Dan Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, this bill, or a bill substantially like it, has come up before, and it enjoyed substantial bipartisan support, and now that has changed. Why is that? It is because it has become evident that the majority seeks, for political reasons, to conflate the extraordinarily serious issue of domestic terrorism with half of the country with their political opposition. It is evident that the administration has pursued a concocted attack on the credibility on the First Amendment activity of parents who were engaging in First Amendment-protected activism in school boards. The administration has engaged in a deceitful refusal to account for that activity, and whistleblower accounts have now revealed that, indeed, FBI agents went to interrogate parents over their activism. When Members of the majority recite events in every one of their comments today, they are selective and mischaracterized. They do not mention the Brooklyn subway shooter. They do not mention the Wisconsin fire bombing. They do not mention Waukesha, Wisconsin. They do not mention Boulder, Colorado. Why do they not? Why is it so consistent that those are not mentioned? It is exactly the same issue in which there is always a focus on a particular type of hate--white supremacy. Let me tell you something. I have no hesitancy to say that the twisted butcher in Buffalo, New York, was a white supremacist. More than that, it is evident that he was mentally ill. That does not mean that Republicans writ large are domestic terrorists or white supremacists. It is a smear, and it is deliberate. Worst of all, this preoccupation, to the exclusion of all else, that smears the right, smears people center right, as racists, white supremacists, is a device, a demagogic device to distract from abysmal policy disasters led and created by advocacy and policy of Democrats. The defund police debacle that led to a 30 percent increase in homicides--not as tragic as 10 or 20 killings of people by domestic terrorists on occasions--but 5,000 additional homicides a year. Do you know what? Sixty-five percent of those are suffered by Black Americans. There were 3,250 additional killings in 2020 and more in 2021. The abandonment of the southern border that has resulted in a flood of fentanyl into the country so that you see mass killings by exposure to drugs laced with fentanyl; poison coming in and killing. The figure of 100,000, they tell me, is not current. It is not even getting at the essence of the problem. Under those circumstances, and having committed that sort of policy malpractice upon the American people with those abysmal results, Democrats would bring a partisan bill to the floor and conflate the egregious evil of domestic terrorism with some kind of a political smear of your political opposition. What would it take to do that? This bill should be bipartisan because it is promoted, it is brought, it is worked out with the political opposition. This problem is too significant to be cheapened as a political stunt. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, it is hard to overstate how concerning the problem is that has so invaded our politics. We have seen in so many ways institutional norms be trampled underfoot in this Congress. The metal detectors at the door are one example, but they go on and on and on. The hearing in the Judiciary Committee today aimed at intimidating the United States Supreme Court while it is in the midst of a particular decision is another one. Concepts about packing the Court, ideas by Democrats to pack the Court by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and they go on and on and on. This one might be the worst. You wonder what in the world the majority may be thinking to turn the issue of terrorism--any form of terrorism--into a partisan cudgel. It is beyond belief. If this issue returned to a nonpartisan posture, you would find that Republicans would be pleased to join it. It has been grossly distorted and turned into a political weapon that should never happen. It should never happen in this country. It should never happen in this Congress. This bill should be defeated. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) for yielding. The gentleman is right. You can't help but notice and perhaps be distracted in an unseemly way by the stream of insidious attacks on the institution of the United States Supreme Court. It began with ideas about packing the Court, the well-known threat by the majority leader in the Senate that, ``You won't know what hit you'' to the Justices of the Supreme Court, followed by that unprecedented leak--unprecedented in the history of the United States Supreme Court for a draft opinion to leak to the public. But we weren't done then, because in the ensuing two weeks, there was the online publishing of information about the residences of the Justices of the Supreme Court and the appearance of mobs outside their houses to intimidate them. And we were not done then. Last night, in the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, there were the most unseemly attacks on the institution of the Court. We can look forward and we are still not done, because that committee, the Democratic majority of that committee, has scheduled for next week a hearing on the Dobbs case as it pends for decision on the calendar of the Court, another unprecedented trampling of institutional norms by a majority who reminds us constantly of their desire to protect democracy. But as I say, all of that threatens to cover over what should be a hopeful moment for this Nation in which we may, for the first time in 49 years, set aside a regime that has resulted in the loss of 61 million innocents. We may soon see in this Nation that no longer will tiny babies at the instant of their formation and their first weeks of growth when their formative heart begins to beat and they can sense pain, be forcibly ripped, limb from limb, as they are extracted from their mother's womb by an abortionist. We can aspire now, given the hope that emerges from what was intended for evil, but God may use for good, this opinion that says no longer will the deficient logic and willful action of a Supreme Court majority in 1973 dictate the course of this Nation and commit us to a continuing abomination against the most innocent. The aspiration that it may come to pass that the abomination of Roe v. Wade will join Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson and Korematsu on the ash heap of history, a stain upon the history of the United States, to be sure, but one that the Nation and those who have the good fortune to live within her confines may yet live to see redeemed. Aspiration, hope, faith that this Nation may yet indeed see the living out of its creed. That is what I aspire to tonight.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, today, I rise to pay tribute to WBT Radio on the 100th anniversary of its founding. For over a century, WBT has helped inform and entertain residents of the City of Charlotte--my hometown. Charles Kuralt, Billy Graham, Rush Limbaugh, and Charlotte's John Hancock are just some of the voices that have come through WBT's airwaves in the past, and that tradition continues in the broadcasts of names like Bo Thompson, Vince Coakley, and Pete Kaliner. WBT traces its origins from early broadcasts by radio amateurs who set up a transmitter in an abandoned chicken coop. These sporadic transmissions later expanded into playing phonograph records over the air, and then into the broadcasts we know and love today. The U.S. Department of Commerce officially granted WBT a broadcast license on April 10, 1922. At the time, it was only the third licensed radio station in the United States and the first in the entire Southeast. I am proud to honor WBT Radio on their 100th anniversary. Here's to 100 more years of radio excellence from the station heard ``from Maine to Miami.''

