Rodney Davis

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I thank my colleague from Virginia for offering this amendment, but this amendment shares the same flaw as the main text of the bill, putting media platforms in charge of enforcing our Nation's laws. They are not doing a good job right now. I don't know if Mr. Zuckerberg is still across the street testifying in front of the Financial Services Committee, but if they were doing a good job, he wouldn't have been here so long. Rather, we need to strengthen FARA and help the Department of Justice do its job. I do not understand why the Democrats want the social media companies to have more responsibilities when they failed miserably in 2016. I strongly urge a ``no'' vote. I also urge every Member, both Republicans and Democrats, to take a look at my bill. It is a nonpartisan bill. I don't want to empower the media platforms or restrict speech by American citizens. I want to give the DOJ the resources to do its job Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Murphy), my good and new friend, our newest Member of this institution.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chair, before I yield to my good friend from California, I do want to respond. My great friend and colleague from the great State of Maryland mentioned that Republicans said that this bill is unconstitutional. Well, it wasn't just us. Americans for Prosperity says this bill is unconstitutional. Heritage Action says the bill is unconstitutional. Even the ACLU said this bill is unconstitutional. It is not every day, Mr. Chair, that you get those three organizations together on the same issue, but it is here. The unconstitutionality of this bill is from them and their remarks, adding to what we are saying here and debating on the floor. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my good friend.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I appreciate the gentlewoman's willingness to want to help fix a bill where the underlying bill is one that we never had a chance to have an open debate about, never had a chance to have hearings about. When it doesn't pass, I look forward to working with my colleagues. When it doesn't pass into law--it will pass here on a partisan roll call--when it doesn't pass into law, I look forward to working with my colleagues. But I do have a bill that would address this situation. FARA, let's work together to let the DOJ have the resources and the ability to do their job. The SHIELD Act is not allowing that to happen. The Honest Elections Act, my bill, will allow that to happen. I would urge everybody to take a look at that. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. I am in its current form.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I said many times since becoming the ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, the committee with leading jurisdiction over election legislation in the House, that the greatest threat to our Nation's election system is partisanship. Why is partisanship the greatest threat? Because when you have one side drafting partisan legislation to further their own political agenda, it causes inaction. When it comes to securing our Nation's elections, we cannot afford inaction. That is why it is imperative that our colleagues across the aisle work with us to find a bipartisan solution to preventing foreign interference in elections. Unfortunately, that is not the route that the majority party chose to take this Congress. We saw this pattern first begin with the majority's H.R. 1. Over 700 pages of political initiatives to help them Federalize elections, then again, for the SAVE Act, a partisan election security bill, again attempting to Federalize elections and take power away from States. Both bills were drafted without bipartisan input and rushed through the House. Back then, I told my colleagues if they were serious about reforming elections and making them more secure, we needed to work together. But here we are again with another partisan election bill that has no chance--zero chance--of becoming law. This time it is the SHIELD Act, a bill aimed at preventing foreign interference in our elections, like what we saw with Russia's misinformation campaign through social media in the 2016 Presidential election. Look, it is safe to say that no one on either side of the aisle wants foreign meddling in our elections. Let me repeat that: I don't believe a single Republican or Democrat in this House wants foreign meddling in our elections. And I want to be clear that there is bipartisan agreement on some of the intended goals of SHIELD. We should have increased transparency and political digital advertising, and we should close the loopholes that allow for foreign nationals to meddle in our elections. But this bill isn't a serious attempt to address the type of interference that we saw in 2016, Mr. Chairman. It is jammed full of poison pills that the Democrats knew would make SHIELD a nonstarter. The SHIELD Act contains provisions that would Federalize elections, which as I have already pointed out, is the favorite solution of our majority for any issue. This bill expands the powers of the Department of Justice to allow the Attorney General to insert himself or herself into individual races at the Federal, State, and local level. That is a complete Federal overreach of States' constitutional rights to maintain their own elections. Think about it: The AG can come in to your race, every State and local race if they--he or she--wants to ``correct the record.'' There are also provisions of this bill that I believe are unconstitutional and will have a chilling effect on our freedom of speech. For instance, we