Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. House Of Representatives U.S. House Of Representatives 20240713

1140, which the clerk will report by title. The clerk a bill to enhance the Security Operations of the Transportation Security Administration and stability of the transportation Security Work force by applying the personal system under title 5 United States code to employees of the Transportation Security Administration who provide screening of all passengers and property, and for other purposes. The chair when the committee of the whole rose earlier today amendment number 9 printed in house report 116411, offered by the gentlewoman from florida, miss mucarselpowell, had been postponed. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, proceedings will now resume on those amendments printed in house report 116411 on which further proceedings were postponed in the following order. Amendment number 7 by mr. Cisneros of california. Amendment 9 by ms. Mucarselpowell of florida. The chair will reduce to two minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote after the first vote in this series. The Unfinished Business is the request for recorded vote on amendment number 7 printed in 116411 by the gentleman from california, mr. Cisneros, on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the ayes prevailed by voice vote. The clerk will redesignate the amendment. The clerk amendment number 7 printed in house report number 116411, offered by mr. Cisneros of california. The chair a recorded vote has been requested. Those in support of the request for a recorded vote will rise and be count r counted. Be counted. A sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This will be a 15minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas are the chair on this vote the yeas and the nays are one. The amendment is adopted. The Unfinished Business is the request for a recorded vote on in dment number 9 printed house report 116411 by the florida, ms. Om mucarselpowell, on which proceedings were postponed and on which the ayes prevailed by voice vote. The clerk will redesignate the amendment. 9 clerk amendment number printed in house report 116411 ffered by ms. Mucarselpowell of florida. The chair a recorded vote has been requested. Those in support of the request for a recorded vote will rise and be counted. A sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This will be a twominute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] coip on this vote the yeas are 403. The nays are zero. The amendment is adopted. There being no further amendments, under the rule, the committee now rises. The chair mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole house on the state of the union has had under the consideration h. R. 1140 and according to House Resolution, House Resolutionle 77, i report the bill as amended by that resolution back to the house with sundry further amendments adopted in the committee of the whole. The speaker pro tempore the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the Union Reports that the committee has had under consideration the bill h. R. 1140 and pursuant to House Resolution 877, reports the bill as amended by that resolution back to the house with sundry further amendments adopted in the committee of the whole. Under the rule, the previous question is ordered. In a separate vote, demanded on any amendment reported from the committee of the whole . If not, the chair will put them enrows. The question is on the adoption of the amendments. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have t the amendments are agreed to. The questions question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. Third reading. The clerk a bill to enhance the Security Operations of the transportation and Security Administration and civil it of the transportation and Security Work force by applying the personnel system under title 5 United States code to employees of Transportation Security Administration to provide screening of all passengers and property, and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the ouse will be in order. He house will be in order. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from arizona rise . Mrs. Lesko thank you, mr. Speaker. I have a motion to recommit at the desk. The speaker pro tempore is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill . Mrs. Lesko i am in its current form. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman qualifies. The clerk will report the motion. The clerk mrs. Lesko of arizona moves to recommit the bill h. R. 1140 to the committee on Homeland Security with instructions to report the same back to the house forthwith with the following amendment. Add at the end of section 4 the following, c, roll of construction, during the transition period and after the conversion date, the secretary shall ensure that the Transportation Security Administration continues to prevent the hiring of individuals who have been convicted of a sex crime and offense involving a minor, a crime of violence, or terrorism. The speaker pro tempore the ouse will be in order. The gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. Mrs. Lesko thank you, mr. Speaker. I first want to say that the vast majority of t. S. A. Officers are good, hardworking professionals. But there are some bad actors. If the house could be in order, sir. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. Members will take their conversations off the floor. Mrs. Lesko on february 6, 2020 the state of california announced the arrest and prosecution of a former t. S. A. Screener. Resulting from an f. B. I. Investigation. According to the criminal complaint, the t. S. A. Screener used fraud or deceit to falsely imprison a woman going through security. While stationed as a travel document checker at Los Angeles International airport in june of 2019. The screener insisted that the woman passenger needed extra screening in a private elevator. Where he told the passenger to reveal her full breasts. Sir, the house is not in order. The speaker pro tempore the ouse will be in order. Mrs. Lesko again, this bad actor t. S. A. Screener told a passenger to reveal her full breasts and lift her pants and underwear. The victim in the case stated that she complied with the t. S. O. s instruction out of fear. Fortunately, this offender was immediately fired by the t. S. A. However, under this bill, h. R. 1140, if it passed, this predator could be on the federal payroll for months or even years. But this is not an isolated incident. In addition to the sexual predator at l. A. X. In the last five years alone the screener in bosston was caught luring teenage girls into posing for nude photos. The screener at la guardia molested a female College Student at the airport bathroom. And two screeners in denver plotted to grope attractive men. My amendment is simple. It would enhance Aviation Security and protect the flying public by preventing the t. S. A. From hiring any candidate with a history of sexual misconduct, offenses involving minors, or terrorism. This amendment is identical to an amendment offered by my democratic colleague, ms. Underwood, which was not offered here today. The underwood amendment was made in order by the rules committee. The rule was supported by every democrat in the house. Republicans strongly support the underwood amendment. We were disappointed we did not have an opportunity to vote on it earlier. The underwood amendment preserves the authority t. S. A. Currently has to prevent the hiring of candidates with a history of sexual misconduct, offenses involving minors, and terrorism. The underwood amendment is so important because current law bars a litany of criminals from working in sensitive roles at airports. The amendment simply ensures that current safeguards remain in place. Theres no reason that someone with a conviction for Sexual Assault or terrorism should be a t. S. A. Employee. To be clear, the underwood amendment, my amendment, would prevent the hiring of sexual predators like harvey weinstein. We have two options today. Adopt the underwood amendment and keep sexual predators off of the federal payroll. Or reject it and reward sexual predators with a paycheck from the taxpayer. I urge all of my members to support the motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida rise . I rise today to speak in opposition to this motion to recommit. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Speaker. 47,000 transportation Security Officers just heard the comments of my colleague, miss lesko. 47,000, many of them well see today as we cast our vote and fly home to our districts. Mrs. Demings im sure many people on this house floor will ay thank you for your service. 47,000 men and women who do the jobs to keep the flying public safe every day. The behavior that mrs. Lesko cited from l. A. X. , thats offensive to, im sure, much in this room. Everyone in this room. Let me be clear, there is nothing in this bill that will allow the t. S. A. To hire individuals who have been convicted of sex crimes or offenses against a minor, a crime of violence, or terrorism. Let me be clear, the example there is he cited nothing that would have precluded this person from being hired in the first place. The behavior took place after the person was hired. This is a red herring. And we decided not to offer this amendment because it simply isnt necessary. T. S. A. Conducts rigorous background checks and will continue to do so. Let me say this, i was assigned to the orlando International Airport as a Police Captain during 9 11. And i did not come today to play political games. Nd neither did the 242 cosponsors of this bill. Mr. Speaker, let me make this clear, a vote for this motion to recommit is a vote against the transportation Security Officers. They are the frontline workers who work through a Government Shutdown without being paid to keep america safe. They are still showing up today , each of them interacting with thousands of passengers even as we face a Public Health crisis. Today you have a choice. Move this bill forward and provide t. S. O. s the basic rights and benefits they deserve, or deny them those rights. Its just that simple. Mr. Speaker, today we have a bipartisan solution that will allow us to ensure that the work force gets the same Compensation Benefits and protections as are available to most other federal employees. It is about time that t. S. A. Federal work force be treated like federal employees. This is the time not to just say we appreciate you, but to show them how much we appreciate them. So i urge my colleagues to vote against this motion and in support of the bill on final passage. And with that, mr. Speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit. The question is on the motion to recommit. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The noes have it. Mrs. Lesko mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman arizona. Mrs. Lesko i call for the yeas and nays. The speaker pro tempore the yeas and nays are requested. Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. Members will record their votes y electronic device. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule 9 pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, this will be followed by fiveminute vote on pass afpblgt bill if ordered. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 227, the noes are 175. The motion is adopted. For what purpose does the gentleman from mississippi rise . Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the house in the notion recommit i report h. R. 1140 back to the house with an amendment. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the amendment. The clerk amendment offered by mr. Thompson of mississippi. At the end of section 4, add the following. C, construction after the conversion dade the secretary shall ensure that the Transportation Security Administration continues to prevent the hiferinge individuals who have been convicted of a sex crime, an offense involving a minor, a crime of violence, or terrorism. The speaker pro tempore the question is on adoption of the amendment. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. The amendment is agreed to. The question is on engrossment and third reading. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. Third reading. The clerk a bill to enhance the Security Operations of the Transportation Security Administration and stability of the transportation Security Work force by applying personnel system under title v United States code to employees of the Transportation Security Administration to provide screening of all passengers and property and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the question is on passage of the bill. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. Mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from alabama. Mr. Speaker, i ask for the yeas and nays. The speaker pro tempore the yeas and nays are requested. Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. Members, this is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas are 230. The nays are 171. The bill is passed. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas rise . To rise to indicate register my vote for the cisneros amendment, protecting veterans and having a focus of hiring veterans under the legislation h. R. 1140. Right for transportation Security Officers of 2020. I ask that my vote of aye be placed in the record at the appropriate place. Unanimous consent. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentlewomans statement will be recorded in the record. Ms. Jackson lee i thank you. The speaker pro tempore the chair will receive a message. The messenger mr. Speaker, a message from the president of the United States. The secretary mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore madam secretary. The secretary i have been directed by the president of the United States to deliver to the house of representatives a message in writing. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana seek recognition . Thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Scalise i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for the purpose of inquiring to the majority leader the schedule for next week. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Scalise i also ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Scalise with that, mr. Speaker, id be happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from maryland, the majority leader of the house. