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[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of fun the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. january 13, 2022. i hereby appoint the honorable brenda l. lawrence to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi. speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain kibben. chaplain kibben: would you pray with me. holy and omnipotent god we stand before you, vulnerable to your power at work within and around us. like precious metal we are being forged. tested like silver. formed by your creative hands. in these moments may we trust that you are refining us, restoring us, and shaping us that we would best reflect your image in all we do. we also stand before this nation exposed to a multitude of opinions and a host of challenges bearing the responsibilities that have been placed in our care. many voices attempt to drown out your own divine word that has called us to hold fast to our faith in your perfect righteousness. in these moments may we stand firm in our obedience to you, to your claim on our lives. may the trials in our lives and the testing of our faith produce steadfastness in our walk with you. in your abiding name we pray. amen. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 11-a of house resolution 188, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. now i would ask the pledge of allegiance to be led by the gentleman from california, mr. takano. mr. takano: please join me in the pledge. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain requests up to five one-minute speeches from each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the the gentlewoman from georgia seek recognition. >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the lady is recognized for one minute. >> i rise today to celebrate korean american day which marks the arrival of the first group of korean immigrants to the united states in 1903. i am proud to represent tens of thousands of korean americans in georgia's seventh district. these individuals are critical members of our community from small business owners to health care workers that continue to support us throughout the pandemic. i would like to take this time to acknowledge korean american leaders in my district. representative sam park is the grand son of refugees from the korean war. became the first asian american and openly gay person elected to the georgia state house of representatives. michelle kang serves as president of the korean american public action committee. a tireless leader in the community. it is an honor to work with each of you. since the start of the covid-19 pandemic we have been challenged with an increase in the number of anti-asian hate crimes. this korean american day i am particularly grateful to all of those working to address and end anti-asian hate in georgia and across the country. i look forward to continuing this work in congress. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentlewoman from iowa seek recognition. mrs. miller-meeks:00 i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mrs. miller-meeks: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to speak on an issue that's important for every american. i know the importance of each vote and understand the difference one vote or six can make. our country was founded on the right to vote in fair and free elections and faith in the election system that conduct those elections. since iowa implemented new voting laws in 2017, our elections have seen record turnout and participation. right now the majority is pushing a federal takeover of elections, overriding laws in states like iowa. the proposed legislation would limit voter i.d. laws supported by the overwhelming majority of americans. it would also allow politicians to use taxpayer dollars to run political ads. meaning your money could go to candidates and issue you do not support. finally, it would implement a one-size-fits all set of regulations instead of allowing individual states to establish laws that work for them as provided in our constitution. voters in each congressional district across the country are best informed to choose their congressional representation. they do not need interference from washington, d.c. we should be working to pass bipartisan and commonsense voting laws not pushing a partisan agenda. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. mrs. miller-meeks: make sure everyone can vote. thank you, i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition. >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. garcia: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to call attention to an urgent problem facing my district. each and every one of these dots represents children with elevated toxic levels of lead in their blood. the red dots represent the higher levels. the yellow dots the lower levels. you can almost draw my district if you follow the red dots. the fact is, madam speaker, that many of these kids are being poisoned by lead in their homes, and, yes, even in their schools. this is a problem and disproportionately impacts latinos in our community. we need action to replace the lead pipes and ensure our kids have clean, safe water no matter where they live. that's why i'm proud of our work of infrastructure investment and jobs act. this law will bring $2.9 billion to replace lead pipes in texas schools. while we have more work to do, our work in this chamber is a critical first step to improving our infrastructure and protecting our children. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition. mr. carter: ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. carter: madam speaker, i rise today to honor the life of clarence morgan, the long time county recreation director for the county. clarence started with the department in 1980 and worked until he was promoted to director in 2001. his passion for health and wellness, including promoting an active lifestyle for community members, culminated in his development of the f and m county recreation department. with limited resources and hard work, he managed to grow the program into one of the top programs in the state. in 2020, the brand new state-of-the-art gym was opened and named in his honor. known by all for his integrity and great strength of character, clarence dedicated his life to ensuring a brighter, healthier future for the county residents. the department that he reignited is a testament to his life's work. our state and our community will forever remember the life and legacy of clarence morgan. my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends as we mourn the loss of this great georgian. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentleman from california seek recognition. mr. takano: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. takano: madam speaker, i rise today to remember marta brown a long time public servant, community leader, and beloved constituent of mine. i had the privilege of knowing marta way before i took office and started representing a portion of her late husband's district, the former congressman george e. brown jr., whose portrait hangs as a former chairman in the science committee room. marta dedicated her career to advocating for social justice, women's rights, and high quality education for students. she used her voice to eliminate barriers and create spaces for marginalized groups. she was a proud latina. co-founded one of the first spanish language publications to share important news in our community. she spent her life uplifting and empowering others and anyone who knew her knew of her could easily speak to the love she had for her community and commitment to equality. to the family and all those who knew, loved, and respected her i offer my deepest condolences. her legacy will always be cherished. i thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from kentucky seek recognition. >> madam speaker, address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to honor the 77 kentuckians who lost their lives to the horrific tornadoes that devastated our commonwealth this december. mr. guthrie: may we continue to lift up all those affected by these storms and support the rebuilding of homes, businesses, and livelihoods. we lost 17 account kentuckians in my district, in my home county of warren. we must ensure their memories are never forgotten and ask these americans keep their names in their prayers. elissa, alma, samantha, samir, mariah brown, nolan, miles, niesa brown, steven brown, rachel brown, terry jane, corey scott, victoria smith, may white, and robert williams jr. may they rest in peace. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from nevada seek recognition. >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. i rise to honor a great son of nevada. smart harry mason reid. mr. horsford: senator reid was raised in a home with dirt floors in searchlight, nevada. even as he rose to the highest levels of power, including this chamber, he never forgot his small town roots. in the senate he fought for all of us. he championed the dream act and brought young dreamers to capitol hill. he fought against yucca mountain. and because of his work to pass the affordable care act, 31 million americans have health care today. most people don't know this, but long before he was a senator, he paid his way through law school by serving with the u.s. capitol police. he protected this capitol. and he defended our democracy. senator reid, thank you for your lifetime of service. may you rest in peace. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition. >> i seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, i was raised in one brother but i truly felt like i had dozens of siblings. my cousins and i grew up differently than most families. we had a pay tree arc in our family who made sure we got together. fourth of july, kids week, christmas, many of my favorite memories of my entire life stem from the games we gathered at the mountain house. wayne smith, my great uncle, taught us the way to be truly wealthy was have a strong family. papaw passed away on january 10. he was about to celebrate 63 years of marriage. he was able to touch people's souls with the way he talked. mr. cawthorn: he skipped classes in high school so he could work and still managed to be a wise man. he taught his grandsons how to drive a stick shift and a pickup truck he had since 1993. he made a bet with his son to quit smoking. he was the original grill master in our family. he drank his coffee black or not at all. i'm proud to say he got to see the braves win the world series last season. we love you so much. thank you for imparting so much wisdom in our lives. thank you for making sure we grew up with endless cousins. go braves. rest in peace wane smith. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. espaillat: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to honor the work of al curling who has dedicated nearly three decades to supporting youth and families throughout the 13th congressional district. from his early efforts in grassroots engagement in washington heights, al's work has inspired countless youth, activists, and civic mentors across the city of new york. he has long championed ensuring marginalized youth have a voice in and are empowered to thrive and i'm proud to recognize his contributions today. his latest essay, the soul of adolescence, follows his journey of discovering his life purpose and his understanding of wisdom. his candor and vulnerability have led to countless young people finding their full potential throughout community involvement and strengthening our community. . . . i commend him for his unwavering dedication for all who call our city home, to make our community stronger for the next generation of civic leaders. i yield back, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. williams: thank you, madam speaker. on march 29, 1971, in pasadena, texas, micky gilly opened the honky tonk baring his name and changed country music forever. hollywood took notice with the hit movie "urban cowboy" filmed in and around the pasadena location. it was inspired by the real-life romance of the pair of the club's patrons, urban cowboy put gilley's on the map, it revised music careers and launched others. it introduced two-stepping to a whole new audience and created a lifestyle which has been adopted by millions, madam speaker. 40 years later, america's love of wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, and pickup trucks underscores that lasting cultural legacy. although the club is no more, gilley's is certainly not forgotten. its memory lives on through music, film, of course, but even more importantly, through the lives and the love of those who frequented gilley's. and you always know when someone had been there. they had the bumper sticker to prove it. so thank you, mickey gilley, for introducing our way of life to the world and thank you to the houston chamber commerce for texas, the oldest chamber of commerce, and for honoring the 50th anniversary of our great southeast texas true country club and mr. mickey gilley. madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i call up the bill h.r. 5746, to amend title 51, united states code, to extend the authority of the national aeronautics and space administration to enter into leases of nonexcess property of the administration with the senate amendment thereto. now, mr. speaker, i have a motion at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the bill, the title of the bill, designate the senate amendment and senate the motion. the clerk: h.r. 5746, an act to amendment title 51, united states code, to extend the authority of the national aeronautics and space administration to enter into leases of non-excess property of the administration, senate amendment. mr. butterfield of north carolina moves that the house concur in the senate amendment to h.r. 5746 with an amendment consisting of the text of rules committee print 117-28. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. mr. butterfield: i'm sorry. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 868, the motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided by and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on house administration and their respective designees. mr. butterfield: thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina, and the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis, will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina. mr. butterfield: now it's my turn. thank you very much, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the record on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i rise today in strong support of h.r. 5746, the freedom to vote john r. lewis act. as president biden made clear in his speech in atlanta on tuesday, the time to act to protect the right to vote and the very essence of our democracy is now. and the bill we are considering today meets the gravity of this moment. h.r. 5746, mr. speaker, combines two -- two pieces of legislation vital to ensuring every american has free, equity and secure access to the ballot. the freedom to vote act and the john r. lewis voting rights advancement act. the latter of which critically also includes the native american voting rights act. together, mr. speaker, these bills will combat the wave of voter suppression laws we see enacted in states all across the country following the supreme court's decision in shelby county vs. holder, a decision that undermine the essential preclearance protections of the voting rights act. actions which accelerated at an alarming rate following the unprecedented voter turnout in the 2020 elections. rather than responding to increased voter participation with welcoming arms and pro-voter policies, states have instead been enacting laws that roll back access and aim to erect roadblocks to the ballot box. despite a 2020 election that election security experts said was the most secure in american history, according to the brennan center for justice, 19 states -- 19 states have enacted 34 restrictive voting laws in the last 12 months. the time, mr. speaker, to act is now. voter suppression and discrimination are alive and well. it is our duty and firmly within our constitutional powers as a congress to protect the rights of the voter and ensure equal access to the franchise. this bill, mr. speaker, does just that. it sets nationwide standards for access to early voting. it promotes voter registration through automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and online voter registration. it gives all voter access to no excuse absentee voting, protects the security of our election infrastructure and our precious election workers. it addresses the rising threat of election subversion, puts an end to partisan gerrymandering, curbs dark money flooding our politics. yes, it restores the critical protections of the 1965 voting rights act and it protects the right to vote for native american voters. we must -- we must set an example as a democracy and encourage, mr. speaker, we must encourage, rather than suppress, voter participation in our electoral process. this legislation is critical, it is so critical to protecting our democracy. i ask both republicans and democrats to support this bill. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: i thank you, mr. speaker. this bill, which was originally about nasa and went through the science and technology committee has seen more than 700 pages of election law tacked onto it late last night. if it were to become law it would give up $7.2 million of public funding to the campaign of each one of my colleagues. all of us. this is not about voting rights. this is about power and control. $7.2 million is more money than most americans can even dream of having. yet, here we are considering another democrat bill that takes public funding and doesn't give it to the american people but puts it in the campaign coffers of members of congress. members who vote for this bill are voting to line their own campaign coffers all while falsely telling the american people we have a voting rights crisis in this country and we must pass this bill because the era of jim crow 2.0 is upon us. it's the definition of corruption. thankfully, the american people don't seem to be buying the democrats' rhetoric. according to polling, more americans, including independents, believe voting laws are too lax and insecure than those who believe are too restrictive. no matter how many times a president and democrats get in front of the american people, trying to manufacture a voting rights crisis in this country by using rhetoric like jim crow 2.0 are now comparing republicans to bull conner, as president biden suggested this week in georgia. there is no evidence of widespread voter suppression. in our meetings in the house administration committee, no one has ever produced a single voter who was eligible to vote but wasn't able to. in fact, 2020 saw the highest voter turnout in 120 years. according to pew, 94% of americans say it's easy to vote. misrepresenting and in some cases flat out lying about the law -- to increase voter confidence is part of the democrats' playbook to manufacture a voting rights crisis. in fact, president biden has earned four pinocchios about georgia's voting laws. these laws -- the laws these states are passing to bolster voter confidence make it easier to vote than ever before while protecting the integrity of our elections. georgia's new, quote, voter suppression law, has more days of early in-person voting than new york. and texas' quote, voter suppression law, ends pandemic exceptions like universal drive-thru voting and 24-hour voting. neither existed in texas before 2020. neither widely exists even in blue states. and i think most of us can agree that nothing good can come from 24-hour drive-thru voting. the bill we're considering today is not about increasing voting rights for the american people -- and this is not a compromise. this bill still contains the worst provisions of h.r. 1. it still publicly funds a member's campaign. it nationalizes and centralizes our election system. makes merrick garland the election czar. it destroys the first amendment. it prevents states from implementing strict voter i.d. laws. despite the majority of americans supporting voter i.d. laws. and the list goes on and on. as terrible as those provisions are, nothing screams this bill isn't for the american people more than the fact that it gives every one of us, every member of congress and their own campaigns up to $7.2 million in public funding. the old saying is, follow the money. i think that's incredibly relevant here. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i yield one minute to the gentleman from new york, the chairman of the house democratic caucus, mr. jeffries. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. jeffries: mr. speaker, we are here today defending our democracy for one reason and one reason alone. it's because the radical right has decided that the only way they can consistently win elections is to engage in massive voter suppression. the right to vote is sacred. the right to vote is special. the right to vote is sacrisanct. there are people who died, lost their lives, shed blood to make sure that black people and everyone in america could vote. we're not going backward. we're only going to go forward. you better back up off of us. we will pass the john robert lewis voting rights enhancement act and we will get it to joe biden's desk and we will end the era of voter suppression in america once and for all. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois. mr. davis: democracy -- ending democracy $7.2 million at a time. mr. speaker, i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin and member of the house administration committee, representative steil. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. steil: thank you very much. mr. speaker, the democrats are up to the same tricks, protecting text of this legislation last night for a vote in the morning. they want to gut key voter integrity provisions and they want to bust the senate's filibuster process while they do it. it's important to understand the most key and egregious provisions in this bill. let me highlight the top four. this bill guts voter i.d. laws. and the irony shouldn't be lost. these are the same democrats that want to show an i.d. and vaccine card to be able to have dinner in cities like washington, d.c., and new york. this bill puts federal dollars into politician' re-election campaigns. i heard a lot of complaints about elections in my time. i never had one person tell me, our elections don't have enough money. . this bill restricts state's ability to maintain voter rolls. so we know who is eligible to vote. this bill mandates that ballots can be counted seven days after the end of the election. delaying the final results. delaying the final results does not instill confidence in our elections. instead, by working to remove key voter integrity provisions in our elections, americans will have less confidence in their elections. my priority is to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. this bill fails that test and i urge my colleagues to vote no. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: i yield one minute to the gentlewoman from massachusetts, our assistant speaker, ms. clark. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. clark: mr. speaker, the january 6 insurrection may have been quelled by the assault on our democracy is alive. across 19 states republican legislatures have enacted 33 voter suppression laws. here in congress we have witnessed unanimous republican obstruction against commonsense pro-democracy voter protections. early voting, vote by mail, election day as a federal holiday. when did protecting the right to vote become partisan? when it became about the powerful and not the people. we can't sit on the sidelines while the most precious sacred tool in our democracy is eroded. the question before us is simple and yet profound. are you for the continuation of our democracy or are you not? thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, i'd like to yield a minute and a half to my good friend from oklahoma, ranking member on the science, space, and technology committee, mr. lucas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. lucas: i rise in strong opposition to this federal takeover of elections. i am disappointed that the bill underlying has been gutted. a bill that was crafted in a bipartisan practical way to address the surplus resources at nasa to generate resources for the agency. i would say this to my friends in the majority. i served in the minority he and majority several times back and forth. i ask you, why are you trying so hard to make me a chairman again? we pass a bill today to allow another body to pontificate, they'll not be able to pass anything. you will inflame your base because you can't do anything. you will inflame my base because you are trying to make dramatic changes. why are you trying to make it so easy for me to be a chairman again? i guess i should thank you, and i would, except for things like this missed opportunity to re-authorize this important piece of legislation for nasa. when we have committees like science, space, and technology that work together, that work in a productive way, that can persuade the majority of this body to pass their legislation, we should allow the legislative process to work. thank you, my friends. i look forward to the next session. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reminded to refer your remarks to the chair. the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i yield one minute to the gentlewoman from georgia, my friend, ms. williams. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. williams: thank you, mr. speaker. today i rise to share the words of my constituent, yolanda king that i received this morning. i'm 13 years old and the only grandchild of dr. martin luther king jr. and coretta scott king. when i was just 5 years old in 2013, the supreme court undid the voting rights act that my grandparents and so many in their generation fought and died for. when i was 12 in 2021, the supreme court further weakened the law until there is almost nothing left. states like my home state of georgia were ready and waiting. they immediately passed laws to make it harder for people to vote, make it impossible to protect elections, and even criminalize the act of passing out food and water to people waiting in long lines. that means i and my peers have fewer rights today than we had the day we were born. i can only imagine what my grandparents would say about that. we must pass federal voting rights legislation now to ensure democracy for all americans. we cannot wait. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: can i do a time check with my favorite timekeeper up there. the speaker pro tempore: the the gentleman has 24 minutes. the gentleman from north carolina has 24. mr. davis: i would like to yield a minute and a half to my good friend from new york, ms. tenney. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. tenney: it's groundhog day again on the house floor. yet again our democratic colleagues continue to gas light the american he people by claiming despite record turnout in recent elections, republicans are scheming to steal the scaik red right to vote from our fellow citizens. what is their solution to the problem? which they assure you is very real. it just so happens to be a partisan federal takeover of elections that empowers un-elected bureaucrats in washington to oversee local elections and overturn popular voting protection laws. that is not democracy. that is a violation of our constitution. the freedom to vote, the john r. lewis voting act, which deceitfully added to a nasa leasing authorities bill in the dead of the night, is the transparent attempt to diminish the voting power of law-abiding american citizens. madam speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are right about one thing. democracy and the principle of one citizen, one vote are, indeed, being threatened. the democrats are cynically championing this effort in spite of the fact that the democratic voters in new york state, a highly blue democratic state, rejected the very provisions in the john lewis voting rights act by a substantial margin in a referendum vote just this past election. with every attempt to allow noncitizens to vote and with each push to ban commonsense voter identification laws, democrats in congress and in places like new york city attack and erode the election integrity. however, this -- by the way, article 1, section 4 of the u.s. constitution clearly states and protects the rights of our states to determine voting laws and practices. however, the legislation before us today would force upon the nation a laundry list of damaging federal policies creating a chaos and insecurity in our elections making it easier to cheat and overriding basic election integrity measures. this is -- this assault must be stopped. i urge my colleagues to vote no on this misguided legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i yield one minute to the the gentlewoman from michigan, the second vice chair of the congressional blackhawks, congresswoman brenda lawrence. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lawrence: thank you. today i stand here on the shoulders of my grandmother and my grandfather who migrated to the north from the south. who took me every election day dressed up and educated me every step of the way to understand the power of the right to vote. she was denied the right to vote. it is heartbreaking that this bill that's been passed time and time again is now a political ploy. we know that the freedoms and the rights of america is based and bred from voting rights. i stand here today in support of passing this bill. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, can i ask unanimous consent to insert into the record committee on house administration republicans elections clause report. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. davis: i'd like to take this time to yield a minute and a half to my good friend from mississippi, mr. palazzo. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. palazzo: mr. speaker, today i rise in opposition to h.r. 5746. late last night the democrats high jacked a bipartisan piece of legislation that i helped draft to allow nasa to lease property and help fund their own budget shortfalls. this bill would have been vital to america's space program and mississippi's fourth district. to no one's surprise, democrat socialists hellbent on minimizing the power american votes have jammed through their radical agenda to include this so-called voting rights legislation. this legislation only does one thing. it ensures the democrats remain in power by tipping the scales, by limiting your first amendment, and slashing states' rights. why else would the democrats spend so much time catering to noncitizens, giving them taxpayer benefits, allowing them to stay in our contory, and now giving them the ability to unconstitutionally vote in american elections? democrats believe that behind every illegal immigrant is a democrat voter only waiting for a bill like this to pass. this legislation shreds our founding documents and bastardizes the sacred rights of americans. only to appease a group of socialists. we all know that democrats need every advantage to give them any hope in november after seeing their commander in chief's gross incompetence in tanking approval ratings. they have the slimmest house majority in history, and even split in the senate, stalemate the by a fuel democrats who refuse to bow to the demands of the socialist agenda. democrats know the american people reject their ridiculous policies, and we cannot allow them to cheat their way back into power with this bill. i strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on this high jack bill. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i now yield one minute to the the gentlewoman from florida, the dean of the florida delegation, ms. wasserman schultz. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. wasserman schultz: thank you, mr. speaker. let's be clear about what is happening here. we are at a crossroads. free and fair elections are essential to keeping this fragile democracy intact. the american people must hear this loud and clear. there are people in power that don't want you to vote and they are using every tool in their toolbox to make it harder. my fellow americans, can you not afford to sleep on this. people in power and with influence are actively trying to takeway your right to vote. america must confront this harsh reality. they are tunneling voter rolls, making voter registration more difficult, and cracking down on vote by mail while we remain in the midst of a pandemic. voter suppression has not been assigned to the history books, it continues today right here, right now. the impact continues to fall disproportionately on communities of color. these policies are being actively pursued all over the country in places like my home state of florida where the governor wants to create a voting police force to intimidate voters. we must not allow those who seek to consolidate power and put thumb on the scales of the democratic process to succeed. our friends in the senate must stand up for democracy and restore government of, by, and for the people. i urge my colleagues to support this bill and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. caves: -- mr. davis: i yield one minute to my good friend from the state of wisconsin, congressman tiffany. mr. testify any: -- mr. tiffany: the majority is attempting to high jack a bill related to nasa to promote voter fraud and invalidate state voter i.d. laws. that's not all. they want to institutionalize ballot harvesting schemes, mandate the use of unverifiable ballots and pour public dollars into the campaigns of wealthy many candidates. democrats will raise the treshtriry to pay for their ads. that's the beginning. a few days ago new york city adopted a policy allowing noncitizens to vote. effectively legalizing foreign election interference. you can bet this will stretch to minneapolis, milwaukee, and madison. in that respect perhaps it is fitting that the majority has chosen a nasa bill to advance their cynical agenda and pave the way for alien voting. this is one giant leap backwards for american election integrity. and if the majority actually thinks this bill is the solution to what's ailing america, houston, we have a problem. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from maryland, the author of the four the people act, mr. sarbanes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. sarbanes: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, out in the country the voices of the people is diminished by voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, and election subversion. here in washington the voice of the people is diminished by big money, insiders, lobbyists who use their influence to block progress on so many of the things that americans care about. but we can do something about this. the freedom to vote, john r. lewis act, will ensure free and fair access to the ballot box with expanded registration opportunities and the broad availability of early voting and vote by mail. something that voters of both political parties took advantage of in the last election. it will ban partisan gerrymandering so the congressional districts are drawn fairly and with respect for the people. it will prevent the arbitrary removal of local election officials from their positions and it will protect election officials from harassment and intimidation. it will pull dark money out of the shadows in order to combat the corrupting influence on our democracy and it will make meaningful investments in efforts led by the state to strengthen and fortify their electoral infrastructure. too many americans have become cynical about our politics and they are angry. but there is hope in that anger because it means they still care. they still believe in american democracy. they cherish it. in november, 2020150 million americans overcame tremendous obstacles to get to the ballot box, to pull our democracy back from the brink. the question now is will we do our part? as their elective representatives, will we show our love for this great republic is equal to theirs. will we exercise the right to vote that we have in this chamber in order to protect the right of every american to vote in their local library, or their firehouse, or senior center. the answer must be yes. . we look to whatever we can to secure the passage in the chamber. success is too high. failure is not an option. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a report from common cause that's titled "maryland general assembly approves gerrymander congressional map." the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. davis: mr. speaker, i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from louisiana, my good friend, mr. johnson. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. johnson: i thank my friend. i thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today in opposition to h.r. 5746, which contains the text of h.r. 4, the so-called john lewis voting advancement act. with h.r. 4, democrats are attempting to orchestrate a radical and unprecedented power grab overstate elections. but the history here is so important. upon its enactment in 1965, the j.r.a. -- v.r.a. addressed oppressive state resistance to remove discriminatory barriers that prevented minorities an exercise to vote. the u.s. supreme court's shelby county v. holder decision recognized an obvious fact when examining the voting rights act. things have changed dramatically since 1965. of course, that should be celebrated. the court reasoned that requiring states to preclear election law changes today based on conduct a half century ago was an unconstitutional invasion into state sovereignty. republicans are thrilled the v.r.a. worked. the truth is more americans, minority communities are voting now than ever before. and overall, voter registration remains sky high. in fact, voter registration disparities between minority and nonminority voters in states like texas, florida, mississippi, louisiana, are below the national average. and get this, lower than democrat-run states like california, new york, and delaware. however, democrats would have you think exactly the opposite. they want to bring preclearance back through h.r. 4 and have all the states seek approval from merrick garland's justice department before they can make any changes to their election laws or redistricting, regardless of whether that jurisdiction has a history of discrimination or not. again, this is a blatant federal power grab. these bills are contrary to the founder's intent. the plain text of the constitution, and if they're fully implemented, they'll erode americans' faith in our constitution. we urge a no vote today. i yield back to my friend and thank you for the time. mr. davis: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i yield one minute to the gentlewoman from ohio, the chair of the congressional black caucus, mrs. joyce beatty. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. beatty: thank you, mr. speaker. desperate attempt, hijacking our voting rights, that is exactly what our republican colleagues are doing. and why? because when democrats vote, democrats win, and we provide for our children, our families, and our businesses. i stand here today in support of the freedom to vote: john r. lewis act of 2022 because black people representing the congressional black caucus have been attacked by dogs, have put their lives on the line, crossed the edmund pettus bridge for us to have a right to vote. america, watch what's happening today. watch what our republicans are trying to do -- take away your fundamental right to vote. let us restore our democracy. let's stand up for what four republican presidents in the past did. they re-authorized the voting rights. they are scared and they are hijacking americans' rights. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, you can tell it must be nfl playoffs. we got our super bowl champion from the oakland raiders, my good friend, mr. owens, who's going to get two minutes of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. owens: late yesterday afternoon, my republican colleagues and i learned the democrats were dropping h.r. 1 and h.r. 4 into a supposed to be a nasa bill. the american people joined me and wonder why they must resort to procedural gimmicks to ram their so-called voting rights bill to the floor. democrats are out of touch with americans who repeatedly rejected the biden administration's far-left agenda, including the latest attempt to destroy the power of the states to run their own elections. unfortunately, we're hearing the same message today that we heard over and over again from the democrats, that minority americans are not smart enough, not educated enough, and are incapable of following basic rules in elections. i'm personally offended by this narrative. earlier this year, the democrats -- said democrats held a hearing titled jim crow 2021. the latest assault on the right to vote. compared to voting laws in georgia to the days of segregation. i grew up during the era of actual jim crow laws that suppressed voting. what does actual voting suppression look like? it looks like poll tax, property tax, literacy tax, violence and intimidation at the polls. it looks like segregated schools i attended in florida or drinking fountains that my race was forced to use. one section of the georgia law that brought so much outrage to the left simply requires everyone applying for an absentee ballot to include evidence of a government-issued i.d. on their application. i can assure you, my friends, minorities are capable of getting driver's licenses, passports, government checks, any other number of acceptable i.d.'s. today's misnamed for the people's act won't fool americans who have not forgotten how far we've come since 1965 and how sacred their constitutional right to vote. i ask my colleagues to join me in rejecting this latest attempt to remove power from the people in the states that best represent them. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i now yield one minute to the gentlewoman from pennsylvania, who serves on the committee of house administration and the committee on the judiciary, ms. mary gay scanlon. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. scanlon: mr. speaker, i'm proud to help bring this bill to the floor and to push for its consideration in the senate. pennsylvania and philadelphia, which i represent, is the birthplace of our democratic republic. it's now ground zero in the battle for the soul of our nation. a decade ago when the last redistricting occurred, the pennsylvania legislature launched an attack on election rights which have only escalated over the years. voters had to battle in school to get fair districts and overturn discriminatory voter i.d. laws that threaten to disenfranchise more than half a million eligible pennsylvania voters. in the last two years, we've seen these threats multiply. as the former president and his far-right allies have tried over and over again to make it harder to vote and to throw out the legal votes of pennsylvania eligible voters. this bill is not a takeover of state elections. it's a response to attempts by state legislatures, like pennsylvania, to make it harder for americans to express their most essential freedom -- voting -- by exercising our duty under article 1, section 4 of the constitution, to protect that right. i urge all my colleagues, no matter what party, to support this legislation, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. the gentleman from north carolina reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, i don't trust my folks over here with time as much as i do my good friend. can you give us a time check? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina has 18 minutes. mr. davis: i'd like to now yield 2 1/2 minutes to the ranking member from the house judicial committee, my good friend, mr. jordan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. jordan: i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, the democrats have objected to counting the presidential electors every single time this century of republicans been elected president. they spent time overturning the presidential campaign. they spied on an presidential campaign. they did an impeachment based on a whistleblower whose identity that only congressman schiff got to know. they closed the capitol, enabled proxy voting, kicked members off committees. denied republicans on a committee that was chosen by the minority leader. they are trying to make d.c. a state, end the electoral college, pack the supreme court, take federal control of elections. currently allowing in jurisdictions illegal aliens to vote. finally, the january 6 committee has altered evidence and lied to the american people about it. somehow they tell us it's president trump and democrats who are under -- republicans undermining democracy. actually think we should show a photo i.d. to vote? in one year's time, while democrats are doing all that, they have given us record crime, record inflation, record illegal immigration. as bad as that is it's not the worst. how they used the virus to attack our freedoms. how they used the virus to attack our freedoms. they use the virus to attack our liberties even though everything they told us about the virus has been wrong. they told us it didn't come from a lab. they told us it wasn't gain of function research. they told us it was only 15 days to slow the spread. they told us masks works. they said there would never be a vaccine mandate. people that get vaccinated can't get the virus, transmit the virus and they said there is no such thing as natural immunity. think about this. think about this. at the same time, democrats require you to put on a mask, show your papers, and an i.d., to get a big mac at mcdonald's. they don't want -- they want to allow the federal government to stop states from requiring a photo i.d. to vote. this is ridiculous. vote no on this legislation. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. davis: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: i now yield one minute to the gentlewoman from texas, my friend who serves on the committee on the judiciary, congresswoman sylvia garcia. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. garcia: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today in strong support for the freedom to vote: john r. lewis act. our democracy is built on the sacred principle that every american, every american has an equal and fair right to vote. but states like my home state of texas are imposing laws that are already limiting that very sacred right. between bills like s.b. 1 and extreme gerrymandering, the voices of many texans are being diluted and silenced, especially latinos. we cannot let this stand. it is our responsibility, our duty to protect voting rights for every american, no matter what zip code they live in or what language they speak. the freedom to vote act will do just that for latinos and for all americans. by banning partisan gerrymandering, restoring the voting rights act, and creating new protections for voters, we will ensure every american makes their voice heard. mi voto, my voice. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: at this time i'd like to yield a minute and a half to my good friend, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. meuser. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. meuser: mr. speaker, i thank my good friend, mr. davis of illinois. mr. speaker, democrats have a scheme to take over elections and it has taken a very disturbing turn. the federal takeover of elections bill is masking as a noncontroversial -- what was a noncontroversial nasa bill. state legislatures determine the time, place, manner of elections, period. voter participation, mr. speaker, over the past 20 years has enormously increased. it's well over 70% at this point because states have implemented policies assuring easy access while maintaining voter integrity for the best of their ability. nevertheless, they want a federal takeover of all elections. this plan legalizes ballot harvesting nationwide. bans voter i.d. laws. you hear that? prohibits the ask for an i.d. to vote. somehow that is in the interest of our election integrity. i don't think so. it allows noncitizens to vote, mr. speaker. it imposes new mandates on all precincts, regardless of their size or resource. perhaps more egregiously, they want to provide millions in taxpayer fund for campaigns. under this taxpayer scheme, the american taxpayer would give our speaker of the house $22 million, $44 million, a whooping $44 million to senate majority leader chuck schumer for his campaign. americans can't get covid tests, hospitals are being overwhelmed, businesses can't find workers. this is the focus, to blow up the senate filibuster and seize control of all elections -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. meuser: let's vote no. mr. davis: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i now yield one minute to the gentleman from the commonwealth of virginia, my friend, don beyer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. beyer: mr. speaker, i rise in robust support of the freedom to vote: john r. lewis act. i believe this is the most important bill we will ever vote on. this is a bill that saves our democracy. the most fundamental idea of our exceptional nation is that people have the right to choose their leaders. we made slow progress over the centuries. african-americans, native americans, women, 18-year-olds. this will finally establish the basic fundamental right -- voting rights for all americans. with this act, we stand against efforts to have voting rules in favor of the few and take our essential democratic privilege away from all americans. that has inspired humanity for centuries and now a nasa bill becomes the vehicle to save our democracy. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: at this time, mr. speaker, i'd like to yield two minutes to my good friend from the state of florida, mr. donaldson. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. donaldson: mr. speaker, i think it's important as we have this debate on a bill that was dropped last night with provisions that have gone through this chamber before which, frankly, have gone nowhere in the senate, it's important to understand for the context of this discussion that i actually represent a preclearance county. i lived in one for 20 years. preclearance was subject to preclearance in 1965. under the voting rights act. since i lived there the last 20 years, there has been no evidence whatsoever that collier county should continue to be subject to preclearance. so much so the supreme court agreed and decided that it was no longer needed to do preclearance in the united states. because the evidence did not subject it. but what this bill seeks to do is unleash preclearance across the entire united states with no evidence for it being needed. the evidence that did exist in 1965. i represent such a county today. something tells me that in 1965 i wouldn't represent that county then at that time. i do today. the evidence is clear. there is no reason to unleash preclearance on the united states. no need at all. the other provisions of the 1965 voting rights act still exist today and will continue to exist. the preclearance provision is no longer needed. so what is this really about? this is really about making sure that politicians have direct control over how elections are going to be administered in the several states, which by the way is a violation of the united states constitution. voting laws are supposed to be enacted by state legislatures not here in congress. that is the way the constitution is written. i think this is a bad bill. we should not be doing this let alone funding, doing public financing on federal elections? why would we ever want to do anything like that? we have more than enough money in our elections. we seem to spend billions of dollars every cycle doing this stuff. we want more? we want to take it from the taxpayers? time the gentleman's time has expired. mr. donltdz: vote no on this measure. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, i now yield one minute to the gentleman from maryland, the distinguished democratic whip, my friend, mr. hoyer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, i am old enough to have grown up and become cognizant of public affairs in the plate 1950's and early 1960's. it's ironic that today i'm hearing the language of interposition, of states' rights. there are a lot of states' rights in the 1950's and 1940's and the 1960's. john lewis will tell you those states' rights kept people from voting. from participating. from playing a role. now we have legislation before us that will ensure as the voting rights act of 1965 assured, that people would not be shut out by states' rights. by people who want to keep certain other people from voting and participating in their states' elections, in their counties' elections, in their municipal election, in their city election. i have heard a lot about states' rights. i'm old enough to have heard about what states' rights meant. they meant don't butt in. to assure that every united states citizen, one nation, under god, indissable -- divisible. but we were divisible and we were divisible by color and by other arbitrary and unjustified distinctions. so we are here today to say that is not america. that is not one nation, under god, indissible. indissable. so, yes, all the states will be covered. because we want all states to comply. and they will not have a thing to worry about under this legislation if they have not had violations within the 20-year period. madam speaker -- mr. speaker, on monday we'll mark what would have been dr. martin luther king jr.'s 93rd birthday. when he was born in 1929, it had only been nine years, just nine years from the date of his birth that women were given the opportunity to vote in america. how sad it took us so long. when he was born in 1929, it had only been nine years since the 19th amendment had been passed. and it had only been 64 years since the amendments ending slavery and ostensibly guaranteeing the right to vote for african-americans. but that constitutional amendment was not honored. and ways and means were found to prevent people from voting. from registering. so, yes, the supreme court passed a decision in shelby vs. holder. shelby in alabama, a county that had discriminated greatly and was greating at that point in time. as soon as the -- discriminating at that point in time. as soon as the supreme court said this is no longer necessary, we saw a cascade of new laws to restrict access to the ballot box. a cascade. when dr. king was born neither african-american men or african-american women could cast ballots and participate in our democracy in many states. and jurisdictions. north and south. before he was killed, at just 39 years of age, dr. king led a movement to correct the injustices that had come about because for so long many americans had no recourse to participate in our democracy or pursue opportunities equally because their states felt they had the right to discriminate. that's what state rights were in my generation. apparently the concept still exists. that that is the right, the right to vote is the guarantee to all others. dr. king joined by other giants of the civil rights movement, including our dear friend and brother, my, my, my, g.k. and i were saying just how sad we are that john lewis is not on this floor. who gave blood and almost his life, but lived his life to assure that every american had the right to vote and was facilitated in that right. dr. king joined by other giants of the civil rights movement, including our friend and brother, john lewis, used the tools of nonviolent peaceful protests in organizing to expose the hypocrisy of a system that called itself a democracy but did not allow all of its citizens to share in electing leaders. each year on martin luther king jr.'s birthday, americans reflect on the lessons of his life and civil rights movement as though they formed a chapter in america's past. would that they mirrored simply the past, mr. speaker, but if we look around us today there can be no doubt the fight for our democracy is very much a part of our present. this is a radical bill that will allow a process in the united states senate that's a failing practice. the majority will rule on kuwaiting -- debating this bill. the majority. isn't that a radical, radical proposal that the majority of the senate that is for this bill. when people get up and say this bill can't pass, the only reason it can't pass is because the minority will stop it. if they can. i hope they can't. i hope they change their rules. i am an opponent of the filibuster. it is undemocratic. and as hamilton said, it poisons democracy. the right to vote has not been so endangered since dr. king walked among us. but there is a remedy. it's not perfect. but it will go a long way toward returning back the tide of voter suppression and protecting the fundamental right to vote. one nation, under god, indissable -- indivisable. it represents the most boldest and consequential voting rights reforms in a generation. i was a sponsor of the help america note act. it was called then a very consequential bill. it was not nearly as consequential as this bill will be in empowering every person eligible to vote. by the way, every citizen from my perspective to vote. so there is no mischaracterization of my view. i want to thank chairman nadler, representative sewell, representative sarbanes, chairwoman beatty, and the entire congressional blackhawks and literally00 of -- black caucus, and literally hundreds of members who through the years have ought fought to protect this sacred right. in addition to providing for automatic online and same day voter registration, the freedom to vote act will take -- make election day a federal holiday. a holy day, if you will. in the pursuit of our secular commitment to democracy. it will guarantee at least 15 gays of early -- days of early voting. isn't that terrible. it must be terrible because many states throughout the country are cutting those days down. why? i don't know. if you vote on tuesday as opposed to thursday is there more fraud involved? i don't know. it will guarantee those days and two weekends while ending requirements for difficult to obtain photo i.d. it doesn't eliminate i.d. it states have i.d. it cost not eliminate that. importantly, this legislation will restore voting rights to those who paid their death debt to society and ensure those who cast eligible ballots profiguressally in the wrong precincts will still have their votes counted. as a sponsor of the help america vote act in 2002, that provision was in the federal law. this bill would limit partisan gerrymandering and remove the corrosive influence of dark money. my mother used to tell me krt source. if the money is dark and you don't know who is paying the bill for the talk that's being given, you can't make that judgment. you can't determine who the source is. when it comes to defending the integrity of our elections and democracy, this legislation is absolutely needed in america. not only will it prohibit the removal of election officials without cause, which is happening because the president calls up and says can't you find some more votes? that was the asking of some elected official, secretary of state of georgia, to commit a crime. talk about fraud in elections. also critical this legislation will shore up the u.s. election assistance commission created under the help america vote act. it will enable the e.a.c. to provide state and local boards of election with grants to upgrade outdated voting equipment and protect against hackers and cyber threats. it wasn't until 2003 that the federal government paid part of the election costs incurred in electing federal officials. also restoring the full force of the 65 voting rights act whichs are undermined by shelby vs. holder. applying it to every state, not discrimination, if you break the law in any state, if you preclude people from legitimately voting in any state, you are covered under this legislation. we don't pick out any actor. every state is included. we apply it to every state and updating it for the 21st century, the freedom to vote act has the power to restore trust that our elections are fair and every eligible voter will be ablele to participate. will be able to participate. house democrats have passed voting rights measures multiple times. this congress sending both h.r. 1 and h.r. 4 to the senate. the majority's for it. but the filibuster stops it. the minority controls the majority. madison said that was not democracy. now the senate must act. i urge senators to come together on monday and approve this historic voting rights legislation for our time. we have the opportunity, i share g.k. butterfield's sadness that john lewis is not on this floor to cast his vote. very frankly i would have yielded all the time i have taken to john lewis to talk to us about how important this legislation is. . to accomplish an america where no person would be shut out of the ballot box. in future years, i hope people can celebrate martin luther king day reflecting, not only how our country overcame jim crow, but how we presented the return in 2022. we heard this is not jim crow. no matter how subtle the discrimination may be, it is direction. cast your vote -- it is discrimination. cast your vote for this bill today, ladies and gentlemen, so the citizens can cast their vote without hindrance and share equally in the making of our laws and in the shaping of our future. vote yes. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, i now yield two minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from north carolina, mr. bishop. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. bishop: i thank the gentleman. and i -- in the lengthy oration of one minute from the majority leader, i agreed with one word, this is a radical bill. and the majority leader's argument is a baby -- throwing the baby out with the bath water argument. the states in this country remain bulwark -- a bulwark of democracy. they say it won't live without their bill. this is nothing like a late night gut and replace in congress. a bill with nasa has this added. nothing like giving them i.d. laws. 74% of the people favor them. people in my state voted to put it in our state constitution. most believe elections should be made more secure. nothing speaks more of preserving our democracy than shifting the power to said election law from 50 decentralized states where legislatures controlled by different parties have held that power for all 233 years of our experience under the constitution and centralizing that power in the single agency, the department of justice, at any time controlled by one party. nothing speaks of preserving our democracy like abandoning historic parliamentary norms to accomplish this radical transformation with bare majorities in both houses of congress with without -- without one vote from the minority party. democrats may continue gerrymandering in illinois and maryland with abandon, but they assure if you put all the control of elections into their hand in washington, they'll save democracy for you. it calls to mind the iconic vietnam-era phrase, we had to burn the village to save it. america, that's democrats' message to you. they will burn your democracy to the ground in order to save it. and they can't let anything stop this from getting it done before they face your verdict this november. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you, mr. speaker. i would ask my friend from north carolina to refer to the bill, the section that refers to voter i.d. it simply says, this bill sets uniform national standards for states that choose to require identification to vote. at this time, mr. speaker, it is my pleasure to yield one minute to the distinguished speaker of the house of representatives, ms. pelosi of california. the speaker pro tempore: the honorable gentlewoman is recognized. the speaker: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership. mr. speaker, today our nation faces the most dangerous assault on the vote since jim crow. last year alone, more than 440 draconian voter restrictions were introdeuced across 49 -- introduced across 49 states, several enacting 34 measures into law. this legislation seeks not only to suppress access to the ballot but empowers states to nullify election results entirely. that's what the legislation that i reference across the country. this sinister campaign is particularly targeted communities of color. as the house committee on house administration proved in last summer's report, partisan forces are accelerating a sinister campaign to silent the voices of color in particular. there are four things, just four things i want people to know about the freedom to vote: john r. lewis act. four things to remember and one observation. the four reasons why every member should vote for this bill today. first, it ends shameful voter suppression and election subversion, which lets local officials simply choose winners and losers based on their own political interest. nullification of election. vote no on that. secondly, it ends partisan gerrymandering so that the restricting -- redistricting process will meet the standards of the constitution, of the voting rights act, and keep communities of interest together. ending partisan gerrymandering. one. and stopping voter suppression and voter -- election nullification. two. ending partisan gerrymandering. it ends big, dark special interest money which is suffocating the airwaves with misrepresentations which does also suppress the voices of the american people. get rid of big dark money. people can still give their dark money but they have to disclose it. so that the public knows. and fourth, it -- this legislation empowers the grassroots by rewarding their participation in our democracy, amplifying their voice and yes, yes, with the power of matching their small dollar contributions. hear this. there are no taxpayer dollars involved in that. no matter what you might hear them misrepresent. no taxpayer dollars. so four things. end voter suppression, election nullification, end partisan gerrymandering, end dark money suppressing the system and, four, reward the grassroots. that is in the freedom to vote act. in the john lewis act, which is part of what we're voting on today, i just want to be clear. the voting rights act has been strongly bipartisan. indeed, republican presidents nixon, ford, reagan, george herbert walker bush, and george w. bush, who signed the most recent voting rights act, which received 390 votes in the house, unanimous in the senate, signed by george w. bush. bipartisan. and four times the congress has re-authorized the voting rights act in a bipartisan way. this is the first time we have the assault on that. i'm very, very proud of the house of representatives, mr. speaker, because we have twice passed for the people act, which is what the protect our vote is, and the john lewis voting advancement act, even before he passed, we passed it once. the house has made clear, we stand with the people in the fight for voting rights. i do want to, again, in closing, commend you, mr. butterfield, for your leadership on all of this. going around the country. john sarbanes, the author of our for the people act. terri sewell, the author frt voting rights act. zoe lofgren. mr. nadler, chair of the judicial committee. and also want to acknowledge the work of jim mcgovern, chair of the rules committee, who brought these bills to the floor time and time again. it is a day when democrats will once again take a strong step to defend our democracy as we send the freedom to vote: john r. lewis act to the senate for urgent consideration. nothing less is at stake than our democracy. with that, i urge a strong bipartisan aye vote on this legislation and yield back the balance of my time. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: mr. speaker, at this time, i'd like to yield two minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. fitzgerald. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. fitzgerald: thank you, mr. speaker. today i rise in objection to 5746, which is the latest attempt by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ignore the 10th amendment and dump on the state legislatures of this nation. basically telling them, you're incompetent. not to mention the clerks. democrats first tried to barge through the front door of legislation with h.r. 1. after that failed, they tried on the back door functions and this bill represents a full-blown takeover. the supposedly slimmed down bill would still override state laws by creating a federal right to no excuse mail-in voting and require states to accept late arriving ballots as long as they have timely postmarks. it's kind of a joke. it would automatically give felons the right to vote. great. it would overright state voter i.d. requirements. listen, only a few months ago, mr. speaker, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle argued that it suppressed voter turnout. only to flip-flop once they saw the public overwhelmingly supports proof of identity before casting a ballot. 80% in some states. i'm proud to have implemented strong voter i.d. laws during my time in the wisconsin legislature. unfortunately, leading up to the 2020 election, i saw these protections steam rolled under the guise of the pandemic. let's talk about the supreme court. in 2013, the decision recognized -- a decision recognized that we are no longer living in the jim crow era. the original voters rights act worked. and preclearance is no longer required. allegations that election integrity measures that have been adopted by states, such as texas and georgia, don't amount to anything close to jim co-era restriction -- jim crow era restrictions and is a slap in the face to those who endured real discrimination. there is no voting rights crisis. this is not about ensuring access to the polls. this is about taking power from the state legislatures and concentrating -- concentrated in our electoral systems. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, at this time i yield two minutes to the distinguished democratic whip, the gentleman from south carolina, mr. clyburn, who has led the way in this house and in the south for generations. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. clyburn: thank you very much. i thank my friend, the gentleman from north carolina, for yielding me this time. mr. speaker, i rise to urge passage of this legislation, carrying the freedom to vote act and the john r. lewis voting rights advancement act to the senate for immediate consideration. to safeguard our most fundamental constitutional right -- the right to vote. we took an oath to protect this country from all threats, foreign and domestic. today, we face a domestic threat from those seeking to gain and hold power by suppressing votes and nullifying election results. congress must combat this threat by ensuring equal and unencurvent -- unincumbent to the ballot box and ensuring an accurate vote count. it is time to choose. will we uphold our oath and protect this fragile democracy? or will we subvert the constitution and fetter the franchise? i want to remind the previous speaker that we did not have jim crow before there was jim crow. and we did not have jim crow -- we had it until 1954. i used to teach this stuff called history, and i will say to my colleagues. anything that's happened before can happen again. it was the lack of the vote that had 95 years between george washington murray, who was the last african-american to represent south carolina here in this body until i came along in 1992. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. clyburn: because the right to vote was taken away. and the results were nullified. we are not going back. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: i'd like to reserve at this time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. . mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, at this time i yield one minute to the distinguished gentleman from maryland, a coveted member of the house committee on administration, my friend, jamie raskin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. raskin: thank you very much, mr. floor leader. our colleagues object to guaranteeing the people's right to vote through the vehicle of a nasa bill of all things. a quarter century ago republicans changed texas state law to permit astronauts to vote absentee from space. they want to make it easier to vote from space and harder to vote on earth. in the last election, tens of thousands of citizens in texas waited in line for six hours to vote. and the astronaut on the international space station could have orbited planet earth four times in the six hours that texas forced some of its citizens to wait in line to vote. across the country it's voter suppression, g.o.p. gerrymandering of our districts, right wing court packaging -- packing and deployment of the filibuster to block voting rights legislation. the whole matrix of g.o.p. democracy suppression today. it's time to project the right to vote here on earth. if it takes a nasa bill to do it, i invite my g.o.p. colleagues to boldly go where none of them have ever gone before, to planet earth on a mission to defending the voting rights of the people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: although it seems like, mr. speaker, i'm going to go where no man's ever gone before, that's to call mr. lauder milk from georgia, my good friend. he's recognized for two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. loudermilk: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today obviously in strong opposition to this latest attempts by my colleagues on the other side to enact a federal takeover of elections. and continue their tactics that they have used consistently in this congress and last congress to hide the intent of what they are doing. make no mistake, this legislation is an attempt to circumvent this state legislature's constitutional authority to set election laws. laws like the ones passed in georgia that maximizes voter access and protects the integrity of every legal ballot. one size fits all government has never worked in a diverse and free society like we have here in the united states of america. one sides fits all is synonymous with dictatorial regimes, socialist societies, and communist countries. governments that keep control over the people by stripping the authority from the lands of local officials that were elected by the people to represent them. this is what this bill does. be clear, the goal of strong central governments, strong federal governments is to have a home genius society that is easily controlled. easily controlled. our society is diverse. diversity of thought, diversity of action, diversity of speech. but the actions of my colleagues on the other side is to have a home genius -- home genius society where it's not determined by conviction or faith but what the federal government determined is right or wrong. you don't have to look further of how the right to determine your own health care has been stripped away by my colleagues on the other side. where people can no longer determine what they will and will not put into their body. the constitution protects the ideas of individual liberty and federalism to where government is strongest at the local level. this bill disregards state voter i.d.'s and one thing i want to bring up is homogenous when it comes to campaign elections. mr. davis: yield 15 seconds. mr. loudermilk: i appreciate the gentleman here. we live in an independent diverse society. where local governments are the greatest authority over the people. this is a takeover by the federal government to create a society where everyone acts, thinks, and works according to the federal government. oppose this legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, at this time i yield one minute to the gentleman from california, the distinguished vice chair of the house democratic caucus, and i might say a member of the election subcommittee of which i have the honor to chair, mr. aguilar. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. aguilar: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the chairman for yielding. i rise today in support of the freedom to vote john r. lewis act. legislation that would protect the right to vote and strengthen our democracy. this week we heard president biden travel to the home of our late colleague john lewis, rally the nation around the need to protect and expand the right to vote. today we will pass this legislation in honor of john's name. but in order to honor our colleague, we must make good on our commitment. we must pass this legislation in both chambers without delay. we must also make clear as president biden did this week that there is nothing more important, no rules or procedures than the health of our democracy. there is far too much at stake to let tradition get in the way of real progress. i know from my work on the committee and the select committee investigating the attack on the u.s. capitol that the concerns about the future of the american system, the consent of the governed, with are well-founded. mr. speaker, every member of this body has a choice today and the world will remember where we stood. i am proud to stand on the side of democracy, on the side of making it easier to vote. not more difficult. and on the side of the people. because the american people are with us. this is not a democratic issue or republican issue. i urge my colleagues to support this bill and pass this legislation. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. defensives: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you, mr. speaker. at this time it is my pleasure to yield one minute to the gentlewoman from alabama, my dear friend and the sponsor of the john r. lewis voting rights advancement act, ms. terri sewell of selma, alabama. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. sewell: mr. speaker, as you know voting rights is personal to me. it was in my hometown in 1965 on a bridge in selma, alabama, where john lewis and the foot soldiers shed blood for the equal right of all americans to vote. 56 years later, old battles have become new again and state legislatures erect direct barriers to the ballot box. 400 bills introduced, 34 passed in 19 states. once again our nation is at an inflection point. today the house of representatives will once again send voting rights over to the senate and it must pass, mr. speaker. i implore or senators, do what is right. you have changed your rules, 150 times, most recently to raise the debt ceiling. if you can protect the full faith and credit of the united states, surely you can protect the democracy. the time is now. what we need is courage. as we prepare to observe the birthday of dr. martin luther king, let us remember that justice delayed can be justice denied. senators, we need your leadership. we need it now. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. i remind everyone to direct your remarks to the chair. the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: i appreciate that reminder. i'd like to now yield one minute to my good friend from the state of arizona, mrs. lesko. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. lesko: thank you, mr. speaker. thank you, mr. davis. republicans are trying to protect everyone's right to vote and the integrity of the election. it boggles my mind that in some cities in the united states noncitizens are allowed to vote. here in washington, d.c., and other cities, when we go to a restaurant, we need to show our passport, vaccination database passport saying we are fully vaccinated before we are allowed to enter. but yet my democrat colleagues don't seem to want voter i.d. in the state of arizona, we have a law in place that requires voter i.d. to vote. we also have a law in place that was held up by the courts that does prohibit ballot harvesting. yet it continues to boggle my mind that our democrat colleagues want to undo what the states have done. undo state rights. i am opposed to this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you very much, madam speaker. i want to remind my friend from arizona, who just spoke, that this bill sets uniform national standards for states that choose to require identification to vote. the bill gives states the flexibility, flexibility to choose whether to require voter i.d.'s. it is not a mandatory voter i.d. law. at this time, madam speaker, it is my pleasure to yield one minute to the gentleman from new york, a thoughtful leader on the committee on judiciary committee, mr. mondaire jones. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. jones: madam speaker, my colleagues across the aisle have asked why we are voting today to protect our democracy. the answer is as clear to me as it is unimaginable to them. for the people. this one's for the people who made today possible. for the young people who cast their first votes in 2020. and for the seniors who cast their first votes in 1966 after passage of the original voting rights act. for the people who like john lewis, put their lives on the line on bloody sunday. and for the people who risked their lives to overcome racist voter suppression at the height of this pandemic. for people like my mentor, and professor, the late loni lanier, mother of the 1982 amendment to the voting rights act. for the people who don't have a vote but who do have a voice. voting rights are preservative of all other rights. but time is running out. we can still have a democracy, madam speaker. but only if we pass this legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: madam speaker, at this time i would like to yield one minute to the gentlewoman from connecticut, my friend, the chair of the appropriations committee who stays in perpetual motion, miss rosa delauro. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. delauro: ensuring all americans can freely participate in the electoral process is a bedrock of our democratic society. today in this country we are witnessing an attack on that sacred right to vote, restricting voting access. we must act to restore federal oversight. what we do will determine the course of our democracy for generations to come. our late colleague, john lewis, shed blood for the right of all americans to vote. let us honor the legacy of those who fought to protect voting rights and pass this critical legislation. president biden made our choice today clear, and i quote, will we choose democracy over awe talk acy -- awe tock acy. justice over injustice. like the president i know where i stand and i urge my colleagues to join me in voting for the freedom to vote, john r. lewis act. thank you, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: reserve, please. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: madam speaker, may we enfire about how much time -- inquire about how much time each side has remaining. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina has 6 1/2 minutes. the gentleman from illinois has 2 and a quarter minutes. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you very much, madam speaker. for giving us the time check. at this time it is my delight to yield one minute to the gentlewoman from texas, my friend, and another member who stays in perpetual motion, congresswoman sheila jackson lee. a member of the judiciary committee. a senior member of the judiciary committee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. jackson lee: to the distinguished leader of this debate, mr. butterfield, for your service to this nation i am grateful. this is a somber, sacred moment in our lives on this floor. i stand here in the name of the blood shed by those foot soldiers, dr. martin luther king and john robert lewis who shed his blood on the edmund pettus bridge. my friends who vote no today will disregard and ignore that blood shed. i refuse to ignore the blood that was shed for the right to vote. as a member of the house judiciary committee this committee builds over the course of 13 hearings in two congresses, led bier gerry nadler and steve cohen, the record for the john robert lewis bill. and for that i am grateful for i stand as a vick ive. lack of preclearance. the bills that we have will eliminate a legislature as texas bill states to overturn duly voters choice. it will prevent the purging of voters which happens all the time. it will protect you at the polls and disallow people from interfering with your vote. it is now a sacred honor and charge. we must vote no in the name of martin king and john robert lewis. we can't do less. the senate must do its job. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: i reserve, please. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: at this time i would like to yield one minute to the gentleman from texas, from houston, texas, harris county, my friend, my classmate, congressman al green. for one minute. . mr. green: thank you, madam speaker, madam speaker, and still i rise. our country has a history of discriminating against people of color and women when it comes to the right to vote. but that all changed in 1965 when president lyndon johnson signed the 1965 voting rights act. because you see, prior to his signing that act in 1965, there were four asian members of congress. in 2021, there were 21 members. there were four latino members of congress. in 2021, 54. there were six black members of congress. in 2021, 60. and there were 18 women in congress in 1965. and in 2021, there were 147. we must restore the voting rights act and protect democracy. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: i'd like to reserve, please. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you very much, madam speaker. at this time, in the interest of time, i will yield one half minute, that's 30 seconds, to the gentleman from dallas, texas, my friend, congressman allred. mr. allred: i thank the gentleman for yielding. madam speaker, this should be a bipartisan vote. the right to vote has been re-authorized and the voting rights act has been re-authorized overwhelmingly by bipartisan majorities in this house and unanimously in the senate. my constituent, george w. bush, signed the re-authorization of the voting rights act. but now it's time for us to not just restore the voting rights act but to make sure we expand voting rights across the country, to give us a sword and a shield. the shield of the voting rights act to protect the right to vote, to protect changes. the sword of the freedom to vote act, the expansion it will provide, vote by mail, voter region station, and make sure -- registration, and make sure all voices are heard in elections. thank you, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. davis: i'd like to verve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: madam speaker, again, how much time do we have remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has four minutes remaining. mr. butterfield: thank you. mr. davis, i'm prepared to close. mr. davis: would the gentleman like to yield me a couple minutes, too? mr. butterfield: i'd yield. mr. davis: i'm good. mr. butterfield: you are my friend. mr. davis: you are my friend. i appreciate the debate. i am prepared to close, if i may. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. davis: it's friendships like this, mr. butterfield, that i look around this chamber and i think we as america should be celebrating what america is doing right. look at the diversity of who serves here in the u.s. house of representatives. the voting rights act of 1965 was necessary to stop discrimination and it's worked. but make no mistake, today's bill is not a voting rights bill. today's bill, unfortunately, is a bill that leads to lining your own campaign coffers with public funds. now, speaker pelosi, the speaker was on the floor today. no matter how many times she says it, there's no taxpayer funds, it's not true. let me go through is the original h.r. 1, when proposed last congress, did have taxpayer funding of political campaigns, our own campaigns, but now they take the first-ever corporate money through corporate fines. they put it into the department of treasury's laundry machine. it comes out -- comes out as part of the department of treasury. that's not public funds. does that mean when you send your check to pay your taxes it go to the department of treasury, that those aren't public funds? every single person who votes yes for this bill that is not a voting rights bill is voting to line their own campaign pockets. that is not what the american people want. 94% of americans say it's easy to vote. we have asked time and time again, give me one person to show up at a hearing that said that they wanted to vote in the last election and couldn't. not one person has walked through that door. not one person has showed up on a zoom call. not one person. why in the world do we continue to try to gaslight the american people into thinking that this is about voting rights? this is not about voting rights. it's about lining your own campaign coffers. it's about breaking a tradition in the senate. this is about taking over and winning elections for one side over the other. vote no on this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you very much, madam speaker. i yield myself as much time as i may consume in order to close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. butterfield: thank you, madam speaker. first of all, madam speaker, let me thank the gentleman from illinois, mr. rodney davis. when members of congress say to each other, you are my friend, i just want the world to know that we mean that sincerely. mr. davis and i are genuinely friends. i am the chairman of the subcommittee. he's the ranking member of our full committee. and we have a whole relationship. we respect each other. thank you so much, mr. davis. and thank you to our chair of the full committee on house administration, congresswoman zoe lofgren, who allowed me to manage the floor today. i want to thank her for her leadership, not only on this committee but also on the committee on the judiciary. madam speaker, this has been a healthy debate. this is the way congress should work. this is a healthy debate, and i look forward to debate in the senate. i hope it will start forthwith and conclude on monday. i look forward to passage in the united states senate. madam speaker, the choice before the house today is clear. we must protect our democracy. it is past time for this congress to act. historically -- madam speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: madam speaker, it is past time for congress to act. historically, we have come together to protect the right to vote. from the voting rights act of 1965 that i remember so well, its subsequent re-authorizations in various election administration bills, we have protected and expanded the right to vote. and madam speaker, we must do that again. the voting rights act works along with lana and julius chambers and leslie winter and jack greenburg of the naacp legal defense fund, i joined with them in the 1980's and litigated voting right act cases in north carolina. the voting rights act works. throughout my career, i have witnessed this body come together to ensure all americans have a voice in this democracy. we must do that again now. when of our most sacred rights in this country is the right to vote. in fact, as the supreme court observed, other rights, even the most basic, the most basic are illosery if the right to vote is undermined. as a nation, we cannot -- we must not tolerate any voter suppression, any voter discrimination of any kind in any state in america. and so i respectfully urge all of my colleagues, democrat and republican, all 435 of us, i urge all of us to support this bill. vote yes. and madam speaker, i yield back the balance of my time for a vote. the speaker pro tempore: all time for debate has expired. pursuant to house resolution 868, previous question is ordered. the question is on the motion by the gentleman from north carolina, mr. butterfield. all those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is -- the gentleman from illinois. mr. davis: i'd like to ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-s of the house resolution 8, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by representatives pressley and grijalva, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island seek recognition? mr. cicilline: madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. bass of california, mr. torres of new york, ms. wilson of florida, and ms. pingree of maine, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? ms. escobar: madam speaker, as the member designated by representative speier, i inform the house that representative speier will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. mace from south carolina, i inform the house that ms. mace will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from virginia seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by representatives porter and mceachin, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative ruiz, i inform the house that representative ruiz will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. beyer: madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. blumenauer of oregon, mr. desaulnier of california, mr. lowenthal of california, ms. barragan of california, mr. lieu of california, ms. moore of wisconsin, mr. cohen of tennessee, and mr. moulton of massachusetts, i inform the house that these eight members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? for what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition? >> yes, madam. as the member designated by mr. nehls of texas, i inform the house that mr. nehls will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from delaware seek recognition? ms. blunt rochester: madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. degette of colorado, i inform the house that ms. degette will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by reps crist, cardenas, castor, and lawson, i inform the house that these members will vote yea on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? mr. jeffries: as the member designated by chairwoman zoe lofgren, chairwoman eddie bernice johnson and sean patrick maloney, i inform the house that these members will vote yea on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from commonwealth of massachusetts seek recognition. mr. mcgovern: madam speaker, as the member designated mr. welch of vermont, i inform the house that representative welsh will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. hagedorn from minnesota, i inform the house that mr. hagedorn will be voting no on h.r. 5746. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? mr. raskin: madam speaker, as the member designated by members suozzi, pocan, doggett, and jayapal, i rise to i inform the house that these members will vote aye on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition. >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. louie gohmert of the great state of texas, i inform the house that mr. gohmert will vote no on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition. >> madam speaker, as the member designated by chairwoman maxine waters, i inform the house that chairwoman waters will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california seek recognition. >> mrs. kim of california, pursuant to h.res. 8, i inform the house that mrs. kim will vote no on the house amendment to senate amendment to h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition. >> madam speaker, as the member designated by representative stanton, i inform the house that representative stanton will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition. >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. smucker of pennsylvania, i inform the house that mr. smucker will vote no on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition. >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. katko of new york, i inform the house that mr. katko will vote no on h.r. 5746. madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. kinzinger of illinois, mr. kinzinger will vote no on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? mr. brown: madam speaker, mr. defazio votes yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from new hampshire seek recognition? ms. kuster: madam speaker, as the member designated by representative bonamici, brownley, and meng i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition. >> thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by representative adams of north carolina, i inform the house that representative adams will vote yes on the motion to concur. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arizona seek recognition. >> as the member designated by representative swalwell, gomez i inform the house that these members will vote aye on the motion. as the member designated by representative boyle, i inform the house that these members will vote aye on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from kansas seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by rep cleaver, i inform the house that rep cleaver will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. brooks from alabama, i inform the house that mr. brooks will vote no on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> as the member designated by reps bush and ocasio-cortez, i inform the house that these members will vote aye on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. kildee: madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. panetta of california, i inform the house that mr. panetta will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by representative ruppersberger, i inform the house that mr. ruppersberger will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition. >> thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by representative delbene and bera, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentleman from florida seek recognition. >> madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. salazar of florida and mr. waltz of florida i inform the house that ms. salazar and mr. waltz will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> good morning, madam speaker. madam speaker, as the member designated by the gentleman from texas, congressman crenshaw, i inform the house that congressman crenshaw will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. mccaul of texas, i inform the house that mr. mccaul will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative stansbury, i inform the house that representative stansbury will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from utah seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. herrera beutler of washington, i inform the house that ms. herrera beutler will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition? mr. pallone: madam speaker, as the member designated by representative gerry nadler of new york and kirkpatrick of arizona, andy kim of new jersey, donald payne of new jersey, albio sires of new jersey, and bonnie watson coleman of new jersey, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from massachusetts seek recognition? >> good morning, madam speaker. mr. lynch: as the member designated by the honorable mr. james langevin of rhode island, pursuant to h.res. 8, i inform the house that mr. langevin will vote yes on the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 5746, the freedom to vote john r. lewis act. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from massachusetts seek recognition. ms. clark: as the member designated by representative awshen claus, chew -- chu, lettering -- leger fernandez, and frankel i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from hawaii seek recognition? mr. case: thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by representative kehele, i inform the house that mr. kehele will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. connolly: madam speaker, as the member designated by representatives titus of nevada, price of north carolina, kind of wisconsin, and dolphin of pennsylvania i inform the house that these members will vote aye on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? ms. wasserman schultz: madam speaker, as the member designated miss carolyn maloney of new york, i inform the house that congresswoman ma lenny will vote yea on the -- congresswoman maloney will vote yea on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from colorado seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. gaetz from florida, i inform the house that mr. gaetz will vote nay on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the memberr designated by ms. lee of california and ms. talib of michigan, pursuant to h.res. 8, i inform the house that ms. lee and ms. talib will vote yea on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by congress member napolitano, congress member vela, congress member cuellar, congress member vargas, congress member roybal-allard, and congress member vicente gonzalez, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> as the member designated by john garamendi of california, i inform the house that john garamendi will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative kasten, i inform the house that representative kasten will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative dwight evans of pennsylvania's third district, pursuant to house resolution 8, i inform the house that mr. evans will vote yea on the house amendment to senate amendment h.r. 5746, the freedom to vote john r. lewis act. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from utah seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. crawford of arkansas, i inform the house that mr. crawford will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. jacobs of new york, i inform the house that mr. jacobs will vote nay on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north dakota seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. reschenthaler of pennsylvania, i inform the house that mr. reschenthaler will vote no on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. lamborn of colorado, i inform the house that mr. lamborn will vote nonh.r. 5746. -- no on 4*r 5746. as the member designated by mr. reed of new york, i inform the house that mr. reed will vote no on h.r. 5746. as the member designated by mr. hudson of north carolina, i inform the house that mr. hudson will vote no on h.r. 5746. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by representative bobby rush of illinois, pursuant to house resolution 965, i inform the house that mr. rush will vote yes on the motion. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from virginia seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative schrier, i inform the house that representative schrier will vote yes on the motion. the speaker: on this vote, the yeas are 220. the nays are 203. the motion is adopted. without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. the motion is passed. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that i may hereafter be considered the first sponsor of h.r. 4394, a bill originally introduced by representative nunes a previous member from the state of california for the purposes of adding co-sponsors and requesting reprinting pursuant to clause 7 of rule 12. the speaker: without objection. the speaker pro tempore: order in the house. members take their conversations off the house floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana seek recognition? mr. scalise: madam speaker, 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. mr. scalise: i also ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. scalise: with that i now yield to my friend, the gentleman from maryland, the majority leader for the house. mr. hoyer: i thank mr. scalise for yielding. madam speaker, on tuesday the house will meet at 12 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. with votes postponed as usual until 6:30 p.m. on wednesday and thursday the house will meet at 10 a.m. for morning hour and 12 p.m. for legislative business. and again as usual on friday the house will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. the house, madam speaker, will consider senate 2959, the supplemental impact aid flex ict ferribility act under suspend the rules. this bill passed the senate unanimously on suspension in the house. it's co-authored by representative joe courtney of the house. this bipartisan legislation allows local educational agencies participating in the impact aid program to use the student count or federal property valuation data from their fiscal career 2022 program applications for their fiscal year 2023 applications. this, madam speaker, will prevent schools from losing substantial funding upon which they rely to address covid-19 learning loss by giving them more flexibility to use prepandemic data to calculate funding needs. the house may consider other bills under suspend the rules. the complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. the house will also consider h.r. 4673, the e-vest act sponsored by chairman mark takano of the veterans' affairs committee. the rule for which we adopted this week. this legislation would automatically enroll eligible veterans into the v.a. health care system so that no veterans, no veterans are left behind when it comes to receiving quality affordable health care. lastly, madam speaker, the house stands ready to act on the build back better act, as well as the freedom to vote and john r. lewis act should the senate amend them and send them back to us. additional legislative items are possible. i yield to my friend from louisiana. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman for yielding. on the school bill, i know one of the big concerns many people have been raising is trying to get schools opened again. last week it was reported that 5200 different schools were closed last week. i know this body has -- this congress has sent billions of dollars to school systems across the country, the intent was that that money be used to get schools opened. yet there are some schools taking the money and staying closed which goes against all the medical science out there. we know the damage that's doing to our young kids, learning, depression, so many other challenges that it creates for them. will there be any part of that legislation that helps require to get money schools have to be opened. mr. hoyer: because i don't have it in front of me and i haven't read it as carefully as perhaps i should have, i don't know the specific answer to that question. what i do want to say, however, is that we need to have kids in school. everybody says it's a learning experience is substantially compromised by virtual learning. it's better than nothing, and it's been pursued very vigorously and with great positive effect. having said that, we all think that young people bought autoto be back in schools. i don't know whether this bill, which passed the senate unanimously, deals with that particular aspect that the gentleman asked about. let me say this, i think every school system has adopted the premise that in school is better. clearly we have been assaulted by a virus whose transmissibility is substantially more than the previous virus, the delta variant. the omicron variant, as we know, one of the problems is it's easy caught, easily transmitted. the good news is if you have taken a vaccination and had booster, the likelihood of your going to the hospital is smaller. and if you go to the hospital, you are much less sick. but having said that, we continue to have a challenge to get this under control. the administration properly so and the overwhelming majority of the medical community properly so, and the overwhelming majority of scientists are recommending we wear a mask, we wear a kn-95 or n-95 mask because they are better than the surgical masks or the cloth mavericks. we continue to wash our hands regularly and continue to keep distance. but the gentleman and i agree that we need to ensure that to the extent that it is possible, and that parents will send their children to school, because of being dissuaded by the transmissibility of this disease, we need to have kids in school. i yield back. mr. scalise: i appreciate that. maybe we can work on something that would ensure that as tax dollars are going to school systems that it's going to keep the schools opened not to allow them to then shut down on the kids. as we know the science is very clear that kids are much better off in school, safer in school than not being in school. then the learning experience dramatically less if they are not in school, as well as the mental conditions, the social development that's not occurring if they are not in the classroom. we'll see. mr. hoyer: i think we are -- i think everybody's concerned about this. certainly every parent in my district and your district is concerned about this. anybody who is concerned about the welfare of our children is concerned about it. i think it would be appropriate for me to say that the teachers of america, my wife was a teacher, and i happen to believe teachers are the most important people in any society because they educate the leadership and the citizens of tomorrow. but they have been put to an extraordinary challenge. i have a granddaughter who has four children. i have four great grandchildren. three of whom are in school and were in school in 2020 and 2021. judy, my granddaughter, who named after my wife, has told me on numerous occasions what extraordinary ends her children's teachers -- three different teachers at different levels in the school system, the extraordinary efforts to which the teachers went to make sure that while they were home, while they were learning virtually, that they had a positive, productive experience. but all of them felt, i think, a lot easier to have kids in school if they can do so safely. but i think that bears saying. like medical personnel, they have been put to extraordinary stress, as have parents generally been put to stress. i think the gentleman's concern is rightfully placed and we need to do everything we can to make sure kids get back in school and have a learning experience. like you and i had in the classroom. i yield back. mr. scalise: thank you. our teachers have been