Steve Cohen

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, the reason I have this amendment is because I don't think the bill is a good bill, and it shouldn't affect settlement agreements on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or any other protected category. I was kind of shocked that it was put in order; I will be even more shocked if it passes. But the reality is it doesn't make any difference because this bill isn't going anywhere in the Senate. Most of what we do in the Judiciary Committee is highly partisan matters that won't go anywhere in the Senate. We are one of the four committees of jurisdiction that can deal with matters dealing with the White House, with Russian interference in our election, and with issues concerning obstruction of justice and the firing of James Comey with Emoluments Clause violations, abuse of power, and attacks on the judiciary. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees have investigations. So does the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only our committee has done absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Today, Senator Jeff Flake, a gentleman who I served with in the House and a man of moral rectitude, said he cannot continue to serve in the Senate because to be quiet on issues concerning the White House in relation to decency, truth, and other matters would involve complicity. He couldn't remain complicit. By our committee not taking any actions concerning activities in the White House, we are complicit. We should be the most responsible committee in the Congress because we are the people's House, and we have the judiciary, the FBI, and elections all within our purview, yet we have remained silent. Part of the reason that has been said is because other groups are investigating. Well, we are the group that should be doing the investigating because we are the people's House. We don't not take up bills like this because the Senate is not going to pass them. We take them up all the time, throw them over there, and they don't come back. So I am distraught by the fact that my friend Jeff Flake, who is one of the finest people I have served with, a man of rectitude, is not going to run for reelection. He wasn't a knee-jerk Republican, just like Bob Corker is not a knee-jerk Republican. And both have said many truths today about what is going on in the executive branch. We are an equal branch of government that has responsibility to be a check and balance, and the House Judiciary Committee has that responsibility. I once again call on the chairman of the committee to hold hearings on elections, on Russian interference in our elections, on threats to our democracy, on violations of the Emoluments Clause, obstruction of justice, and the firing of the FBI Director. The FBI is under our charge. We should have hearings. We should have hearings on emoluments. We should have hearings on all of these issues and not be complicit. Being complicit is the same as being guilty. Mr. Chairman, I ask that we pass the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Pascrell will go into this in some detail. But we held hearings on this, and we didn't have any support from the other side of the aisle when we pointed out all of the abuses that were going on in New Jersey, Mr. Chairman, with monitors being appointed that were making $52 million--Mr. Ashcroft, in particular--other monitors who had involvement in cases that Mr. Christie was involved in, which his brother was involved in, and where money was given to Mr. Christie's law school and other pet projects. Nobody on the other side criticized it. It was only when they cared about Obama.

Mr. COHEN. I just wondered, do you have in there all the things Chris Christie did that came up in a hearing that we held in 2009 in our committee showing the abuses of the system by Chris Christie?

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Pascrell will discuss it in more detail.

Mr. COHEN. You have got a minority report you are putting in which cites lists of abuses; is that correct?