should not be proposing broad, vague regulations for disclosing online political ads that create unworkable standards for the American public. Out of the $1.4 billion spent on political digital ads in 2016, Russia spent $100,000 over 2 years on Facebook ads. The majority of those were not even election ads, so it wouldn't have even been regulated by the Honest Ads Act. Why would we then overreach and threaten American's free speech with this bill when it doesn't even address what Russia did? We need serious election security legislation that will protect Americans' First Amendment rights. That is why I introduced the Honest Elections Act, which, if passed, would actually address the type of foreign meddling we saw in 2016 and highlighted in the Senate intel report. The Honest Elections Act would strengthen existing laws, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA; the Federal Election Campaign Act; and the Help America Vote Act. And it would modernize online political ad disclosure without infringing on free speech or requiring unworkable standards for Americans. Our bill also increases monitoring of spending by foreign nationals in elections and addresses domestic interference in our elections, something the SHIELD Act fails to accomplish. We may never be able to prevent criminal activity, whether that is in our elections or in our day-to-day lives, but we can provide our law enforcement with the best tools and resources available. The Honest Elections Act is simply a better solution to preventing foreign interference in our elections than the SHIELD Act and its unintended consequences on Americans. Again, I will say the greatest threat to our Nation's election system is partisanship because it is the partisanship we are seeing from the majority today that is keeping the American people from having bipartisan legislation right now that will prevent any potential foreign interference in our elections. I keep hearing my Democratic colleagues talk about urgency, but this is the third time we have been here with a partisan election bill in the House that has yet to become law or make any real change whatsoever. If Democrats are serious about this urgency in protecting our Nation's elections in the 2020 cycle, prove it. Stop with the political games. Come back to the table and work with us on something that actually stands a chance at becoming law and protecting our Nation's elections. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I have had the opportunity to travel the country with my friend and colleague Congresswoman Marcia Fudge on the subject of the Voting Rights Act. We have heard testimony that minority turnout across the board was higher than ever: Hispanic and Asian communities jumped 13 points above the turnout levels in 2014 when compared to the 2018 election cycle; this last midterm, in 2018, African American turnout jumped 11 points. I hope this trend continues, and I hope we see increased minority turnout in our upcoming elections. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chair, there are too many comments I would like to make, so I will reserve them until we have a few less speakers. I am sure we will have a chance to debate some of the issues that my good friend and colleague from Maryland brought up. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the great State of Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I appreciate my new colleague from New Jersey offering this amendment and participating in this process. I look to work with her and many of my colleagues when the majority party finally comes to the table and wants to put a bipartisan solution together. Everyone here is against deceptive practices. This includes providing false information about the time or place of voting and qualifications for voting. But the underlying section here presents numerous questions because of its vagueness. Some of the situations this would apply to seem pretty ridiculous. Do you want to know how ridiculous this section of the SHIELD Act is? Let's talk about public endorsements. Recently, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about current Presidential candidate, our colleague, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard: I think the Russians have got their eye on somebody and are grooming her to be a third-party candidate. She's a favorite of the Russians. So Secretary Clinton is suggesting the Russians endorse Congresswoman Gabbard. Is that not a false endorsement? Would Hillary Clinton not be subject to 5 years in prison according this section if this bill were passed? Let the Record show, nobody is chanting ``Lock her up.'' This is another ridiculous section of the bill. It is not surprising, given the warp speed with which this bill is being rushed to the floor. I have to commend my colleague from New Jersey because this amendment is right about the amount of wonkiness that we need in amendments and pieces of legislation. But I will stand here and say, as a Member of this institution, that we can never get so wonky with our jobs and our writing of bills that it has a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights to free speech that every American in this country deserves. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition, although I am not opposed to this amendment.