaker.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, Americans want safety in the products they buy and the food they eat. Republicans, with this bill, will undermine the regulations that provide Americans peace of mind.

The government's job is to keep us safe, to put people's health and safety over corporate profits, but Republicans want to side with profit-making corporations and their billionaire buddies over the people's interests.

H.R. 115 would allow congressional Republicans to reverse dozens of agency rules at once, in one fell swoop, without careful consideration by professionals or regard for the safety of American families. This bill would help corporations cut corners at the expense of families across the country.

We have seen what happens when rules and regulations aren't in place. Think back to when cars became deadly fire traps after car accidents because there were no safety regulations. Remember the defective airbags that exploded, taking lives instead of saving them?

Without regulations, those car companies would have been able to go on doing that. Regulations make sure that salmonella does not enter our food supply and sicken millions.

Because they don't like regulations, because their corporate friends don't like regulations, in one simple bill, Republicans would eliminate dozens of agency rules, including a rule to replace lead pipes so communities have safe drinking water.

There are almost 10 million American households and--listen to this number--400,000 school and childcare centers that are served by lead service lines, pipes, or other fixtures. In some of our Republican districts, there are tens of thousands of families and children exposed to lead pipes.

Why are they putting their corporate interests over the health and safety of those who are drinking water from lead pipes?

The Biden administration's October 2024 rule makes sure that those dangerous lead pipes would be replaced, but if Republicans get their way, this rule could be on the chopping block without any discussion in Congress.

This Republican bill could also eliminate a proposed rule to expand access to contraception. Women deserve to know that Republicans can't seem to stop going after our reproductive healthcare, this time by reducing our access to basic contraception. Really, Republicans just can't seem to respect women's rights to basic healthcare.

The Republican bill could also eliminate a rule to establish safety standards for infant support cushions and even a rule to finally implement the National Suicide Hotline Act. Once again, because Republicans know that these regulations are popular with the American public, they want to eliminate them without discussion or debate.

``Midnight'' is probably a good name to give to this bill because it is an in-the-dark attack on our ability to protect Americans now and in the future.

Congress already has a bill. If they want to reverse a regulation, they can do it. They can come on the floor and let the American people know why they want to do it so the American people are not in the dark.

This bill would let Republicans deny women's contraception. It would let them hide their work to weaken children's safety and hide the fact that they are turning their back on the suicide hotline.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, since this is possibly the last time the Rules Committee will be on the House floor for this Congress, I wanted to take a moment to review some things--the dysfunction, the chaos, the incompetence, the extremism, and the broken promises that have become the new norm under this failed Republican majority.

Republicans came into power talking about openness, transparency, and regular order. Regular order, my foot. All they have done is delivered a master class in dysfunction, extremism, and behind-closed-doors lawmaking.

They promised openness and debate, and they basically broke that promise the moment they took power. They presided over the most closed, the most undemocratic, and the most restrictive House of Representatives certainly since I have been here and probably ever.

Republicans shattered their own record for closed rules, 115 closed rules in total. Fifty-seven percent of the rules advanced by this committee were closed. That is a 29 percent increase over the last Congress, which they had the gall to criticize at the time.

Understand that a closed rule means no amendments--no amendments, no debate, no nothing. A bill goes to the floor, and we take it or leave it.

Closed rules may be appropriate at some times, but the unprecedented number of closed rules here isn't just a failure of process. It is a deliberate choice by Republican leaders to silence the voices of Members on both sides of the aisle.

All told, this majority rejected nearly 6,000 amendments in Congress. Eighty-two percent of them were Democratic amendments blocked by Republicans. It didn't stop there. Sixty-seven percent of bipartisan amendments, proposals that could have brought this House together and delivered results for the American people, were blocked by the Republicans. They actively rejected bipartisanship.

Here is the most shocking number: Republicans blocked 57 percent of their own amendments. They didn't just box out Democrats. They boxed out a lot of their own people who wanted to bring amendments to the floor and have debates and votes. They blocked more than half of their own amendments. If I were a Republican, I would be asking: What the hell is going on around here? Why is this majority so afraid of debate?