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. Preliminaryly, mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet on monday next when it shall convene at noon for morning business. And at 2 00 p. M. For legislative business. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Hoyer mr. Speaker, on monday the house will meet at 12 00 p. M. For morning hour debate and 2 00 p. M. For legislative business with votes postponed until 6 30 p. M. On tuesday and wednesday the house will meet at 10 00 a. M. For morning hour debate and 12 p. M. For legislative business. On thursday, mr. Speaker, the house will meet at 9 00 a. M. For legislative business with last votes of the week expected no later than 3 00 p. M. We will consider several bills under suspend the rules, the complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. The house will consider h. R. 2214, the no ban act. This bill would repeal the president s muslim travel ban and prevent the administration from putting in place other discriminatory travel bans. In addition, the house will consider h. R. 5581, access to counsel act. This legislation would make certain that those held or detained while attempting to enter the United States are guaranteed access to legal counsel. That legal counsel, mr. Speaker, would not be paid for by the government. Current fisa authorization expires march 15 excuse me. March 15, requiring action in the house in this house. Conversations are ongoing and i hope to bring legislation to the floor next week. Lastly, following senate kainnes war ator power resolution, its possible the house could consider the resolution in early next week. As early as next week. And i yield back to the minority leader. Mr. Scalise i thank mr. Hoyer minority whip. Mr. Scalise in relation to the no ban act, i understand there was a disagreement over whether or not you supported the president s ability to restrict travel from certain countries based on not whether they were Muslim Country but based on whether or not they were a country not in compliance with our department of Homeland Security requirements and criteria to ensure that they are properly vetting people that come to our country for National Security purposes. Specifically to ensure that people that are known terrorists. People that have other known criminal backgrounds are not able to come into our country. In most countries around the world, including a number of muslim countries, are in compliance and have a very good cooperative travel agreement between the United States and those countries, but there were limited number of countries back in 2017 that the president ultimately determined working through the department of Homeland Security were not in compliance. He listed those countries. He added a few more later. I know a number of people on your side were in disagreement with that. Some took that to court. Ultimately went to the u. S. Supreme court. The Supreme Court upheld this travel ban. But i want to point out to the gentleman that the department of Homeland Security has been very clear to these countries that if they comply with the basic reporting requirements, again that every other country in the world that has that same travel agreement with the United States, has, if they were to come into compliance, then they would be removed from the list. Chad is one of the countries that was originally listed. Chad worked with us as every country should and said, you know what, we are going to comply. We want to make sure that we are properly sharing information so that if people are coming to the United States from chad now they are properly vetted for terrorism and other criminal activities. And they got removed from the list. Any other country, by the way, has been invited to do that. They have chosen not to. Why is a good question they should be asked, but to criticize the president for using his executive authority to keep this country safe, to keep terrorists from coming into this country and ensuring that those nations that send people to the United States as we send them to their countries are in compliance with the requirements of the department of Homeland Security. Why would a bill like that be brought up, especially this time, when now with this coronavirus, there are a number of countries that we have seen starting with china that have a serious outbreak that we are trying to prevent from coming into our country. Under this bill that would be coming forward, not only does it limit the president s ability to protect us from having countries be able to send terrorists into our nation, now it would limit the president s ability to respond to a Health Crisis like the coronavirus, where there are some countries that are listed, like china and iran, that have to be screened or cant send people from those countries if they have been in those countries in the last 14 days t would tie the president s hand from even responding to that crisis. And we have seen, look, just today the governor of california probably not somebody thats philosophically aligned with the president too often, just sent a cruiseship back into the Pacific Ocean and said they cant come into san francisco. And thats the governors power and authority to provide for the health and safety of his state. Why would we want to tight hands of the president of the United States to ensure the health and safety of the people of this country . I yield to the gentleman. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. Give a relatively short answer. First of all, theres nobody in the house on either side of the aisle, certainly no proponents of this legislation, that want to Northern Ireland way limit the president s ability to protect america. Whether its from terrorists, whether its from the coronavirus, or some other threat that man festly manny festly presents itself to the safety and wellbeing of the American People. What the bill attempts to do is simply to preclude violating, in effect, the constitution of the United States in either making a religious test for admission to the United States of america, which very frankly, a number of statements of the president would indicate that in the past that that was what he intended to do. And in fact, was manifest in the very broad reach, unrelated to whether somebody was a terrorist but related to what their religion was or some other distinction unrelated. Obviously both the health and the safety of the American People would not be precluded would not preclude the president from acting to protect that. I think we would all agree on that. But clearly we believe the president has, in fact, gone far beyond specific ways and means to protect the American People and preclude people, as i said, of either a particular religion, a particular national it, or nationality, or some other broad based unrelated to the specific items to which you referred with which i think most of us agree. And of course well debate that next week. I yield back. Mr. Scalise we will debate that. The Supreme Court has addressed the constitutionality upholding it but it has no genesis in religious tests. It has a genesis in security of this country. And thats, again, you look at the nations that are listed in did the had went and things the department of Homeland Security said you needed to do got remove fled list. Every other country on that list has been invited to do basic sharing of information to make sure the people coming from those countries are not terrorists, not criminals, are not a Security Threat to our nation. Its a clear test. Every other country in the world already does it. These countries for some reason why does libya choose not to comply . I dont know, but they havent. Why does north korea choose not to comply . I dont know, but they havent. Any country, like chad, can address the deficiencies and be remove ned list. We will debate it but it does put additional red tape that would preclude him in the health arena from responding to nations that have a threat of coronavirus like the president was quickly able to do with china, quickly able to do with iran. He would not be able to quickly respond in the future under the bill proposed. We will have to debate that next week. I also mr. Hoyer i want to assure the gentleman that it is our view that nothing in this legislation will preclude the president of the United States either on the basis of National Security and the safety of our people, either from threats of terrorism or from health or for some other identifiable threat to the American People, from acting, this simply says he cannot act based upon the generalization that somebody is a muslim, somebody is from this country, somebody is from a nationality or different religion or some other arbitrary distinction. That he has to focus on specific reasons and in chinas case, for instance, we know that china has a very large outbreak of coronavirus. That it poses a proximate threat to the health not only of American People but people around the world and we need to take steps to ensure that thats contained. Well debate next week but we certainly dont accept the premise that the gentleman has just stated that somehow we will limit the president from protecting the American People for legitimate and necessary reasons. Yield back. Mr. Scalise i thank the gentleman. We do have disagreements on that hopefully we work through those in debate next week. Theres another bill that will be hopefully cominup that we can get agreement on, tt deals with components of the fisa law. I know the committee, Judiciary Committee, earlier this week had a markup that they ultimately pulled back on. There are negotiations ongoing between republicans and democrats to try to come to an agreement on not only how to renew the fisa law but also how to make the reforms that are critical and necessary to the fisa law to address the abuses we know happen. I would ask first, the gentleman, if your side is in a position of identifying some of the areas we can find agreement on on reforms because sub because we have submitted, i believe Ranking Member nunes, submitted a number of specific reforms and your side is reviewing those. Have you had a chance to review them . Alternate an proposal because the reforms are critical . Mr. Hoyer i am pleased to be able to tell the gentleman that this morning or late last night we sent a response to your offer and the committees have that in heir possession. I see theyre shaking their think wet they may not did it but we did. We sent a response to your offer, we agreed on a new mexico of items as the frankly the person that dealt with the person who had your job senator , and with bond from missouri now senator blunt, then minority whip blunt and Jay Rockefeller of west virginia, we worked on the reauthorization of fisa in 2008. We see the broad, bipartisan support. Im hopeful we can do that. This bill as you know, the authorization for section 215 expires on march 15. The attorney general, as you know, recommended that we pass a clean reauthorization. Obviously both sides felt that there were some things they wanted to deal with and wear doing that knew now. Hopefully we can get this done. I will assure the gentleman once we have agreement that i will ring that bill to the floor. Mr. Scalise does the gentleman yield back . Mr. Hoyer i yield back. Mr. Scalise i appreciate that the gentleman talked about the response. I havent seen the response yet but i look forward to working with our folks who are heavily involved in these negotiations to see if we can Reach Agreement because in the past, the program has had many supporters, republican and democrat, but clearly some detractors on both sides as well. Its a very critical tool in our National Security, the fisa courts have been used to stop terrorist activity, to prevent other terrorist attacks. T there are other ways to go back and forth on Civil Liberties and ensuring that the rights of americans are protected. Its a balance that was tested, frankly, in 2016, where we saw clear abuses of the fisa court. First time we had seen those kind of identify aid buses. They were limited but they were blatant. Its a dangerous affront to our nations National Security if you have people at intelligence agencies who abuse their power. In fact, the horowitz report was very specific in outlining 17 different exact abuses of the fisa court. Some of this is still being investigated through the durham investigation that will hopefully yield a list of specific people and ill just read from parts of the colonel horowitz report as more fully described in chap per five based on information known to the f. B. I. In october of 2016, the first application contained the following seven significant inaccuracies and omissions. It goes on in this report. In addition to repeating the seven significant error contained in the first fisa application and outlined above, we outlined 10 additional significant errors and three renewal applications based on information known to the f. B. I. After the first applications, before the renewals, where abuses of this fisa law occurred. Now, i think on both sides, we would agree that if somebody in a position of National Security abuses their power deliberately, they need to be held accountable. One of the concerns we have is that the law does not allow Strong Enough penalties. Im hopeful when the Durham Report comes out that the people that were identified as abusing their power in 2016 oug to be held accountable and in fact ought to go to jail for what they did. What they did not only undermined our electoral process but it jeopardizes a law that has bipartisan support, has bipartisan opposition as well and if somebody abused their power to take that process the fisa court, it undermines the integrity of the fisa court. We all need to Work Together to ensure that anybody who abuses their power is health fully accountable not only to hold them accountable but to ensure it doesnt happen again no republican, no democrat candidate for president ought to be concerned that people in intelligence agencies are abusing their power to try to undermine an election and if it happens, as we know it did, in the hor and the horowitz report is very specific. Hopefully the durham investigation names names and hopefully those people are held accountable and go to jail so that nobody else does it again. As