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I request unanimous consent to call up H.R. 471, the PAUSE Act, to protect all Americans from Biden's border crisis.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, behold the nonpartisan nature of the January 6th Committee. It puzzles me why it would have been so different had the allegedly bipartisan commission been approved. In fact, in the January 6th Committee's markup on the contempt resolutions, the grand inquisitor said, in opening: ``I can say confidently that the many involved in the run-up to January 6, an oath, a statement of fidelity to our democracy, was nothing more to them than meaningless words. I fear what happens if those people are again given the reins of power.'' This sums up the purpose of the January 6 inquisition in a way that is both cogent and terrifying. What the January 6th Committee lacks in bona fide legislative purpose, not patina of legislative purpose but bona fide legislative purpose, it makes up for in pure political vendetta. This investigation isn't about truth or democracy; it is a pure political power play. The immediate target is President Trump, but the ultimate target is those people--namely, the millions of Americans--who voted for President Trump. Why is there no dissent from this objective on this committee? Well, because the only Members nominally representative of the minority, chosen by the majority Speaker over the objection of the minority, share the political objectives of the grand inquisitor. Accordingly, Liz Cheney said during the January 6th Committee markup of these contempt resolutions: ``Our committee will continue to litigate to obtain the testimony we need.'' What need? To inform what legislative purpose does the committee need to obtain the RNC's contributor data and information, to discover who opened its emails and clicked through to donation pages? On the other hand, it could serve her purpose to demonize her political opponents, especially those who donate to President Trump.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, it is common for the zealot to lose the capacity for irony. Hence, Chairman Thompson says that laws prohibit doing politics on the clock: ``It is important that taxpayer dollars don't support political activity.'' Ms. Cheney waves the Constitution even while she poses as the designee of the minority, imposed on the minority in a historically unprecedented trampling of the institutional norms. This is a kangaroo court, a court of the star chamber. They continue to trample the concepts and the institutional norms of the Congress, and I am certain that the American people will have an answer for it very soon.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Let me just ask, do you think anyone has ever discriminated against you because you are bald?

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, to Mr. Jordan's point, we are beset with problems. Two of the most significant are that the Producer Price Index is at 10 percent. We face a cost environment that is unsustainable, and that affects every American's livelihood every time they visit a gas pump or go to the store. We face an employment environment where Americans have been disincentivized to work. Every time I speak to people in my district--well, it may be different in the last couple of weeks and the latest catastrophes we have seen. But certainly, until then, the leading concern is the availability of people who are inclined to work in order to fulfill job opportunities. The Judiciary Committee's report on this legislation points out that I and Representative Cliff Bentz from Oregon raised a question about this legislation in the markup, that it may prevent employers from regulating hairstyles for workplace safety reasons. One of the cases involved, I believe, was about long dreadlocks that could become ensnared in machinery on a workplace floor. Let me tell you what the Judiciary Committee's report by the majority says is the answer to that problem. They say that concern is misplaced because under the longstanding burden-shifting scheme applied by courts in title VII cases, an employer may defeat a discrimination claim by asserting that workplace safety was a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for taking an adverse employment action against an employee, with the burden then shifting to the employee to prove that the asserted reason was a pretext for discrimination. Assuming the employee cannot demonstrate that the employer's assertion of workplace safety was pretextual, the employer would prevail against an employment discrimination claim. How extraordinarily comforting. So, if an employee wants to wear dreadlocks, and an employer is legitimately concerned for the health and safety of the employee, that his scalp might be ripped off by a machine, then the employer can enter into the litigation. It certainly couldn't be arbitrated. We took care of that yesterday right on the floor of the House. We have to have litigation. We will have expensive lawyers. We will start, get the complaint filed, the answer filed. Maybe there will be a motion to dismiss that will be denied. We will get into the discovery process. We will send out the interrogatories and the document requests. We will ask for the other occasions where somebody has been fired, examine the processes and the practices of the employer for the last decade. We will get some experts in. We have got to have some experts to come in and testify to the likelihood that long dreadlocks are going to get caught in the machinery. We will have conflicting experts on each side. They will disagree. Then the court will receive a motion for summary judgment, say if there is enough evidence to submit the case to trial, and the judge will have a 130-page opinion that will examine the burden-shifting scheme and the initial burden, and then the response burden, and the burden shifts to the employee to show pretext. And the inflation rate creeps higher, and the folks willing to enter into jobs seem to be less and less, and the catastrophes keep coming. But this is the top priority. I don't think we need to drive lawsuits between Americans. I think, in the main, Americans well understand the rules of the road. As the Judiciary Committee itself reports, courts have generally even recognized that hairstyle, to the extent it is associated with race, as a basis for decisions on employment or the like, is already unlawful. The EEOC's own manual says that discriminating on the basis of, for example, Afros is unlawful. This bill is another solution to a problem that doesn't exist in any significant scope in this country, and the result being inflation that gets higher, more supply constriction that drives inflation higher, more animosity and obstacles between employees and employers, between merchants and customers to drive more lawsuits to pay more lawyers to make the quality of life in America so much better. That is where we are. That is where we are today on the floor of the House.

Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Did you bring a lawsuit?