Keith Ellison

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, America needs a raise. We have not raised the minimum wage in 10 years, and people who work hard every single day have seen their pay erode again and again. Mr. Speaker, people who are working full time at $7.25 an hour can't make it. And if we can defeat this previous question, we can actually bring up something that the American people really need, which is to get a raise. Mr. Speaker, this is not something we are going to dump on top of business all at once. There is a ladder up. It takes 7 years to get to that $15, but, Mr. Speaker, make no doubt that we need to do it. Mr. Speaker, right now, today, people working full time qualify for food stamps, housing assistance, and medical assistance because their employers don't pay them enough to make it. And I know that everybody in this House knows that, when people work hard, they ought to be able to make it in America. If you work full time, you shouldn't be in poverty. You should be able to afford a good apartment. You should be able to have good scheduling for your job. You should have some benefits. This is all the American Dream is about, being able to work hard and get paid fairly for it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I just want to let you know that between 2009 and 2013, we saw the top 1 percent of income earners get 85 percent of the income growth in this country. That means we have historic inequality not seen since the Great Depression. It is wrong, Mr. Speaker. And if we can defeat this previous question, we should do everything we can to pass this excellent piece of legislation that Ranking Member Bobby Scott has authored in this body. Mr. Scott and I, as well as many other Members, have been all over this country, and right here in D.C. standing with workers explaining to us their struggles, how they haven't seen a raise, how they haven't seen their pay go up. And they are serious, Mr. Speaker, about wanting to be part of this economy, too. Pass this minimum wage increase. Give America a raise.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, due to other commitments, I missed the following roll call votes. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: Roll Call No. 286, I would have voted yes, Roll Call No. 287, I would have voted yes.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the transgender, queer, lesbian, bisexual, and gay members of my community as we begin celebrating Pride. Every year, Twin Cities Pride recognizes individuals and organizations who have devoted their lives to equality. This year, the Grand Marshal is Jana Shortal, and the Community Champions of Pride are Clare Housing and the Avenues for Homeless Youth GLBT Host Homes Program. Jana Shortal is a journalist, public figure, and co-anchor of KARE 11's Breaking the News, one of the Twin Cities' most popular evening news programs. Jana has garnered a lot of attention across our city-- accolades for her coverage of a mom dying of cancer, criticism in the Star Tribune for wearing skinny jeans, and national awards for telling stories about race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. Throughout her career, Jana has been guided by an overarching goal: telling the story. Like she's said herself, ``The average person's completely-not-average story motivates me.'' Often times we get lost in statistics or politics and forget to talk about how it's actually impacting people's lives. Jana's drive to humanize the news is more important now than ever--we can't let elected officials control the narrative just because they dislike the facts. I thank Jana for her service to our community, for her realness on screen, and for her devotion to telling the story. Clare Housing and Avenues for Homeless Youth provide something that can mean the difference between life and death for LGBTQ folks: a place to live. For 30 years, Clare Housing has provided housing for hundreds of people with HIV or AIDS. They manage multiple apartment buildings for people who are independent, as well as nearly a dozen family homes where people can eat regular meals and have a caseworker assist them with doctor's visits and medicine. We have made tremendous progress on HIV treatment, and it is unacceptable that a lack of access to housing or healthcare means it can still be a death sentence. Thanks to Clare Housing's leadership, HIV positive individuals can get the housing stability they need to keep their bodies healthy. Avenues for Homeless Youth's GLBT Host Home Program is a national model for community and volunteer-driven efforts to end LGBTQ youth homelessness. Nearly 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ, and many of them were pushed out of their homes due to their gender or sexuality. This program provides not only a roof over their head, but an environment where their identities are validated and supported. Over their 15 year history, the GLBT Host Home Program has helped hundreds of kids grow into happy and healthy adults. No one should be forced into a life of economic struggles simply because their parents are closed minded. The Host Home Program is a tremendous example of what ``It takes a village'' looks like in practice. If the last five months have taught us anything, it's that we still have so much work to do. We can't sit back and watch our federal government walk back protections for trans kids, or school districts lead the charge to belittle and exclude them. We can't accept the talk that we have to wait because there are more important or less divisive issues. LGBTQ equality is deeply connected to economic inequality, racism, sexism, and every other -ism we're fighting against. We must fight for both social and economic equality, because if we don't fight for both, we won't get either. My deepest thanks to these leaders in our community who are showing how we advance equity on all fronts.