we know there is the possibility for that to happen under current law. Thats why its so important that we get this agreement to make Critical Reforms necessary, to put guardrails in place, to keep the process available to our National Security experts so that they can continue to stop future terrorist attacks but to also ensure that if somebody abuses the process it makes it harder for them to do it but if they still cross the line there are still strong criminal penalties in place for those who would violate that law. I know we laid those out, im glad to know that weve come back with a response, hopefully we can get that agreement in the next few days before this haw expires, but clearly theres strong support, hopefully on both sides, for putting real reforms in place that fix and address the abuses that occurred in 2016 as identified by the horowitz report. I yield to the gentleman. Mr. Hoyer mr. Speaker, somewhat like the recitation of the Mueller Report thats been quoted, the Mueller Report of course found substantial rb to believe that there was wrong substantial reason to believe that there was wrongdoing. It was projected by the attorney general and others that the Mueller Report was a conclusion that the president or others had not done something wrong. That was not the fact. But in any event, with respect to the gentlemans comments, with respect to the what was done by the f. B. I. , it should not have been done obviously. But he didnt read this very important sentence from the i. G. , the Inspector Generals report. Regarding the courts decision. We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision, meaning the courts decision, the judges decision. The bill that we are talking about is reauthorizing section 215, none of this deals with section 215. It deals with metadata on which the parties have agreement. It also deals with Business Records and issues of lone wolves who are not necessarily associated with a terrorist organization but present a danger to the United States. And there are reforms that we can pursue to assure that the fisa court gets all the information it needs and in fact as a representative will make sure they get that, that is not associated with necessarily the Law Enforcement officers or Intelligence Officers that are presenting information to the fisa court. Unfortunately, i want to state candidly, from the president s focus on the paige case and the distracting from the issues that were dealing with, attorney general barr recommended that we reauthorize the fisa section 215 as is. Thats what the attorney general recommended. I dont know whether i dont know what his present position is because he was criticized by the president in a tweet. So heaven know what is he did in response to the tweet. But the fact of the matter is the issues which the gentleman will warrant appropriate, hops disclosure from individuals who present information to the fisa court. It is true we are pursuing reforms that lead to that end. This case, the focus on a nonrelated to section 215, which were really talking about, issue is slowing up this process. And i would hope that in the coming days, because the 15th is upon us, that we come to an agreement, as i say, weve sent an offer back, mr. Whip, and hopefully well hear back from you and hopefully we can Reach Agreement in the near term. This is an important thing to pass. Reauthorize for the security of our people. You were talking about security before. We need to make sure that we act in a bipartisan way to assure that the fisa process is working and working properly. I yield. Mr. Scalise i thank the gentleman. Clearly we i think, both agree that this fisa law has a strong role to play in our National Security. But theres also acknowledgment that there were abuses that happened there, not only with the horowitz investigation but we do have the durham investigation that will hopefully conclude and identify where those abuses took place, and that those people would be held accountable. We have had talks with the attorney general who recognizes, yes, he also agreed that the fisa law is critically important, wants to have the section renewed but does recognize that reforms can be made, how exactly we could come to an agreement just like with your side, we are having those negotiations. If people acknowledge that abuses occurred, it will be in our best interests as addressing this law that we strengthen the integrity of the law because its been exposed now. It has been exposed there were problems that occurred. And the other sections where that occurred is permanent law. This is not and coming up for renewal and part of the fisa law and as we debate the fisa law, all of it becomes part of that debate and hopefully it can resolve in the debate and ill confident we can get this done because i have seen the bipartisan interests. We need to make sure what we bring to the floor addresses the problems that occurred so it hopefully never happens again. And i would be happy to yield to the gentleman. With that, i yield back the balance of my time and look forward to seeing you next week. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The chair will now entertain requests for oneminute speeches. For what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for ne minute. Mr. Payne mr. Speaker, i rise today to praise my house colleagues for their swift and Decisive Action to the attack of the cor reasona threat yesterday. Members of both parties recognize that this disease is a national and Public Health crisis. That it will affect all americans regardless of political parties. Nd we came together to approve 7. 8 billion to protect the safety and the wellbeing of all americans. The Founding Fathers created this chamber for exactly that reason. And in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, i would like to discuss the Affordable Care act. Like our coronavirus bill yesterday, the a. C. A. Attacks Public Health crisis and improves the health and security of millions of americans especially those with preexisting conditions. I have saved money for it has saved money for American Workers and helped millions of American Families provide care for their children. If these attacks on the a. C. A. Are successful, 25 million americans will be uninsured. We do not want to avoid we do not not to avoid screenings for coronavirus or future virus us because they cannot afford it. With that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my marks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Thompson mr. Speaker, i ise today to recognize linds a borders. Linds a accepted an apointment to the United States military academy in west point, new york. She is a leader in her classroom and community. She is class president. Linds a is a an active of her church youth group. Her determination and drive will make her an excellent addition to the military academy and ill sure she will excel in her service to our country and thank lindsay for her willingness to serve and i wish her all the best in this exciting new chapter. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentlewoman is recognized or one minute. Today, mr. Speaker, i tv gnize bill biasa, an anchor who has been a reliable source of daily news for our community. Bill has been seen on tv screens across our cities for years where he reported on thousands stories and earned an emmy award for his reporting. Not only has he served our community as a distinguished journalist and anchor but also a proud vietnam veteran and he is a common sight at the veterans Day Celebration and parade every year. Bill, we thank you for your service. In the days of fake news and attacks on the media, you have always been above the fray and a trusted source. We will miss seeing you on the tv screen when we tune in for the daily news. For now, enjoy your retirement. You have earned it. And god bless. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize the hn Wesley United Methodist Church in cape may, south jersey on their celebration this year. The church is the oldest africanamerican church in all of cape may county. John wesley founded the church after escaping slavery in north carolina. The church is home to a cemetery where there are veterans from the civil war all the way to the vietnam war. I was proud to attend the celebration event on saturday, february 29. In addition to the celebration, the congregation is planning to hold an africanamerican cemetery tour in april of this year, which should be extremely enlightening and interesting. John wesleys Mission Statement is they will promote unity and differsity within our church and our community. Thank you for your commitment. I thank them and congratulate them of 180 years and may god bless and be upon them. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from Virgin Islands seek recognition . Ms. Plaskett i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentlewoman is recognized. Ms. Plaskett this is womens history month. I rise to recognize mela larson who was born in chicago in 1891. Her mother was a danish immigrant and her father immigrant from the danish west independentees now known as the u. S. Virgin islands. She attended schools in chicago until she moved to nashville. She later practiced nursing, served as a librarian in the New York Public Library and after resigning, she began a literary career. Her first novel which won her a Harmon Foundation bronze medal and after the publication of her second novel passing in 1929, larson was awarded the first guggenheim fellowship, establishing her as a premier novelist and died in new york in 1964. Her work explored the complex issues of racial identity and identification in fiction. Her critics remain conflicted about her foff else quicksand and passing, there is no question they are groundbreaking literary texts. And won awards through the 1930s and throughout. Larson is considered to be one of the most important female voices in the harlem renaissance. We remember her voice now. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Virginia military institute is renowned for many achievements but i recognize v. M. I. For producing the highest numbers of fulbright scholars. This world Renowned Program seeks to improve cultural relationships through the exchange of students, faculty and ideas. The three bright individuals to receive this honor are Second Lieutenant anita, ties colonel harold sandborn and jeff generalson. Second lieutenant ties used her fulbright to teach english on. Colonel sandborn used this opportunity to study legislative politics in hong kong and colonel generalson will conduct research in madrid. Sandborn and generalson were 170 to receive fulbright scholarships. Im proud these three individuals exemplify that the 6th district attracts. Congat you lations to v. M. I. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. I rise to recognize the Wounded Warrior program, which is a Bipartisan Initiative that provides opportunities for injured veterans and Service Members to continue their service to our country by working right here in the United States congress. Mr. Kildee i have passed legislation supported by republicans and democrats to expand the Wounded Warriors program by investing, we expand Job Opportunities for veterans and bring importantly their critical insight to the work that we do right here in congress. For the past two years, i have had the distinct privilege of having a Wounded Warrior fellow, Danielle Stevens in my office. Throughout her tie in my office, she has served my district by advising me on important legislation and very importantly being an advocate for veterans in case work she has been involved with, including veterans who lost earned benefits, had them taken away from them due to clerical errors. She was able to work to get those benefits restored changing the lives of those families. She will be leaving my office to continue her Public Service at the u. S. Marshals service. I thank her for her service to our country. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from arizona seek recognition . I would like to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentlewoman is recognized. Ms. Lesko i rise today with Great Sadness over the passing of colonel ronald lord from goodyear, arizona. Mayor husband, to georgia lord. He was a caring and kind father, grandfather and greatgrandfather and he was loved by many. While serving as a Fighter Pilot in the United States air force during the vietnam war, he bravely fought against hostile north vietnamese forces. Ron was an american hero. And we are eternally grateful for his service. On behalf of the arizonas 8th congressional district, i extend my deepest condolences to rons family and loved ones and as they mourn their loss. And i yield back. He speaker pro tempore mr. Speaker, today i would chocap congratulate the emp e wrestling team who competed as class 3a champions. Congratulations to the wrestlers for the hard work that went into preparing for this perfect season. The dedication you have demonstrated is unparalleled and your success is well deserved. Also thank you to the parents and the coaches and the teachers and the meantors who dedicate their time because they are equally committed to your success and future. Congat you lations. Enjoy this moment. Youve earned it. With that, mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Speaker, i rise to remind my colleagues of what is it at stake in the Supreme Court in coming weeks. Ms. Schakowsky yesterday, the court began to hear argument in a major abortion rights case, june medical services versus rizzo. If the louisiana law is in question goes into effect, only one clinic remains in the entire state, only one physician would continue to provide Abortion Services to the 10,000 woman who sought them every year. That outcome would deny thousands of women in louisiana their constitutional protection, the protected right to access abortion care. And in 2016 the court already decided that an identical case was unconstitutional. But since President Trump has added two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, it is more important than ever to speak out about what is at stake and im proud to do that today. The court should uphold the louisiana law and not turn it over. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition . Address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for one minute, without objection. Mr. Speaker, i rise today to recognize bill gardner, receiving the distinguished award for his work through the atekeepers Reentry Program in haguerstown, maryland. Gatekeep sers a program that addresses one of the top needs in our criminal justice system, supporting returning sints. Today, 90 of incarcerated people get released into their own communities but many struggle to find the resources and support to thrive. A returning citizen himself, bill was 70 years old when he was released from prison. Mr. Trone the started the gatekeepers organization when he realized the challenges those released from prison face as they reenter society. He provides connections to resources so folks can be successful as they transition back to their community. We should all be working toward a more just criminal justice system. Id like to congratulate bill on his muchdeserve aid ward for his work much deserved award for his work to serve a much impacted community. Yield back. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . Unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore without objection the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today to recognize the heroism of two new jersey state troopers, trooper Robert Tarlton and state Police Lieutenant edward ryer. On march 2, trooper tarlton was stopped and talking with a driver in new jersey when a tractor trailer ran off the red, hit a structure and burst into flames. The trooper ran toward the scene where he met lieutenant ryer who was off duty but had stopped to help. With no thought of their personal safety they grabbed the incapacitated driver from the breakage, dragging him to safety, seconds before the truck exploded. Thank you, trooper tarlton and lieutenant ryer for your selfless action that saved a mans life. I also want to take a moment to recognize the everyday acts of heroism by our law enforce. Officers that may not make the news or be captured on a body cam as this one was. We call them when we need help and no matter how dangerous the situation, they always come. We are grateful. Thank you and i yield back. The speaker pro tempore under the speakers announced poll soy of january 3, 2019 policy of january 3, 2019, the gentlewoman rom iowa, ms. Finkenauer, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. Ms. Finkenauer thank you, mr. Speaker, for recognizing me. I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on my special order. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Ms. Finkenauer thank you. I am congresswoman Abby Finkenauer and it is an honor to represent the great state of iowa and the first congressional district. Weve been getting a lot of great things done here in the house, working across the aisle, moving a lot of bipartisan bills forward. I got since i got sworn in over a year ago. Its been an honor to represent my district and have its back every day. In the middle of all of this, i have also happened to have gotten engaged a couple of months ago to my very kind and supportive fiance who is sitting up there in the gallery right now. Hes been there through so much of this and im grateful every day. You see, we are very much looking forward to one day starting our life together and talking raising a family. And doing it in iowa. And how much that means to us. So it would surprise most folks to know that just about four weeks ago on a friday afternoon, after votes, i was back where i stay in d. C. , sitting on my bed, doubled over in pain, googling hysterectomies. It was a pain familiar to me, stabbing, in my lower left abdomen, and the tight pain like two fists clenched not vise grip in my lower back. I know this pain well because ive been experiencing it intermittently for over the past decade. Because i have a condition called endometriosis. I have had this most of my adult life. I was luckily diagnosed at a 18. G aging at the early age of a lot of women dont get accurate diagnoses until much later in life. Endometriosis is a painful condition where the tissue that lines the uterus grows outside ancan attach to organs an nerves. Its also the number one cause of hysterectomies for women ages 30o 35. And ive already had two surgeries. Laparascope where they went in and burnt off the tissue. Ive white knuckled my way through more events and days, knocking on doors, than i can count. There are so many women out there who have been told that this stabbing pain in your lower left abdomen is normal. Or that, youre told the tightness in that low back, that youre doubled over with in your bed is normal. But none of that is normal. And on this particular day, four weeks ago, i felt like i had enough. So i sat there, frustrated at the prospect of more delays in an airport, in severe pain, i was looking at some of the most extreme options that are out there that would mean i couldnt even have children. And to be honest with you, i just got frustrated because it shouldnt be this hard. It should be more well known and there should be more options for treatment. And i was looking as i was looking up hysterectomies i came across a place called the Endometriosis Foundation of america and their website was full of information, some i didnt know as somebody who has been living with this for 10 years. Like that it affects one in 10 women worldwide. An estimated seven to 10 million in the United States alone. Or that its the leading cause of infertility but theres no known cure. You see when i was looking up hysterectomy the reason theres not more options, or options are so slow to come by is because its also one of the least funded diseases and conditions in congress by the National Institute of health. So once i decided to Start Talking about this, the amount of people, whether its their staff who has it or their sister who has it or possibly, you know, somebody they work with every day or people theyve met on the campaign, i mean, it just goes on and on the amount of people that this touched and the women who have it and the men and women who love them who have it. I am also reminded as i decided to look into this how lucky i am. You see, im lucky that i had a mom who believed me. Who believed my pain. And Good Health Insurance from my dads union. Where we could go to doctor after doctor after doctor until finally somebody said hey, she might have this, we better take a look at it. And thats when, again, i was able to be diagnosed. I am lucky to have great support from my staff and others but there are so many, so many women across the United States who dont have that support. Including when i decided to talk about this, just a few weeks ago, i was actually getting my hair trimmed and my rare esser, heard me say the word endometriosis, she said, do you have it . She said i said yeah. She said i feel like im being stabbed in my lower abdomen. I said i know that pain. She has three jobs and is dealing with it every day. Its something where she doesnt have the luxury to not show up. Many women dont. You just push through it and you get through that pain day in and day out. And i know there are so many women hearing this today who may be hearing their pain described for the very first time. And that is why i want to make sure that i give a voice to them today and say that its ok to talk about this. So thats why i decided to do what i am doing today. See, im in a position with a platform as a member of congress and i can talk about this important issue that touches so many women across the u. S. And i to be honest with you i didnt say anything for years because i was afraid that people would think i was weak. That i couldnt do my job. But thats not true. I show up, every day, ive done it for the last decade, ive represented my state and district well and it is not weak to talk about it, in fact, the women who are living with it every day, they are strong as heck. And its time that people across the country know about what this is. Every day, women are pushing through their pain and living their lives. They are not weak. They are strong. And i am not standing here alone because once i started talking about this with my colleagues, i found out how many other members of congress are touched by this or know people who have this. Again, sisters we found out about, comms direct dwhrires work with and just this morning after i started talking about it there was another congressman who came up to me and said his wife has it. As i talk about it more in my personal life ive also met more omen who struggle with endometriosis. So i am standing there today with them, in support of them and their pain. And today, at the beginning of this endomeriosis awareness month, we are launching the very first endometriosis caucus. Through this bipartisan caucus were going to raise awareness with the public and in congress to get more funding and the kind of support that this disease deserves. We need to end the stigma around endometriosis and bring more attention to this condition affecting millions of women and their families and friends. So today i ask my colleagues in congress and everyone watching to join me in this movement, join this caucus, and we have to up endo funding, up endo research, and up endo awareness. It is too important and there are too many women across the United States and worldwide who deal with this every day to be ignored for far too long. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today about this important issue and with that, mr. Speaker, i yield back. Or madam speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore thank you. The gentlewoman yields back. Under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2019, the gentleman from texas, mr. Gohmert is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. Mr. Gohmert thank you, madam speaker. Much going on. Appreciated the tribute of my colleague a few moments ago to Law Enforcement. One of the things that arose out of the evil hatred that brought about 9 11s attacks was people began to appreciate our military again and began to appreciate ur First Responders again. It was a very Welcome Development and it seems that in recent years so much of that respect and admiration has been clouded by false allegations against some Law Enforcement and so its great to hear other colleagues talk about the importance of our Law Enforcement and the role they play. Unfortunately, what many consider to be the greatest Law Enforcement agency or department n the world has been badly clouded by bad actors within the federal bureau of investigation did yourham torney is investigating and havent seen any results come from that at this point. We have terribly inappropriate, not criminal conduct from f. B. I. Agents in recent years that resulted in no punishment. We had christopher wray, the direct tore of the f. B. I. Before our committee recently and i questioned him about the f. B. I. Gent who falsified information , in bmit to the fisa court essence changing the information that said carter page did work for Intelligence Agency and saying he did not. And instead of the dect tore punishing him, he was allowed to resign. Thats not hardly cleaning up criminal conduct. The people that swore to applications and affidavits before the fisa court in order to get warrants to spy upon carter page, the Trump Campaign was obviously the goal. We havent seen people punished, but the reputation of the f. B. I. And those good f. B. I. Agents who do enforce and follow and properly investigate the law, they suffered. But its going to take obviously, to me, a different director of the f. B. I. In order to clean up the f. B. I. And get their reputation. Simply allowing people to resign or retire when all appearances engaged in criminal conduct when they are supposed to be investigating criminals, thats not enough. To deny and to turn the other cheek when you find out about impro priorities within your department, thats not enough. As christians we believe in what jesus taught about turning the other cheek or loving your enemy, but theres a different role for christians when theyre in government and that does not an ignoring criminal impropriety. Like romans 1 talks about. If you do evil, you are supposed to be afraid because the government does isnt given the sword in vein but supposed to punish evil doers. We are supposed to have good oversight in congress and had the f. B. I. Been allowed to delve into great problems here in washington and not just in washington, but even working for the district of columbia. The agent possibly agents he helped cover up for the enron brothers further cast clouds over the reputation of the f. B. I. But here again, thats in washington. Across the country and around the world, we have good f. B. I. Agents. But when my very dear friend, other, phillip hawaiiany was ound with a haney was found with a gunshot wound in california, i wish i was comforted that are f. B. I. Agents were being sent to the county to assist the investigation. I dont know what agents were sent. I dont know if they were good strzok and. B. I. Like mccabe and others who had no problems with being political and being dishonest in their jobs. And i know Inspector General orowitz has come out about another investigation, but the manner of which he did a great in f finding impro prites opposite to what the conclusions were, is a bit disturbing. But we need the f. B. I. Cleaned up. We need the reputation and needs to come back not through coverups which appears to me has been going on in recent years, but from actually cleaning out those who have been abusing their authority. We are supposed to be taking up the issue of a couple of provisions, the patriot act, section 215 is coming up fortunately for sunset. We should be taking up the issue of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, fisa court. But when we have addressed that, when its come up and have had private discussions with federal authorities, those of us on the Judiciary Committee in the past, going back to my first year here in 2005, we had been assured that this is fisa, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose is to help us go after foreigners who are known who arets or foreigners or have relationships with known terrorist organizations. Thats who were going after. So the only time we were assured years ago that we may pick up and american citizen is if there is contact with known Foreign Terrorists or foreign terrorist organizes. Otherwise, we dont even pick them up. We find out now, years