We haven't even touched on their incompetence and dysfunction yet. Multiple times this Congress, we heard from Republican witnesses on bills that they never brought to the floor. Multiple times they would pass something through the Rules Committee only to never bring it up for a vote on final passage.

They still have not sent 13 bills they passed over to the Senate. Do these guys need to watch ``Schoolhouse Rock!''? I mean, a bill can't become law if you don't send it over to the Senate.

They are half-passing their crappy bills. You literally can't make this stuff up, Mr. Speaker. They have waived regular order dozens and dozens of times, skipping hearings and markups and sidelining committees of jurisdiction that have extensive expertise on policy matters.

Let's not forget how we started this Congress--with 5 days and 15 ballots just to elect a Speaker, a Speaker who handed over his gavel to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. Then, 9 months later, the MAGA extremists fired him anyway. They fired him anyway, and they plunged the House into 3 weeks of complete paralysis and total chaos; 3 weeks where Congress couldn't move, couldn't legislate, couldn't do anything all because of Republican incompetence; 3 weeks where Republicans sat around and argued with themselves and did nothing at all about the urgent crises facing this country.

That is beyond dysfunction, Mr. Speaker. It is more than a waste of time. It is pathetic. If this were the private sector, they would all be fired. Republicans sat around and did nothing for weeks on end while Democrats pleaded with them to do something, anything, and they did nothing.

Then, somehow, things got worse because Speaker Johnson didn't end the dysfunction. He doubled down. Under his leadership, Republicans issued 56 closed rules in his first 9 months.

Things went from bad to worse. Rule votes failed time and again, a stunning humiliation for this Republican leadership. For context, Mr. Speaker, before this Congress, the last time a rule failed on the House floor was over 20 years ago, in 2002. Now, it is becoming routine because Republicans can't even pass their own bills.

They said they would complete all 12 appropriations bills before the August 2023 recess--another broken promise. They said this year that they would finally get their act together--another broken promise because here they are, the week before Christmas, trying to pass another stopgap funding bill that nobody has even seen the text for.

Where is it? Where is it? Is it hiding behind a desk somewhere in the Chamber? Is it under the Christmas tree? With Republicans in charge of this place, maybe the Grinch stole it.

Maybe we will see the text before we get to vote on it. Who knows with this majority.

It is just astounding, astounding incompetence and chaos. It is honestly pathetic. Republicans have run this place like a dictatorship, Mr. Speaker, and they don't even have anything to show for it.

This has been the most ineffective Congress in American history, the fewest laws passed in the first year of any Congress since the Great Depression. Maybe, just maybe, it is because Republicans prioritize extremism and handouts for corporations and billionaires over solutions for everyday people.

Even when they did work to address real challenges, like avoiding a catastrophic debt default, keeping the government open, or delivering essential foreign aid, it was Democrats who stepped up every time and got those bills over the finish line. They needed our votes every time.

Mr. Speaker, it is fitting that Republicans end this Congress the way they began it: Shutting down voices, shutting down ideas, and shutting off debate.

The American people deserve better. I think that is why the other side actually lost seats in this election. Control of this Chamber was decided by 7,309 votes across three districts out of 148 million votes cast for House candidates nationwide. That is not a mandate for chaos, Mr. Speaker, it is an indictment of this majority's failed leadership, and I shudder to think of how bad things will get next year if Republicans don't change things up.

Given their razor-thin margin next Congress, the way for them to do that is pretty obvious to me: They need to stop the extremism. They need to stop the extremism, and they need to get to work with Democrats to get stuff done.

That is the path ahead. That is what the American people want, and I hope my Republican friends will take it so we can work together for the good of the American people. All of us in this Chamber should be disappointed in the record of this Congress.

My Republican friends, in particular, should be disappointed with their failed leadership. That has to change. People have to come first. We have to solve the problems that are facing average people in this country, and we have an opportunity to do that. It is to turn away from the practices of this past Congress.