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the public service of Kari Moe, my Chief of Staff for over 10 years. When I was first elected to Congress, many of my friends and colleagues said the one thing I had to do was hire a great Chief of Staff. Kari has been more than great--she has been irreplaceable. Kari Moe met my personal hero and a mentor, Senator Paul Wellstone, when she was a freshman at Carleton College, where he was a professor. When the college's conservative administration moved not to renew Senator Wellstone's contract in 1975, Kari organized campus protests to grant him tenure. Kari and her fellow activists were victorious, and Wellstone was granted tenure. That event marked the beginning of a long and successful career in organizing and leadership. Soon after graduating, she moved to Chicago to work for another personal hero, Harold Washington, the city's first black Mayor. After Paul Wellstone won his Senate race in 1990, he called Kari to ask her to join his team in D.C. As Senator Wellstone's Chief, she helped achieve many progressive victories and helped develop staffers with her signature nurturing leadership style. Kari has exceeded all expectations in her role as lead staffer for my office. She has, perhaps more than anyone, shaped my Congressional career. She helped us serve the 5th Congressional District, advance our policy agenda, and build the work of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. We have worked together every step of the way and I have appreciated her leadership. I will miss her and know she will continue to advance our agenda in her future work with young leaders. She will be remembered in my office for her strength, empathy and leadership, always urging staff to act with purpose, and to remember that real change doesn't come from the top--it comes from empowering people at the grass roots. I thank her for her service and will miss her in my office.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding. Since Dodd-Frank's passage, the economy has created over 16 million jobs over 85 consecutive months. Business lending has increased 75 percent. Banks, large and small, are posting all-time record profits, community banks are outperforming larger banks, and credit unions are expanding their membership. And because of the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 29 million people have seen $12 billion back into their pocket and not into those of improper and illegal practicing financial services firms. Do you want to know why we have the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act before us today? Because they want the money. Not the $12 billion that went back to the 29 million veterans and farmers and students and citizens and people who need that kind of help for their families. They want that money going back to the big financial interests. And that is the purpose of the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. It is between the many and the money, and the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act stands firmly on the side of those who would line their pockets in the top 1 percent.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Barragan).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. One of the elements of the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act that is particularly troublesome to me--and there are many--has to do with the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act repealing section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Now, people watching this debate, Mr. Chair, might find that to be just legislative talk, but it is substantively, really important. Section 953(b) was a hard-fought victory for investors, consumers, workers, and the general public. Mr. Chair, the law requires that publicly traded firms disclose the ratio between what they pay their CEO and what they pay their median worker. I think this is important information. A CEO of an S&P 500 company makes, on average, about $331 for every $1 a typical rank-and-file worker makes. In some companies, this ratio can reach as high as $1,000-to-$1. Investors should be able to consider if a CEO provides hundreds of times more value to their employees before investing in a firm. Actually, exorbitant CEO pay, excessive CEO pay, can impact dividends. It can impact all kinds of decisions, lead to risk taking, and it is a good idea for investors and the general public to know that information. So while executives are making critical decisions about the direction of their companies, quality employees ensure those decisions are being properly implemented. This pay ratio information benefits investors by giving them valuable information for ascertaining whether or not a company's employees are being treated fairly and, therefore, able to retain employees; whether or not it is a stable company, and a company that values its people. The ratio helps them to decide how to cast their say-on-pay advisory votes on executive compensation. And research shows that the higher the CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio, the more likely the CEO is to pursue the kind of risky investments that brought the global financial crisis to bear. Institute for Policy Studies found that nearly 40 percent of the CEOs on their top 25 highest paid list over a 20-year period wound up being fired, sought a bailout, or were forced to pay fraud-related fines. Moreover, a lower ratio of CEO-to-median-worker pay, implies more investment in human capital, and a longer-term outlook on the corporation. According to the Center for Audit Quality's annual investor survey, 46 percent of investors say they consider CEO compensation in their decisionmaking. The current culture of paying CEOs hundreds of times--and even thousands in some limited cases--more than typical employees hurts working families, is detrimental to employee morale, and goes against the research which shows us what is best practice. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, does it make sense that, after 8 years of a piece of regulation, Dodd-Frank, that has brought us increases in GDP, increases in jobs, and stability in financial markets, that we would now repeal that piece of legislation to go back to a time when we saw that deregulation strategy bring us the Great Recession? It just doesn't make any sense to take the position that what we need is more wide open, Wild West, you are on your own kind of financial rules and laws in our country. The fact is, before Dodd-Frank was passed, we had an abysmal consumer protection system. We really had seven or eight different agencies that were sort of responsible, but not really. Consumer protection was not a priority of the Federal Government. And as a result of it, we saw a proliferation of mortgages that got people who really couldn't handle that particular mortgage that they got, or the products were just fraudulent, get into a situation where they ended up going into foreclosure. We saw the secondary market package up some of these bad mortgages. We saw rating agencies say that these were good equity products, and when these products started to fail, what we saw is that those big banks that trafficked in those equities get bailed out, and we saw citizens lose their homes. The fact is, going back to those bad old days is just a bad idea--to bring us back to a time when we didn't have any consumer protection, when we didn't have any responsibility placed on the shoulders of management, when we didn't say that we were going to look after these rating agencies, and we didn't say that these systemically important large institutions were going to get a little bit more scrutiny. Before the time that we did that, we saw ruin in the economy. Let me just remind the American people: we had many States with unemployment above 10 percent because of the deregulation, laissez-faire attitude that prevailed in the American financial services legal system. Those bad old days nearly ruined so many families, and they are just now starting to recover. But under Dodd-Frank, we have seen month after month of private sector job growth. We have seen economic activity increase. Fast enough for me? No. I think we need much more. But with over $170 billion in record profits from 2016, I can tell you one thing: this claim on the other side that the banks and financial services sector is being crushed simply isn't a true statement. It is just not right. Business lending is up 75 percent since Dodd-Frank. Data from the Federal Reserve shows aggregate bank lending has increased from about $1.2 trillion, in 2010, to $2 trillion in outstanding business loans. Vote ``no'' on the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, the Hollingsworth amendment seeks to insert a totally new and unvetted set of exemptions from the security laws for closed-end funds. These are the type of pooled investment vehicles that typically issue a fixed number of shares that, unlike mutual funds, are not redeemable on a daily basis by the fund, making them harder for investors to sell. The Financial Services Committee has had no hearings, no markups, no debate on these issues until now. Perhaps that is why the amendment has been mislabeled as only benefiting closed-end funds traded on an exchange with well-known seasoned issuer status. In fact, the amendment is much broader, as it would allow even illiquid, nontraded funds to claim multiple exemptions. This effort would make it harder for the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, to police these products for investors. This last-minute, partisan approach is not the way that Congress should proceed in making laws, but it is consistent with this bill. Although Democrats conducted 41 hearings to develop Dodd-Frank, Republicans planned only 1 hearing on this bill. It is not surprising, then, that the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act is a 600-page bill chock-full of bad partisan ideas and special interest wish lists that will harm our Nation's investors, consumers, and taxpayers. For example, the bill would severely undermine the ability of the SEC, our Wall Street cop on the beat, to protect investors and hold bad actors accountable. Specifically, it would remove valuable law enforcement tools, burden the SEC with onerous cost-benefit analysis, and generate more and more endless litigation, tying the agency up. Worse, the bill repeals the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule and effectively prevents the DOL or the SEC from ever moving forward to protect our Nation's investors and seniors from conflicted advice by unscrupulous financial advisers. I will say, most financial advisers are not unscrupulous, but for the ones that are, there needs to be authority in the law to stop them. We need the fiduciary rule. The ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act takes it away. But this should come as no surprise, since the Republicans in Congress have been relentless in their opposition to the DOL's commonsense requirement that financial advisers put their clients' interests ahead of their own when providing investment advice about retirement products. Their extreme partisan efforts to kill the fiduciary rule ignore the facts that 9 in 10 Americans reportedly agree with the rule. An overwhelming majority--65 percent--of Americans who voted for President Trump appear to support the regulation. Tellingly, just last week, after robust bipartisan debate, the Republican Governor of Nevada signed into law a bill requiring financial advisers to act in their clients' best interests. The ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act continues this partisan slant by also rolling back bipartisan efforts from this and past Congresses to craft legislation that helps grow small business and protect investors. Mr. Chair, we owe it to our constituents and the American people to work together to address real problems with real solutions that are thoroughly vetted. For that reason, I must oppose this bill and this amendment. I will add, my colleague on other side of the aisle, Mr. Chairman, said: Where is our bill? That would be Dodd-Frank. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, which was filed late, should be viewed as the first admission by the Republicans that H.R. 10 would be bad for our financial markets and our economy. The amendment recognizes that it would be inappropriate for Members of Congress to attend nonpublic meetings of the council charged with reviewing sensitive financial information and discussing potential threats to our economy. I agree with the sponsor that this was one of many harmful provisions in the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. Here are a few more: the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act eliminates the Office of Financial Research, which is tasked with studying emerging risks to our economy and informing the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act stops the council from taking actions to prevent firms like AIG from threatening our economy. The ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act allows banks to choose the regulatory system that best suits their bottom line, even if doing so is bad for the economy and taxpayers. Mr. Chairman, the amendment also recognizes the dangers of subjecting our independent financial regulators to the partisan appropriations process, by restoring the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's and the National Credit Union Administration's independent funding when it comes to their responsibilities for unwinding failed banks and credit unions. I agree, this is important, but do you know what is also important and needing to be independent? The authority to supervise those entities before they fail. The bank and credit union regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have important yet sensitive responsibilities to make sure that financial institutions follow rules that are good for the economy, good for consumers, but which some institutions would rather ignore. Subjecting these decisions to the appropriations process will result in fewer cops on the beat, weaker guardrails, and a greater likelihood of financial catastrophe. We have seen this happen before. One of the reasons for the failure of the housing giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was that they had a woefully underfunded regulator without independent funding. Democrats fixed this when we created the independently funded Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2008. Since then, this agency has successfully made tough decisions to right both GSEs by putting them into conservatorship and cleaning up their businesses. Ignoring this success and history, H.R. 10 would once again strip away the independent funding of the GSE's regulator, as it would for all of the financial regulators. I am pleased that this amendment has recognized the problems taking away independent funding for our regulators, but, unfortunately, it doesn't go far enough. I oppose this amendment and I urge my colleagues to reject it and the entire ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, the late poet Maya Angelou had a saying: ``When people show you who they really are, believe them.'' So when the chief lobbyist for the American Bankers Association leads a pep rally before 1,500 bankers, we should pay attention. He probably means what he is saying. In March, he told ABA members about all the opportunities for banking with a Republican Congress, he crowed: ``I don't want a seat at the table. I want the table.'' If we read this bill, we know what it looks like to give the financial services sector the whole table. We know they want the whole table. H.R. 10 is clever at undermining financial regulators, emboldening Wall Street, and making it incredibly easy to delay regulators at every step of the rulemaking process. It is important for the people of America to understand that when Republicans say they want to kill regulations, usually what they are talking about is safety regulations, regulations that make the water clean, the meat safe, and that financial product that you just bought not blow up in your face. They don't like regulations because regulations mean that the people who control some of these products can't just do whatever they want to do. But for the people in the United States, you should know that financial regulators are going to keep money in your pocket, they are going to stop people with way more resources than you have from picking your pocket. That is why we oppose this amendment. I think it is particularly important for people to realize that the rhetoric that we use denigrating regulation all the time is the same regulation that protects us, and that includes in the financial services sector. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, we have discussed business development funds. We have not talked about closed-end funds in committee. This amendment introduces a new idea which has not been debated. For that reason alone, we should vote it down. We have got to have regular order around here. This is a complicated issue. All the avenues and all the different perspectives that need to be brought to bear should be done in committee, not right here. Mr. Chairman, for those reasons alone, I would ask for a strong ``no'' vote on this particular amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I believe that there might be some merit to this amendment, but I still claim time in opposition. Because it wasn't brought up in committee, I think that there is a lot of hashing out of this particular amendment that could have happened and we might have been able to agree, but at this point in the process I have to claim time in opposition and I will explain why. I will say that, if we can work on it later, we will see what happens, but as now for now, we are urging a strong ``no.'' I think the amendment is well-intentioned because it purports to address the growing problem of identity theft, something we all need to be concerned about. However, I am concerned that it may make it harder for some consumers who want to obtain their own reports, particularly those using the website annualcreditreport.com, to access their free annual consumer reports from nationwide credit reporting agencies, or CRAs. Also, the amendment purports to combat identity theft, but solely focuses on tougher authentication requirements for consumers who want to access their own files, not on all users who have access to consumer reports like landlords or employers. I think that is a weakness. The website annualcreditreport.com and reports maintained by the big three require consumers to provide personally identifiable information and to successfully answer several questions