Friday February 8 in Congress

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source is the Congressional Record.

https://www.congress.gov/116/crec/2019/02/08/CREC-2019-02-08.pdf

Senate

Not in session this day. Resumes Monday.

House of Representatives

Speaker pro tempore is Rep Each in

Bills considered:

H.R. 840, the Veterans’ Access to Child Care Act

Passed 400-9 (page H 1481)

to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide child care assistance to veterans receiving certain medical services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Several amendments were considered in Committee of the Whole House (H 1469 - H 1479)

Bills introduced:

H.R. 1109. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to revise and extend projects relating to children and to provide access to school-based comprehensive mental health programs.

H.R. 1114. A bill to require the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service to submit to Congress an annual report on the effects of gun violence on public health

H.R. 1115. A bill to amend the Consumer Product Safety Act to remove the exclusion of pistols, revolvers, and other firearms from the definition of consumer product in order to permit the issuance of safety standards for such articles by the Consumer Product Safety Commission

H.R. 1116. A bill to amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the sale or other disposition of a firearm to, and the possession, shipment, transportation, or receipt of a firearm by certain classes of high-risk individuals.

H.R. 1124. A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to provide for continuing appropriations in the absence of regular appropriations, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Appropriations.

H.R. 1131. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the expansion, intensification, and coordination of the programs and activities of the National Institutes of Health with respect to Tourette syndrome

H. Con. Res. 15. Concurrent resolution expressing the commitment of the Congress to the Paris Agreement

H. Res. 116. A resolution calling for a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline

Speech excerpts:

Rep Thompson, PA

HOUSE MUST VOTE ON BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS PROTECTION ACT: "This bill penalizes the intentional killing of a child who is born alive. To be clear, I cannot believe I even have to state those

words.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen horrific actions in New York and Virginia to allow late-term abortion. This is essentially the execution of a defenseless child after birth. It is unconscionable.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act would require a child who is born after an attempted abortion to receive treatment and be transferred to a hospital.

Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day in America when we have to discuss such a reprehensible act.

Any doctor who would leave a child to die should face the full extent of the law. This bill would ensure that."

Rep Rodney Davis, IL

ELECTION REFORM FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: "H.R. 1 abuses taxpayer dollars, criminalizes free speech, and encourages voting irregularities. I cannot support it in its current form.

One of the most egregious provisions in H.R. 1 creates a 6-to-1 government match to small donor campaign contributions up to $200. This means for every $200 that a political candidate receives, the Federal Government, with your tax dollars, is giving $1,200 to a politician’s campaign."

"This is only one example of how H.R. 1 legislation is not designed to serve the people but to serve the Democratic majority."

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Rep Delgado, NY

Amendment 15: "My amendment adds emergency mental healthcare as a covered healthcare service for veterans under H.R. 840.

No veteran in Upstate New York or across the country should have to forgo healthcare because they can’t access childcare services. My amendment adds emergency mental healthcare as a covered healthcare service for veterans under H.R. 840.

As it now reads, the bill provides for regular and intensive care, such as monthly VA medical appointments.

However, it does not account for unscheduled appointments that, sadly, can make the difference between life and death. What if there is no time for an appointment? What if the individual is thinking about harming themselves or others?

My amendment would allow veterans to receive childcare services when there is an immediate need for assistance due to mental ailment, whether from addictive opioids, post-traumatic stress disorder, or depression, just to name a few.

In my district and throughout most of the country, we have seen the opioid crisis rise to horrific numbers and impact millions of families…"

Rep David Roe, TN

Amendment 15: "It is a tragedy and a tragic fact that approximately 20 veterans die every day by suicide. We have perhaps no greater calling on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee than doing all we can do to lower and eliminate that number."

[Amendment 15 was agreed to.]

REQUEST TO CONSIDER H.R. 962, BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS PROTECTION ACT:

[The following exact same exchange happened at least two days, same bill, different representatives.]

Rep Wagner: "Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of my bill, H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House."

The Speaker pro tempore: "The gentlewoman is advised that, under guidelines consistently issued by successive Speakers, as recorded in section 956 of the House Rules and Manual, the Chair is constrained not to entertain the request unless it has been cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships.

Rep Wagner: "A parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker."

The SPEAKER pro tempore: "The gentlewoman will state her parliamentary inquiry."

Rep Wagner: "Mr. Speaker, I understand the guidelines the Chair just cited. However, seeing no objection from leadership or committee members on either side of the aisle, does that constitute clearance and allow the Chair to entertain my motion under the rules of the House?"