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, this House and its committees will discuss what is being called tax reform, what is being told to the American public is a middle class tax break. Well, I am here to tell you it is a con job. It is a tax giveaway to the wealthiest people in this country like never before at the expense of people in the middle class, lesser incomes, who will not get benefits, and if they do, it is chump change. It is the change you give somebody at a restaurant when you get your meal. Billionaires will get to get away without having to pay an estate tax, like Donald Trump--billions of dollars they will not have to pay to the government to help fund Pell grants, LIHEAP, and other programs that help people who need something. That is something they will not come off of. They may raise a little rate and say: We are going to put a little higher rate on the wealthy because it is not in there now. They may say: Give the State and local income tax exemptions back. But they are not going to go back on the estate tax because that is for the superwealthy, and that is who this bill is for. Wake up America. It is a con job.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Horse Transportation Safety Act, a bill I introduced earlier today along with my esteemed colleague, Rep. Jones from North Carolina, to ensure the humane and safe transportation of horses. The Horse Transportation Safety Act seeks to end the exploitation of a regulatory loophole designed to ban the transport of horses in double-deck trailers, whereby drivers have an incentive to inhumanely transport horses to assembly points, then reload them into single level trailers just outside their final destination. The practice is dangerous and inhumane not only to the horses, it poses a threat to the travelling public. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ``double-deck trailers do not provide adequate headroom for equines, with the possible exception of foals and yearlings. We do not believe that trailers that have two or more permanent levels that are not collapsible can be adequately altered to accommodate adult equines, especially tall equines.'' The legislation is strongly supported by agricultural interests and animal protection groups alike. Among the organizations endorsing the bill are the Humane Society of the United States, the Animal Welfare Institute, the National Black Farmers Association, and Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation. Moreover, in 2010 the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure unanimously adopted this bipartisan legislation. This is common sense legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support the swift passage of the Horse Transportation Safety Act.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chair, the other day, a young man who lives in my neighborhood came over, and he asked me to try to teach him how to drive a car. And I told him: Son, it is real easy to drive a car. It is just kind of like these budget proposals you will see in Congress. If you want to go forward and do things down the road, you put the car in D, like Democrat, for drive, and your car will go forward. But if you want to go backwards and reverse back to the 1950s, you put it in R, like a Republican. He learned quick, and that is what these budgets are about. If you want to go forward, you go with the Democratic budget--forward on building highways, school construction, broadband expansion; research, research on the deadly diseases that are killing each and every one of us and our children in time to come, and research by the National Institutes of Health that are cut by the budget. There is nothing more important that can be in the budget than moneys for the National Institutes of Health, yet they are being cut. Cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS, stroke, diabetes, all are going to come at us and our relatives. Some will say, and I said this one time before, and Mr. Kingston on the other side said: Well, our children and our grandchildren will have to pay for it. Who do you think is going to get the cures and the treatments? Our children and our grandchildren and generations to come. And they cut research. They cut opportunities for America. You talk about taxes and the debt, the Republican plan gives billionaires the biggest cuts in history, over $50 billion with estate tax elimination for people like the Koch brothers and the Waltons and all those folks, and that money will never come back. The alternative minimum tax is eliminated. That is the only thing that made clear that President Trump paid any taxes in the only tax return we know about. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have paid anything. We are talking multimillion- and billion-dollar tax cuts for the richest that create deficits in the future, but that is okay when it is giving money to those who already have it. Franklin Roosevelt was right. You judge a society not by what it does for those who have an abundance, but you judge it by what it does for those who have the least.