Smithsonian American Women's History Museum Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I have said it before, and I will say it again: The Smithsonian American Women's History Museum is long overdue, and it deserves a place on The National Mall, period, end of sentence.

The National Mall is America's front yard. It is the place we welcome visitors from all over the world. The Smithsonian is where we gather the stories, ideas, inventions, and memories that make us who we are. It is where we keep what matters to our large and, yes, very diverse American family. It is where our Nation tells its story, and American women have shaped every chapter of that story.

This is why I enthusiastically supported the bipartisan version of H.R. 1329, produced by my Republican colleague and friend from New York, Representative Nicole Malliotakis, along with her companion bill, H.R. 1330, related to the National Museum of the American Latino.

Together, those bills would resolve a statutory anomaly that has stalled both museums and allow them to move forward on The Mall as Congress intended.

The bipartisan legislation is a simple, straightforward fix with 231 cosponsors in this House, including over 100 Members from each side of the aisle.

For some reason, that is not the bill we are debating. I am saddened and disappointed that the Republican majority has needlessly politicized what has for years been a bipartisan priority.

The hyperpartisan museum bill we are debating right now differs from the original legislation in four primary and important ways.

First, it omits the National Museum of the American Latino, which has been paired with the women's history museum since they were both authorized together in 2020.

Second, for reasons that pass all understanding, it grants the President of the United States unprecedented, unilateral, and unchecked authority to disregard the Smithsonian's recommended site and the Congress' recommended site for any reason, or for no reason at all, and pick his own.

Third, it hands control over design and construction to boards stacked with political loyalists who have already shown they will rubberstamp whatever the President wants. To see evidence of that, look no further than the pile of rubble that used to be the White House East Wing.

Fourth, it inserts an ideological poison pill intended to dictate what the museum can and cannot say about women's history.

Mr. Speaker, we deal with a lot of complicated issues around here that require complex solutions. This is not one of them. There is a Republican-led bipartisan bill just sitting here with 231 cosponsors, including 104 Republican Members. We could pass that bill on suspension right now.

The American people will be baffled, as I am, that my Republican colleagues have chosen this route instead, especially since, in 2019, Democrats accepted a Republican amendment requiring the museum to reflect ``the diversity of the political viewpoints held by women of the United States.''

Virtually identical language appears in this bill--ironically, right next to the provision that explicitly excludes political viewpoints held by women of the United States. I guess it should have explicitly read: the diversity of political viewpoints held by Republicans alone.

If the goal were actually to move this museum forward, we would not be abandoning the yearslong bipartisan process that has brought us to the brink of construction. We would not be considering a bill with a cynical, ideological poison pill. We would not exclude the Latino museum. We would not allow boards filled with Trump loyalists to have final say on the museum's design and construction. We would certainly not be giving President Donald Trump, of all people, unchecked authority to pick a location for the women's history museum. We would not be spending time debating a bill destined to fail.

Ask yourselves: Who should decide what appears in a Smithsonian museum, where it goes, and what it looks like? Should it be historians, scholars, and curators who, for 180 years, have made the Smithsonian the premier museum complex in the world, hosting 15 million visitors per year? Is that who it should be? Or a politician who complains publicly that the Smithsonian focuses too much on ``how bad slavery was'' and who has taken a literal wrecking ball to some of our most dignified and important landmarks in this country, a politician who uses our cultural institutions to rewrite history and hand out no-bid government contracts to his friends? That is the question before us.

If House Republicans want the museum to succeed, the path ahead is straightforward and easy. Bring the clean bipartisan fix with its 231 cosponsors to the floor, pair it with the Latino museum as we have done for years, and let the historians and experts do the work of telling the full and complex story of American women.

This legislation does the exact opposite. It takes a bill, the narrow purpose of which is to specify a museum location, and throws even more uncertainty into that very question. It makes literally no sense.

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude where I began: The National Mall is where we welcome visitors from around the world, of all types. Everyone comes here. The Smithsonian is where we mark what makes us who we are. They belong to the American people, and the American people deserve both the women's history museum and the National Museum of the American Latino on The National Mall that tells their stories without political interference.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I urge the majority to bring the bipartisan bill that 104 Members of their Conference have cosponsored to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate my colleague and friend, Ms. Malliotakis, and her comments.

But the truth is, I don't, first of all, think anyone who lives in Rochester, New York, the home of Susan B. Anthony, just to the west of Seneca Falls, needs to be told about the history of the women's suffrage movement in the United States or the fact that Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for voting in a Presidential election.

We are well-steeped in it, and we think this ought to be a museum that is curated by scholars and by women and those groups.

The location of this, which was identified in a bipartisan bill--and the suggestion that somehow we now are not supporting or withholding our support for a bipartisan bill is simply wrong.

Actually, that would be the simple thing to do, to put the bipartisan bill on the floor. I don't know what the objection to it is, except that it doesn't have the following language, and this is really what it is all about, and I will read from the bill:

``The site for the Museum is hereby designated as the South Monument site, located on The National Mall, bordered by 14th Street Southwest, Jefferson Drive, Southwest, Raoul Wallenberg Place Southwest, and Independence Avenue Southwest, except that the President may designate an alternative site for the Museum within 180 days of the date of the enactment of this subsection.''

