Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 4247, Preventing Harmful Restraint And Seclusion In Schools Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOXX. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I thank the gentleman from California for yielding time.
I will urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule for many reasons which I will outline in my comments, but I certainly want to share with the gentleman from California and with the sponsors of this bill the feeling that all of us want to see that our children are protected, that all children are protected, particularly when they are in State-sponsored institutions, such as public schools or other such institutions. Nobody wants our children to be at any risk, and we want to make sure that the people who are looking after them take the proper precautions when they are dealing with them, especially in a physical way.
Madam Speaker, we are here today to debate the rule on H.R. 4247, the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act.
Our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they assembled the U.S. Constitution and the protections it guarantees, specifically in the Tenth Amendment. The authors of this amendment, an amendment ratified in 1791, remembered what it was like to be under the thumb of a distant, all-powerful government, and they understood that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work.
Since the U.S. Constitution was first ratified, the Federal Government has slowly, steadily and corrosively eroded the notion of States' rights and of our individual liberties. Nowhere in the Constitution does it empower the Federal Government to override States' rights.
When it comes to the education of our Nation's children, we can all agree again that students should be able to learn in a safe, productive, and positive environment. Teachers, principals, and other school personnel have a responsibility to ensure that the environment is maintained at all times. In many cases, it is vitally important that teachers and classroom aides use interventions and supports that are both physically and emotionally safe for the children.
What the bill before us fails to recognize is that 31 States currently have laws and regulations in place which govern the use of seclusion and restraints in schools. An additional 11 States have policies and guidelines in place. In some cases, school districts may also have their own guidelines governing the use of such practices in the classroom.
Furthermore, the Federal Government has no reliable data on the prevalent use of harmful seclusion and restraint techniques in public and private schools and on whether they result in child abuse, no matter the hyperbole used by people on the other side.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Education recognized this fact, and through the Office of Civil Rights issued a draft regulation requiring State and local educational agencies to collect data on the use of seclusion and restraints in schools. Moreover, last August, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to each chief State school officer, urging the officers to review their current policies and guidelines regarding the use of restraints and seclusion in schools to ensure every student is safe and protected.
However, instead of waiting until the Department of Education completes its review to see how widespread the problem of harmful seclusion and restraint techniques is, the bill establishes a Federal one-size-fits-all mandate to a problem for which there is not yet a thorough understanding and which would otherwise be handled at the State level.
We know increased Federal regulations do not equal results, especially when it comes to public education. Despite Washington's spending hundreds of billions in Federal dollars since 1965 on public education, the achievement gap has not closed, and test scores have not improved.
Instead, we should be focusing on enforcement of current State procedures addressing seclusion and restraint of students. It is my belief that State and local governments can identify student needs and determine the most appropriate regulations better and more efficiently than the Federal Government.
At the beginning of the 110th Congress, the new majority came to power full of promises for a bipartisan working relationship and a landmark pledge to create the ``most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.''
On page 24 of Speaker Pelosi's ``New Direction for America'' document issued in the 109th Congress, she calls for regular order for legislation.
``Bills should be developed following full hearings in open subcommittee and committee markups with appropriate referrals to other committees. Members should have at least 24 hours to examine a bill prior to consideration at the subcommittee level.
``Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that offers the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.
``Members should have at least 24 hours to examine bill and conference report text prior to floor consideration. Rules governing floor debate must be reported before 10 p.m. for a bill to be considered the following day.
``Floor votes should be completed within 15 minutes, with the customary 2-minute extension to accommodate Members' ability to reach the House Chamber to cast their votes. No votes shall be held open in order to manipulate the outcome.
``House-Senate conference committees should hold regular meetings (at least weekly) of all conference committee members. All duly-appointed conferees should be informed of the schedule of conference committee activities in a timely manner and given ample opportunity for input and debate as decisions are made toward final bill language.
``The suspension calendar should be restricted to noncontroversial legislation, with minority-authored legislation scheduled in relation to the party ratio in the House.''
Those were all the things that the majority promised us before taking over in the 110th Congress. And what do we get? We get this rule, which provides blanket martial law through Thursday.
This practice diminishes democracy. When major legislation is being considered that would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt or affect Americans in other ways, Members of Congress should have the opportunity to study the legislation for more than a couple of hours and know what they are voting on.
This rule is a structured rule and makes in order two amendments, one from Chairman Miller and one from Representative Flake of Arizona. Chairman Miller's amendment, among other things, would change the title of the bill from ``Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act'' to the ``Keeping All Students Safe Act.'' That is a promise that no Congress can fulfill.
Madam Speaker, we have a lot of problems with this bill and we have a lot of problems with this rule, and, again, I will urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and ``no'' on the bill.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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