Sheila Jackson Lee

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Trone) for the work that he is doing. Having served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and now serving on Judiciary as the chair of the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee, I can affirmatively say that fentanyl kills. It kills people. It kills our children, our mothers, our fathers. It kills the family's infrastructure and system. So let me just simply indicate that the idea of having an extension of the Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking to join in the thoughtful discussion of what we are attempting to do on drugs that kill. We in the Judiciary Committee have been working and secured an extension of fentanyl sanctions, and it was in acknowledgment that the community is suffering by the harmful effects of fentanyl abuse and usage. It was acknowledging that it is imperative that we find a thoughtful resolution to address the grave tragedies that plague communities like mine and those throughout the country. Earlier, I mentioned names of individuals who were on the other side in terms of incarceration because of the imbalance in drug enforcement. But, again, we say that fentanyl kills. Given the importance of getting this right, I am in support of extending the measure in Judiciary, but I am in support of having the opportunity for thoughtful discussion to deal with what our next steps are. Any way that we can come together to address the loss of life and, of course, the acceptance that fentanyl kills, and other opioid substances as well, used and abused, then I can assure you that we are doing the right thing as Members of Congress.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am most grateful for the opportunity to join the gentleman from Colorado, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I have just finished with a conference call with the director of the CDC, but I just could not miss the opportunity, because I am almost in a deja vu, having been here for--even shocking myself, because when you are enjoying serving, you don't count the years--but more than two decades. I have seen the dastardly results of government shutdown. So I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this to the floor. Madam Speaker, I believe that it is always important to know who governs and how we are governed and what document do we yield to in terms of being governed. And I heard my friend from Colorado make the point that Democrats are ensuring that this government is governed. This morning I was on the floor, and I made the point that I don't stand here as a Democrat or a Republican but as an American, an American that has the responsibility of government. And that means that all of the shenanigans in the other body should be immediately dispensed with. One point of the Constitution that I always like reading is: We, the people of the United States, in order to create or to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare. This was the very premise that the Founding Fathers--and everyone knows the Constitution missed some elements on those who were slaves, missed elements on women. They missed some elements; they missed some issues. But the premise was that we gather for the general welfare, uniquely grounded in some values of European principles but uniquely American. Why did we form this government? So having lived through government shutdowns, let me just, for a very brief moment, capture the horrors of a government shutdown, which is tied to ultimately the CR, but the effort that we, as Democrats, our leader, our Speaker, our leadership, rightly so, were acting not as Democrats but they were acting as leaders of this Nation, protecting those who are most vulnerable. So the full faith and credit is not something to dismiss. Let me say, over and over again--I know it has been said on this floor--we are paying bills. As I said, if you had the light on for the last 20 days, you have a bill. So to lift the debt ceiling--and I would like to characterize it some other way--to provide the mechanism to pay your bills. If you had the cable on for the last 20 days, you are paying your bill. So we are simply paying the bill. The lack of responding to paying bills creates inflation, puts a damper on the view of America as an international destination for businesses. It, in fact, crumbles the economy on the most vulnerable, the hardworking bus driver, union worker, teacher. Because what you have done is, you have not given their dollar substance. That is how they make a living; that is how they pay for their responsibilities of a quality of life. I always think of the persons who cannot speak for themselves who are doing great work. Teachers are doing great work; paramedics are doing great work; nurses are doing great work. I always think of bus drivers, because I think of school bus drivers. There is a shortage of school bus drivers. They are all doing great work. So let me say that I came on the floor because I clearly wanted to emphasize the eloquent and important points that you are making, that it is tomfoolery to make political points about the debt ceiling, which is a responsibility that cannot be gotten rid of. So it would be okay if I said: Well, we would want to say that. When I say that, if you are playing politics, you say we don't want to do that either, meaning those of us who are governing. But it is an obligation of governing and governance, and it is constitutionally vested not only in the language of full faith and credit but in the opening statement of the Constitution. If we don't take care of the general welfare, then who will? I am grateful, as I close, to say