The extraneous portion that was added basically takes away everything the previous sentence said. Everything the bipartisan bill was intended to do is identify this location. But for reasons, as I said earlier, that surpass all understanding, we are now going to give the President of the United States complete, unilateral, unchecked power to make this decision.

It makes no sense. It is not a bipartisan bill. In fact, if you want to have this resolved, you could eliminate that portion of the bill, and we could just do the simple sentence under the bipartisan bill, which has 104 Republican sponsors of it. We could do that. We could do that right now.

That bill is already in print. Ms. Malliotakis is actually the sponsor of that bill, so I would be happy to support that bill of hers. But don't suggest for a minute that this is a bipartisan bill because it is not. It is actually the most hyperpartisan of bills, all intended to make sure that the President is happy with the location of the museum and give him the complete power over Congress to make that decision.

Mr. Speaker, I will say I find it rather astonishing that we feel the need here to give a lot of advice and counsel to the Smithsonian Institution about how to appropriately build and operate a museum, to curate a museum--I don't know if anybody has been--and, by the way, they do museums really well. We are supposed to pass legislation, which we don't even do that well, and now we are going to tell them how to run museums.

I would just encourage my friends, if you haven't, the Smithsonian runs a number of museums in town--one on American history, one on African Americans, one on American Indians, one on natural history, one on air and space. Fifteen million people come to them.

In the 8 years I have been privileged to be a Member of Congress, I have never once had a constituent or anybody else stop me and say, you know, I really have some advice to give to the Smithsonian Institution about how to run museums. I think they do it exceptionally well.

In fact, I would argue that the Smithsonian Institution is the greatest museum complex anywhere in the world. It is an extraordinary place, free to Americans and others who come from other places to see the American experience. I don't think they need, really, a whole lot of help from Members of the United States House of Representatives on how to run museums. Let's let them do that. Let's let academicians, scholars, historians, and museum curators do that.

All we are supposed to do here is say where the location of the museum is to be located. That is the one issue in front of us. Talk about making complex a simple issue. People will be baffled and scratching their heads to watch this debate should they ever watch this debate because this is a simple, simple matter, and we should not complicate this. Let's identify the location, and let's let the Smithsonian Institution do what they do better than any other organization in the world.

Randall), my dear friend and colleague.

To quote Mrs. Cammack, whom I have great respect for, women's history ``is American history, full stop.'' I completely agree, and I am delighted to see her and her daughter in her maiden speech in front of the House talk about the importance of women in American history. I completely agree with that, as well.

What I find perplexing is that the construction of this museum has been held up now for several years since its authorization, because Congress could not reconcile the fact that we hadn't fully identified a location for the museum. That is the only thing that prevents the construction of this museum from moving forward. We have a bipartisan solution to address just that, the exact location of where this museum should be built.

I think the question that needs to be answered in this moment is why we are not doing that bill. It has 231 cosponsors, a majority of this House, and over 100 Members on both sides of the aisle. It is simple and straightforward.

Why aren't we doing that? Why are we here? Why do we have to debate for the balance of an hour a bill that is so simple to pass and has broad support?

It is because this bill was rewritten by the White House. This bill was rewritten so that not a woman but a man, and, frankly, a man with something of a questionable history toward women, would have the final say.

By the way, if he didn't like the location that we have identified in this bill, he has a way to raise his objections called veto the bill. He could veto it if he didn't like the location, and then we would negotiate.

The Article I prerogative of the Congress is to pass laws. That is what we should be doing, but what we have done is, we have managed to twist ourselves into a pretzel just to satisfy the President so that the President can look at the location that Congress by, law would, like to make clear and say: I don't like that after all. Sorry, Congress. Thank you for your input, but go away. I, Donald Trump, will decide unilaterally where the women's history museum will go. Forget about the 435 Members of the House. Forget about the 100 Members of the Senate. We appreciate your input, like little children. Now, go away. I will make the decision.

That is what is going to happen. That is what this bill is. If that is not the case, I would love to hear a single word of explanation about why we are not doing the bill that has broad bipartisan support that specifically says where this museum will be located on The National Mall, on America's front yard.

Why is that not the case? Why are we here? We can dance around it. We can talk about the contributions of women. Certainly, no one on this side of the aisle would ever, ever spend any time disputing that. We are in complete agreement, which is why we have over 100 sponsors for the bill on our side of the aisle, as well.

The question is, and the question that people watching will want answered, is: Why aren't you doing that bill?

I will be eagerly listening for an explanation as to why the bipartisan bill with 231 cosponsors, which specifically says where this museum should be, the exact location, and why we are not doing that bill.

I will sit quietly and listen. Maybe not so quietly, but I will sit and listen. I am looking for one word of explanation about why that is not the case. Until that time, I will reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments. It is interesting she began her comments by citing the bipartisan bill that isn't before the House, the bipartisan bill that I am urging us to pass, the bipartisan bill that has over 100 sponsors on the Republican side of the aisle and over 100 sponsors on the Democratic side of the aisle.