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Police Creating Accountability by Making Effective Recording Act, also known as the Police CAMERA Act, a bill I introduced earlier today with more than a dozen of my colleagues here in the House and in coordination with Senators Brian Schatz and Rand Paul who introduced the bill today in the Senate. If enacted, this bill would establish a grant program to assist state and local law enforcement with the deployment of body-worn camera programs. Safe communities require good police. Good policing requires public trust. Unfortunately, in far too many communities, that trust has become strained. In the wake of recent police shootings, our nation is facing sobering questions about the basic fairness of our criminal justice system. We face sobering questions about race. Over the past several years, the wider availability of video has shined a much-needed light on police use of deadly force. Without video of places like North Charleston, Staten Island, Chicago, Cleveland, Baton Rouge, Tulsa and Falcon Heights, Minnesota the world might never know what occurred. The more we see of these types of videos, the more we are left to wonder about all the incidents that were not recorded. Had there been better video of the shooting of Darrius Stewart in my home town of Memphis, it might have helped to better inform the grand jury that, sadly, refused to indict the police officer who was responsible. Justice is supposed to be blind, but it is not supposed to be blind to the facts. Police body cameras can help provide evidence and restore some much- needed trust. They can protect both police and citizens alike. The vast majority of police are well meaning, dedicated public servants, and we depend upon them to keep us safe from criminals. They have dangerous jobs, as we have seen all too frequently. But the fact remains some officers go beyond the law in a callous disregard for due process. Their actions damage the public trust that is essential for good police to be able to serve and protect our communities. Police body cameras, alone, won't solve this problem. But they are an important step in the right direction. I would like to thank Senators Schatz and Paul for their leadership on this issue and for partnering with me on this legislation. I also thank my colleagues who have signed on as cosponsors of this legislation and I urge all Members to help pass the Police CAMERA Act quickly.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, last week we honored and welcomed back Steve Scalise to this Chamber, victim of a horrible shooting aimed at him because he was a Congressman. It could have been any one of us. Today the Democrats spoke on the steps of the Capitol about the need for reasonable gun law reform, and with us was Gabby Giffords, who was shot in 2011 because she was a Congressperson doing her job. Congressman John Lewis had said that you can't go to a movie theater, you can't go to a concert, and you can't go to school and feel safe. You can't be a public official and feel safe. What happened in Las Vegas where 58 people were murdered and over 500 injured calls on the United States Congress to take action to protect the American people. This is the time to act for reasonable, commonsense gun reform laws. Former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Fischer, who, in 1996, after the greatest mass shooting in Australian history, led an effort to reform the Australian laws, sent a missive to President Trump suggesting this is the time for him to act and to do something very important for American society. He said: It can be done. After those killings in Australia, they passed laws that made automatic and semiautomatic weapons illegal. They had a buyback program that bought back over 600,000. After the 1996 effort, which was difficult but successful, Australia has not had a killing of over five people. Prior to 1996, they had 15 or 16 shootings of that nature. Everyone recognizes Australia's success. We need to do something besides just having continued moments of silence. Yesterday, on a bill on this floor about the unborn taking precedence over the rights of women, quite a few Republicans came to the floor and talked about pain to the unborn and loss of their potential for life. But none have talked about the pain of the 500 who were injured and the 58 lives that were lost. We could pass laws to eliminate bump stocks that, apparently, this murderer used to make his weapon into, effectively, an automatic weapon, where you can shoot hundreds of bullets at a time, which he did. Bump stocks should be illegal. Senator Dianne Feinstein had a bill to make them illegal in 2013, and she has one again. We need better background checks and to make sure the mentally ill don't get guns. Unfortunately, in this Congress, in February, we passed a law that President Trump signed with passion and a flare that eliminated a rule that said that the Social Security Administration would send the names of people who couldn't manage their own financial affairs to a bureau to see to it that they were on a list so they couldn't buy guns. If you can't successfully manage your own financial affairs, should you have a gun? I would submit not. But that bill was passed on a partisan vote and signed by the President, making it easier for people to get guns when the Social Security Administration has found they cannot manage their own affairs. The same for the no-fly, no-buy list. If you are considered too much of a security threat to fly on an airplane, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. The arguments we heard against that were about due process. Has anybody brought a bill to give the people on the no-fly list due process? Has it come to the floor? No. It won't. It makes sense to have a no-fly list. They also should be the people that can't buy guns. We shouldn't have semiautomatic weapons. Automatic weapons are illegal. The bump stocks make regular weapons automatic weapons. The CDC is prohibited by law from doing a study to see if there is a connection between gun violence and mental health or our country's health. That law should be repealed. We shouldn't fear the CDC study. High-capacity magazines also shouldn't be permitted, and law enforcement should be protected from armor-piercing bullets. I hope that we can act to save American lives.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. The bottom line is, this bill is unconstitutional, an attack on women's rights, an attack on the Constitution, and we should be looking at changes in our laws about guns and violence, at least mental health, something to respond to what happened in Las Vegas, instead of another moment of silence.

Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the time to speak on this important subject. While it is important, it is also embarrassing somewhat to us, because I listen to the other side, and the first thing that the chairman does over here is he shows a New York Times ad. And because of The New York Times ad at the time of Roe v. Wade, he suggests that we should turn over Roe v. Wade because it is antiquated. Well, in 1791, the Second Amendment was adopted, and we had pistols, and we had guns that you could shoot one bullet at a time; and yesterday, we had a man in Las Vegas with guns who could shoot ``da da da da da da da da da'' and kill 59 people and wound 500. If you get me an ad from 1791, those weapons were not in that ad, but do they talk about changing the Second Amendment, do they talk about protecting Americans from that type of violence? No. They come here and talk about protecting the unborn, forgetting about the rights of women guaranteed them by Roe v. Wade, the law of the land, which is the law of the land that says viability comes at 24 weeks. They talk about what they say are medical experts and a substantial body of medical evidence. What they don't tell you is the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are against this bill, and there is no medical group or medical society in this country that is for this bill, but they know more about medicine and about pain for the unborn than do the doctors and the scientists. They bring this to us, an unconstitutional bill, an unconstitutional bill that the CBO estimates will cost us from $65 million to $335 million over 10 years. Their concern about the budget goes out the window. The truth of the matter is this goes back to the Rules Committee debate on this bill. We were told: It is popular; the polls show people want this. This is a political bill that has had no hearing in the Judiciary Committee, had no markup in the Judiciary Committee. That is called regular order, something we were promised by the Speaker, a new day in Congress. We were going to have opportunities for both sides to debate, the kind of things John McCain, a great American hero, sees as wrong in the Senate, which is just as wrong in the House: two sides coming together to debate, to vote, to amend, to discuss. No. It comes straight to the floor because it is politically popular, more politically popular this week than having a bill to allow for silencers for weapons, which was going to be the bill du jour for this week, but it was pulled. Instead, we got this unconstitutional law that flies in the face of Roe v. Wade, takes rights away from women and treats them without exceptions that are necessary to make a law proper concerning rape and incest.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I am a member of the Judiciary Committee, and I have never seen this bill before. Under regular order, it should go to our committee for a hearing and for a markup. Has this bill had a hearing and a markup in any committee, or has it just sprung on this floor like something out of the ocean in Greek mythology?

Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of a bill I introduced earlier today: the Equal Employment for All Act. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate today by Senator Elizabeth Warren. According to a recent report, an increasing number of employers have been using credit reports, specifically consumer reports bearing on the consumer's creditworthiness, credit standing or credit capacity, as part of their hiring process. However, unless the job position involves significant financial responsibility, the use of a credit check for employment raises the obvious issue that a person's credit history has little to do with his or her qualifications for a job. Far too often, employers turn down ``credit challenged'' applicants because they have erroneously linked credit scores to potential job performance. Even worse, the ``credit challenged'' have fallen victim to deceptive marketing practices by credit report companies or credit counseling services that charge outlandish fees that supposedly rehabilitate credit scores to help with employment. The Equal Employment for All Act would right this wrong by amending the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit the use of consumer credit checks by employers as part of the hiring or firing process unless the job involves national security, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation clearance, or significant financial responsibility. With the passage of the Equal Employment for All Act, some of our most vulnerable, ``credit challenge'' citizens including students, recent college graduates, low-income families, senior citizens, and minorities, would be given the opportunity to begin rebuilding their credit by obtaining a job. I also want to thank Senator Warren for her leadership and partnership on this important piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to help pass this bill.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his help. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee. Mr. Serrano has helped me on other amendments as well as this one.