later, those were lies. The f in fisa stands for foreign. But what we have come to find out through the f. B. I. Dishonesty in pursuing the Trump Campaign was that actually they go after american citizens on a regular basis. It is a regular thing. They use the fisa court to spy on americans to spy on the Trump Campaign and constantly grabbing up americans phone records and there was a time they could say with a straight face is, we are only getting the mega data that we can run and see if there are any terrorist numbers in there. We know thats not what has been going on. Maybe that has, but what additionally has been going on and we saw this with chairman schiff. He was able to get information about people in his own committee, phone numbers, people they had called because the days its g able to say well metadata. Whose number and metadata and spying on americans. Unless there is dramatic cleanup and we have seen no indication from the fisa judges themselves that they have enough pride in their position that they would be offended by fraud upon their courts, i dont have a problem with the fisa courts going away. We succeeded in winning world war ii when we had Important National secrets and we went through korea, went through the cold war, the worst of the cold wars. And now over 40 years or so later, we find out that the use of the fisa court has did he involved into abuse of the fisa courts so the american citizens are routinely spied upon and they are not foreign, they are american citizens. So i would love to see and really appreciated, we subsidy on lots of things but representative lofgren from california, most of us would say shes much more liberal, but she has always been concerned about American Civil Rights and in talking with her yesterday, im still impressed. She is still concerned about americas civil rights. And we should not have americans spied on. So i know congresswoman lofgren has been working on ways to try to actually clean up the fisa that and make some reforms would help clean things up. But im to the point with so ny abuses that we have found we could could either do away with them or going back to the days and i mean as a judge handled so many warrants, applications, affidavits for warrants, signed warrants, you have to have probable cause that a crime is committed. Probable cause that this person probably committed the crime and then you had to describe with particularity, that is a requirement, you have to describe with particularity the thing to be searched and the thing to be searched for. And none of that is often the case that none of those things are found in fisa applications, affidavits and warrants, at least from the things that we have seen. O the solution in prior days when there was no fisa court, you would file a motion with a in and ask for an an camera view and ask that the documents be sealed for National Security purposes. There was normally a time limit from the ones im aware of, time limit of how long they were sealed. And that was to protect National Security if it involved national secrets, National Security secrets. But at least it would seem and i certainly hope that if we are going to reform the foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts that we have an amendment that says, you know, since the f in then tands for foreign, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts are not going to be granting warrants against american citizens. If someone in federal Law Enforcement, especially the f. B. I. , wants to spy on an american citizen, then go to an article 3 Federal District court to get your warrant. You shouldnt be able to go to this secret Star Chamber Court to spy on american citizens. That was never ever anticipated as one of the jobs of the fisa courts when those were created back in the 1970s. We are going to clean it up. And the f. B. I. Has shown no pro pencity to clean it up themselves and to police themselves and the fisa courts themselves have not shown that ability or pro pencity. Many of them have been advocating since we found out about widespread abuse in the fisa courts, some indicated that maybe we allow the fisa courts to appoint a friend of the court to stand in for the interests of the person against whom a warrant is being sought, that should be an adequate reform. And then that was proved to be totally bogus back in december when after this fisa judge who apparently had pride in her court to punish people who committed a fraud upon the urt, an amicus was appointed nunes was that devin lying and devin was exactly right in the things he put in his report, that the amicus that the fisa Court Appointed was either lying or just completely ignorant. And thats the law that the amicus was appointed as the friend of the court. So clearly the fisa courts are not capable of cleaning up their own messes. Hey enjoy apparently being having fraud committed upon them and their courts as long as they get to keep signing warrants against american citizens without the american citizens having the right to come in and contest it. So i would if were going to leave the fisa courts at least lets have an amendment, i surely hope this will become a very bipartisan effort to say, its a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act so were not going to allow a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to grant warrants against american citizens. You want those, go to an article 3 court. For those not familiar with the constitution, i realize theres more and more these days, since more schools are having to teach to the federally mandated tests and theres no civics questions im aware of that are compelled to be asked in the mandated federal test, we dont have as Many High School students, graduates from high school, who know about article 1, 2, and 3 of the constitution. Recent survey in recent years at least indicated that as i recall more young people 25 and under can identify the three stooges than can identify the three branches of the federal government. Executive, legislative and judicial. So article 3 is the article dealing with the courts. And as my old constitutional law professor david gwynn used to ay, theres only one Court Created in the constitution, and thats the Supreme Court. All other federal courts owe their existence and their jurisdiction to the United States congress. In other words, congress brought them into the world, congress can take them out of the world. So i would hope that if we dont eliminate the fisa court because of such broad abuses that would allow and encourage and not one d to abuses when administration is seeking to spy and participate in a coup against another partys candidate, then its time to eliminate the court and if not eliminate the court, at least eliminate the ability of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to grant warrants against american citizens. American citizens are supposed to be able to have those civil rights and they have been taken away by the creation and abuse of the fisa courts and its time that this congress in a bipartisan method came together and said enough of the abuses, and lets face it. President trump has been getting federal judges appointed and confirmed in record numbers. And i think from what i can tell, attorney general barr is doing what he can to clean up the Justice Department and im sure he would defend christopher way, i just happen to disagree with the job that the director of the f. B. I. Currently is doing. But there are going to be some people that are interested in justice who replace those who have been extremely partisan, as weve seen, and i would encourage my friends across the isle who have seen how helpful the f. B. I. Was to Democratic Administration politically but just to keep in mind there are changes being made and its not going to be so helpful to one party over another in the future and i would hope that colleagues on both sides of the aisle would come together to say you know what . This really is the time. Weve got to stand up for american rights and its one thing under the constitution to have writs of habeas corpus suspended in a time of war but its quite another to prevent writs of habeas corpus because american citizens dont even know that theyre being spied upon by their own government and cases being made against them through spying by their own government without probable cause, without proper warrants, its time to fix that. And i hope this will be the congress that does so. So we have this article in the Washington Times yesterday, it says f. B. I. Missed chances to stop domestic terror attacks because of a lack of followup. According to the horowitz report. This points out apparently in this article points out that the i. G. Investigation revealed lapses in the bureaus assessment, allowed perpetrators of some of the most deadly attacks in recent history to fall through the cracks. And thats understandable since the f. B. I. Was trying to help prevent donald trump from being elected president and then trying to participate in what certainly appeared to be an attempted coup that gee they were just too busy to prevent some of these terrorist attacks, but according to the article, the i. G. Report, omar mateen who killed 49 people at the pulse nightclub in orlando, florida, 016, tar navy killed tsarnaev killed people at the boston marathon, the man who massacred people at fort hood, texas, in 2009. Est ban santiago who killed five people in a 2017 attack at fort auderdale, International Airport. The f. B. I. Acknowledged that various weaknesses related to its assessment process may have impacted its ability to fully investigate certain counterterrorism assessment subjects who later committed terrorist acts in the United States. This says the Inspector Generals report is the latest black eye for the bureau, thats the f. B. I. Of course. Which has been besieged by allegations of political taint and questions of competence. Quote, any time theres a criticism of course it undermines the public faith in the bureau and that can never be good because the f. B. I. Depends on the public trust. Ccording to lewis shaliro, a formered of the f. B. I. s new york field office. But on further down it says, even after the f. B. I. Discovered lapses in its assessments of potential terrorist threats, Field Office Managers failed to properly implement changes or conduct consistent oversight of counterterrorism investigations, the report said. Roughly 40 of the f. B. I. s counterterrorism aseasment assessments went unaddressed for 18 months even after Bureau Officials discovered investigative lapse, mr. Horowitz wrote. The f. B. I. First investigated mateen in 2013 three years before he carried thoit deadly pulse shooting. Agents closed the case months later and did not properly address his history of mental illness, the report said. Agents investigated tsarnaev ahead of the bostomarathon bombing even after interl Bureau Database flagged tsarnaev, agents closed the probe after concluding he hado nexus to terrorism, unquote. That was interesting. The tsarnaev investigation, i had the opportunity to question director f. B. I. Director mirl about that mueller about that because tsarnaev was identified by the russians. He had been overhes been in an area where some muslims had been radicalized, making them as dicals a threat to nonradicalized muslims, both childrens, nonradicalized muslims, jews, others who were not radicalized muslims. And in fact russia had note fid the f. B. I. , and to the f. B. I. s credit, apparently from what we found, they did send an agent and it uestion tsarnaev sounded like they asked him if he was a terrorist and he assured them he wasnt. They went above and beyond, questioned his mother, she assured them he was a good boy, he wasnt a terrorist. And as i put to director mueller, you didnt even go out to the mosque where they were attending there and find out information that would have revealed whether they had been radicalized or not. And about all mueller could come back with was that they did go out to that mosque, not to investigate tsarnaev, but to actually just have part of their Community Outreach program. I said you probably didnt even know who founded that mosque. Well, it happened he didnt. He didnt know. But it was founded by a man who is doing 23 years in federal prison for supporting terrorism. But before mueller came in and purged the f. B. I. Of twaining of training materials that would allow f. B. I. Agents to identify who were the peaceloving muslims and who the small group that had been radicalized that wanted to kill nonradicalized muslims, he purged them, as ive said before, when of our agents said, he eliminated he blinded us of our ability to see who was a threat. Thank you very much, director mueller. He purged the training materials. There was an advance course for f. B. I. , i think 700 pages of training and mueller ordered all of that eliminated. Fortunately, after he left and after we had more attacks and more americans died, eventually the training was brought back for some f. B. I. Agents. But it still needs work. But these f. B. I. Agents, they didnt know what to look for. Because mueller had eliminated the training materials that would have helped them know what to look for in radical in radicalized attacks. And of course my friend who was found dead with a bullet hole in his chest, he was investigating its lled interesting, some of the training that that group did including the killers in san diego, there are certain training that they undergo, im ot going to get into, but if someone is undergoing that training it should send up red flags. Certain parts of that training at least. That this person may be on the road to radicalization. Just very unfortunate that our most powerful investigative body had been so purged of people that could recognize radicalization that could put americans at risk and americans died as a result of that effort. By director mueller and others within the f. B. I. This article goes on and points Inspector General said the bureau bungled the case of Elton Simpton who simpson who tried to ambush a garland, texas, art exhibit featuring cartoon images of the prophet moment, the central figure of islam. Though the prophet mohamed, the central figure of islam. They determined he was not a significant threat. Mr. Horowitz said even though the f. B. I. Sought to address the problem, it failed to conduct the necessary oversight to implement the