She used that frame even though that is not the bill before the House. Of course, she could not offer an explanation as to why the bill that she cited actually isn't before the House, and instead, we have a hyperpartisan bill that gives Donald Trump unilateral power to decide where this museum is going.

I would also note that among the rights that she talked about for women, the right to vote, et cetera, she didn't mention the right to control their own bodies. You know why? Because we have taken that away from women. This Supreme Court and this President have taken away the right of women so that my grandchildren, my granddaughters, have fewer rights than my mother did, than their grandmother and their great- grandmother had. We didn't talk about that if we are going to talk about the rights of women and how important it is to support women in this country. We didn't talk about why this bill is going to end up with no museum being built because we insist on giving unilateral power to Donald Trump to decide all things that the Congress should be deciding.

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Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains.

Mr. Speaker, we could do this bill, get this done, and make clear where this museum is supposed to be. All we have to do is pass the bipartisan bill.

If we want to amend it with this exact location, if that is what Ms. Malliotakis is suggesting, then I am happy to do that, but there are so many things that she said that I have to respond to.

First of all, President Biden couldn't do this because Congress has created in the authorizing legislation this anomaly, so we need Congress to be able to specify the location, which is the point of the bipartisan bill, which has over 230 sponsors on both sides of the aisle. We could do that. This is simple, but that is not what is here.

By the way, just to remind the gentlewoman in case she is not clear, the chairperson of the NCPC, which has responsibility here, the chair of that is the current White House staff secretary, William Scharf. It is the President's employee who runs it.

By the way, anyone who believes that the President has much regard for the law or how these things should go should just look at the pile of rubble that is the East Wing of the White House, where the President defied tradition, common sense, and appropriateness and just knocked down one of the most historic sections of the most historic building in the world and is building it without anyone's contributions, without any appropriate guardrails, and without any appropriate oversight. That is because, let's face it, that is what this President does.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to go back. I am sorry. I thought I read this into the Record, but just to be clear, if people think this is an exact location, then they should read it to the end. After we identify the site, it says: ``except that the President may designate an alternative site for the museum within 180 days of the date of the enactment of this subsection.''

That is a little like when I was in high school, saying to my father: Can I stay out late? He would say: Yes, unless I say you can't. Does that mean I can stay out late? It only means I can stay out late if he gives me permission.

We are going to put it at this site. We have it specifically here. Ms. Malliotakis is right. There is an exact location, unless the President says that is not where he wants it.

This is the Congress. Article I--when I first came to Washington, Article I, it must have been said 1,000 times in my first few weeks-- Article I prerogatives, the Congress, Article I, the first section of the Constitution, the legislative responsibilities herein lie with the Congress of the United States.

Yet, what are we doing, Mr. Speaker? We are passing legislation, which the President does have the right to sign or veto, in which case, if he vetoes, it comes back here for further action by the Houses. He gets one bite at the apple, but we are not content with that. We have to then give him unilateral power over what we have just passed to do whatever he wants. It is insanity.

There is no explanation for why we are not doing the original bill-- None. I am still listening, and I still haven't heard it.

I will continue to listen for the explanation. Perhaps in the close by my colleagues and friends, we will hear why, finally, there is something wrong with passing the original bill.

By the way, this isn't going to clear it up because this bill is not going to become law. I will tell you what, Mr. Speaker, in a new Congress, when there is a new majority, we will put the actual location. We will put it in law. We will send it to the President, and we will see whether or not he insists on not only a bill that has a location, but insists more on the power to unilaterally do whatever he wants.

The only way this majority is willing to do anything in this House seems to be to ultimately give the power, complete power, to the President to do what he chooses to do without our input.

Mr. Speaker, do you want to know why I think so many Americans have given up on this institution? Think about what we are doing right now. Think about this debate. I hope people see it.

We were handed something extremely rare in this building nowadays, a finished, bipartisan bill sponsored by more than half the Members with over 100 Members on both sides agreeing to it, and we lit it on fire. We have basically thrown it out and put it in a dumpster.

And for what: to stroke the President's ego, to bully a vulnerable group of people who make up less than 1 percent of the population?

The worst part is that we are doing it at a museum that is intended to honor women and the enormous contributions of women to this country who succeeded despite a government that failed them at times. They overcame great obstacles. We manufactured ours. They had every excuse to fail and made history anyway. They overcame those obstacles. We have no excuses. Yet, here we are on the verge of failing them, once again.

They deserved better then and they deserve better now.

Mr. Speaker, I implore my colleagues one last time: Stop with the games. Bring the bipartisan version of this bill to the floor, along with the Latino museum build so we can finally get shovels in the ground on The National Mall for these critically important museums and honor the amazing people in this country who have written the chapter of American history that we all stand on the shoulders of and whose legacy we enjoy.

Mr. Speaker, I urge defeat of this bill. Bring back the bipartisan bill. We will enthusiastically build it. We will put shovels in the ground and we will build these national museums as they should be.

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