The SPEAKER pro tempore: "As previously stated, the request cannot be entertained absent appropriate clearance."

Rep Wagner: "Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker…."

[Exchange goes on a little longer.]

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LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:

Rep Scalise: "If I can bring to the gentleman’s attention, there was a story yesterday in the Washington Examiner titled, ‘‘Border agents just apprehended convicted child molesters and an MS–13 member at the Texas border where there’s no barrier.’’ This is a Washington Examiner article from yesterday, and I include it in the RECORD." (H 1483)

"I would ask the gentleman, when we get this conference report hopefully wrapped up this weekend, can the gentleman give an assurance that there will be money to properly not only secure the border but to include the physical barriers that are not there in those areas where we have child molesters and gang members coming across our southern border?"

Rep Hoyer: "I thank the gentleman for his question. I am not a member of the conference committee…

"We are for border security. I am hopeful that the conference committee reports out a bill that all sides can support that does, in fact, try to make our borders more secure. I look forward to having that bill hopefully, on the floor next week prior to the 15th or on the 15th, so we can: A, ensure that the government is not shut down; and, B, ensure that we have a bipartisan agreement on how we can make our borders more secure."

Rep Scalise: "I would ask the gentleman about a piece of legislation that we filed that we have been trying to get unanimous consent to bring up, and this is H.R. 962, a bill by my colleague, Ann Wagner from Missouri."

"to many, this issue transcends abortion. This isn’t related to abortion anymore. If a baby comes out of the womb and is alive, the fact that in only 26 States there are protections that that baby can’t be killed that means in nearly half of the States in this country, that baby still can be killed legally."

"H.R. 962 gives that protection that it can’t be killed. I would ask the gentleman if he would allow that bill to come to the House floor for a vote."

Rep Hoyer: "We will pursue the regular order. This bill, like every other bill, will be referred to committee and the committee will handle its consideration as the committee sees fit.

The gentleman has talked about, or there has been discussion about, a discharge petition that is obviously available. We were trying very hard to have people we call Dreamers allowed to stay in the only country they know.

Unfortunately, the leadership was against that discharge petition, and it never got to the floor. For many bills that either side may want, some come to the floor, some don’t. But this will go through the regular process, and it is going to be referred to the committee of jurisdiction. We will see how that proceeds."

Rep Scalise: "as you look now, there have been a number of alarming developments that have raised the profile of this issue.

When the Governor of New York signed into law his legislation and celebrated the fact that, in his State, you can kill a baby after it has been born, and you saw applause in the legislature over that, it shocked people across the country. It horrified and angered people across the country."

Rep Scalise continues…..

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Rep Scalise continued:

When the Governor of Virginia, just a few days ago went to a radio station and described, in detail, how a baby born alive can still be killed, can be killed after it is born alive, and it is legal in that State, it is legal and not protected in nearly a majority of our States, this issue has come to the forefront of Americans."

I have made it very clear I will be filing a discharge petition if we can’t get to the point where we get this bill brought to the floor in a quicker way. There is a quicker way to do this and address this problem.

Again, if you ask most pro-choice people in America, they don’t think it is right that you can kill the baby after it comes out of the womb."

"I would just ask if the gentleman would reconsider, to move this in a quicker way and allow the unanimous consent motion to go through. If no one objects, we can bring that bill to the floor. And so far as we have been making the motion for unanimous consent, there has been no opposition expressed They have just not allowed the motion to go forward and be recognized."

Rep Hoyer: "My answer, however, is the same to the gentleman, Madam Speaker. We have a process The bill has just been introduced. It will be referred to committee, and the committee will have it under regular order to consider. I cannot predict what the committee will do with that bill, but I understand the gentleman’s strong feelings. I respect those; and I respect the fact that this is an issue that is current.

But, again, my answer to the distinguished Republican Whip is that we will be considering that in the regular order and, at that point in time, I am sure that he will be able to testify before the committee, if and when there is a hearing, and that others will as well, including the sponsor. But we are going to pursue the regular order on this bill and other bills as well."

ISSUES OF THE DAY

Rep Gohmert:

"I rushed over here from a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, a strange hearing. The Acting Attorney General that is going to be acting for another week maybe had a big circus about having him come in and testify in a long hearing, where everybody gets to go after him that wants to.

But in that hearing, as well as in media in the past, as well as in other hearings in the past, I kept hearing friends across the aisle talk about these great career officials in the Department of Justice who were giving great advice to Jeff Sessions, like to recuse himself, and Jeff Sessions himself said: I listened to the career officials at the Department of Justice who recommended that I recuse myself on the Russia investigation.