true heroes through this. hospital, frontline hospital workers, people that work at grocery stores. we have seen so many people rising up to the challenge. even where governments failed, their ability to do their job. i know one challenge that hopefully we see resolved at the united states supreme court, it won't be today, we were expecting it this week, but hopefully early next week, we see the supreme court resolve these challenges where there were mandates on vaccines that require people to get fired from their job if they chose a health care decision on vaccinations. i have been vaccinated. i know the gentleman from maryland has, too. for those who haven't, whether they are frontline hospital workers, teachers, people shouldn't be forced to lose their job based on that choice they make, but the supreme court will hopefully address that and resolve that next week. something that's out of our hands now but it is in the courts at the highest level. mr. hoyer: just because -- by my silence i understand the gentleman's position, which is held by a number of people. my own view is that employers make a reasonable decision when they say to an employee, for the sake not only of the employee but for everybody else in the workplace with whom they work, that you are required to be vaccinated because we believe that science and medical personnel tell us that is a much safer root. but i understand there is a difference on that. i personally -- even then i know governors who have been against vaccines, not necessarily against the employer, requiring that as an employee requirement as opposed to a governmental requirement. mr. scalise: i would hope the government would drop that mandate. if not, it's hopeful that the court would make it clear that the government doesn't have the authority to require that people get fired if they don't get vaccinated. encourage people to volume the science, if they have -- follow the science. if they have questions or concerns that's a conversation they should have with their doctor. we may have disagreement on that. fortunately for us it will get resolved at the supreme court. hopefully early next week. i wanted to ask the gentleman as well as we are looking at the schedule for next week, i didn't notice any of the bills that we highlighted in the past that would address some of the many crises our country is facing whether inflation, whether it's high gas prices, whether it's the border crisis. all that are running out of control. the empty shelves we are seeing at so many stores. will the gentleman get to working with us to bring some of the bills to the floor to address the real crises that are hurting hardworking families like the ones i just mentioned. i would yield. mr. hoyer: no doubt -- first of all let me say inflation is a serious challenge confronting american families. particularly working families in this country. i live alone. because it's just one person i buy relatively small amounts of food at the grocery store. i go to the grocery store now and whether it's the price of bacon, at $12 a pound for a good hormel or another meatpacking, it's high. and i think to myself how a family, not doing as well as i'm doing, and with kids to feed, how tough it is on them. this inflation is very tough. it's a worldwide phenomena. it's a phenomena caused by a pent up demand asking for a lot of goods and chasing a lot of goods, and elementary economics thatny of us took in college know that there is a lot of resources changing few resources. i.e. a lot of money chasing a short supply of goods. you have that demand that it drives prices up. this pandemic has had a global effect on supply chain. supply chain's been substantially affected. this was not the fault of, frankly, either biden or his predecessor in terms of what happened to the supply chain. in singapore they shut down companies, as you know, for months at a time. they just shut them down. which someone of the things that's led to this chip shortage which has had ramifications. i want to assure the gentleman that the administration, our side of the aisle, i know your side of the aisle, very concerned about the inflationary pressure that is putting such a stress on america's families. this pandemic has caused extraordinary historic things to happen. that's the bad news. the good news is we created more jobs in the last year and two months than were created -- we lost jobs for the previous four years, over two million jobs net lost. the good news is we have a number of economic statistics that are, in fact, positive. however having said that, we do need to be very concerned about inflation, the administration's expressed their concern. . i think that'll help the supply chain, help employee, make more people able to get out, child care, help people get back to work which will have a positive impact on the supply chain and availability of goods and services. so i think we're moving in the right direction. unemployment as the gentleman knows was down to 3.9%. so while inflation is up, and unacceptably high, historically high over the last 40 year we need to get it down, and we see this phenomena happening all over the world, this is not the fault of the president or the congress, it's the fault of an extraordinary invasive and widespread disease that has caused extraordinary disruptions within our society and economy. but we need to get a handle on it. we need to take action. i'll talk to the gentleman about what issues he believes would be helpful in that regard. mr. scalise: clearly some of those bills that have been discussed and offered up in the past to address inflationary problems and also the policy os the administration have caused that. as we know from the energy crisis, it's not pandemic related that the gas prices are so high. this president made a decision start daig one of his administration to shut down energy production in america, shut down pipelines in america, begging foreign countries to make more oil but shutting off and making it harder to make more energy in america. clearly that self-imposed supply shortage has created higher price east we would love to -- prices we would love to see addressed. we may disagree philosophically how to get there, but i don't think there's disagreement from people spending $100 to fill their car up that it needs to change. every small business owner i talk to, i imagine all of us can share similar story, our small business owners tell us they can't find workers. somebody may want to go to their favorite restaurant but they're waiting an hour and a half and wondering why the tables are empty, because they can't get people to work. some may want to look at the unemployment number, clearly the number of people not in the work force that just stopped working because they can get paid right now large amounts of money to stay at home is a challenge we should confront here in this congress to help encourage people to get back into the work force, not to be paying people not to work. and the enhanced unemployment benefits were one part of that problem but there are many other parts of that problem. but it's the idea that there are too many dollars as the gentleman said, chasing too few goods is the driver of inflation. but the biggest driver of that is all the money that's been spent in washington and if you look at about $6 trillion that's been spent on various relief packages, some of it was targeted to covid, which we all supported, very bipartisan, some of it had nothing to do with covid which unfortunately has created higher inflation. there is talk right now that the administration, and i'm not sure if the democrat leadership is having serious conversations on this, is looking at yet another bill potentially over $1 trillion of additional spending. i would ask the gentleman, is that something being anticipated to be brought to the floor. i would urge if that's being looked at to not do it. there's about $800 billion remaining from other relief packages that are unspent and hopefully we stop the spending in washington that's driving inflation and try to encourage the economy to get opened at a more rapid pace and if people need additional help to look to the money that's sitting there, the $800 billion that's unspent, rather than trillions more dollars that would be put into a marketplace that's already oversaturated with federal spending that's driving this inflation. i would yield. mr. hoyer: as you know, the task force looking at that issue of the $#00 billion and what's been done, what's been properly spent, the committee headed up by jim clyburn. i know you had a hearing this past week. yes, we have a difference of opinion. the difference of opinion, you call it spending, i call it investment. we're investing in our children. we're investing in our families. we're investing in small businesses. we're investing in growth and opportunity. and we're investing in the ability of those folks that you talked about, that are not in the work force, the restaurant can't hire, why can't they hire them because they're not paying sufficient amount to justify a mom getting child care because child care is so expensive. so she's caught, or a single dad. is caught in the catch-22 situation, if i go to work, i'll earn money but i'll pay it all to child care. if i'm going to pay it to child care it's much better for me as a parent to be with my child. if the net result will be pretty much a wash, we're investing in that. we're investing in child care. and the build back better act. we're investing in early childhood education. 3 and 4-year-olds. we believe that's investment and it also is very important for that small business person so that that mom or dad who has that child who is then going to go and be in a preschool environment can have time to themselves so that they can in fact pursue employment without simply putting it from one pocket to another pocket, none of which is their pocket. so we believe, the difference, i think, really. is you look at it as spend, we look at it as investment. we think it'll have a big, big return for the country. that's what build back better is about. you said it's not related to the pandemic. it's clearly related to the pandemic. the pandemic hit us in the gut. it hit everybody throughout the world in the gut. we have recovered better than anybody else in the world. and that's because we invested sometimes in a bipartisan way and sometimes in a partisan way. but we invested in our people and our children and our family, our businesses, and in our health generally of our country and indeed trying to help other parts of the world as well was this is a global pandemic that affects us all. i think the real difference is we perceive this as an investment. we think it will help grow america. you know, i have a -- i'm sure you've heard me talk about from time to time, make it in america agenda. our investment in both the infrastructure bill and the build back better will have a positive effect on making it in america. so we see it, mr. whip, as investment. we think it will have a positive effect. we think it is having a positive effect. as i say, unemployment is down below 4%. jobs -- jobs are up over six million over the last 11 months. so that's a good accomplishment. is it enough? do we still have people who are not working for a varied number of reasons? many of which are related to covid-19. so we see it as investment and i'm hopeful the build back better act will pass and i think that'll have a positive effect not only, as the president says, on the next five years but on the next five generations. so we're continuing to pursue that. but inflation which is how we started this discussion is a problem. and we need to deal with it. i'd be glad to talk to the gentleman about what he thinks would be helpful to do that. i know part of that is stop spending money. i think if we stop investing money our country will not get to where it wants to be. and where it is now with respect to the rest of the world, leading the rest of the world in terms of economic recovery from the pandemic, we're not there yet but we're going to get there. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman. clearly we have a difference on what the effects of spending trillions of dollars would have and build back better as the gentleman brought up would be about $4.5 trillion of higher taxes, additional spend, things that by many accounts would increase inflation even higher but we'll see where the senate goes on that bill. i'm not sure if the gentleman is anticipating bringing other legislation. the bipartisan bills we did to do things like create operation warp speed, which was maybe one of the most successful things government did in reaction to a pandemic in the history of the world to come up with not one, not two, but now three proven and effective vaccines in less than a year to a virus no one even knew about, never happened in the history of the world. something we came together republicans and democrats with president trump to achieve. a great achievement. something we would sure urge president biden to build on because president biden did run with a promise that he would, quote, shut down the virus, clearly he has failed at that. we have asked through a number of different means to have hearings on some of the things we have heard concerned about and i would start with testing. there was an article recently that the president was presented with a plan in october to come up with about 750 million tests people could have for covid at home. that would be readily available by christmas where they in october anticipated a resurgence of covid by december. it's been reported that the president rejected that plan. we've asked for a hearing into that for whatever reason the majority has not agreed to that. here's a letterer i sent to mr. clyburn and mrs. maloney through the select committee on coronavirus as well as through the oversight committee, myself and ranking member comer, asked to have a hearing into some of these things. the testing failures that were reported. if they're true we ought to hear about them. if they're false the administration ought to be pointing that out. they have not. which tells me they must be true but then why in october would the president have rejected a testing plan that could have prevented us from getting to the place we're at right now with this resurgence. what about some of the national plans the president said he had as a candidate that then he later told governors recently he doesn't have a national plan on covid. the mixed messaging coming from the administration is causing tremendous confusion across america and we've asked that we have hearings to clarify. give the administration a chance to state their plan or the lack thereof. state whether or not they rejected a massive testing plan for the nation in october that would have prevented what happened in december. the lack of desire by the administration to be transparent about any of this is creating tremendous confusion across the country. this congress could address that by holding hearings to get the facts out. i know we're going to continue tos prefor those kinds of hearings. i would hope we have them. but so far we have not gotten any response to the affirmative on that. i don't know if the gentleman has anything to add. maybe the gentleman would agree we would have these kinds of hearings to get some of these facts out or get some of these issues addressed. i would yield. mr. hoyer: i would say at the outset i believe the committee on which he serves with mr. clyburn is one of the committees among many who ought to be look at that, those facts. let me say this. because in stating the facts as you just did, the appearance is that substantial progress has not been made. i don't think that premise is correct. let me read you some statistics. last year, last year, the first year the president came into office, testing in america was molecular in at-home tests per day. last year. beginning of last year. 1.7 million. per day. today, 11.7 million tests per day. are being conducted. to imply there hasn't been substantial progress, that's a 10-fold increase in the testing available to americans every day. when biden took office, zero at home rapid tests were available to consumers. zero. today 349 million -- 300 million at-home rapid tests are on the market each month. enough? no. are more coming? yes. has the government used the defense production act to accomplish greater production? they have. the administration started using, as i said just the defense production act, biden administration is increasing places people can get free tests. for instance, you talk about a plan. when biden took office there were only 2,500 pharmacies offering free testing. today there are 20,000 sites. an eight-fold increase. the administration is purchasing 500 million at-home rapid tests to be distributed for free to americans who want them. with initial delivery starting this month. the administration is distributing up to 50 million free at-home self-tests to community health centers and rural health clinics. in addition to already covering p.c.r. test, the administration is requiring private insurance plans to cover at-home tests starting on january 15, just a couple of days from today. so a lot is happening. is enough happening? enough is not happening until everybody has immediate availability. immediate may overstate it. but easy access. the fact people are having problems to find at-home tests, but the statistics show you extraordinary increases have occurred under the biden administration and that is their plan to make a difference. if you are sick, you do quarantine. but i suggest to the gentleman that the biden administration has an extraordinary difference. the situation is not where we want it to be. but do we have a new variant that came out of south africa or first identified in south africa and spiked up. i talked to the doctor yesterday. apparently just in recent days, we had a falloff in disease recognized. i hope that's the case and keeps going down because we are perhaps now using the n95 masks and keeping our distance. let's hope all of that works for the people, for the country and for the globe. i yield back. mr. scalise: the problem with president biden's plan it is reactionary and not visionry. when he was presented a plan in october to ensure that every american would have a test, and said there will be an uptick. the president said let's order 500 million tests and said no to that in october and could have staved off long lines. people shouldn't have to wait five hours. and if the president wasn't presented a plan, he should say that. we should be having hearings on this to find out what was the plan presented and who was involved in rejecting that plan. was the c.d.c., n.i.h., that rejected a plan in october that happened this christmas. who was involved in the rejetion of that plan and why did they do it? does the administration not want accountability? we have asked for a hearing on that and was told it's not going to happen. we need to find this up so we don't play catchup when people are saying let's try to stop something before it becomes a problem. and those people ought to be removed from the white house and shouldn't be involved because their decisions caused more deaths, caused a dramatic increase in ills that people are facing right now because it could have been staved off and it wasn't and we don't have that from an administration that promised to be transparent. there was a private hearing and not open to the public. i didn't agree with that but that was the decision made by the majority. we have to start having transparency as was promised. people deserve the transparency and deserve the questions answered and deserve having a forward-thinking plan and not reactionary plan. and i yield. mr. hoyer: this has been a pretty discussion. let me remind the gentleman the previous president said in march of 2020 this is going to go away in about 30 days. don't worry about it. and your members said we don't need to wash our hands, wear a mask, it's going to go away. here today and gone tomorrow. that was the previous administration's plan and i agree with you that the science community, the private sector community and the government on warp speed, extraordinary work in the private sector and around the world because of the computer age in which we live, able to share information in real-time and said this doesn't work, which accelerated the ability within a year largely from our conditiontiveic and medical community but facilitated by warp speed. give credit where credit is due. the leader said this is a problem we have to pursue it and we have to invest, said no problem. the gentleman conveniently forgets that. and we had a a eight-fold increase in the ability of testing and pharmaceutical access for literally millions of people. this is per day. 11.7 million people per day. it doesn't take too long at that rate that the whole country, all 330 million people in about a month and few days has been taken care of. so when you say -- we have made extraordinary progress. and our view is, and i know we differ on this, with we have made investments in the american recovery act to deal with the pandemic crisis and the infrastructure bill to create jobs and additional manufacturing capacity, training and apprenticeships and build back better to make sure families can keep their head above water and have child care and feel their children are safe and can take a job and take a job and add to the dproaght of the economy. are we doing it perfectly? perhaps do we need to do more as the gentleman implies and have hearings, private or public, i assume the gentleman had an opportunity to ask questions. i don't know who the witnesses were, but i can't believe if you requested of mr. clyburn that you have real vafnt witnesses to come by and you want to question about the progress that has been made or further things that could be done, i can't believe that he wouldn't agree to do that. but in any event, great progress is being made. but the entire world, not the biden world, not america, the entire world is confronting a crisis and having a tough time getting a hold of it. we have done it better than anybody else in terms of growing our economy and keeping our people's heads above water. do we still have a challenge? we do. we need to continue? yes. i yield. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman for yielding, under president trump, he said we are going to move red tape to focus the scientific community and the federal agencies and private sector in working together to remove the red tape so they can focus on getting a vaccine. he said get them the ability to go. many american companies to go put their innovation to work and get bureaucracy out of the way and expedite so we can get there quicker when many scientists said it was going to take years to get a vaccine. and president biden had three proven vaccines. when you look at covid deaths during the campaign, president biden said he would crush the virus and said anybody who presided over that many deaths doesn't deserve to be president of the united states. but more people have died under president biden's watch than president trump's. and if he is going to say things like i'm going to crush the virus and have a plan and comes out and didn't crush the virus and tells governors that there is no federal plan, i do think that's a mixed message at the least that dereliction in his promise, at the worst, ought to be confronted. if there is not a plan, admit it. but your campaign said there was going to be a plan. but those are other facts we can put on the table. but when you look at how president trump pushed the federal government to work and partner with the private sector to move red tape to expedite the research and trials, more tests than any other attempt for a vaccine and come up less than a year, clearly remarkable achievement. president trump led the effort. we funded it in a very bipartisan way and it was very effective. obviously, this is a challenge for every country, but there were other things said that ought to be put out there and let's all be saying the same thing and focus on saying the same thing and scientific experts say this is what we expect to happen, at least hold people accountable who are part of the discussions to reject that science as i refer to the october plan that would have been in effect for december. mr. hoyer: the former president apparently changed his view and criticized desantis for pursuing mask wearing, et cetera, et cetera. and the fact of the matter is, of course, the former president discounselinged wearing masks early on. discouraged. oh, no, you don't need to wear a mask. he had events that were spreader events as we call it. but the gentleman heard me say i think the president followed good advice and made a decision on warp speed that was helpful. now as the gentleman noticed or noted the scientists at n.i.h. and in the private sector and scientists throughout the world, but mainly our people who did an extraordinary thing in a short time frame, never been done before to develop this kind of vaccine. you talk about the three vaccines, the three manufacturers, never been done before. so it was a wonderful event. unfortunately, too many people are advising, don't take the vaccine. you don't have to take the vaccine. don't sweat it. government tells people they have to vaccinate their people before they send them to school. why? so other children don't get sick. a child sits to the right to the left, i want all of them well because i don't president want migrate-grandchild getting sick. so very frankly, i don't think there was a successful effort by the former president or your side of the aisle -- you talk about science, do what the scientists tell you to do. now i notice most of your members are doing so, but some wear it as a badge of courage and raise money off of it. i think that is harmful to our communities. and i think sort of set aside no plan. no plan has gone from 7 million to 11.7 million tests per day. that's the plan and we invested in march in the recovery act in making sure that health services could respond properly. a lot of money went into testing in the american rescue plan. so you keep saying there is no plan. we have adopted plans. we think there are positive plans and we think that we are are going to get better soon. neither president trump or president biden were responsible for this extraordinary virus. our view is president trump laid back a long, long time before he really engaged and now he has changed his tune to a much more positive listen to the scientists kind of at thud, which we welcome. i disagree with the gentleman there is not a plan. we adopted together in 2020 five major pieces of legislation to address this change and we have adopted in a partisan way bills that continue to fight that fight and i think is fighting it not as successfully because we have a new variant, much more transmiss i believe. it has become a more communicable disease. and we are addressing that and we are accelerating the availability of resources to do so. i yield. mr. scalise: clearly we clearly we have some differences. we both have advocated for the vaccine. i strongly feel it's a personal decision, a medical decision. if government thinks it's shame -- thinks that shaming people, threatening people, and firing people is going to address that challenge, they've missed the mark. i just wish they would instead move away from the shaming and firing and hopefully the court, that the u.s. supreme court agrees with us and stops at least the firings of people by mandates from the government and just encourage people to have that conversation with their doctor if they have hesitation but ultimately it's a decision that each individual will