that I support the INVEST Act and one bill, the Build Back America Act. That is how I would proceed on the unifying of those. The reason why I connect that, again, is to make the point that, as I have read line by line of the Build Back--and I am on the Budget Committee, and we sat on a Saturday to bring this bill forward to you-all. And rightly so; we make no complaint about that. But to get this bill here. It is ready. We passed it out of the Budget Committee. But as I looked at it, I have not deflected the gentleman here, deflected families. But it is a justice for women act. It is finally penetrating where women are in America, in terms of the care economy, in terms of pre-K, in terms of child care, in terms of family responsibilities. It is a bill that gives justice to women. And so tie it to our responsibilities of governing, to lift the debt ceiling for payment of our bills, and also this book, the Constitution, doing our duty to create this Union that has been created to ensure general tranquility and the general welfare of the American people. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and his leadership.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this is not about hijacking America. It is about rewarding America. I stand here with one bill, the INVEST bipartisan infrastructure bill, and, yes, the Build Back America--one bill. Let me share with you the reasons why. This bill on the floor right now, the agreement will create good-paying union jobs. It will deliver high-speed internet to every American, eliminating lead pipes, and providing clean drinking water. Something in my district that is long overdue. Public transit. But most importantly, it will reconnect communities. As we try to overcome this massive I-45 north in Texas where we need the input of the government, Federal Government, to make a balance between highways and Black communities and communities of color that are traditionally divided by highways. This bill will do so. And it will remedy brownfields and other sites. At the same time, we have the recognition that we deal with people. And what does that mean? That is that we will have pre-K in our Build Back America. We will have expanded Medicaid in Build Back America. We will have child care for the individuals, women in particular, that need to go to work. We will have a care economy. We will have affordable housing that invests so that people will have safe housing. This will provide a wholeness. This is not a hijacking. It is actually a reward that we put two outstanding directions of the President's agenda, President Biden's absolutely progressive, moving agenda for all of America. We don't look at America and divide her in corners of conservatism and progressive or right and left. We look at her and the needs of her people. I am here today to say that I stand with America. I stand with working families. I stand with women. We must move these bills, the INVEST Act, creating union jobs, turning the corner on all the necessities of infrastructure and, yes, bringing people into the light once and for all. I ask my colleagues to support this legislation.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, George Washington fought for the Nation. Abraham Lincoln tried to unify it. I am absolutely stunned that the United States Senate would not uphold its responsibility to pay America's bills--the bills that we have paid over and over again--by refusing to raise the debt ceiling for some foolish tomfoolery of politics. What is our Nation up to? What are the Republicans up to? But I do want to say as well that I look forward to the budget reconciliation or the Build Back America and the INVEST Act traveling the same pathway because my district needs the extra $20 million that we had established here in the House to be able to help the corridor along Scott Street where Texas Southern University is and the University of Houston, a majority university and a historically Black university. We have to get to work. We have to realize that the importance of connecting neighborhoods that lost the connectiveness because of major highways is crucial-- like I45 North that divided the community; like 288, that is already there, that has divided communities of color. Let's do the right thing and stand for the American people. Politics has no place for deciding whether people have clean water, whether people have roads that work and mobility, and, of course, broadband. Madam Speaker, let's stand with the American people.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, S.B. 8 will kill women. It is a dangerous, dangerous depriving of our constitutional rights, but it will kill women. It is a bill that provides a provision that I have never seen in my lifetime living in the United States of America, a free Nation. It actually sets a bounty, reminiscent of eras of dastardly life in this country, the slave life; a bounty in order to stalk a woman to ensure that the provider does not give and the woman does not get an abortion. I support this legislation because it upholds the Constitution, and I look forward to my bill on preventing vigilante stalking being passed. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and the Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security; a member of the Democratic Working Women's Task Force, the representative of 700,000 highly interested and affected persons in the Eighteenth Congressional District of Texas; as a sponsor of the legislation; and as a woman who was born and came of age during a period when the women of America were denied rights that men took for granted, including the basic human right of autonomy over one's own body and to decide for herself the profound and fundamental question of whether to bear or beget a child, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3755, the Women's Health Protection Act, which protects a person's ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider's ability to provide abortion services. I am extremely pleased that the Biden-Harris Administration strongly endorses this legislation and urges its swift passage by the Congress. Madam Speaker, I support H.R. 3755 because it states clearly and unequivocally in Section 4 that a ``health care provider has a statutory right under this Act to provide abortion services, and may provide abortion services, and that provider's patient has a corresponding right to receive such services, without any burdensome limitations or requirements. Burdensome and unlawful requirements include: 1. A requirement that a health care provider perform specific tests or medical procedures in connection with the provision of abortion services, unless generally required for the provision of medically comparable procedures. 2. A requirement that the same health care provider who provides abortion services also perform specified tests, services, or procedures prior to or subsequent to the abortion. 3. A requirement that a health care provider offer or provide the patient seeking abortion services medically inaccurate information in advance of or during abortion services. 4. A limitation on a health care provider's ability to prescribe or dispense drugs based on current evidence-based regimens or the provider's good-faith medical judgment, other than a limitation generally applicable to the medical profession. 5. A limitation on a health care provider's ability to provide abortion services via telemedicine. 6. A requirement or limitation concerning the physical plant, equipment, staffing, or hospital transfer arrangements of facilities where abortion services are provided, or the credentials or hospital privileges or status of personnel at such facilities, that is not imposed on facilities or the personnel of facilities where medically comparable procedures are performed. 7. A requirement that, prior to obtaining an abortion, a patient make one or more medically unnecessary in-person visits to the provider of abortion services or to any individual or entity that does not provide abortion services. 8. A prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability, including a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure. 9. A prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good- faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient's life or health. 10. A limitation on a health care provider's ability to provide immediate abortion services when that health care provider believes, based on the good-faith medical judgment of the provider, that delay would pose a risk to the patient's health. It is important to note that prior to fetal viability, the law prohibits a health care requiring a patient seeking abortion services to disclose the patient's reason or reasons for seeking abortion services, or a limiting the provision or obtaining of abortion services at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability based on any actual, perceived, or potential reason or reasons the health care provider believes the patient has for obtaining abortion services. Madam Speaker, H.R. 3755 contains another important provision, this one directed toward the judiciary, and it is that all courts are to ``liberally construe'' the provisions of the law to effectuate the congressional intent in enacting the law and that courts are not to construe the act in anyway ``to authorize any government to interfere with a person's ability to terminate a pregnancy, or to diminish or in any way negatively affect a person's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.'' To enforce the provisions of the legislation, the Attorney General is authorized to commence a civil action for prospective injunctive relief on behalf of the United States against any government official that is charged with implementing or enforcing any limitation or requirement that is challenged as a violation of a statutory right under this Act. In addition, H.R. 3755 authorizes private rights of action to be brought for injunctive relief against the government official that is charged with implementing or enforcing the challenged limitation or requirement by any individual or entity, including any health care provider, aggrieved by the alleged violation of this Act. Madam Speaker, swift, clear, and decisive action to codify the rights and protections provided by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) is the clearly required response to the more than 500 state laws restricting abortion access over the past decade. These regressive restrictions have eliminated access to abortion care in large swaths of the United States; nearly 90 percent of U.S. counties are without a single abortion provider and five states are down to their last clinic. The people hurt most by abortion restrictions are those who already face barriers to accessing health care-including Black, indigenous and persons of color, women, those working to make ends meet, members of the LGBTQI+ community, immigrants, young people, those living in rural communities, and people with disabilities. Madam Speaker, right-wing Republican legislators passed, and the Republican governor signed, Texas SB8, an extreme and facially unconstitutional law that contemptuously violates existing Supreme Court precedent. The Texas law significantly impairs women's access to critical reproductive health care, particularly affecting communities of