recommended changes. And i would humbly submit that when comey took over from mueller, he did not improve matters at the f. B. I. When it came to identifying threats against american citizens. Id like to address the issue of the coronavirus. We have heard allegations that our president is just totally out of it, totally uninformed, totally unprepared to deal with the coronavirus and sometimes the best way to analyze whether itnot a leader is not out of but actually has taken bold teps to protect americans is helped along by comparing. To a prior administration, for example. Theres an article there is an article by dr. Angela baldwin now Novel Coronavirus compares to sars and mers and other violent outbreaks. And dr. Baldwin points out that the middle eastern respiratory syndrome was first reported in saudi arabia in 2012. Of the 27 countries affected globally, 10 countries are in or near the peninsula and 17 countries are outside the a rabian peninsula. Only two patients in the u. S. Ever tested positive for mers. To date, there have been 2,500 aboratory confirmed cases of m s and the flu is other contagious with symptoms to mers d sars and called by a and b viruses, different strains are responsible for the flu season that occurs every day. C. D. C. Estimates 18,000 to 46,000 flu deaths so far this season. E swine flu, which was the h1n1 virus caused the 2009 lobal pandemic and 151,000 people worldwide died from that virus in 2009. Of those there were an estimated 12,400 deaths in the United States. Deaths from erican that virus . I was shocked to read that. I didnt remember reading or hearing that during the Obama Administration there was such a ak response to the h 1 n 1 virus that we had people die from that virus. So its interesting, President Trump reacted immediately to the information that a virus of the ture of the coronavirus, covid19 coming from china. He reacted by restricting travel from those areas and thank goodness he reacted so quickly even though he was condemned by some democrats for being racist xenofobe. He was trying to protect america from this virus so he suffers the slings and arrows of being a called a racist or zeeno fobe. But he didnt care because he was protecting the American People. There is no doubt we would have had many, many more americans infected with the virus. He reacted with regard to our southern board that has been so pourous despite his best efforts. And we, no doubt, have been saved from many more cases of the covid19 arising here in the United States by the efforts of ur Border Patrol and the trump administration. This article points out in toparison, covid19 compared virus and infected 85,000 people since january of this year. In the United States there have been about 70 dayses. There may be more than 100 now. But this article dated march 2 says two people have died, but i believe there are more than that, maybe many as 10 who have died here in the United States. And i wish we were getting a report out that these are normally our Senior Citizens that have some preexisting Health Condition and so we should be encouraging senior , izens and Retirement Homes they all should be very, very careful because it seems that our seniors are most at risk here and around the world. While covid19 seems to spread easily, the symptoms are mild particularly for people who are relatively young and healthy. The sars and mers had significantly higher death rates. And seasonal flu is a cause of respiratory illness that can cause hospitalization and death. An emergency physician in lenox city hospital, make sure you get a flu shot and much more likely to contract the flu and the coronavirus infection. He warns that Older Persons should get vaccinated against pneumonia and shingles because they are more likely to develop a viral infection, such as the coronavirus. But every one of those americans who has died, 10 or so, im sure the number will grow, its a tragedy. Its devastating to the loved ones and im just surprised we didnt hear a whole lot about the 12,400 americans during the ama administration that died from that virus. Obviously, the media gets much more up in arms over 10 americans dying from the coronavirus than they did over the 12,400 that may have died in n1 year in america from h1 virus. Was concerned earlier here an hour or so ago to hear our majority leader hoyer, as i understood him to say next week the majority here want to prevent President Trumps travel ans. Were finding out that because of President Trumps travel bans. Lives have been saved the coronavirus has not spread as it surely would have. And so the answer next week will be to restrict President Trumps ability to save americans lives by preventing people from coming into this country from areas where the coronavirus is found to be widespread . People coming in without adequate ability to make sure they are not ineffected . I was very sorry to hear that that is something we apparently are going to take up next week. Media,cle here from p. J. Victoria taft, february 28, 2020 and the headline says fact check. Obama waited until millions were infected and a thousand dead in the United States before h1n1 an emergency. Thats the virus we were just talking about. Any way, thats a rather interesting article pointing out the difference between president obamas response to the virus and the thousands that died as a result actually the other article talked about 12,400. Theres an article here from the centers for disease control, une 25, 2012, first global estimates of 2009 pandemic mortality released by c. D. C. Led collaboration. T it points out the result that will resulted in estimated range of deaths 151,000 deaths who perished from the worldwide 2009 h1n1 during the first year the virus circulated. I really dont have the information on how Many Americans died apparently that 12,400 was just in the first year. So no telling how many died during the eight years of the Obama Administration. So we got more work to do, but i dont think its helpful to blame President Trump for trying to protect american citizens from being exposed more and more the coronavirus or covid19. We have another note, we have heard about the afghanistan peace agreement. Hearing ns have been during the Bush Administration that they took a great deal of dvice from former ambassador khlazhad and sure sounds like he made a mess of the bush Foreign Policy with regard to afghanistan. When discussions were being held, what kind of government should we give afghanistan, that troubles me. We shouldnt be asking that question. That should have been a question for the afghans. Ad was an american and was listed during the Obama Administration, which explains some of their problems of getting out as president obama wanted to do. He said he was going to and he was sure trying, but problems kept arising. And i would think if somebody gives advice that didnt help the Bush Administration, didnt help the Obama Administration, then i deeply regret that anybody in the Current Administration would be taking advice from that same individual. But the taliban were our enemy. They never indicated that they. Nt to stop killing americans as our allies who fought and successfully defeated the taliban within six months of 9 11. By the end of february, 2002, after the taliban had been identified as our enemy helping al qaeda with the attack on the , we ates on 9 11 actually i say we, our allies defeated the taliban. There is no organized taliban in afghanistan. The groups had been devastated. We provided aerial support. We had about 300 special ops people in there embedded with general dustins Northern Alliance groups, different tribal groups that we supported and they routed the taliban. Some fled to pakistan, but there was no organized taliban left. And then the mistake occurred, what kind of government should we give them and lets occupy afghanistan for a while. They have never done well in afghanistan and that still remains true. But the biggest problem i have was the advice and im told, could be corrected, but im told by people that were around back the second bush term that khlazhad was saying we need to give them a strong Central Government and not a federalist government like we have in america where local and states, but give them a strong president and gave them a constitution that we basically forced on them that made the president all powerful. The president of afghanistan appoints the governors. He appoints the mayors, he appoints the Police Chiefs. And what i hear from some of our afghan friends, while it was arzai. Ghanni is trying to do better. They would appoint people that didnt live in the city to come in and rule over it. And what our allies that fought with us in initially defeating the taliban was for our help to get afghanistan to amend their constitution so they get to elect their governors, they get to elect their mayors and get to select their own Police Chiefs, because what the constitution that we gave them is a formula for corruption. You know, who pays off the president to become the governor or the mayor . I mean, thats a formula for corruption. Its easy to see when we gave them that constitution, thats where it was headed. And as some of our former allies, the former Northern Alliance, have told me, look, if we could elect our own governors, elect our own mayors, like you do in america, pick our own Police Chiefs, then, yes, we know theyve been saying this for years. We know youre going to have to pull out at some time. We understand. Thats fine. You dont want to be an occupier. We dont want you to be. Leave the president as allpowerful and he picks the governors and mayors and police chief, then all the taliban have to do when you leave is either knock him off or corrupt him and then they will control the whole country and theres nothing we can do about it. And in fact all of us who fought with you americans and helped defeat the taliban, actually they defeated the taliban initially, theyre all going to be dead. They said, were going to all be dead so that when the taliban gets Strong Enough again, they attack you again, and you come to afghanistan looking for allies, were going to all be dead and nobody is going to want to be your ally because you allowed us all to die when you allowed the taliban to take back over. So, i would hope that that is something that we will work afghans, lowing the helping them. I say, what makes you think we could help you amend your own constitution . I was told, well, you guys pay most of our budget. If you say were not going to o and if you force us to do that, well amend our constitution and well get to elect our governors, like you do, elect our mayors, like you do. Pick our own Police Chiefs like you do. And we wont have people brought in through corruption or avoritism and well be able asthma sued said, look, when you leave, if we get to elect our own governors, mayors, pick our own Police Chiefs, yeah, the taliban may be able to take over one or two provinces. T the rest of us will band together again as we did in 2001 and 2002 and well kick them out again. But if you leave us where the taliban can take over complete control, where all the control is in the president of afghanistan, were all going to be killed. And you wont have any allies to fight with you and for you when the taliban hits you again. So i hope well quit taking advice from a person, no matter how well meaning or not, has just proved to be totally wrong in administration after administration. And i think that we can do as the president truly wants to do, get out of afghanistan and save merican lives. I want to address one other thing and thats the comments of the majority leader of the senate. Im sorry, the minority leader of the senate. Made out at the Supreme Court rally. Theres an article here from fox ews, edmund demarch. Says, the American Bar Association said on wednesday its deeply troubled by a comment made by Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, democrat from new york, outside the Supreme Court. What he said was a direct threat to two sitting justices. Schumer was at a rally over a highprofile Abortion Case while the case played out inside. Schumer named associate justices neil gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and in an impassioned speech said, quote, you have released and you will pay the price. You wont know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions. Now, justice goodman, a schumer spokesman, responded after chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement on what he called threatening comments. Goodman said, schumer was addressing republican lawmakers when he said a price would be paid. I think its very important to note the difference between a threat and total disagreement with Supreme Court justices. I mean, President Trump has disagreed with things the Supreme Court has done or comments that have been made. Thats the american way. We can disagree whenever we want to. People in this body, including me, have been very disagreeable with some of the things the Supreme Court has done. And its very helpful to voice that. As is pointed out in a book, the case for democracy, he says, there are basically two societies. A fear society and a free society. And in a free society, he suggests, an appropriate test is if you can go into the town square and say anything you want to, as long as its not a criminal statement, but otherwise you say whatever you want to, you dont have to worry about arrest or being harmed, thats a free society. A fear society is one where you have to constantly be afraid because the government may decide to swoop you up, or people may come beat you up for saying what you say. Nd for at least many years, this country has been a free country. But even in a free country, where you can say whatever you nt, it crosses the line when you threaten individuals that are in government. And i understand this goodman speaking for minority leader schumer is saying, no, no, he was talking about republican lawmakers. But if you look back at the quote, theres no mistake about what senator schumer said. He said, you have released the whirl wind and you will pay the price. This is after hes called out kavanaugh and gorsuch. And you will pay the price. And if theres any question at all about who the threat was intended to, he said, you will you gow what hit you, if forward with these awful decisions. Well, now, these are not awful decisions hes threatening