have to make. we will continue this conversation i'm sure. i yield. mr. hoyer: i want to say in terms of where we are today, the overwhelming percentage, i'm talking about 90%, of people who are getting really sick are people who are not vaccinated. and for the government to say, you need to be vaccinated because we don't want you coming to the office, we don't want you coming with other people who are being careful, who have been vaccinated, who have done the responsible thing and getting them sick. because what we've seen unfortunately even with vaccination, people who are vaccinated, of our own members, both sides of the aisle who have been vaccinated, have gotten thankfully mild cases of covid. but you know, when we talk about the president wanting people to get vaccinated and you indicate that you and i are both advocates of that, or requiring home to get vaccinated, the reason you require people to get vaccinated, the more people you have unvaccinated, the more hosts this virus has to metastasize. to grow into different type of virus that can attack in different ways. that's why you do that. that's why they talk 70%. we have about 70% in america now. very frankly if we had a higher percentage we'd be better off. so let's hope that we can work together to make sure that we give encouragement to people to do what the sign titses, you talk about, the reason we were so successful in that year under warp speed of getting those three vaccines is because the scientists knew what had to be done. and they found out and they had quick discoveries. eliminated a lot of dead ends. relatively quickly because of our computer capability and transformation of information around the world. dead ends. if we listen to them, we'd be better off. but there are an awful lot of people saying don't listen to them. don't do it. when the gentleman says for health reasons, there are hundreds, probably billion, i don't know what the billions are, people who have been vaccinated with a min us kuehl, almost unde-- a minuscule, almost undetectable adverse reaction. i don't know what the gentleman talks about for health reasons. djokovic says he's doing it for health rones. i don't know what those are. maybe you do. i'm not expert enough to know what that is. all the doctors i talk to and certainly our own doctor here who we consult with on a regular basis i know, both of us have done that, say get the vaccine. so i would hope that all of us would ask our constituents to get the vaccine. it is good for you. it save yours lives. it save yours families. it saves other. -- others. get it. mr. scalise: to be clear, i never said it was for health reasons, it's a death decision. this is a medical decision people are making. we've seen it suggested by some in the medical community suggested if you get vaccinated you can't get the virus. a supreme court justice said if you get the vaccine you can't spread the virus. vaccinated or not you can get the virus, you can spread the virus, you can die, the higher propence i have to people in the hospitals are unvaccinated. those are the kinds of things we should be encouraging to get the facts out and encouraging people to go make their decision with their doctor if they have concerns. and questions. and there's valid questions. there's people in the past who have raised religious exemptions to other vaccines and by the way, given approval for those religious exemptions that today are not getting similar religious exemptions for this. let's treat it equally, let's treat it fairly, let's focus on the facts that if you mandate somebody it's going to change behavior is not proving itself correct and it's cause manager division and forcing people into corners they shouldn't be in. hopefully we can continue this conversation and get back to a place where we're in agreement which we have been on things like operation warp speed. mr. hoyer: i yelled back. mr. scalise: thank you to the majority leader. madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the dhair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mrs. beatty: madam speaker, i rise today to commemorate 109 years of sisterhood, scholarship and service in delta sigma theta sorority incorporated. founders day embodies the living legacy of our predecessors and today six members of the congressional black caucus, congresswoman yvette clarke, congresswoman brenda lawrence, congresswoman val demings, congresswoman lucy mcbath, congresswoman stacey plaskett, and i stand proudly in our founders' footsteps. happy founders iday to the columbus alumni chapter, delta kappa chapter and to all my cysts for the delta sigma theta sorority. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will receive a message. the messenger: madam speaker, messages from the speaker. the secretary: madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam second vie tear. the secretary: i have been directed by the senate to inform the house that the senate has passed s. 2201, an act to manage supply chain risk through counterintelligence training and for other purposes in which concurrence of the house is requested. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> 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, madam speaker. ma'am, i rise today to address president biden's covid crisis. sadly, covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in the united states have reached record highs in the past week. mr. thompson: many americans are having trouble finding covid at-home tests and difficulties in scheduling a time to be tested with their health care provider. what is president biden's response? in a recent covid zoom meeting, president biden said, quote, there's no federal solution, end quote. this mishandling of the pandemic is disappointing. operation warp speed under the previous administration provided vaccines in record time. it also had a robust distribution plan, medical equipment and ever-growing testing capacity. madam speaker, in addition to this, our families are struggling to pay for everyday goods as inflation reaches a 40-year high. we're facing a self-inflicted economic crisis as this administration encourages the work force to stay at home. our students continue to face uncertainty in their learning with last-minute school closures despite schools receiving ample covid relief funding. president biden and the democrats are trying to change the trials of senate to pass legislation. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arizona seek recognition? >> i ask for one minute. >> without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, on january 6 we witnessed a violent coup attempt in our capitol fueled by the big lie. our country faces a slow-moving coup instead of our most sacred -- sacred democratic vote, the right to vote. 24* ejohn lewis act is protoact those in states where strict laws are being put into place to strip people of they are the right to vote. arizonans still stand together this weekend to stand together for voting rights. passing this bill answer theirs demand for access. today the house shows where it stands. we won't shrink from protecting our democracy and the voting rights of all americans. it's past time for the u.s. senator and senator sinema to do the same. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> i ask 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. >> i rise to honor the late randall crane, survivor of the u.s.s. indianapolis and recipient of the congressional gold medal. he turned 95 years old this year. he joined the ship's crew at the age of 16, one of the youngest crew members to join at the height of world war ii. in 1945 he participated in a top secret trip to deliver parts for the first nuclear weapon used in combat and was aboard the same ship when it was torpedoed and sunk that year. hundreds of men went down with their ship and many more faced dehydration, shark attacks and exposure before there was any hope of rescue. of 1,195 men aboard, mr. crain was one of only 316 who survived. as mr. crain waited to be rescue head clung to his faith. mr. crain will be remembered as a family man, a hero, a survivor, a patriot, and a great man of god. on behalf of the fourth district and our great nation, we are forever in your debt. my prayers are with his family at this time and may he rest in peace. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> 20 states including louisiana still have the same hourly floor as the federal minimum wage, $7.25. louisiana also has a second highest poverty rate of any state. that's because the minimum wage is a poverty wage. a full-time salary is less than $16,000 a year. no one can survive much less raise a family on that wage. while the federal minimum wage has not increased since 2009, the cost of housing, medicine, food, child care has all exponentially increased. we cannot simply subject millions of our constituents to endure the trials of poverty. it's in the a mystery. we can, we must, we know how to help. it's time to finally increase the federal minimum wage and lower the cost with better -- build back better act. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arkansas seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask 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 thank the speaker. i rise today to bring attention to the latest consumer price index data, released by the bureau of labor statistics just yesterday. this new day tay shows a 7% annual increase in inflation, the largest 12-month increase since 1982. mr. hill: the last time inflation was this out of control, michael jackson had just released "thriller." so from moonwalking to now sleepwalking with president biden we've continuously seen negative real wages. meaning, higher pay is -- our pay is actually decreasing when you account for inflation. the president's only idea is to sprint and -- is oto print and spend more money. gasoline up 15%. propane, kerosene, firewood up 35%. beef, vale and bay can up 15%. higher inflation is eroding the true purchasing power for all american families and these record breaking c. perform i. numbers underestimate the real cost of inflation. americans need leadership that will prioritize getting our economy and our nation back on its prepandemic performance. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i seek permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. january 14 marks the first time in six months that families will not receive an expanded child tax credit payment, a program to support children and families that congress passed last spring with the american rescue plan. ms. scanlon: for the last six months, working in low- working and low-income families have had the relief of knowing every month they'd receive $250 per child and $300 for kids under six. these pams have been a liveline for families helping them put food on the table and provide for children as the pandemic rages. as a result, child poverty and hunger have been dropped in this country by almost half. more than 7,600 families -- more than 76,000 families in my district receive these monthly pams and they're worried what will happen now that the payments have ended. just last weekend two constituents a dad and a grandmother approached me to say how important the program had been. we cannot go backwards. the senate must move quickly to pass the build back better act and extend the child tax credit. mesh' children are downing on us. i yield back. >> i request youk to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> batallion chief baker. david was named battalion chief but leading the fire station before that. he set the tone. chief baker was named firefighter of the year and outstanding honor which he deserves to be recognized and he helps his community and started a nonprofit called compassion for the fatherless and providing children with a strong foundation. david, you truly lead by example. thank you for your incredible service. congratulations on your well deserved honor. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from georgia seek recognition? >> it is timely exrawrk year. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman will suspend. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from georgia 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. >> i rise to announce it is infrastructure year for georgia's 6th congressional district and the bill will transform the entire district. we are going to repair crumbling bridges and extend the peachtree greenway and make forest park a great city and we are delivering for the people. i'm proud that the infrastructure bill includes the reconnecting neighborhoods program based on legislation that i wrote. a neighborhood was divided by the construction of a federal interstate. this is a matter of racial justice because it was black naidz that were divided. i will continue to be community leaders' voices in washington. and i almost forgot and making these investments in infrastructure, we are going to create millions of good paying jobs. democrats have delivered for the 6th district and we are not done yet. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin 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. >> it was a disappointing recess. i knew at least three more people who passed away because of covid. i was very disappointed in president biden's comments earlier today on television and could have brought up things that would have prevented some of these unnecessary deaths. president thrum had monoclonal antibodies. i have doctors calling me. they were available for the president of the united states 16 months ago but for some reason president biden has shorted the monoclonal antibodies. next thing i will point out my doctors tell me p people are better off if they take vitamin d and would save peoples' linebackers. but again president biden gives a big speech. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? ms. jackson lee: i ask youk to speak to the house. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. jackson lee: sometimes it is extremely difficult to really convey in this form both the pain and the emotion of one's journey in life. i worked for the southern christian leadership conference, a conference that dr. king organized and gathered foot soldiers from around america. they were the community and included the likes of john robert lewis and many others that stood in this house today. i walked on plantations and tried to register share croppers. so i come today to recount for us the words of dr. king, we shall overcome because the morale arc of the universe bends towards justice. we need to environs act democracy reform because state lawmakers introduced 440 suppression bills in 49 states. we cannot allow the other body to stand on pro forma dignity that cannot overturn the filibuster. we honor dr. king on monday. i want that vote to be in his honor that we have voting reitz. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california 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. mr. lamalfa: we have a lot of losty goals in this country about green energy but we are not providing the ways in order to get there. one of the important components is the mine products that we need to go into various equipment and vehicles, et cetera. we are not able to mine the critical minerals, the rare earth in this country. to get a permit to open up a mine, it could be 15, 16 years in our country, but neighbors two, three year process to mine products that are desperately needed if we ever going to talk about meeting the goals for renewable energy and electric cars in order to lower the carbon footprint. in my home state of california, you can hardly get mining done or like that because of taking away power plants. i don't understand the hypocrisy. we have to get smart about this. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> i ask youk to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> i rise today to honor the life of a champion for democracy, david souli president of the european parliament who passed away earlier this week. he was a respected leader of conviction and principle a distinguished italian journalist and dedicated to helping individuals and the reitz of refugees. sasouli was generosity to europe. his commitment to social justice will not be forgotten and he was a defender of shared european and american values of human reitz, rule of law. i i know members of the house to the people of the european union and my thoughts and prayers are with him and his loved ones. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california 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. >> our constituents sent us here to deliver for them and the bipartisan infrastructure law is delivering for san diego. the department oftransportation announced that $24 million has been allocated to the san diego international airport and helping our economy recover but it's not just the airport. $4.8 billion has been allocated to california, the first of more than $29 billion coming to our state. i visited neighborhood roads were cracked, crumbling and in need of repair. i spoke with local officials and small businesses about the transit and broadband. because this may be the largest infrastructure bill since eisenhower. connecting people by roads, transit and high-speed internet can expand opportunities and it makes our society more sustainable and more equitable. i yield become. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio 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. >> i join president biden and my colleagues in congress in calling for action to protect the right to vote. president biden delivered a powerful speech in georgia and i hope it stiffens the spines of those here in the capitol and those who want to live in the world of john lewis and dr. king. i was proud to vote to protect the essential right to vote. the senate must act. the filibuster is not a law and it is not in the constitution. it is a tradition that has been misused to den sri civil and voting reitz. what is in the constitution, the right to vote. ahead of dr. king day, it is time to honor those who came before us to secure the america. we cannot let this moment pass us by. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois seek recognition? are. >> i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> every american deserves a good opportunity. working with the biden-harris administration, democrats have expanded those opportunities. thanks to investments like the american rescue plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law, job creation is at record levels. the bipartisan infrastructure law will create millions more union jobs and not only rebuild our roads and bridges, but invests in infrastructure that will spur development. removing lead pipes and guaranteeing clean drinking water and improve community health and help attract new companies that will bring jobs and investments. expanding reliable broadband and modernizing regional airports. finally, expanding our electric vehicles charging network will give americans more options. i am so proud to work with the biden-harris administration to rebuild infrastructure for illinois families. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> i rise today to honor the extraordinary life of dr. march rett hill who passed away peacefully last month at the age of # 1. she was for many the heartbeat of san bernardino. for 50 years she devoted to ensure all children have access to high quality education. in 1971 she began as a high school teacher and principal and assistant superintendent and a professor and the last decade and school board member. throughout her roles she never wavered in her devotion to the community. her warmth and kind spirit will be missed but her legacy lives on. it was a privilege to know her. may she rest in peace. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before pt house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, madam, on november 4, 202 1-rbgs the committee of ethics on andrew clyde by the sergeant at arms house rule 2 clause 3-g and the committee received notice of a fine imposed on representative clyde pursuant to house resolution 38 and house rule 2 clause 3-g on november 9, the committee received a fine by the sergeant of arms pursuant to house resolution. on november 30, 2021, the committee received notice of a fine imposed upon representative collide by the sergeant at arms -- representative cleveland by the sergeant at arms purr seus to house resolution 38 and house resolution 3-g. we received an appeal from representative cleveland. the appeal was received after the committee adopted its written rules. a majority of the committee did not agree to the appeal. on december 3, 2021, the committee received notices of three fines imposed upon representative cleveland by the sergeant at arms pursuant to house resolution 38 and house rule 2, klaus 3g. representative cleveland did not appeal with the committee prior to the expiration of the time period specified in clause 3-g, 3-b of house rule 2. signed, sincerely, theodore deutch, chairman and jackie walorski, ranking member. the honorable the speaker, madam. on november 30, 2021, the committee on ethics received notice of a fine imposed upon representative marionette miller meeks by the sergeant at arms pursuant to house ruse 38 and house rule 2 clause 3g. representative mill exmeeks did in the file an appeal with the committee prior to the expiration of the time period specified in clause 3g3b of house rule 2. signed sincerely theodore e. deutch chairman and jackie walorski ranking member. the honorable the speaker, madam, on november 30, 2021, the committee on ethics received notice of a fine imposed on representative lauren boebert by the sergeant at arms pursuant to house resolution 38 and house rule 2 clause 3-g. representative beau behr did not file an appeal with the committee prior to the expiration of the time period specified in clause 3-g, 3-b of house rule 2. signed sincerely theodore e. deutch, chairman, and jackie walorski, ranking member. the honorable the speaker, madam, on november 30, 2021, the committee on ethics received notice of a fine imposed upon representative marjorie taylor greene by the sergeant at arms pursuant to house resolution 38 and house rule 2, clause 3-g. representative greene did not file an appeal with the committee prior to the expiration of the -- of the time period specified in clause 3-g, 3-b of house rule 2. on december 3, 2021, the committee received notice of a fine imposed upon representative greene by the sergeant at arms pursuant to house resolution 38 and house rule 2, clause 3-g. representative greene did not file an appeal with the committee prior to the expiration of the time period specified in clause 3-g, 3-b of house resolution 2, signed theodore deutch, chairman and jackie walorski ranking smeb. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the gentleman from south carolina, mr. clyburn, a recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. clyburn: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members have five leblg slative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of our special oared. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. clyburn: madam speaker, i first got interested in and started studying history as an 8-year-old. i grew up in a parsonage where we were, my brothers and i were required every morning before breakfast to recite a bible verse, and every evening before retiring to bed, we had to share with our parents a current event. we didn't have television. and therefore in order to carry out that rule, we had to read the newspapers. it was delivered to our home every afternoon. today, those who are living down in my hometown of sumter, you get the paper in the morning but back then it was an afternoon paper. and it was my interest in the presidential campaign of harry truman that attracted me to politics. harry truman ascended to the presidency from the vice presidency and of course no one gave him a chance to get elected on his own. he did not have, according to conventional wisdom, what it took. he was going to be up against this skyon -- this scion this big-time prosecutor from new york, thomas dewey. one chicago newspaper was so sure of the outcome they didn't bostonner to wait on the results to write the headlines for their newspapers the day after the election. and all of us remember that headline, dewey wins. but when the votes were counted, all the votes counted, truman had been elected president. that always intrigued me. this man with limited educational background, a disability, without any of all the trappings of what would make one a big-time leader. and of course when truman left office, he was not very popular with a lot of people. his popularity was pretty low. as we look back on history and people continue to write about history, they keep upgrading truman. most places i see now he is in the top 10. in my opinion he's in the top five. i consider myself to this day a truman democrat. now, after studying history, i went on to teach it. and i became a firm believer in george santayana's admonition that those who cannot remember history, of course he said the past, are condemned to repeat it. and that's what brings me to this floor today. it's been a long, long time since i have stayed here on what we call get away day. to address this body during what we call special orders. i listened intently today as we debated the legislation that was a vehicle by which we would send two pieces of legislation this freedom to vote act an act that came into being, a bill that was proposed by senator joe manchin. and the second bill, the john r. lewis voting rights advancement act, a bill that this body approved and sent over to the senate as h.r. 4. and upon john lewis' death i came to this floor and asked and received unanimous consent to change the name of h.r. 4 to rename it in hop nor of john lewis -- in honor of john lewis. than body granted unanimous consent for that to happen. now john lewis and i first met as 19-year-old college students. i was in orangeburg. he was down -- orangeburg, south carolina, he was down in nashville, tennessee. we met on the campus of morehouse college where the vice president was on the day before yesterday, i think it was. it was also the weekend that i first met martin luther king jr. now, as is often the case, and we see quite a bit of it today, a disagreement cropped up between us so-called young turks, those of us who were in sncc, the student nonviolent coordinating committee, in fact this is the second organizational meeting of sncc, and sclc that was being run by martin luther king jr., ralph abernathy and others and we asked dr. king to come and meet with us so we could try to reconcile our differences. dr. king came. and agreed to a one-hour meeting. that meeting convened at 10:00 p.m. in the evening. it was not over until 4:00 a.m. the next morning. i always refer to that evening and that meeting as my saul to paul transformation. i came out of that meeting a changed man. well, i guess, boy. i have never been the same. i started reading everything i could about dr. king. i went back to my campus and i got his book. his first book, strive toward freedom. and of course all the way down through his last book, "where do we go from here: chaos or community." i interacted with him several times over the years. after the 1965 voting rights act, one of dr. king's first trips was to the little town ofstree -- town of kings it is dry, south carolina, a little town that is currently in my district. and when he came that day, he came to talk to us about all the marchs we were having. i was living in charles torn at the time. my late wife and i. got in our little falcon and drove to