color, individuals with low incomes, and those who live in rural or underserved communities. The law also turns private citizens into bounty hunters who are empowered to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion, including family members, faith leaders, Uber drivers and others providing transportation, and health care providers. The new Texas law prohibits abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy and creates the opportunity for almost any private citizen to sue abortion providers and women seeking to terminate their pregnancy past six weeks. The law effectively bans abortion in Texas, as the six-week cutoff is just two weeks after a missed menstrual cycle. The ``hotline'' reporting system in the Texas law is particularly malicious. Since enforcement of the bill lies entirely with private citizens, Texans are incentivized to stalk women as they make vitally important decisions about their own health. It is anathema to the conscience of the United States of America to have individuals following women to determine whether they have or will receive an abortion. We saw similar occurrences during the KGB era of the Soviet Union, as neighbor spied on, lied against, and turned against neighbor to hand over their fellow citizens to the state. We are Americans, and to have a law that so blatantly foments distrust and stalking among our citizenry is a blatant spit in the face of the principles on which this country was founded. To assist in stopping this law, and to protect women from vigilante bounty hunters, I have introduced H.R. 5226, the ``Preventing Vigilante Stalking that Stops Women's Access to Healthcare and Abortion Rights Act of 2021.'' This bill would enhance criminal penalties under the federal stalking statute if the stalking is done with the intent to prevent or report on a woman's health decisions. Importantly, this bill does not include any mandatory minimums. This bill will weaken the incentive to stalk women by bolstering the criminal penalties under the federal stalking statute if the stalking is intended to prevent or report on a woman's health decisions. Additionally, earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that in December it will hear argument on a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which represents a direct challenge to the continued vitality of Roe v. Wade. Madam Speaker, one of the most detestable aspects of these continued attacks to undermine a woman's right to reproductive health care is that it would curb access to care for women in the most desperate of circumstances. Women like Danielle Deaver, who was 22 weeks pregnant when her water broke and tests showed that Danielle had suffered anhydramnios, a premature rupture of the membranes before the fetus has achieved viability. This condition meant that the fetus likely would be born with a shortening of muscle tissue that results in the inability to move limbs. In addition, Danielle's fetus likely would suffer deformities to the face and head, and the lungs were unlikely to develop beyond the 22- week point. There was less than a 10% chance that, if born, Danielle's baby would be able to breathe on its own and only a 2% chance the baby would be able to eat on its own. Abridging a woman's right to reproductive health care hurts women like Vikki Stella, a diabetic, who discovered months into her pregnancy that the fetus she was carrying suffered from several major anomalies and had no chance of survival and whose physician determined that because of Vikki's diabetes, induced labor and Caesarian section were both riskier procedures for Vikki than an abortion. SB8 is the most brazen, but not the first, attempt to roll back women's reproductive health care rights in Texas. In 2013 Texas passed a law that would have cut off access to 75 percent of reproductive healthcare clinics in the state had it not been challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014 and 2015. On October 2, 2014, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Texas law that required that all reproductive healthcare clinics that provided the full range of services would be required to have a hospital-style surgery center building and staffing requirements. This requirement meant that only 7 clinics in the entire state would be allowed to continue to provide a full spectrum of reproductive healthcare to women. But because Texas is a vast state comprising 268,580 square miles, (second only in size and population to the state of California), implementation of the law would have ended access to reproductive services for millions of women in my state. In 2015, the State of Texas once again threatened women's access to reproductive health care when it attempted to shutter all but 10 healthcare providers in the state of Texas. The Supreme Court once again intervened on behalf of Texas women to block the move to close clinics. Madam Speaker, since the United States Supreme Court ruled over 40 years ago, in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)), that a woman's constitutional right to privacy includes her right to abortion, both abortion rates and risks have substantially declined, as have the number of teen and unwanted pregnancies. If opponents were so concerned about women's health and safety, they would be promoting any one of the number of evidence-based proactive policies that improve women's health and well-being. Instead, they are continuing their assault on women's constitutional rights and their campaign to outlaw abortion. That is their number one priority; it is certainly not about protecting women's health; it is about politics. It is clear women are under attack and must be on perpetual