about information on the consumer files before giving them access to reports online. In a 2017 report, the Consumer Bureau noted that credit reporting complaints are consistently among the top three types of consumer complaints it handles. When consumers are denied online access, they have to mail copies of sensitive identifying documents in order to obtain their reports, which consumers note is time consuming as well as potentially not secure. This amendment could make that situation even worse. I also find it a little confusing that the House is considering this amendment to a bill that will hamstring the only Federal agency, the Consumer Bureau, that has rulemaking, supervisory, and enforcement authority over most consumer reporting agencies and has actually addressed many credit reporting problems. If Members support this amendment, then it simply does not make sense to me for the same Members to support H.R. 10, which will gut the Consumer Bureau's capacity to effectively address problems like identity theft. Before Dodd-Frank, the Federal Trade Commission was the only Federal agency with enforcement authority over the CRAs, but there was no entity with supervising authority. Dodd-Frank closed that gap by giving the Consumer Bureau the supervisory power to monitor CRAs' operations. Just this year, through the good work of the Consumer Bureau's examiners, the Consumer Bureau issued enforcement orders against all of the big three CRAs for misleading practices that harm consumers. I urge colleagues to oppose the amendment and reject the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act. I hope next time we can talk about this legislation before it gets to the floor. That would be better and more proper. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to talk about an issue somewhat related that is critical in this debate and would go a long way toward improving our economy and the chances of consumers. I have a bill, H.R. 435, the Credit Access and Inclusion Act. My amendment would help solve problems the Financial Services Committee has been discussing for more than a decade. This is not an amendment that I have submitted for disposition today, but I would like to bring to the attention of the body that this Credit Access and Inclusion Act was good legislation and should be taken up. It would address a problem of access to credit that the leader of this bill says he wants to solve. My bill would allow utility, telecom, public and Section 8 housing residents to build a credit score without debt. It provides affirmative permission for utility, telecom, and housing providers to report on- time payment information to credit reporting agencies. I have introduced this bill in four consecutive Congresses. I introduced this bill with Mr. Pittenger as a lead. It has the support of many members of the committee, including Representatives Maloney, Duffy, Green, Stivers, Meeks, Love, Capuano, and more, a truly bipartisan piece of legislation. Why am I committed to passing the bill? Because 1 in 10 Americans do not have a credit score. These 26 million people are credit invisible, and they can have trouble getting an apartment and might pay more for insurance, and they will have a very hard time qualifying for a loan to buy a car or a home. Another 19 million are not scorable because there is too little information in their files. One in four African Americans and one in four Latinos are credit invisible and not scorable. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is another example of Republicans choosing to prioritize the interests of corporate insiders over consumers, which is what the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act really symbolizes. We should not prevent regulators from addressing potential conflicts of interest but, instead, let all shareholders have their voice be heard. While Democrats stand ready to work on targeted reforms to help responsible community banks and credit unions, we will reject any ideological legislation that puts our financial system and economy at risk of another crash and that gives a leg up to Wall Street and predatory lenders to rip off consumers all over again. Republicans like to pretend that Wall Street reform destroyed our financial system and economy, but the alternative facts have no basis in reality. Thanks to Wall Street reform and other Democratic policies, our economy has made significant gains since the depths of the financial crisis. Since Dodd-Frank became law, we have set a record, with 86 consecutive months of private sector job growth, during which the economy created more than 16 million private sector jobs. Let me assure you, much more work needs to be done, but this record is important and must be noted. Financial institutions are thriving since the passage of Dodd-Frank. According to the FDIC, banks are posting record profits since the crisis. Profits for community banks increased more than 10 percent in the past year. In 2010, the banking industry set an all-time record with $171 billion in profits. Business lending has increased 75 percent since Dodd-Frank became law. Credit union membership has expanded by more than 16 million members since 2010, an increase of 18 percent. This has happened in part because we have a system that is fairer, because bad actors are held accountable. The highly successful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established and has returned nearly $12 billion to 29 million consumers who were ripped off by unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices of bad actors. This tough consumer enforcement approach has put the entire financial industry on notice to follow the law and treat their consumers fairly or suffer the consequences. So the economy is doing well, financial institutions are doing well, and consumers are finally being protected. The last thing we should do is go back to a failed, weak regulatory model that gave us bank bailouts and the Great Recession. But that is what the Republicans are offering the American people with this bill. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and the ``Wrong'' CHOICE Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.