kingstree to be a part of that meeting. dr. king talked that day about marching. we had marched to integrate lunch counters. we had marched to get off the back of the bus. we marched for a lot of social things. but he said to us on that day, it is time to march to the ballot boxes. march to the ballot boxes. he put a new definition of what marching was all about. i remember that day as if it were yesterday. in fact, not long ago, the local community decided to have a 50th anniversary celebration of that evening event and called me and asked would i attend? i told them i'd be glad to attend and of course as i later got a phone call from a reporter who asked me what was i going to say. at this 50th anniversary. and i told her the reporter, well, i think i'll reminisce a little bit. about that day. and the speech he gave. and he says well, did you seeane it on television? how did you know about it? i was there. the reporter didn't quite leave it there. and of course he questioned me. wanted to know what i remembered most about that day. and i said to him, the thing i remember most about that day was that it was a very big storm. in fact, the storm was so bad, until on our way there we had to stop and wait it out. and when i got there, i was sure that we were not going to have a celebration. but the sun came out. dr. king came. but there was so much rain in that cow pasture, i toad him, that we were in, -- i told him, that we were in, it was not very conducive for the convention. the reporter was kind of quiet. hung up. a few days later, the reporter called me back. the reporter had gone to the weather bureau to check out my story about that day. and sheepishly reported to me that, i checked it out and your description of that day is pretty accurate. i said, well, i lived through it. the things you live through are the kind of things you remember most. and you remember them best. i've lived through a lot. growing up in south carolina. i remember the conversations i had with my parents. my mother was a beau tition -- beautition. you can imagine a lot of conversations going in the beauty shop. so when my mother would sit down with me, we would often have discussions about information that flowed throughout the beauty shop. in fact, i wrote about one day coming home from school, one of the rules we had, that we had to stop by beauty shop to report in every day after school to make sure things had gone ok. on this particular day, when i went in to the beauty shop to make my report, there was a lady there that had grown up with my mother, in the cotton fields adjacent to the one that she grew up in over in lee county, south carolina. and when i walked in, i spoke. and this lady turned to me and says, my, my, how much you've grown since i last saw you. and, my goodness, she said, your voice is beginning to change. then she asked me a question. what it is that you want to be when you grow up. that question was asked of us very often back then. and i began to tell her how proud i was of that background that i had developed, since 1948, studying harry truman and how i had developed this interest in politics and government. and toiled her i wanted to grow -- i told her i wanted to grow up and i wanted to be a member of the united states congress. that lady looked at me and very sternly said, son, don't you let anybody else hear you say that again. and that lady was not throwing water on my dreams. she just felt that a little black boy in sump ter, south carolina, should not have those kinds of dreams -- sumter, south carolina, should not have those kind of dreams and aspirations. it was not safe for a little black boy to have those kinds of dreams. my mother never said anything that day. but that night when she closed the beauty shop, she came into the house and she called me to the kitchen table. she sat me down. now, james, don't you let what that lady said to you today ruin your dreams. you stay in school. you study hard. you stay out of trouble. you can be able to live out your dreams and your aspirations. my mom did not live to see me elected to congress. she died in 1971. i didn't get here until 1992 but i think about her almost every time i come into this chamber. how right she was. and so today, looking back on that history, i recall from my studies that the first civil rights bill passed by this congress was passed in 1866. given the former slaves -- giving the former slaves the right of citizenship. and of course following that 1866 law, south carolina held a constitutional convention in 1868. that's a very interesting constitutional convention. i'd love this share with you some of what took place in that convention. there are two things kind of interesting about the convention to me. number one is the majority of the attendees at that convention were black. it's kind of interesting. the second one is, there was an attendee at that convention, robert smalls, who was there, 1868, robert smalls had been a slave until 1862. just think about that. he was a delegate to the south carolina constitutional convention and would go on to serve 10 years in the south carolina legislature and another 10 years here, in the united states congress. a former slave. now, i don't know how robert smalls felt about slavery. he didn't like it. if he did, he would not have engineered the escape. he would not have stolen the planter, took his whole family and friends and delivered the planter to the union army and got his freedom and $1500 for having done so. and he turned that $1,500 into great wealth and had become a great soldier in the union army. now back then, robert smalls, a former slave, had not gone to school. he didn't have a high school education. and therefore, though he wanted to be, they would not have took him into the navy. he was actually inducted into the army and assigned to a navy ship. that's why you see some ships now named for robert smalls. it's my great honor to be in baltimore, maryland, the baltimore harbor. to speak for the kristening -- christening of the u.s.s. robert smalls. now, however robert smalls may have felt, after robert smalls gained wealth, he went back to south carolina, where he was borned and raised and where he had been a slave, and he bought the house he had been a slave in. and the mcgee family that owned him legally, when he got back, mr. mcgee, john i think was his first name, had passed away. and his wife was living in poor health and no wealth. robert smalls went and got her and brought her to that house that she had been the head of and he had been a slave in and nursed her, kept her there until her death. he forgave, but robert smalls never forgot. he died in 1915. basically of a broken heart. why? because robert smalls, who had been in that 1868 convention as a delegate, was also a delegate in the 1895 south carolina constitutional convention. now in 1868, january 14, 1868, is when he got his state rights as a full-fledged american citizen. and then in 1895, robert smalls was in that convention and it was in that convention, september 10, 1895, that robert smalls got all of his rights taken away. as i said earlier today on this floor, any rights given by the state in this united states can be taken away by the states, in this instance, the united states. and that's why i have faith of what has taken place, most especially in the other body. what we did here today, sending those two bills to protect the voting rights of people of color, is being threatened by the other body over the filibuster. i have opinion saying for some time now that i believe very strongly that constitutional rights ought not be subjected to the filibustering whims of any one person. we don't allow that for our budget matters. reconciliation when it comes to doing the budget. so you can pass it. if that budget, if everything in this bill applies to the budget, we can have a simple majority to as if. and the full faith and credit of the united states was put at risk a couple of weeks ago, we worked around the filibuster in order to raise the debt limit so as not to ruin the full faith and credit of the united states of america. and you're telling me that the same should not apply to basic constitutional rights? as i said here on the floor today, as a result of that 1895 convention that took all of those rights away, in 1897 george washington murray left the united states house of representatives, being the last black person, at one point the four black representatives in this house from south carolina, three of them were black. the very first black person ever elected to the united states congress. i want to clean that up because a lot of times i say that and people start seconding me pictures of rebels, down there in louisiana. look, they were senators. and they were sent to this congress by their legislative bodies. it was not it wasn't until, what, 1913, when we changed the constitution in 1913 to allow for the popular election of senators. so the first person of color -- first black person to be elected to the united states congress, joseph rainey. we just named a room on the first floor of this capitol in his honor. it just so happens it was on the 150th anniversary of his election, which i believe was december 12, in a special election, december 12, 19 -- 1870. and it just so happens on that day none of us knew it but when we got to the room that we named in his honor, looked up there. guess what number was on the room? room 150. it's now named for joseph rainey from georgetown, south carolina. he was the first one in 1870. 1897, george washington murray left this congress. and because of the constitutional convention, what they did in 1895, taking all the rights of black people away. not another black person got elected to this congress from south carolina until yours truly was elected in 1992. 95 years. and for most of that time -- i haven't counted all the days and the years, but let me say this. for a major portion of time, if not most of it, black people were in the majority in the state of south carolina. they were in the majority but had zero representation here in this congress, zero representation in the legislature, and zero representation in governing bodies all over the state. i remember the first black in south carolina that got elected to the county council down in buford, south carolina. all of these things happening in my lifetime. and so what i'm saying to this body today, what i'm saying to this great country of ours, what we are doing here today in allowing states to pass laws that take away voting rights and privileges -- just think about this. a state -- one of my neighboring states, georgia, just passed a law that says, not only are we going to suppress with all these difficulties -- throw up all these barriers to voting, now, if this line gets long and you're standing out here in the hot weather trying to cast a vote and someone decides to give you a bottle of water to quench your thirst, they just made that a criminal act. you can give a bottle of water to anybody walking out on the street if they're thirsty, but if you give them a bottle of water while they're standing to vote in line, you have committed a criminal act. i want the people to think about that. i want my friends in the other body to think about that. and they went even further. they put into the law a mechanism and a little entity, i think three people, and sent them up to be referees over whether or not their constitution -- voting was to their liking, the results. if they do not like the results of the vote, they can nullify the vote. this is what they just did. we got 19 states -- and i want to hasten to add here -- all of them are not southern states. 19 states, two of them up in the northeast, have passed 34 laws and have introduced over 400 to make it difficult for people to vote and to nullify the efforts of voters. that's third-world stuff. that's banana republic stuff. that is not the stuff of which america is made. and we are going to sit idly by and just watch this happen? earlier today, one of my colleagues on the other side was arguing about an upset -- and upset because someone is compared -- i think maybe upset with the president. in fact, one of my colleagues said he, as a southerner, he was insulted by president biden's speech. and one of those -- the basis, i understand, of the insult is he called what we're doing here with these new legislation -- doing with these new laws, jim crow 2.0. now, i ain't into all this stuff so i don't know what this really means, but i know this. it sounds like i agree with him. i'm not insulted by that. because jim crow was not jim crow until it became jim crow. reconstruction -- one of the reasons i correct things, i don't want things to get muddled. i hear people talking about me being the first black congressman since reconstruction. that is not true. nine of us, eight before me, all of us since reconstruction. reconstruction didn't last but about 12, 13 years, depending on the dates which you want to use. reconstruction ended in 1876. robert smalls got elected in the 1880's. no. reconstruction ended in 1876. and at the end of reconstruction is all these so-called jim crow laws went into place. the black codes went into place. those things, those laws, started with the supreme court decision in 1872, coming out of louisiana -- kind of interesting. plessy vs. ferguson came out of louisiana. i want to thank the governor of louisiana for having, after all these years, issuing a pardon to homer plessy, who was a man that was arrested and fined $25 for riding in a forebiden car on -- forbidden car on the train that paid a first-class ticket for and was arrested, putting in place separate but equal which was never equal. and so i want to read to you something that was said in the 1895 convention by robert smalls. it's really interesting here. these are the words of a former slave. since reconstruction -- i'm quoting robert smalls -- 53,000 negros have been killed in the south. since reconstruction -- remember, reconstruction ended in 1876. so somewhere between 1876 and 1895, when robert smalls made this speech, he says, 53,000 negroes have been killed in the south and not more than three white men. have been constricted. -- convicted. he said hung here. i want everybody to know -- nothing -- should have been hanged -- for these crimes. i want you to be mindful of the fact that the good people of the north are watching this convention, they're pointing to this subject. i hope you will make a constitution that will stand the test. i hope that we may be able to say, when our work is done, that we have made as good a constitution as the one we are doing away with. just think about that. they were doing away with the constitution of 1868 that gave robert smalls and other blacks the right to vote. gave them citizen rights. and in 1895 you said i hope we're finishing here today, we'll do a new constitution that's as good as one we are getting rid of. i think robert smalls knew very well what was in the making. there is another gentleman in that constitutional convention with him who also served in the congress, thomas e. miller, who served in the congress. in order to get him out of the congress, they made him to be the first president of south carolina university, where president biden was, which i graduated. thomas miller spoke on this issue as well. here's what i want you to understand. one of the things they put in this constitution, in order to get the right to vote, you had to be able to interpret sections of the constitution of the united states. you can't get the right to vote until you interpret the constitution. now, some of the states go further than that. in alabama, we've all seen the stories. in order to get the right to vote, you have to be able to tell whoever was standing there somebody who probably couldn't count, at least of all understand the constitution, how many jellybeans was in a jar. these were laws passed by states. and anybody who may think that is silly, to be able to have to count or guess how many jellybeans are in a jar in order to get the right to vote, that is no more silly than putting some -- arresting somebody for giving a bottle of water to somebody standing in line in the hot sun. that is how stupid some of these laws they are passing are. and we, in this body, and my friends across -- on the other side of this building are condoning that. saying that we can't change this process to get rid of that kind of silliness. this is serious stuff. let me go on to tell you what else robert smalls said in his speech. how can you expect an ordinary man to understand and explain any section of the constitution to correspond to the interpretation by the manager of an election? i guarantee you, some of these people -- i knew some of them who were running some of these elections could not read the constitution, much less interpret it. . i want everybody to listen to this. a recent decision, the supreme court composed of the most learned men in the state, two of them put one construction in the part of the constitution and the other justice put an entirely different construction. how do we get 5-4 decisions in the united states supreme court? because five people think one way, four people think the other. which one of them are getting the right to vote? interpreting the constitution. to embody such a provision in the election law to me would mean every white man would interpret it right and every negro would interpret it wrong. robert smalls said, i appeal to the gentleman to realize that he is not making a law for one set of men. some morning, robert smalls here, back in 195, -- 1895, robert smalls says, some morning you may wake up to find that the bone season sinue of your country is gone -- sinew of your country is gone. i tell thought negro is the bone and sinew of your country and you cannot do without him. i do not believe you want to get rid of the negro or else why did you impose a high tax on immigration agents who might come to help them leave? that's very insightful. very insightful. now thomas miller, who had also served in congress, and i just said, became the first president of the state, thomas miller was a free-born attorney. he was a college graduate. and i said too that he served in the congress. and in the 1895 convention, as i told here earlier, in 1868, the majority of the delegates were black. in 1895 convention, six blacks. only six. thomas miller was one of the six. thomas miller told the convention, condemned reconstruction, political corruption, but had not found a voice eloquent enough nor pen exact enough to mention those gifts bestowed upon south carolina by negro legislators. he said that we were eight years in power. we built school houses. established charitable institutions. built and maintained pen tenchry systems. provided for the education of the d eaf. and rebuilt the jails and courthouses. in short, he says, we can reconstruct the state. the reason i point this out to you is because he was a majority black legislature in south carolina that passed a law that provided for free public education for everybody. south carolina was the first state informant union to provide for free public education for everybody. at that time throughout the south, only the elite were provided education. as i said here, the school, the penitentiary system, the pennel system had been created in south carolina by a majority black legislature. school to educate the deaf and mute. done by a majority black legislature. that's what thomas miller was talking about. now, i want to say something about what robert smalls had to say about waking up and finding that the law you passed that was meant for me may one day apply to you. we just saw that last year. in january, when georgia elected the senator, the senator ended up defeating an incumbent senator. now that incumbent senator, david purdue. let me tell you something interesting about that. i think that people better start thinking. georgia decided several years ago, i remember when it happened, that because there are so many black people voting, they decided to set up, you can go back, i won't go through it today, and read the debate that took place in the legislature when georgia decided, in order to win a general election in south carolina, you had -- in georgia, you had to have 50% plus one. and the man who proposed it argued on the floor that he was doing that in order to dilute, no full nye the effect -- nullify the effect of the black vote, to make sure that you get to a one-on-one black person's runoff requirement. he felt that if there were three or four people in the general election and then the black people voted in unison, they could get a black person elected to the senate and that's not what he wanted to happen. he wanted to make sure that if two people were running and nobody gets 50%, you have to have a runoff in the general election between those two. if one was black and the other was white, the white person would surely win. well, that tells you how shortsighted he was. that's exactly what happened in that other election between wal knock and an incumbent senator. now walnock got a smaller vote than the person he was in the runoff with. but he didn't get 50% so they had to run off. david purdue got 49.8% of the vote. but it was not 50%. if they had not changed that law, david purdue would have been elected -- re-elected to the united states senate on that day. back in november. he never would have been in the runoff because he had 49.8%. but they put in the law that you got to get 50%. so now he's got to runoff. he runs off against ossoff. and gets beat. he would have been elected if georgia had not changed -- just like robert smalls told people. you aren't making this law just for me. you'll wake up one day and this law is going to apply to you. just ask david purdue. now on the other side of the coin -- how much time do i have left? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has eight minutes remaining. mr. clyburn: i didn't know i could talk so long. well, on the other side, the gentleman was shortsighted in his debate in the legislature simply because walnock tbhas this runoff -- was in this runoff. it was black against white. where the people of georgia decided they would elect the black guy. so the georgia legislature was wrong on both fronts when they put that law in place. the law that would have re-elected purdue was taken away and they put in place a law that was supposed to ensure his election and he lost. and he lost on both fronts. so i say to my friends in the senate, i've been talking to them, i'm quite frankly very disappointed in my conversations. and that's why i decided to come to this floor today. i want to say to them, they should be careful, they should be very, very careful. because what may look like a good thing to do today may not be such a good thing after it's operated for some time. i think, madam speaker, i'm going to give you back a few of these minutes. i could go on. i've got some other things i probably should have said. i may have already said some things that i should not have said. but i did say i was going to say something interesting about that first constitutional convention in 1895, i just told you about free public schools. went in in that constitutional convention, the guy who put up the resolution, was robert smalls. the penal system that they put in place, that was the envy of the world, done by the majority black legislature, i talked about all that. but there's something else that they proposed. they proposed in 1868 at that convention, majority black people, tried to give the vote to women. in 1868. something that did not happen until the 19th amendment -- whenever that was, 1920-something. just to let you know that skin color has nothing to do with the extent of progressive ideas. of what we might call enlightened. i'm going to close with -- i called it a point. a german theologian, lutheran theologian, named martin isn't d that way but i'm not that equipped in the german language. i think that's the way it's pronounced. and i close with his words. first they came for the socialists. and i did not speak out. because i was not a socialist. then they came for the trade unionists. and did not speak out -- and i did not speak out because i was not a trade unionist. then they came for the jews. and i did not speak out because i was not a jew. then they came for me. and there was no one left to speak for me. madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the gentleman from arizona, mr. schweikert, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. schweikert: thank you, madam speaker. to whip clyburn, it's always impressive getting to hear you speak. madam speaker, i'm going to try something because we talked about this when we were over our christmas break, that the first floor speech should be one that was a bit more positive. and as we started to work through a number of what the story we wanted to tell and show of some of the good things happening in the country, i came to a conclusion, i am going to have to on a number of these walk through how i believe the left's policies -- and maybe not intentionally -- but are actually really causing harm to things that are really good for america, good for the world, good for everyone here. one of the things i am going to do is sort of walk through some really neat technologies and things that accomplish much of the good we want. and then talk through a little bit of the policies that are being adopted here, promoted here in a will actually screw it up. so let's actually talk through. just before the christmas break, we did a floor presentation, because there was an article out that there's substantially been a cure. it was only one individual, but it was a proof of concept cure for type 1 diabetes. they basically took a stem cell, turned it into an isolate cell, it produced insulin. it was a cure. it worked. now, we all had our heart broken over the years when we think there's a medical breakthrough. but this has been worked on for a decade. found another article, another research team which actually took blood and then using some hormones, took those blood cells, drove them back to functionally being a t cell and then took the t cell and directed it back to being an insulin producing cell. why is this important? well, that first article we talked about this is a miracle. we know how to cure type 1 diabetes. the problem was, that one was going to require anti-rejection drugs. this methodology doesn't. you can cure type 1 diabetes and the individual, because you did it from their blood. so this is wonderful. but my reason for starting with this is, if you dig through the paper and some of the comments and the smart people fixated on this, they start to say, this is also a path for many of our brothers and sisters who suffer type 2 diabetes. and why do we care so much about ultimately curing type 2 diabetes? is first off, this is actually a separation. i think it's more because no one has really presented this to my brothers and sisters on the left. when we have the discussion in the ways and means committee about how to help populations, my tribal populations. many members here, the urban population that has overwhelmingly suffered with diabetes. it becomes the conversation, we'll build more medical clinics. when you head that direction, what you're basically selling is that you're going to help americans live with their misery. and what i'm trying to drill into this place is, let's move to cures, because the cure is the most honorable, loving, caring, and also the most effective thing we can do. it's going to be my last couple boards. in about 29 years, c.b.o. says we're going to have $112 trillion of borrowed money. that was on last year's calculation. in current dollars, publicly borrowed -- $112 trillion of borrowing, about 75% of