Mr. Speaker,

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his response, but maybe one of the reasons why you had the number of rules you did is because you had to keep on redoing them because they either failed on the House floor or they couldn't pass the House floor.

When the gentleman says that it was a mistake to vacate the Speaker's chair, it wasn't a mistake. It was something that the gentleman and the Republicans deliberately did by changing the rules to make it easier for any single Member to vacate the chair to get rid of the Speaker.

That was a deliberate change in the rules that Republicans made possible because they were afraid of the extremists. They sided with the extremists in their Conference.

Again, I have nothing but personal high regard for the current Speaker of the House, but I don't think it is appropriate to say that Republicans are necessarily happy with his leadership.

I am just reading a quote from one of my Republican colleagues here who said that the Speaker's overseeing of the CR process, the continuing resolution process, is--and I am saying this directly--a ``dumpster fire.'' A dumpster fire.

All I am pleading with my Republican friends to do is to change your ways as we enter the new Congress, to actually make this place function in a way that doesn't always cave in to the extreme, rightwing, MAGA elements of your Conference and actually put people first.

We all don't have to agree on everything to agree on something, but the way my Republican friends run this place, even something we agree on, we can't get to the floor.

Maybe if we open the process up a little bit more, and we don't try to break this Congress' record for having the most closed rules, maybe we will have a deliberative process, and we can get some stuff done and the American people might have some confidence in this institution.

Right now, this place is not functioning. This is the least productive Congress that I can ever recall, perhaps even in history. I don't think that that is kind of the title that anybody should want to aspire to.

Mr. Speaker,

Mr. Speaker, I respond to the gentleman that I think that when you look at the numbers, the election was pretty close.

Yeah, unfortunately, for people who think like me, Donald Trump became President. I think that is a terrible thing for the country, but that is what ended up happening.

At the same time, the American people voted to lower their margin here in the House. Maybe that is because the American people are paying more attention to what is happening in this Chamber and not liking what they are seeing, what they are hearing.

I think the message of the last election, given how close everything is, is the American people want us to work together, because if not, we are not going to get very much done. I think there are a lot of things that we need to do.

I began my opening today referring to the terrible tragedy in Madison, Wisconsin. I think the American people would like us to do something to prevent gun violence in this country.

I think they want us to do more to lower prices. I think they want us to do more to increase wages, to make housing more affordable and accessible for people. I think they want us to take on the pharmaceutical industry, which we have tried to do under the last two Democratic Presidents, but my Republican friends seem to always be critical of those efforts to lower prescription drug prices, but they want to have healthcare costs lower.

They want us to take on everyday problems. I don't think you can do that if all you bring to the floor are extremist measures, measures that, quite frankly, play well with a small group of hard, rightwing conservatives in this country, but have no appeal to anybody else.

Mr. Speaker, we are here in the aftermath of yet another senseless gun massacre, another preventable loss of life. Yet, this majority would rather do the bidding of special interests than address an actual crisis facing our Nation.

The bill we are talking about here today on regulations, again, is big corporations' dream come true. It is a way to eliminate regulation designed to protect the well-being and the safety of the American people without having a lot of debate and just doing it all at once with a bunch of repeals all bunched together, and just giving big corporations what they want. I think that is a terrible idea.

Big corporations don't speak for the people I represent in Worcester. Big corporations, quite frankly, are working overtime to try to deny my constituents the fair shake that they all want so that they can make more profits.

My colleagues on the other side need to take a hard look in the mirror. They need to ask themselves, again, on the issue of gun violence, how many more shootings until they find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby and actually do something.

The American people are watching, and they are tired of this cowardice. They want us to act. They want us to keep people safe. They sure as hell don't want us wasting their time on corporate giveaways like the ones contained in the legislation that we are going to be debating later today.

Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. I urge my colleagues to reject this shameful bill and start doing the job we were sent here to do, protecting the people we serve, helping to even the playing field, helping to give people more hope that their life will improve in the future.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source