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I thank my good friend from the great State of Pennsylvania for offering this amendment. However, I would like to add, this is an incredibly wonky amendment to an already complicated, convoluted, and confusing bill. I don't think you should have to be a high-powered campaign finance attorney to understand what is at stake in terms of election security. The issue of foreign nationals meddling in elections can be resolved more simply by passing my bill, the Honest Elections Act. My bill does not have to empower the FEC, an already--I have said, and I hope my colleagues agree--pretty dysfunctional agency. If they didn't believe it was dysfunctional, they wouldn't have voted, in H.R. 1, to make it a partisan agency. If they think it is great now, why did they try to make it into an even more partisan agency? So, I think we all agree it is dysfunctional. We may have different reasons why. But my bill doesn't empower a dysfunctional FEC to address the problem of foreign nationals meddling in our elections. My bill empowers the Department of Justice, which has jurisdiction over enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That is a better option. Clearly, I am not going to get an option because this bill was brought to the floor without any hearings, without any opportunity for us to have input, and that is a problem. That is a problem with legislating in this institution. That is a broken promise that this Democratic majority made to the voters who sent them here and put them in the majority. They said they were going to do things differently, right? I heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, in my terms before this one, how things were ramrodded through, how regular order wasn't followed, how they weren't given a chance to sit down and come up with solutions. Well, I find it ironic that the success story we have of the Republican majority in the 115th Congress of investing $380 million in election security funds, where we saw historic turnout in the 2018 midterms--we saw historic turnout, and we saw success. That is what a Republican majority gave. The Democrat majority, they have given us hearings--well, wait, no. No hearings before this bill was put to the floor, that is a problem. I really want to say thank you to my colleague from Pennsylvania for offering this amendment. It is a commonsense amendment. But, again, the FEC is not the place. I am not going to be opposed to this amendment. The DOJ is the place. Madam Chair, I am going to make sure I reserve my time. If I had a challenge flag, I thought my colleague last time yielded back, but I believe the judgment from the referees up there was that he did not yield back. Maybe we could check the replay a little later, so I will go ahead and reserve this time. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, I thank my colleague, Mr. Langevin, for offering this amendment. As good a friend as he is, it somewhat pains me to have to stand up and be opposed to it. Again, the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, is the independent regulatory agency charged with administering and enforcing the Federal campaign finance law. They have jurisdiction over the financing of campaigns for us here in the House, our colleagues in the Senate, the President, and the Vice President. They are not the fake news police, much to the chagrin of the current FEC Chair. This amendment requires an independent report from the FEC, and I am not convinced that the FEC Chair is capable of issuing any independent report, any independent guidance, or any independent legal interpretations; and, frankly, I don't think she is capable of offering any independent tweets. I think it is worth noting that every single House Democrat voted to make the FEC a partisan agency earlier this Congress in H.R. 1 and has lamented how dysfunctional they believe the FEC is. If the FEC were a partisan agency, would we want them determining which news was fake news and which news was legitimate? I agree we need to understand and improve media literacy with respect to political content in this country, but the FEC is not the entity to lead that endeavor. Let's take a look at the danger of overregulating online ads and misinterpreting political content. The ad I have behind me and the ones behind it are already being labeled as political ads on Facebook. These came straight from the Facebook ad library. First off, we have my favorite. As the proud dad of two Yorkies at home in Taylorville, Illinois, this political ad for hotdogcollars.com would allow me to get my two Yorkies some new dog collars. I don't know--except maybe the American flag dog collar--how political that is. Next up is the very political ad Facebook is now categorizing under current law and under their current regulations as a political ad-- Pizza Crave. Hey, it is Halloween season, it is almost upon us, $10 pizza pies. I don't know why that is categorized as political, but it is. Do we really want the FEC to figure out that they are the agency to correct that? No. Facebook ought to correct it. Lastly, Stone Bridge Pizza & Salad: We always crave the classic-- obviously a political ad. I don't know anybody who would eat pizza like that, but clearly this is not a political ad. I think we need to take a step back. We need to realize that the current FEC that is dysfunctional is the last place for independent review of anything. We need to make sure that the FEC does its job in a nonpartisan way. Madam Chair, we need to vote ``no'' on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for reminding everybody here that I was offered a chance by my good friend Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, to actually ask Facebook, ask Mark Zuckerberg, a question of why they took that payment. The answer, Mr. Hastings, is yes. I went over to the Financial Services Committee. I specifically spoke with Mr. Perlmutter in the committee hearing room, where he told me that Chairwoman Waters would allow Members who were not on the committee, like me, to ask questions, but I probably have to come back in about 5 hours. I am hoping to do that. I am hoping to go back there later this afternoon and ask that question.