that borrowing was just the shortfall in medicare. we know 31% of medicare spending is just diabetes. cure diabetes and type 2. look, it's complex. you have to be willing to actually change incentives in what we eat, what we grow, what is produced in food, how we deliver nutritional support. and now that we actually have a way to help or looks like we'll have a way to deal with their autoimmune rejection and go back to producing insulin again, turns out if it's true that path could be one of the most effective things ever, ending u.s. sovereign debt, and also ending misery. except, we have a small problem, and we'll get to that. i'm going to show you, as we walk through this, where democrat policies actually will stillborn many of these technologies that end the suffering and also have these amazing impacts of making people's lives better, healthier, and actually having a real effect on this crazy amount of borrowing. my calculation from last month is, we're borrowing about $47,000 every second. every second. and as the next decade comes, that number goes up dramatically. if you care about people's retirement security, my little girl's economic future, that should be the fixation here. and you can take it on by doing good things. it's not cut and slashing programs. it's dealing with the drivers of that debt and turns out, health care costs are the primary driver of that debt. so i did this slide just because, a, i thought it was cute. it also helps us sort of think where we are technology-wise. yes, that is a group of kittens sitting in a dish, because it was warm, and everyone likes pictures of kittens. it was more the point. even today i think there is a another falcon 9 sent into space to distribute more of these low earth-orbiting wi-fi satellites, broadband satellites. if you take a step backward and look at the budget that democrats promulgated for broadband and then take a realization, hey, all of north america actually has broadband, the difference is it's not a wire, it's a spliet dish. so -- and, yes, the kittens are cute. thinking through so my tribal communities in arizona that may be in the middle of nowhere -- you know, a chapter house up on the navajo nation, they have broadband. they've been waiting for that broadband for decades, and this place keeps promising we'll run a piece of fiber or wire out there. forgive my language. screw that. put up the satellite dish, the small satellite dishes that are just a little larger than some of the big dinner plates. they have broadband. and it would cost a fraction of what we're spending. but that would be actually having this place read about technology. encouraging our staff to pay attention to what's happening in the scientific world instead of this place sounding like we're debating from the 1990's. i mean, how much of what goes behind these microphones are decades out of date, rhetorically, technology-wise? it's just very, very frustrating. so one of my personal fixations -- and we're going to talk about things like the democrats' h.r. 3. their approach to health care. there is a revolution happening. it's called personalized medicine. we are about to -- it's not about to -- it's happened. disease -- and i beg people to sort of think of this conceptually. disease is about to become a software problem. stop and think about that. but what we've learned on stem cells, messenger r.n.a., some of the derivatives of messenger r.n.a., the fact of the matter is the cancer you have, the heart disease you have, the virus you have, and maybe the bacteria you may have in your bloodstream, by using the new technology, we're turning cures. but cures are almost a software problem. we code it. we understand the d.n.a. we produce a cure. but yet, the vision of the legislation where the left says, well, we will control pharmaceutical prices. it crushes out the cures. the cure is what crashes the price of health care. 5% of our brothers and sisters -- 5% of our brothers and sisters who have chronic condition, chronic diseases, chronic ailments are the majority of our health care spending. and what the left is proposing, great politics, it's brilliant politics. hey, we'll go and we'll functionally nationalize the pricing mechanisms by referring to europe and that's how we'll price drugs. yes, the economists who do pharmaceutical research say all these new innovative drugs are going to disappear and we basically make big pharma bigger, because what you've done is you've crushed the capital for the innovative cures and you take those, the maintenance drugs, the ones that maintain our misery, and incentivize them to make tweaks to make them a little better, to extend their patents. and that's actually the outcome of the left's approach on health care. and i don't think it's done maliciously. i think it's one of those cases that you will see multiple times on these boards, good intentions isn't necessarily good outcome. virtue signaling doesn't mean that it works. it just means that the left gets judged on good intentions, not on the outcomes. so we actually have -- even the new papers that are out in the last month or two, talking about a derivative of functionally messenger r.n.a. being used on heart disease. remember, heart disease, number one killer. as we get through this pandemic time. what happens if that back-to-health care disease is substantially a software problem? we actually have a way to have an incredible impact on the number one killer in our nation. this is a wonderful thing. this is a really good thing. this does not happen quickly under the left's h.r. 3 mechanisms. they will stillborn much of this technology, the investment in it, and the ability to bring it to market. if the left and the right -- if we actually give a darn, we should be looking at here's are the things that are disruptive, that cure, and what do we do to get these technologies to our brothers and sisters as fast as possible? if it's true -- and there's now been multiple research papers on this and they're heading trying now to commercialize it, that the ability for this to deal with the proteins that cause some of the heart damage, allowing the heart to heal, and that it's really incredibly effective, this is wonderful because we did not have this a year ago, even conceptually, and it's here. what happens if i come to you and say, well, we just learned how to do editying of -- editing of genetic code and we can end sickle cell anemia? it's working. back to my constant trying to pitch, cure the disease, end the misery, don't do what is the rhetorical method around this place saying, it's great politics for me to offer more health care clinics because that way it looks like i just did something and it helps my re-election and, yes, getting the actual cure to market might take a little bit longer. but you remember at the beginning of the pandemic when we talked about getting a vaccine and there's a concept we will get the vaccine in less than a year, pie in the sky, but it happened. it took a bunch of money. it took unleashing a lot of resources and freaky smart people and pushing the bureaucracy to become more efficient, but it happened. could you imagine if we did that same type of passion to cure diseases? because we know how to cure now sickle cell anemia. how do we get this to our brothers and sisters who are suffering instead of trying to come up with another way to do the maintenance? and my argument behind this microphone right now is, these are wonderful things that are happening. how do we keep the democrats, the left's policies from destroying this progress? and this is a little board that basically talks about the democrats' h.r. 3. . every voter right and left, republican and democrat, is frustrated with pharmaceutical priceless. ok. but do they understand that the mechanism being proposed by the left, basically the economists tell us that there's dozens and dozens of cures. that are really expensive. remember, many of these cures take billions and billions and billions of dollars of research just to get them to market and a substantial number of them, a majority, fail. now, a lot of that cost is our fault. the bureaucratic mechanisms and a couple of us have ideas on how to streamline that process and reduce that cost to get these revolutionary pharmaceuticals that cure to market. but this is really important and there's one other thing on that board that needs to be understood. the left's pharmaceutical pricing proposal does something called reference pricing. they reach over to europe, take a handful of countries there that actually have what they -- think of it as quality of life years. so if this drug costs more than a certain amount of money, for an additional quality life year, they don't buy it. and there's countries that have pricing like -- i think great britain it was equivalent to $38,000 u.s. that if the drug costs more than that, you can't get it. that will reduce drug prices. it will also kill a whole bunch of people. and it will end the resources for the cures that come in the future. there's other ways to get there without crushing small pharma that's basically the way that you make big pharma less big. because you cure the very disease that the business over here makes money on by maintaining. this isn't hard economics. it's just math. and i accept this place is a math-free zone. but the math is the math. there are good things happening. we just have to stop much of the democrats' policies which are crushing these opportunities because, look, it's great politics. the rhetoric is great politics. it's crappy economics. and want to give you another simple example. and this one's more maybe closer to home, from being from arizona. a couple weeks ago, a big rig tractor trailer drove -- i believe it was on i-10 in arizona, and drove a fairly substantial distance, completely autonomous. no driver at all. completely autonomous. well, think about that. let's take a step. didn't we hear president biden, what was it, a few weeks ago, talk about the supply chain we don't have enough truck drivers. we're going to fix this. we're going to make it so goods can make it to the warehouses where they can be value-added, you know, the manufacturing, the store shelves. and this was part of it. because the united states, one of our greatest difficulties is our demographics. the reality is we're getting much older very fast. what is it, the mean truck driver is somewhere in the mid 50's. this is part of the solution. ok. this is wonderful. how much of this place is really fixated on combinations of resources but it's also the regulatory, the litigation, the liability standards to make this happen so it helps solve the transportation of goods here in the country? that's wonderful. except one small problem. then the democrats in their infrastructure bill slip in a wonderful little section, because you remember, this is a supply chain, so the container comes off the ship, goes to the stack, goes to the truck, the truck now, we just saw, we now have the autonomous technology, it's starting to work. what do the democrats slip into their infrastructure bill? making it so you can't automate the port. so they once again sold out to the union because, well, that's who writes some checks. but you can't have it both ways. you can't have a president get behind the microphone and say i'm working on this i'm going to help solve the supply chain problem, wink, wink, nod, nod, i'm going to heighten into the infrastructure legislation, and then put in things in there saying, we're also going to make sure you can't automate the ports. these special interest legislations, because congress has become a protection racket. you're this union, you come in, you have enough friends here, they'll actually do something that protects that business against what was good for the entire country. and so all this technology, it's about to help us deal with our worker shortage, our supply chain shortage. actually gets stymied because the left basically says, eh, the union is more important than the rest of the country. let's make sure we make it so you can't make our ports for efficient. that's a classic example of good things were happening. and the technology isn't republican or democrat. but you got to make it so it comes together. and the left constantly selling out to their special interests basically crushes what is the very things that create the productivity that we desperately need for the future of this country. because, remember, growth is moral. growth makes the port a lot less poor. and then to do these backdoor little deals that actually crush the efficiencies, the productivity that make the society wealthier, it's a wink-wink, nod-nod, it may be great politics, but it's really crappy economics. so let's actually talk about another thing that's happening. ok, so let's all -- you know, how many speeches have we been given about global warming here? a lot of our brothers and sisters care passionately about this. and then on the other side, at the very beginning of the biden administration, with the help of many of my democratic colleagues here, they basically chomped down on permitting, regulations, accessibility, pipelines, those things for natural gas. even though we know over the previous decade and a half, natural gas was the substantial, by far, driver of the reduction of north america's greenhouse gases. because it burns so much more efficiently and the price, because accessibility has become so available, the price of natural gas had come down so much that facility after facility that were generating electricity had switched to natural gas away from coal. so what did the democrats do this last year? they made natural gas more expensive. what did they think was going to happen? so congratulations to my brothers and sisters on the left, which i believe they've increased coal usage by 23% last year over where the trump administration. so the trump administration was accused of being too friendly to colby the environmental left, had, because of the productivity, accessibility of natural gas, natural gas prices fell, use of coal went down dramatically. the left comes in, starts to do all sorts of regulations, permitting, restrictions, those things for natural gas, natural gas price goes up, converting back to coal, 23% more coal got burned. it's just once again a simple example. if you don't do basic math, it's great rhetoric. go behind the microphone. tell us how much you care about the environment and then screw up the economics so much that this nation actually over the next few years, greenhouse gas is about to get dirtier. you've seen my slides i brought to the floor before on how much of our base load nuclear is about to come offline. there will be more base load nuclear about to come offline than every bit of photovotaic that's been put into this nation. it's math. it's not hard. but we dent seem to reward -- don't seem to reward facts around here. what we reward is pretty words and not the final outcome. so having had a conversation with a couple of my friends who are good people, they're on the left they care passionately about greenhouse gases, and i asked them about this natural -- ok, why did you go so anti-natural gas, even though it was responsible for the vast majority of the reduction of u.s. greenhouse gass? well, i don't like methane. ok. that's fair. may i suggest actually purchasing a scientific journal subscription or two and read. because a couple weeks ago some of these articles came out that a dramatically, dramatically less expensive way to capture methane. it's functionally clay, with a slight alteration, i think it's called copper oxide added. it's kitty litter. see a theme, kitties in the satellite? this is functionally -- m.i.t. paper saying, hey, we found a really inexpensive way to capture the methane. if you're worried about interconnection bleedoff or these things, and apparently the model even works for ambient capture. so instead of going anti-natural gas and making everyone's life more miserable and more expensive, and then pushing manufacturers of ions, back dole, get your head right -- coal, get your head right. learn the economics and say, there's technology out there that we can capture the thing you were saying you were worried about very inexpensably. put the regulatory push behind a solution. it's a little hard to explain in front of your environmentalist town hall but it's facts. there are wonderful things happening. there are solutions and solutions that don't bankrupt the american people. it just requires this place stop sounding like it's the 1990's policy-wise. and understands, this is one of my biggest frustrations. and we need a moment of honesty. the policies pushed by the administration and my brothers and sisters on the left here have made america poorer. they've made the working men and women poorer. and the working poor poorer. and here's the chart. i mean, the facts are the facts are the facts are the facts are the facts. wages have gone up. yea. they were also going up dramatically in 2018 and 2019 and the very beginning of 2020. with no inflation. our problem is right now, the classic problem between sort of the keynesian stimulus consumption side of economics and those of us here more on the supply side where you make more product and by doing that, you raise wages because you become more efficient, you incentivize productivity. and that productivity makes it so you can pay people more. we did just the opposite. push cash after cash after cash. push up inflation, americans got poorer. you saw the inflation data over the last couple days. so all the nights speeches around here -- nice speeches around here about republicans this, republicans that. a moment of clarity, honestly, and the math. democratic policies made the working poor poorer this last year. and it's math. and what are the the two things do you most that create the most economic violence to the working poor? really wish i had someone here who was willing to answer that. the real simple. open up the border so you create a flood of individuals that have similar skill sets. my drywaller or my gardner or whoever these people are, they sell their labors, they sell their willingness to work their hearts out and when you flood the market with people with similar skill sets, you crush their wages. and then statement create inflation on top of that. from an economic standpoint, if you want to commit economic violence on the poor, do exactly what the left is doing right now. open up the borders and intent advise inflation -- incentivize inflation. the tough part with both of these, it's not a switch you just turn on. labor availability for those who sell their labor, they sill celtics it because they didn't -- sell it because they didn't graduate high school, they didn't have some of the benefits many of us did, but their wages were going up dramatically in 2018, 2019, the beginning of 2020. new regime comes in, border's opened up and you see -- look, we're in the middle of a pandemic. there's lots of other things going on and there's numbers out there that are really difficult because you have to adjust for the amount of cash that was pushed into society. but when you start to try to normalize that, i think when we look back there's going to be an understanding of just how brutal the policies of opening up the border, inflation, were to the very people we talk about and claim we care about. my fear is that brutality economically looks like it's going to be with us for about a decade. it may take 10 years to squeeze out what we've done in our population dynamics and inflation. i hope this place is willing -- and, look, when i talked to some of my democratic colleagues and welcome them to the numbers, they stare at me angrily and say, well, we're just going send them more money. not understanding that that just sets off the cycle even more i e we should be hopeful. we now have an anti-viral in the pandemic. we have the pfizer pill and merck has one. so if you have a home covid test and can actually take an anti-viral pill at home, should you still have a declaration of a pandemic? and my reason is go back to the discussions of when this began, when the pandemic was declared. this was a miserable thing for everyone to go through but it was always we are doing this because our emergency rooms are full. we won't have enough ventilators. now you have therapeutics and identify the virus at home. is it time for us to actually step in and say, this is something we are going to live with. we now have the tools to take care of it, if you happen to be in one -- you have a compromised immune system, other things, different protocols. and vast majority of our nation -- this is what we had said a couple of years ago. we don't have to have a declaration of a pandemic because you can take a number of pills that is effective. is it time we start having the conversation that the declaration of a pandemic has outlived its welcome and we start now figuring it out, we have methods to help people, do it from home and don't have to be in emergency rooms or hospitals. this is hopeful and it's here. and you saw an earlier debate between our leaders discussing about the biden administration's failure properly to preorder. i will let others who specialize in that have that debate. and it is time and where are you starting to see brothers and sisters on the left is something we are going to live with. this one is uncomfortable, but it's math. university of chicago, four economists, were looking at parts of the build back better and the child care tax credit and it turns out, because the left insists on linking the money from getting job training and learning skills, taking work, the economists say once again the left, great rhetoric of how they are going to help working men and women who have children, actually the data says it's going to make them poorer. and we have proposed over and over and over to the left, ok, if you do this, can we put a component that we want you to be part of the economy and part of society. we want you to work. the reaction, we actually had testimony in the joint economic committee from a leftift democrat witness who said, why should people have to work. and even a couple of democrats, their jaws are dropping, saying, well, that's your witness. but when the economists say the way you are designing your legislation, you are hurting working poor people. you have done it with opening the border and done it with inflation flags and now make sure it sticks. this is just crappy economics. and they no better but the politics of this craziness right now. let's go on to something else that i'm hoping will make some sense. and so last week, we sent out post card saying it's about to become a new year and tell us what issues you care about. and first one said, rich people need to pay more. ok. it would have been nice if this individual actually had the gave me their name. because you hear the left, well, the tax reform, it was for rich people. no, it wasn't. the data makes it very clear, the wealthy, after tax reform, are paying a higher percentage of the federal income tax. understand one more time, the tax code got more progressive after tax reform. the math -- it's the truth. i remember last year, i get a presentation, speaker pelosi came in and said, 82% of the benefits went to the rich people. and even the democrats who are on ways and means and jaws are dropping and looking down to the floor. but this place makes math up because we are about virtue signaling. tax code we are under today is more progressive, the rich pay a higher percentage of the income tax burden than before tax reform. but, that, too, the rhetoric and that post card that was in my mailbox saying rich people need to pay more taxes. well, maybe the left should trying to stop subsidizing them. the amount of tax cuts that are functioning designed into that, tax credits and money transfer, you do understand, 2/3 of millionaires get a tax cut under the democrats' build back better. the rhetoric versus the math. the virtue signaling versus owning a calculator. the democrats are once again -- talk a great game. the wealthy need to pay their fair share and then do legislation that actually subsidizees the rich. few months ago, we did a presentation here and said if society -- if government needs another trillion dollars, ok, if that's the argument coming from the left, stop subsidizing the rich. we came here with a series of boards that showed $1.4 trillion over 10 years and i'm talking the really rich, the subsidies that are built in, and you could just hear -- you could hear contradicts, because if you actually look at the wealthiest zip codes they are represented by people on the left. so just a couple more to walk through. we all know the democrats' passion for state and local tax deductions and goes up and down. and once again to been quey sanders' credit, it's a tax cut for the really rich where the vast majority of the money goes to people making a million dollars or more. how many times have we read in the political press that a number of our democrat brothers and sisters here won't let the legislation become law unless they get the tax cuts for their rich taxpayers. ok. stop sticking a post card in my mailbox without your name on it and the party wants to subsidize the rich and hand them money. we work in a place that the words don't match the facts. and this is one of my favorite things when ways and means when we were grinding through the build back better bill, we did simple math. you make $800,000 a year. built into that legislation was $118,000 of tax credits for a family making $800,000 a year. getting the wealthy to pay their fair share or going to subsidize people that finance their campaigns. so back once again, what is the greatest threat to our republic? besides all the craziness here and the shiny object jets and the debate of the day that will change tomorrow. the sense of indignation and people will walk behind these microphones, i'm going to argue it's the next two boards. this year, 77% of all the spending is mandatory and functioning the formula, social security, medicare, 10% is defense, 13% is everything else. when you and i go home and if i am in front of a republican, you have to get rid of foreign aid. left audience, well, it's defense. no, it's demographics. the vast majority of this here is functioning demographics. it's not republican or democrat. but yet, even last night, you saw more legislation being pushed by the democrats that expand these mandatory portion -- and this is based on a year ago c.b.o. report functioning 29 years, you have $112 trillion of publicly board money. that is not borrowing from a trust fund and it's in today's dollars. this is as if -- that's like 205% of protected g.d.p. the majority of it is the shortfalls in medicare, then social security. the rest is in balance. if you are an elected official and made a commitment you are going to protect social security and medicare, start telling the truth about the math and understand those previous slides i showed that there is a miracle of wonderful things that are going to cure misery, cure diseases. why isn't that the fixation here is we are going to fix the things that create this incredible amount of debt. instead, we have a body that doesn't do math and is rewarded for absolutely absurd virtue signaling. and with that, madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the speaker pro tempore: pursuan t to section 11-b of house resolution 188, the house stands adjourned until 11:00 >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service. along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> the house vote on voting rights legislation was 220-203 along party lines. here's a look at some of the debate from that today.

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