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to speak in support of our bipartisan amendment, which would increase Legal Services funding by $10 million. I am willing to withdraw this amendment after my colleagues and I take a brief moment to speak about Legal Services. I know that the chair and the ranking member support Legal Services and may be able to help, but at some time in the future. Our justice system is the envy of the world. Whenever we travel, people say what they really respect about America is the rule of law and our justice system, but it takes professional help by an attorney to navigate it. When they are poor--which most people don't have legal training--they are not going to be able to successfully compete against a private attorney on the other side. They need help. If they don't have that help, the justice system is not fair. Legal Services helps ensure equal justice under the law. It helps all kind of folks: military families, homeowners and renters, families with children, the disabled, and the elderly. It is vital all over the country, but in places like Houston, residents struggle from Hurricane Harvey. Lone Star Legal Aid, which is partially funded by Legal Services, is helping people navigate the legal hurdles when people need them most so that they can get their lives back. Mr. Kennedy has been a strong supporter of this. He was supposed to be here today, but I think he has been detained. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Culberson for his help, and Mrs. Brooks for her leadership. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time, and I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time, and I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Walberg for bringing this amendment and for the bills he has proposed; and I thank Senator Paul as well. I think criminal asset forfeiture is one of the worst, most heinous, most despicable, and most vile laws that we have ever put on the books. It is an assault on human beings and State governments on State sovereignty and on individuals having a right to their property and having a right to a hearing and being found guilty of something before their property is taken. The way it is today, the government can come in, and they don't even have to charge you with a crime, and they can take your car or your money or whatever else they find. It is an un-American a thing as has ever existed. Mr. Walberg laid out some of the supporters: the ACLU, NAACP, and then it goes around to some conservative worlds. There are many times I have found that you get 360 degrees where the liberals and the conservatives come together and agree on libertarian principles that something needs to happen. When you have got Rand Paul, Keith Ellison, Mr. Walberg, and myself all on the same thing, this needs to happen. So we need to pass it now. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chair, as the designee of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chair, this amendment would reprogram $10 million from the prison account and put it in the juvenile justice programs designed to reduce recidivism, gang violence, and gun crimes. Ms. Jackson Lee, a fellow member on the Judiciary Committee, has been a leader on this issue, and she is right in her approach, understanding that working with juveniles early will save money in the long run and see that they don't get into the prison pipeline that so often takes young people and ruins their lives and costs our communities and our taxpayers a great deal of money. Our Federal prisons are presently funded $7 billion for administration, operation, and maintenance. Twenty million dollars of that is made up for contract confinement. This amendment would reduce the account by $10 million and put it into juvenile justice programs that would reduce recidivism, gang violence, and gun crime. These juvenile justice programs that would get the benefit of this money would protect our most vulnerable children through treatment and mentoring programs. According to the Justice Policy Institute, locking up juveniles costs an average of $407 a day and $148,000 per person per year. There are a lot of conservative coalitions, like FreedomWorks, American Conservative Union Foundation, and Taxpayers Protection Alliance that agree that mass incarceration is extremely costly to taxpayers. This amendment invests in our youth population at the front end with rewards on the back end, as these folks don't end up in the prison system; supports programs that have shown consistent success in curtailing gang violence and gun crimes. Violence among our youth is a health epidemic that must be addressed; therefore, we must support professionals that possess practical experience in epidemic control for violence prevention, and that show success working with the most vulnerable and at-risk youth population when addressing this health epidemic. Within the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the following programs focus on violence prevention: Forum, Community Based Violence Prevention, and Defending Childhood. The CBVP explicitly calls for and supports the health approach; hence, this amendment provides funding for organizations such as community-based violence prevention programs that have shown great success. Cure Violence, a health-based organization operating in several cities and States, including Chicago and New York and Philadelphia and others, has shown great success and also shown success in Puerto Rico. They have had 100 percent reduction in homicide retaliation in Chicago, a 41 to 73 percent drop in shootings in five of eight communities in Baltimore; they have had a 56 percent drop in killings, and 44 percent other places. In essence, this is putting money in a place where we can save money, save youths, save lives. Mr. Chair, I ask that we support this amendment that Ms. Jackson Lee has brought forth. It makes a lot of common sense. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chair, I understand Mr. Culberson's position and look forward to his help with legal services that will help juveniles, too.