Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1005, the Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems Act.

This bill would compel schools to implement new reporting mechanisms, monitoring procedures, and compliance structures despite the complete absence of any factual verified threats.

Under current law, K-12 schools are not required to report funding from foreign governments or contracts with foreign entities, as most school funding comes from local property taxes, State formulas, and a little bit from the Federal Government. This bill would require schools to report funding from or contracts with a foreign source.

Let's be clear. There is no evidence that K-12 schools are under any threat from misinformation or covert influence by authoritarian foreign governments in any measurable way.

If passed, school districts already facing shortages of teachers, counselors, and support staff now will have to divert critical time and resources from instruction to completing bureaucratic paperwork, like what qualifies as a foreign source and who qualifies as a foreign source. Schools have got to have professional development, so every school principal and superintendent knows exactly who needs to be reported and how.

Confucius Institutes were mentioned. We have got 15,000 school systems that will have to comply with this bill. Five Confucius Institute classrooms have been found to exist in the United States at last count. Mr. Speaker, 15,000 school systems are going to have to put up with this paperwork. This is the very definition of unfunded mandate and imposes obligations without offering the capacity or funding to meet the mandate.

Instead of strengthening our school system, it distracts from the urgent challenges our schools are facing, such as widening achievement gaps, as reflected in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, the NAEP scores, and the growing difficulty of recruiting and retaining quality educators.

Let me underscore the broader point. My colleagues across the aisle have remained silent as the administration has dismantled or is in the process of dismantling the Department of Education, undermining its legitimacy, capacity, and effectiveness. Most recently, the administration announced plans to move six interagency agreements which would offload core functions of the Department of Education and spread them across other Federal agencies.

Yet this bill assigns additional responsibilities to what is left of the Department of Education. It simply doesn't add up. Who will be left in the Department of Education to enforce these mandates?

For these reasons, H.R. 1005 does nothing to improve our schools and everything to bog down schools in administrative red tape. I strongly recommend a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I inform the chairman that I have no additional speakers.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not limited to China. This bill says ``foreign source,'' and under the definition of foreign source, it includes any individual who is not a U.S. citizen or national of the United States, so if you have a plumbing contract over $10,000, you have got to check out the owner of the plumbing company's citizenship to know whether you have to document and report the contract.

Every one of the 15,000 school systems, every school, every contract over $10,000, you have got to report, and you have to ascertain the citizenship of who you are contracting with. I don't know how you do that. If you order something over the internet, you have got to check out somebody's citizenship. I don't know how you comply, but that is just a little gap in the bill.

Every school system, every school would have to comply with this. It is just not China. It is any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, there is actually no credible evidence that this bill is even needed. We are under no threat of misinformation or covert influence by authoritarian foreign governments.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill. This bill does nothing to improve our schools, close the achievement gaps, or increase teacher pay. It burdens schools with bureaucratic red tape due to imagined covert influence from foreign governments.

It is so broad that it covers every contract over $10,000. If we don't know the citizenship of the other side, I don't know how we find out the citizenship of the other side.

We have real issues that we need to address, and we should address those issues. For those reasons, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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