over by republican lawmakers. Because the republican lawmakers have nothing to do with the Supreme Court decisions. And he says, decisions. This was a threat to two of our Supreme Court justices. And that crosses the line from disagreement, as all of us probably in this body have done time to time, and should. Because the Supreme Courts not perfect. They make mistakes. Dred scott was, i think, probably the worst mistake the Supreme Courts ever made. But they have certainly made many more since then. Not to that level. But it is fine in america to disagree with the Supreme Court. Its fine for senator schumer to do that. But not when he threatens and says, you will not know what hit you. Of course the term hit is an assault reference, you will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions. Now, he could be speaking of this assault term figuratively. But regardless, whether its figurative or literal, it is a threat upon two of our Supreme Court justices. And then, unfortunately, senator by his has doubled down coming after chief Justice John Roberts. I have certainly disagreed with him plenty of times. But he did the appropriate thing here in defending two of his justices, which were attacked or threatened. He doesnt need to defend them when theyre verbally attacked. As so often happened in the senate and the house. But certainly when theyre threatened he needed to step up and he did so. Or those who wonder, 18 u. S. C. Section 115 of the u. S. Code says whoever threatens to assault, kidnap or murder a u. S. Official, a u. S. Judge, a federal Law Enforcement officer, or an official whose killing would be a crime under such section, then it goes on and says, that persons committed a crime, can be arrested. So here its a crime just to threaten and im not sure the term hit would be adequate to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an assault was threatened. But something was threatened because they would not know what hit them. And that is that goes beyond the pale. As i understand it people have been disbarred for making threats of that nature. But well see what happens. I certainly hope that there will be an apology by senator schumer because we ought to sagree with the Supreme Court when theyre wrong. Or when we think theyre wrong. Ut no threats. His should be the last btion of civility where we can come, we can disagree, we can fuss at each other, we can complain, we can expose ignorance. But not threaten. No place for that in the house or in the senate. And with that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yiel back the balance of his time. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities towards members of the senate. The chair lays before the house a message. The clerk to the congress of the United States. Section 202d of the National Emergencies act provides for the automatic termination of a National Emergency unless, within 90 days before the anniversary date of its declaration, the president publishes in the federal register and transmits to the congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. In accordance with this provision, i have sent to the federal register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the National Emergency declared in executive order 13692 of march 8, 2015, with respect to the situation in venezuela, is to continue in effect beyond march 8, 2020. The situation in venezuela continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the National Security and Foreign Policy of the United States. For this reason, i have determined that it is necessary to continue the National Emergency declared in executive order 13692 with respect to the situation in venezuela. Signed, donald j. Trump, the white house. March 5, 2020. The speaker pro tempore referred to the committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered printed. Under the speakers announced licy of january 3, 2019, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. King, for 30 minutes. Mr. King thank you, mr. Speaker. I appreciate the privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States house of representatives. And having listened to the gentleman ahead of me, mr. Louie gohmert, and some of the discussion that he had, i would pick up at the beginning here, mr. Speaker, with one of the places where he left off. And that is what happened before the United States Supreme Court yesterday and the statements that were made by the minority leader of the United States senate. I may have a bit of a different perspective than some in this house or senate or across this land. But here is the language that was deemed offensive. From senator schumer. He said, and watched the video. And he pointed at the United States Supreme Court and he used the names of two Supreme Court justices and he said this, i want to tell you, gorsuch, i want to tell you, kavanaugh, you have released the whirl wind and you will pay the price. You dont know what hit you wont know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions, closed quote. That was stunning. Stunning to hear two justices called out in that fashion before the Supreme Court. And i know that there was a crowd over there that was happy to hear those words. But as a constitutionalist and former chairman of the Constitution Committee in the house of representatives, i am troubled by the effort to try to sway judges through what appears to be verbal intimidation before the Supreme Court. ve stood on those same i have confined speeches to the constitutional principles that were involved and i wanted the justices to hear my speech and not as a threat but a rational approach in a way as if i was arguing before that bench. And they are all well learned and very, very capable people that are deeply steeped in our constitution and in case law and have their different philosophies and thats clear and we often see a 54 decision on the court. When i first arrived in this town a number of years ago, i looked forward to go over to the Supreme Court to hear what i expected to be the profound constitutional arguments before that bench. So i began going over there for some of the important cases with that expectation. And i recall sitting there and listening to an argument before the court and i understood, this would be the kelo decision before the Supreme Court and the kelo decision is the decision that amended the constitution by Supreme Court decision and it was this. In new london, connecticut, there was property there that was owned and utilized by owners who didnt want to sell their property to the developers. The local government wanted that property in the hands of the developers because they would develop that property into a Shopping Mall and the taxes would be revenue going into local government. Local government had an incentive in encouraging the development of the property, but the Property Owners sat there with a constitutional guarantee in the fifth amendment of the constitution that says nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. And that was the guarantee that first of all, only governments could confiscate property and needed to maintain that within their own possession and it has to be for a public use, it cant be for a private use, it was a private i business they handed that property to over in new london, connecticut. I expected the argument would go back to the language in the fifth amendment and would be argued certainly on both sides and i come down on the side of the constitution means what it says and it means what it was understood to mean at the time of ratification by the people who voted to ratify it. We cant go back and assign different definitions to words or say that it is a moving, living, breathing constitution that can adapt itself to changing times. If that were the case, there wouldnt be a provision to amend this constitution provided to us by our Founding Fathers. The constitutional is an intergeneration guarantee from one generation of americans to the next generation of americans. I expected to hear those arguments before the United States Supreme Court. What i heard instead was that arguments that were made to Justice Oconnor and she, i think they considered her to be the swing vote and came down on the constitutional side of it in the end. But there were little tweaks that had to do with her background. She was raised on a ranch down in Southern Arizona and it goes across into new mexico. I read her books and some of the ranch land she grew up on was sden. Of the gad and Property Rights matter and water rights matter and her book is replete with those kinds of fartives. It is an interesting to get insight into Justice Oconnor and understood this case in a way i didnt know until later. We brought a resolution in the house of representatives that resolution of disapproval to what became the kelo decision. Upheld kelo decision, it the decision of local government in new london, connecticut, to confiscate private property, houses and residences that had a deed and to take that land and compensate them for what they deemed the value was, condemnation, and hand it over to the private investors and take that land and develop it and make money with it. That is completely contrary to the reason that we have gar that guarantee in the fifth ealt. As i listened to those arguments, i understood what was going on, and they werent profound constitutional arguments but personalized arguments that were designed to get to the swing justice that was there. It wasnt Justice Oconnor, as it turned out. I have, by the way, i have been critical of some of her decisions, not on this one and i want to put this narrative into the record, mr. Speaker, because i think she is worthy of some significantly positive comments. And one of the decisions that she had made, a different one, i was railing away in my disagreement with the rationale that Justice Oconnor had come down with. As someone in the room said, you shouldnt criticize her until you walk a mile in her shoes. And i said i would be happy to walk a mile in her shoes, appoint me to the Supreme Court and ill walk with her, i made some remark like that. I said, if i cant do that, why dont i invite her to dinner. I followed through. I gave my word that i would do that and i went back to my desk and sat down a letter to Justice Oconnor and invited her to a dinner to have a conversation and get to know each other and be civil and listen to each others philosophical discussion. I sent a letter over there not expecting to get an affirmative response but i got an invitation to her chambers and do a lunch there. The date was march 18 of whatever it was in the early part of the previous decade. I went over at that time and she had a lunch all prepared and she had baked a pie i presume for me, it was fresh and cut and served right there in her chambers. And we had a delightful discussion and took me from each of the portraits of the chief justices and walked me through the history of the courts from the beginning all the way up to what was current at the time. And when i left that gracious dinner with Justice Oconnor, i decided she has a good judgment on her, good set of character and has a compassionate heart, deep understanding of history and law and disagreing with her is all it is, just disagreeing with the rationale, im grateful that i took the trouble and grateful she accepted the request and invited me over there to dinner. Our justices are human. And when they get threatened, those threats sometimes cut deep and the family feels that. The threats that were delivered yesterday in front of the Supreme Court, they were threats thet that intimidated, intim dates judges, the Judicial Branch of government, the American Bar Association, everybody involved in that feels that. And they pride themselves in their independence. But i better conclude the kelo decision before i get too far away. The kelo decision came down and allowed for the confiscation of private property handed over to other private interests in order to generate tax revenue for local government. That case still stands. I was furious they would such damage to the constitution in a 54 decision. Justice scalia believes that case will be overturned. Broader resolution of disapproval to the floor. We have spoken out in that fashion on a Supreme Court decision. And i noticed that at that time, the gentleman from massachusetts, barney frank, came down to give his speech. I was cued up next and i sat here with my note pad ready to take notes because i expected to rebut everything that i heard mr. Frank say. We found ourselves on disagreement issue after issue. It was my expectation when he was finished and we had many debates like that. But as i listened to mr. Frank that day, i realized he had exactly the same opinion i had and he expressed it a little bit differently but he came down in support of the resolution of disapproval and in support of the constitution and in support of the Property Rights that are there in the fifth amendment. When i stepped up here to this particular podium, mr. Speaker, my speech really was to reject the decision made by the Supreme Court. And when i spoke that into the record i said effectively what they have done is they have pulled the words out of the fifth amendment for public use, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. And once the effect of that is to pull the public use out of there. The fifth amendment after the kelo decision, nor shall private property be taken without just compensation. The government cant come in and take property away from you unless they give you a check. They can give it to whoever they want in the private sector and i think that will be abused at some point and a more Reasonable Court will restore the constitution on the kelo decision. My real point here is that we cant be seeking to intimidate the court. They are human. Justice oconnor, gracious heart and a nice lady. And we used to have receptions over there with the Judiciary Committee and members of the bench just to take some of the temperature down between the natal disagreements that exist between the legislative branch and Judicial Branch of government. But when you have the minority leader, the most powerful, highest ranking democrat in the United States senate go stand before the Supreme Court, point his finger at that building that was behind him and say i want to tell you, you have released the whirl wind and you will pay the price. You