guard against new attacks on women's access to reproductive health care, often couched in those same terms. Madam Speaker, this is not what the American people want. Support for abortion access is at an all-time high; nearly 80 percent of Americans do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. There is no state in the Nation where making abortion illegal is popular. The American people want more access to health care, not less, and it is more critical than ever to see through this inflammatory misinformation campaign. Madam Speaker, the right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion, is central to individual equality. The right enables a person to decide if, when, and how to start and grow their family. It enables people to pursue and advance in their education and employment, and to be full and equal participants in society. Laws that restrict reproductive freedom, including restrictions on abortion and birth control, perpetuate harmful stereotypes about gender roles and undermine gender equality. Courts, federal law, and the public have long connected reproductive freedom with equality. Reproductive freedom is central to women's equality, for as the Supreme Court said in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992): ``The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.'' Americans understand this connection and it is reflected in a January 2019 national poll showing 71% of voters agree--48% agree strongly-- that equal rights for women includes access to reproductive health care. State laws like Texas SB8 represent unconstitutional infringements on the right to privacy, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in a long line of cases going back to Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) and, of course, Roe v. Wade. In Roe v. Wade, the Court held that a state could not prohibit a woman from exercising her right to terminate a pregnancy in order to protect her health prior to viability. While many factors go into determining fetal viability, the consensus of the medical community is that viability is acknowledged as not occurring prior to 24 weeks gestation. Supreme Court precedents make it clear that neither Congress nor a state legislature can declare any one element--``be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor--as the determinant'' of viability. Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 388-89 (1979). The constitutionally protected right to privacy encompasses the right of women to choose to terminate a pregnancy before viability, and even later, where continuing the pregnancy to term poses a threat to a woman's life, health, or safety. This right of privacy was hard won and must be preserved inviolate. Madam Speaker, every pregnancy is different, and no politician knows, or has the right to assume he knows, what is best for a woman and her family. These are decisions that properly must be left to women to make, in consultation with their partners, doctors, and their God. I urge all Members to join me in voting to protect a person's ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider's ability to provide abortion services by voting for H.R. 3755, the Women's Health Protection Act. [From the Intelligencer, Sept. 3, 2021] Texas Is Already Creating Abortion Refugees (By Melissa Jeltsen) Just pause and breathe. We're going to help, but I need you to take a breath and calm down for a moment. Kathaleen Pittman, director of the Hope Medical Clinic for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, repeated this mantra over and over to the teary women on the other end of the phone. The calls were coming from all over Texas, where abortion is currently banned at about six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. They wanted to know if they could get an abortion in Louisiana instead. ``The phone has been ringing off the wall, patients attempting to get in,'' Pittman said. But appointments were scarce. When I spoke with her on Thursday, Hope Medical Clinic was the only functioning abortion clinic in the state of Louisiana; the other two remaining clinics were closed due to power outages caused by Hurricane Ida. ``Right now we are booked out three, possibly four weeks just to get in for that first visit,'' Pittman said, noting that a state-mandated waiting period requires patients to come to the clinic twice. ``We're going to see women who are terminating later in the pregnancy than desired because they simply can't get in quickly enough,'' she said. Others, she feared, wouldn't be able to get an abortion at all. ``Of course it's going to be the women who have no money,'' she added. ``It's always the women without the means that suffer the most.'' In the wake of SB 8, which went into effect on Wednesday, many clinics in Texas are still providing abortions for patients up to six-weeks pregnant, or before embryonic cardiac activity can be detected. Everyone else--estimated to be about 85 percent of all abortion patients--is now being referred out of state. As a result, clinics in Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas are being inundated with a surge of pregnant people who are racing against the clock for care. Yet, in many of these states, years of constant antiabortion attacks have eroded the existing reproductive health infrastructure, leaving a fragile system that is ill-equipped to absorb the additional demand. ``The second largest state in the country goes dark on a service and everyone else surrounding is trying to support and provide care,'' said Emily Wales, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which covers Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Clinics