Some of us heard—it was understood who he was referring to as giving him this great advice to recuse himself—and you could say they were in career positions. But these were not the career positions or officials of days gone by when a U.S. attorney or even somebody in the Justice Department here in Washington could be trusted to give nonpolitical advice.

But as we have seen in the Department of Justice and FBI scandals of the last few years, we have people who were disastrously political that were seeking political victories through the Justice Department and certainly were not the nonpartisan, bipartisan people of the past.

Rep Gohmert continues

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Rep Gohmert continued:

I know from working with U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys in decades past, we knew how they voted. We knew party allegiance, whether they were Republican or Democrat, but when it came to criminal law, criminal violations, those things, they may have different personal philosophies, but justice was justice. And if somebody violated the law, they were going to pursue it. They were not going to let party affiliation or their regard or lack of regard for the President or anybody else keep them from pursuing justice.

But this has been an extraordinary time in American history when we have found a Department of Justice had officials to the very top who were far more political than they were just; where people, even an Attorney General, would say they had a chance meeting on a tarmac, when the facts of the day indicate it really could not have been a chance meeting on a tarmac. And if it hadn’t been for a reporter spotting what he thought might be former President Bill Clinton, nobody would have ever known about that meeting while, supposedly, Hillary Clinton was under investigation.

We now know there was never going to be any prosecution of Hillary Clinton, no matter how grievous or egregious any criminal violation may have been, even if it meant obstructing justice by destroying emails that had been subpoenaed and destroying with a hammer or with BleachBit cellphones or computers.

This is clearly obstruction of justice. Those would have been lay-down cases to get convictions. But it was now clear those were never going to be pursued because the people who were in position supposedly career, some political appointments, they were not going to let that happen.

Now, people like Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok—the guy is the head of FBI counterintelligence, and he has no problem lying over and over and over again. Then he has the gall to come in and basically say as his deposition testimony ended, oh, he always tells the truth.

Any good lawyer knows you don’t ever say, ‘‘I always tell the truth,’’ because you make mistakes. But he did, and that was a lie. He just couldn’t help lying.

There were stories after the shock to the Obama administration in having Donald Trump win, the arrogance that existed in the Democratic Party that, gee, there is no way Donald Trump could win, even though it certainly appeared to be funny at the time when President Obama—I think it may have been on Letterman where he read something about a comment that Obama would go down as the worst President, and he said: Yeah, at least I will go down as having been President.

Rep Gohmert continues…

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Rep Gohmert continued:

Everybody laughed because, gee, how could he ever get elected President? Well, he did.

So there were articles written and word spread that in the remaining days of the Obama administration after Donald Trump was elected President, there was a flurry of activity in November, December, and early January to move people from political appointment positions into career positions in all these different government departments and agencies, including the Department of Justice.

If you look at the person who answered to Rod Rosenstein, Tashina Gauhar—she was the liaison between the National Security Council and the Attorney General, but she answered directly to Rod Rosenstein. That was a change I understood that occurred in the organizational chart for DOJ some time back.

I tried to tell Jeff and persuade him: You need to reorganize. You need to have critical positions answering directly to you.

He didn’t know why he kept getting such late notices to NSC meetings. Everybody else got them timely What I heard was Tashina Gauhar was getting them timely like everybody else but delaying Jeff Sessions getting them, so he would either develop a conflict or he would not have time to properly prepare. He would go into the meetings looking bad before the National Security Council, because he wasn’t as prepared as others were because he didn’t get his notices timely as he should have because a person who was more—or certainly appeared to be much more—devoted to Sally Yates and her obstruction of the Trump administration was the one who was supposed to pass on those notices to Jeff Sessions.

As we are seeing, there were people who have been forced to leave the DOJ and leave the FBI in scandal for lying. I understand Andrew McCabe supposedly is currently being investigated for criminal violations. This is a guy right there close to the top, nearly the top, and he had become a political hack and a political operative.

Others would look at somebody like him or Peter Strzok and say these are career people, so we can trust them, without realizing, oh, no, they are politically motivated, and they are going to use their job for political purposes to try to keep one party from winning the Presidency and try to help another to win the Presidency.

It is shocking what is going on. I believe that if the roles had been reversed and that was a Republican FBI, Republican DOJ—it shouldn’t be political at all, but it has been. But if that had been them, and they were the doing to a Democrat President what has been done to this one, I just feel sure I would have objected.

This is wrong. I don’t care what the party is, you don’t abuse a justice system for political purposes. I think I would—I really believe it is one of the things that makes some in my party so mad at me sometimes when they are not doing the right thing, and they are not keeping their word."