Providing for Consideration of HR 3522, Employee Health Care Protection Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

I am hearing quotes given about what people promised when and what is happening now, and yet under this very rule that we are considering, I fail to see how it is consistent with promises that our current Speaker has made.

On January 5, 2011, our current Speaker, promised:

You will always have the right to a robust debate and open process that allows you to represent your constituents, to make your case, offer alternatives, and to be heard. Furthermore, to my friends in the minority, I offer a commitment: openness.

And yet how ironic is it that this very rule is the 75th closed rule of the 113th Congress?

Now, what does a closed rule mean? A closed rule means that even if Democrats or Republicans have great ideas about how to improve or amend a bill, they are not even allowed to be discussed or voted upon on the floor of the House.

A closed rule means the only say that I or my friends get as Members of Congress is to say ``yes'' or ``no.'' We don't get to improve upon the idea. We don't get to make it work better for our country. We don't get to offer changes that will reduce costs to taxpayers or improve the efficiency of the bill.

We had a commitment from this current Speaker to have an open process, and yet here we have before us the 75th closed rule. This is the diamond jubilee of closed rules that we are celebrating here on the floor of the House today with this 75th closed rule that doesn't allow my Democratic or Republican colleagues to bring forth simple, commonsense ideas to improve the bill before us and make it work for our country.

In addition to the diamond jubilee of closed rules, we also have the 53rd attempted repeal of ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act. Now, we get that. Our friends on the other side want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We have heard that. This is the 53rd time we have heard that.

Whenever our colleagues on the other side are serious about rolling up their sleeves and working in a bipartisan way to improve the Affordable Care Act, to make it work better for our country, to increase competition, to reduce costs, we are happy to have that discussion.

I myself am the sponsor of several bills to change the Affordable Care Act, as are many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but instead of having that discussion, we are having the 53rd vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act under the 75th closed rule of the current Congress. I think the American people are learning no longer to be surprised by these kinds of maneuvers. We wonder why the approval of rating Congress is at a record low of 12 percent.

There was a commitment from our Speaker to allow us to represent our constituents, to allow us to make our case, to allow us to offer alternatives. We are going to do that under the previous question. We are going to do that under the motion to recommit. But in terms of actually being able to amend this bill, the process has been closed, not only from my fellow Democrats, but from the many fine Republicans who have ideas to make this bill better and make health care more affordable.

This Congress deserves better, and I know that we can do better.

I know that under this rule, my colleague, Mr. Burgess, managed to have his amendment included. They use a self-executed amendment in the rule. That means that by passing this rule there is a special amendment that actually becomes part of the bill. We don't even have the opportunity to debate the merits of that amendment, whatever they are, but any other ideas from Democrats or Republicans are closed down for the 75th time. They are not even able to bring them forward.

My colleagues have a lot of ideas for improving the Affordable Care Act. I am the sponsor of a number of bills. Rather than bringing forth the 53rd repeal of the Affordable Care Act, let's move forward. The country is ready to go. Let's make sure that Americans that have used the health care marketplace to enroll in affordable, high-quality health care are able to continue doing so. Let's make sure we improve the Affordable Care Act rather than end it.

Instead of rolling back protections that benefit millions of Americans, let's get back to work on the issues that matter, like reducing costs in health care, like fixing our broken immigration, like raising the minimum wage and making sure that we can get our economy going with an infrastructure investment.

For instance, on immigration reform alone, this body's failure to act continues to cost taxpayers money every day. There is a bill that passed the Senate with more than a two-thirds majority. That is not easy to do over there. If that bill were simply allowed to come to a vote in the open process that the Speaker promised and allow us to vote for our constituents, I think it would pass.

We have a bipartisan bill in the House called H.R. 15. It is a version of the Senate bill. We can bring that bill forward under a rule. Let's do it. It will pass tomorrow and address our broken immigration system and save taxpayers over $200 billion over 10 years, create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans, secure our borders, and make sure that the rule of law in our country is restored. The longer we put that off, the worse that issue becomes and the harder it will be to address.

Again, while this bill is an anniversary of sorts--the diamond jubilee of closed bills and the 53rd attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act--it doesn't offer anything new to the American people, and it doesn't allow Democrats or Republicans who have thoughtful ideas for improving the Affordable Care Act to bring them forward at all to be discussed on their merits or voted on here in this body.

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Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up two pieces of legislation. The first is the Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2014, and the second is a constitutional amendment to address the issues surrounding Citizens United.

To discuss our proposal, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

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Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch) certainly convinced me. I hope he convinced you as well that, rather than repealing the Affordable Care Act for the 53rd time, let's take this body back from the special interests and return it to the people of this country. And his motion will do that if we defeat the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, to discuss the other proposal if we defeat the previous question, I am proud to yield 2 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Instead of focusing on rolling back protections for the benefits of millions of Americans for the 53rd time, this House should get back to the work of focusing on real problems, like the need to overhaul our broken immigration system and replace it with one that works for our country. Instead of solving immigration problems that are facing our Nation, the House continues to vote on bills that take our country backwards.

Before we left for recess 5 weeks ago, the House voted to deny DREAMers the ability to stay here, and they subjected them to deportation proceedings. This body's continued failure to act on comprehensive immigration reform means that the President must act instead. For more than a year, I have come to the House floor to decry the fact that the House Republicans have failed to move any immigration reform bills to the floor this entire Congress--or any bills to secure our border, any bills to provide provisional work permits, any bills to require workplace authentication. Not a single one has been brought to the floor of the House.

I am deeply disappointed that the President has put off taking action on this bill until after the November elections, but the President will have no alternative if this Congress continues to fail to act. Sadly, over the next 2 months, the current administration will continue to deport tens of thousands of hardworking mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers because of the lack of courage of this body to act and because the President continues to refuse to act with the authority that is already granted to him by the nature of his office.

I am hopeful that the President's failure to act right now means he will go big and bold tomorrow, but the truth is the President can't do it all alone. He needs Congress. If we are serious about securing the border, it will take an appropriation--it will take resources--from this body to secure the border. I am confident the President will do whatever he can with the money and resources he has to do it, but if this body is serious, we need to require the President to secure the border and make sure the President has the resources to do that. I am hopeful the President will use his powers to reform our antiquated visa program, which restricts an employer's ability to hire key talent and only provides an additional incentive for companies to move overseas so that they can hire the people they need.

These are issues that the President can and should address now, not just when it is politically convenient. Unite families, make America more competitive, and challenge Congress to get immigration reform done.

Of course, any relief the President provides would be just a temporary fix. Only this body can find a permanent solution by rewriting our immigration laws to restore the rule of law with regard to the 11 million people who are here illegally, to reform our visa and green card systems going forward, to secure our borders, to ensure workplace enforcement, and to make sure that we can facilitate legal commerce between Mexico and the United States.

But once again, rather than addressing the issue that came up the most of any issue in my 10 town halls--immigration reform--we are faced with the 53rd repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the 75th closed rule--the diamond jubilee of closed rules--that doesn't allow Democrats or Republicans to offer a single amendment to this bill. Amendments that are germane, that improve the Affordable Care Act, that have bipartisan consensus support are not even allowed to be brought forward and are not even discussed for 10 minutes on the floor of this House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with the extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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