in all three states are seeing an increase in Texas patients, she said, especially in Oklahoma. At the same time, abortion access is under attack there; five new abortion restrictions are set to go into effect on November 1. ``It feels a little bit like it's whack-a-mole right now in trying to beat back what are medically unnecessary requirements to ensure ongoing access,'' Wales said. While other states have passed similar six-week abortion bans, the Texas law is the only one that has been allowed to go into effect. That's because of the unique way it was drafted. The state does not enforce the law. Instead, SB 8 deputizes regular people to file civil lawsuits against doctors or anyone else who knowingly ``aids or abets'' an abortion. The law appears to have been intentionally designed this way to thwart judicial action. At Trust Women's clinic in Oklahoma City, which is one of the closest abortion clinics for people in north Texas, abortion appointments are already being booked three weeks into September, just like at Hope Medical Clinic in Louisiana. ``All of our doctors fly in from other states,'' explained Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, communications director for Trust Women. ``We're currently asking them to consider working additional days, but of course, our doctors also practice medicine in their home states as well.'' Trust Women has another clinic in Wichita, Kansas, with slightly more availability, but to get there, Texas patients must travel even further. ``We've already started seeing some of those Texas patients today, and we've got some scheduled tomorrow,'' said Ashley Brink, the Wichita clinic director. ``It's been a really emotional time. A lot of these folks, they're scared, they're confused, they're sad.'' Kristina Tocce, medical director at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said she was seeing the same uptick in Colorado and New Mexico. ``I'm very nervous for patients who need services immediately because this was an immediate hard stop to abortion services in Texas without a clear path for those patients as to where they can go,'' she said. ``Texas is essentially a pre-Roe world now.'' The distance to the nearest clinic is only one of the problems that Texas patients now face, said Alan Braid, the owner and medical director of Alamo Women's Reproductive Services in San Antonio. Many patients are already mothers, and cannot leave their jobs or their children for the length of time needed to access care in another state. Some are undocumented and cannot travel with ease. ``It sounds very easy--oh well, you can't get it in Texas, just go to Oklahoma, New Mexico. But the people that we see-- that hourly wage patient, the single mom, the people that don't have the means to travel--it's impossible for them,'' he said. ``That's like saying well, just hop on a plane and, you know, go to France. It's beautiful there, you can get an abortion and then take a walk down the Champs-Elysees.'' Braid, who has been providing abortion care in Texas since he began his OB/GYN internship in 1972, said this was the worst climate he had ever seen for reproductive rights in Texas since before Roe v. Wade. The new law, with its vigilante-enforcement scheme, is spreading fear and distrust. ``You can feel it in the room,'' he said. ``It hangs heavy.'' As a provider, he said, he is usually optimistic that he can support his patients and meet their needs. ``Now, when I walk in the room, I have huge doubts about whether I'm going to be able to help,'' he said. ``I'm not used to that.'' He expressed deep concern about what patients will do to obtain abortions if they can't get one inside Texas when they need it. He still has a powerful memory of three teenagers dying from septic shock and organ failure after obtaining back-alley abortions back when he was an intern in 1972. ``That's where we're headed,'' he said. ``I promise you that people are going to cross the border to Mexico. They're going to self-induce.'' [From the AP News, Sept. 2, 2021] New Texas Abortion Law Pushes Women to Out-of-State Clinics Even before a strict abortion ban took effect in Texas this week, clinics in neighboring states were fielding growing numbers of calls from women desperate for options. An Oklahoma clinic had received more than double its number of typical inquiries, two-thirds of them from Texas. A Kansas clinic is anticipating a patient increase of up to 40% based on calls from women in Texas. A Colorado clinic that already had started seeing more patients from other states was preparing to ramp up supplies and staffing in anticipation of the law taking effect. The Texas law, allowed to stand in a decision Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court, bans abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, typically around six weeks. In a highly unusual twist, enforcement will be done by private citizens who can sue anyone they believe is violating the law. ``There's real panic about how are they going to get an abortion within six weeks,'' said Anna Rupani, co-director of Fund Texas Choice, one of several nonprofits that help pay for travel and other expenses for patients seeking out-of- state abortions. ``There's this fear that if I can't get it done in six weeks, I may not be able to get it done because I may not be able to leave my job or my family for more than a day.'' Traveling for an abortion may be impossible for women who would struggle to find child care or take time off work. And for those without legal U.S. status along Texas' southern border, traveling to an abortion clinic also entails the risk of getting stopped at a checkpoint. Fund Texas Choice is among the groups