wont know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions, closed forward. Going forward with an awful decision means Chuck Schumer has already decided what he thinks the Court Decision is going to be on the requirements that are part of the ill say the abortion laws that are coming out of louisiana. And i have been one of the lead voices on prolife issues here in this United States house of representatives. There is on my lapel, a heart that represents the heartbeat bill, a bill that i introduced in the Previous Congress and that bill protects unborn babies and it essentially says this, if a heartbeat can be dweggetted, the baby is protected. And we know that the heartbeat is the first certain sign of life. When that start starts to beat, you know there is a live baby. You cant call it anything else. Its a live baby and this baby has the components of a grown human being and needs to grow out to full term. Anyone who has held a loved one, newborn baby and gazed with awe at the miracle in their hands, has to know that that babys life didnt begin at the moment of birth or the moment at the first breath. And if that babys life didnt begin sometime more than a minute that the babys life began well before a minute before the baby was born, i know when i held my firstborn son i looked at him in awe. The miracle was in my hands and i thought how could anybody take his life now. Old. A few minutes life how could they take him an hour a day, a week or a month or a trimester or three try mess terse before he was born. At what moment did his life begin . Human life is sacred in all of its forms. Only have to choose when does life begin. Not that hard a question. It is a con you umh from the moment of conception on. That heartbeat says this is a live baby here. And when that heart a stops, we call that death. When the heart starts, we know its life even though it begins at the moment of conception and we cant pinpoint that enough but im willing to go there. Right now we are at heartbeat in the last congress i got 174 cosponsors and those 174 cosponsors all signed on with an expectation that we protect beat abies when a heart could be protected. We didnt make exceptions to rape or inceases. These babies are sacred. If there was a crime, thats on the rapist, thats not on the baby. And those babies are as precious to god as my own grandchildren are to god. My grandchildren are extraordinarily precious to me. So i hope one day we get to that and that question. But as we move on with this super aggressive utilization of freedom of speech on senator schumer, i look back at some of this discussion and just see, chief Justice Roberts had a response, which is exceptionally rare to have a statement come out of the Supreme Court. He said, chief Justice Roberts and i quote, threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous and justices, quote, will continue to do their job without fear or favor from whatever quarter. Chief Justice John Roberts. To be. A hat language will live long time. Thats how it needs to be. Where i come from, when somebody threatens you, that means that youre done doing business with that person. Theyre very unlikely to get cooperation. But theres another part of this, that even though there would be a measure of justice involved if the decisions made in the Supreme Court went against the interests of senator schumer, i would like to reiterate here into this congressional record, and i hope it echoes across this land, that if you think youre going to get even with somebody, the result in this business, whether its in the legislative, the executive or the Judicial Branch of government, if you think youre going to get even with somebody, you invariably hurt the wrong people. So thats not an avenue that has merit. And i hope that, and i expect that that wisdom exists within all of our justices. All nine of them over there. That payback to schumer cant be in the cards from any decision that would come down from the court. Its got to be balanced and objective, as described by chief Justice Roberts. If they continue to do their job without fear or favor from whatever quarter, i believe the justices will stick to that and im hopeful senator schumer will learn not to utilize those tactics anymore. This is the American Bar Association, the a. B. A. , their comments came down to this. They said, theyre deeply troubled by schumers remarks. No place that is no place for threats, whether real or al gore cal. Lagorical. They continued with. This the a. B. A. , American Bar Association, personal attacks on judges by any elected officials, including the president , are simply inappropriate. Such comments challenge the independence of the judiciary and the personal safety of judicial officers. Mr. Speaker, i know thats true. I know when you turn up the dialogue and you hear this radical rhetoric coming out of elected officials in particular, things do happen out in our society. The chief justice is concerned that there could be there could be acts of potential violence that could be stimulated by that kind of dialogue. And im hopeful that senator schumer seemed to dial it down on the floor of the senate today, thats good. I dont know i didnt notice that he had called upon people to refrain from violence and refrain from threats. He did say that hes from the bronx and they talk a little more clearly there than other places. I dont doubt that. But this language went to the world. And the world saw it today, mr. Speaker. And so im hopeful that senator schumer will call upon his supporters to calm down, be logical, make constitutional arguments and refrain from that kind of rhetoric. And here are the consequences. I had some serious rhetoric applied against me over the last year and a half. And each of those situations, a good number of them mfed, fire storms that were manufactured at me. But also we saw members of this house of representatives that went forward and said, when people go into a restaurant when they stop to get gas and you see them there, if they happen to be, im not sure how they define it, but this if they happen to be conservatives go confront them. Make their lives miserable. That kind of discussion was delivered from people that sat over on this side of the aisle. And it had its physical results. It had its physical results, at least in my case. Where i sat down in a restaurant last april and was assaulted. Outside my peripheral vision, i that individual has been convicted of assaulting a federal officer of the United States congress a United States congressman, theres a provision for that. By the way, today he goes before a federal judge in sioux city for sentencing. So i wont comment any more on that because i dont want to be accuse ed of seeking to influence a accused of seeking to influence a decision that may or may not have been made, but its eye ron take im here today have ironic that im here today having interest this discussion on senator schumer, when theres someone who assaulted me. Which i believe is a clear result of this kind of radical rhetoric that was poured out. It wasnt based on truth in my case, when they attacked me. It was planned. It was orchestrated. It was ginned up. Then you have people out there that take that seriously. Thats what happened that day and the sentencing is taking place today. Well trust the judge to make an objective decision. I have written my opinion in longhand and sent that to the court for their consideration. Thats where ill leave that recommendation. Ive had my chance to weigh in. Lets take this a little further, mr. Speaker. D that is, on the concept of freedom of speech. Now, there are those that want to censure senator schumer and sounds like senator holly is going to introduce that censuring motion tomorrow in the senate. I am of the opinion that the most important freedom we have is a robust freedom of speech. And that if we let that be diminished by intimidation tactics, let alone by any kind of laws that would perhaps be found unconstitutional, but watching the decision, maybe not be found unconstitutional, i want the body to understand this, mr. Speaker. That freedom of speech is a precious, precious right. And our Founding Fathers understood that if you cant speak, if you cant speak freely, then you cant convey your ideas at all. And then when you cant convey your ideas, they never get tested against anybody elses ideas orem bellished or supported by other people or embellished or supported by other peoples ideas. That means then that Human Knowledge woulddy minute pick diminish, would diminish, it would stop forming around us. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a robust nation that would be regularly and constantly engaged in discussions of Public Policy like we are in iowa, as the first of the nation caucus, like New Hampshire is, like lets say south carolina, among those states too, where theres an intense focus on politics. Free discussion. I spent time in cuba and learned that they dont have that freedom. Theyre afraid even among their family sitting around the table, theyre afraid to speak to each other because there might be an informant among them. That has been hired by the at that time, castro administration. So they dont speak to each other about those things, they dont criticize. They accept what government serves up to them. Thats what king george wanted to happen in this country. And if our predecessors, if the revolutionary Founding Fathers had accepted the edict from king george, we would have never developed this great nation that we are. Wed be stuck back in the mud somewhere back there, because our ideas wouldnt have been brought forward, they wouldnt have been tested against each other. And then creating other new ideas. We are the nation that produces more patents, more creativity than any other nation in the world by far. We are so good at this and we create so much with our intellectual freedoms that we have, that are tied into freedom of speech, that the chinese look to us and they steal a half a trillion dollars worth of American Intellectual property every year. A half a trillion dollars. And that doesnt include what they steal through cyber. Thats called i. P. Piracy. Ive basketball over to china years ago ive been over to china, years ago i wrote a bill to beijing that called on the u. S. Trade representative to conduct a study of u. S. Intellectual property stolen by the chinese, apply a duty on all products coming to the United States from china in an amount equal to that loss, and then collect that and distribute it to the rightful Property Rights holders. That was a bill then. Its still a good idea today. But theyve accelerated their piracy. Mr. Speaker, to give you an example of how this works, we know a little bit about how freedom of speech, thought and expression works in the United States. Because we see, actually in the past weve seen a more robust freedom of speech on our campuses. Today theyre diminishing freedom of speech in the campuses. Theres a de theyre defining things as hate speech and trigger words and safe places. We dont need that. Weve got to be Strong Enough to face language and let it flow and then accommodate ourselves in a way that were not influenced if it isnt logical or rational. The greeks, for example, in their city states, would they would banish a demagogue for seven years from the city state because they didnt like what he had to say. That wasnt constructive. But what is constructive is our freedom of speech. Our young people sitting in college, sitting up all night long, discussing metaphysics until the sun comes up, new ideas, whats the limitation on what we can do with science, with math, with space travel, all of those things that have taken america to be the leader in the world, theyre all tied back to freedom of speep of speech. If you cant speak, you cant express your thoughts, you cant just hold your thoughts in your head and think youre going to do something good with them. If we had taken Albert Einstein and set him into a phone booth and said, well let you out when you write the theory of relativity, first of all, it never would have been created. Second of all, nobody could have understood it. You have to have the interactivity of minds. People will say, we have the Second Amendment. Therefore were never going to lose our freedom of speech. I dont see anybody using the Second Amendment to defend their freedom of speech and i dont recommend that they do. We have to utilize our freedom of speech and push back when its diminished. So im not calling for a sanction on senator schumer. Im saying this. Senator schumer, you know what you said. You know whether its right or wrong. You have to operate in an arena over there and get reelected by the people in your district. Let we the people decide. Not a leader here in the senate. Not a leader here in the house. But let we the people decide. And in fact, as a former chairman of the Constitution Committee, the three branches of government, theres tensions between each of those. Our Founding Fathers didnt envision that they would be equal. They believed the Judicial Branch would be the weakest of the three. But they knew there would be tension, as that territory got marked out. And theres always going to be a gray area where theres a little bit of a tug of war over who has what territory. In the end, if you analyze it, i can make your argument for the legislature, even house and senate. I can make it for the executive branch. I can make it for the Judicial Branch. But in the end, if any branch of government gets out of whack, that means out of sync with the American People, we the people solve that problem in the election box. Sometimes it takes time. But thats the best solution, for we the people to make that decision. Not a decision that sanctions freedom of speech, diminishes freedom of speech, or intimidates people so that they dont utilize their freedom of speech because weve got to remain the most Creative Society in the history of the world. And in doing so, well be the most successful people also in the history of the world. So, mr. Speaker, id yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. Does the gentleman have a motion . Mr. King mr. Speaker, i move the house do now adjourn. The speaker pro tempore the question is on the motion to adjourn. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. The motion is adopted. Accordingly, the house stands adjourned until noon on monday