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come to this great institution to talk about this piece of legislation. I thank the ranking member and also my colleague from Florida (Mr. Hastings) for a great spirited debate last night in the Rules Committee, but I still, today, have to rise in opposition to the rule for consideration of H.R. 4617. Last night at the Rules Committee meeting, there was bipartisan consensus that this bill has not gone through regular order. We did not have the opportunity to hold a single hearing addressing foreign political propaganda in the Committee on House Administration. We are focusing on paid political advertisements, when the Senate Intel's bipartisan report stated that ``paid advertisements were not key'' to Russia's activity. Out of the $1.4 billion spent on political advertisements in the 2016 election cycle on digital advertising, the Russians spent $100,000 of that over 2 years on paid political Facebook ads. This is relevant information. This should have been considered and discussed in a committee hearing before sidestepping process and rushing a bill to the floor that does not address key issues. None of us had a chance to ask Facebook: ``Why did you take a payment from Russia?'' ``Was it in rubles?'' ``Was it in dollars?'' ``Why in the world did you take $100,000 from Russia and put overtly political ads online?'' At some point, companies that participate in the political process, we need to have them in front of us to ask them why; ask them how. But we didn't get a chance to do that because the Committee on House Administration had zero hearings before rushing this bill to the floor. We have a process here in the House for a reason, Madam Speaker. The process is set up to make sure what gets to the floor will address the problem at hand and will not harm the rights of the American people. Instead, the language in this bill is so broad that it does little to stop foreign political propaganda and, instead, creates a chilling effect on America's free speech. If the House had held hearings on this legislation, then we could have appropriately tailored language to address the real problem of foreign interference without affecting free speech. In 2016, the Russians tampered in our elections and engaged in stunning misinformation campaigns in an effort to undermine our elections. Much of what the Russians did was already illegal. If we want to stop this from happening in the future, then we should be strengthening existing laws and making sure law enforcement has the resources it needs to track down foreign nationals that are breaking the law by spreading propaganda. Instead, this bill provides zero resources to help law enforcement enforce existing laws and, rather, imposes new regulations that will harm Americans' right to free speech. The sweeping language in this bill will very likely silence the voices of honest American organizations and nonpolitical companies that wish to speak out on ``issues of national importance.''

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. SHIELD's burdensome regulations will make it more difficult for Americans to be heard. Isn't that the goal of the Russians, to shut down our free and open society and silence the voices of Americans? Madam Speaker, we should support our law enforcement to do their jobs, not make up new regulations that chill free speech. This bill is a misinformation stunt to the American people. It sends a message to America that something is being done to stop what happened in 2016 when, in reality, it fails to address the actual threat. It is a Trojan horse from the majority. Do we actually want to stop foreign interference, or do my colleagues simply want talking points? Madam Speaker, you have a bill before you that will not stop meddling. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, the opioid epidemic and our efforts to H.R. 6, the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, was a highlight for me last Congress. Because it was a moment where Congress was focused on legislating and actually getting things done. The House took 39 bipartisan bills, moved them through the legislative process, and gave each member a chance to vote for or against them. We didn't include any partisan, poison pills--we gave both sides an opportunity to legislate on an issue that doesn't see party lines and we got something done. Now, we're seeing progress--the majority, 1.27 million Americans, are now receiving treatment for their addiction and we're seeing the overdose deaths decline in this country. But we can't let up. I am hoping we can repeat the success of this legislation--on many issues, including continuing to help communities fight opioid addiction. This week, I'm introducing a bill that came from a local police officer in my district. A police officer from the Normal Police Department was trying to track down a case of `pharmacy shopping,' where someone had come down from Chicago and was trying to get an opioid prescription for someone else filled at multiple pharmacies. But there was no way to track who had tried to fill this prescription because no ID is required to pick up these highly addictive pain killers. My bill, the Opioid Prescription Verification Act, changes that by requiring pharmacists to record the ID of a person picking up an opioid prescription. This is similar to ID requirements that were placed on Sudafed sales in 2005 to combat the meth epidemic. I'm looking forward to hopefully passing this bill to continue fighting this epidemic from all angles.