seeking to expand a network that helps women in Texas and other places with restrictive abortion laws end their pregnancies in other states. It already has seen more women reaching out. The organization typically handles 10 new cases per week but received 10 calls from new clients just Wednesday, when the law took effect. The phenomenon is not new. Women have been increasingly seeking out-of-state abortions as Republican legislatures and governors have passed ever-tighter abortion laws, particularly in the South. At least 276,000 women terminated their pregnancies outside their home state between 2012 and 2017, according to a 2019 Associated Press analysis of state and federal data. The trend appears to have accelerated over the past year. Abortion clinics in neighboring states began seeing an uptick in calls from Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott banned abortions in March 2020 for nearly a month under a COVID-19 executive order. The number of Texans seeking abortions in Planned Parenthood clinics in the Rocky Mountain region, which covers Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and southern Nevada, was 12 times higher that month. In California, 7,000 patients came from other states to Planned Parenthood clinics in 2020. The number of Texans getting abortions in Kansas jumped from 25 in 2019 to 289 last year. The Trust Women clinic in Wichita accounted for 203 of those procedures in a three- month period. Those patients traveled an average of 650 miles (1,000 kilometers), Trust Women spokesman Zack Gingrich- Gaylord said. ``Last year was a dress rehearsal,'' he said, predicting similar numbers under the new Texas law. One woman discovered she was pregnant just as Abbott's emergency order banning abortions was lifted. She and her partner had lost their jobs in San Antonio during the pandemic. ``We didn't know which way the world was going to go with everything shut down and no change in sight,'' said Miranda, who spoke on the condition that only her first name be used for fear of harassment and intimidation. ``The last thing I wanted to do was be pregnant.'' She struggled to find an abortion clinic that could help her. An online search led her to Fund Texas Choice and the Lilith Fund, another organization that offers financial assistance to Texans seeking abortions. They offered to pay for a flight to New Mexico. ``It's so comforting because it's like someone saying, `We got you. Let's take care of this together,' '' Miranda said. Eventually, she found an appointment at a clinic in Dallas, a five-hour drive away. The groups helped with gas and lodging, aid that will be even more important with the new law, Miranda said. ``To be able to help me in a time of need when I had nothing, not even a job--that's something I think a lot of women would benefit from if they knew those options were there,'' she said. Trust Women Wichita clinic director Ashley Brink said the phones have been busier than normal this week with potential patients from Texas and beyond. Women also have been calling from Louisiana and Alabama who would typically get abortion care in Texas but are having to travel even farther. The clinic typically sees 40 to 50 abortion patients in a week and now is expecting an additional 15 to 20. At Trust Women's clinic in Oklahoma City, 80 appointments were scheduled over the past two days, more than double the typical amount, co-executive director Rebecca Tong said. Two- thirds were from Texas, and the earliest opening was three weeks out. ``Oklahoma has just barely enough clinics for the amount of people here,'' Tong said. ``If anyone is thinking, `Oh, they can just go out of state, it'll be so easy,' a lot of clinics in the Midwest and South, we don't do abortion care five days a week.'' Oklahoma providers also face the potential for abortion restrictions similar to those in Texas in a matter of months. In recent months, 15% of patients supported by Cobalt, an abortion access advocacy group in Colorado, were from out of state, president Karen Middleton said. She expects that number to keep rising. The group administers a fund to cover the cost of the procedure, travel, lodging and meals. It began preparing for a potential influx of patients from Texas several weeks ago. ``We reached out to everyone who provides abortion care in the state of Colorado,'' Middleton said. ``We asked them to be ready and to let us know if they could handle increased capacity.'' Traveling for the procedure may still be out of reach for some. Women without legal U.S. status might turn to abortion medication, said Diana Gomez, advocacy manager with Progress Texas, though even that option is in question. Several Republican-led states have passed laws making it harder to access the pills and banning prescriptions through virtual health visits. Texas is considering similar restrictions, which could force women to get pills by mail for do-it-yourself abortions or other methods. ``They are going to have to go underground and find alternative means in our state,'' Gomez said. [From TIME, Sept. 23, 2021] Florida Lawmaker Proposes Abortion Ban That Mimics Texas SB-8 Law A Florida legislator has proposed banning most abortions in the state and allowing lawsuits against doctors who violate it, mirroring a Texas law that instituted the strictest abortion restrictions in the U.S. It wasn't immediately clear how much support the bill would garner. The Republican-controlled Florida legislature has shown significant support for tighter abortion policies, but Governor Ron DeSantis said he hadn't reviewed this specific proposal and the GOP House speaker was similarly noncommittal on Wednesday. The bill, proposed by state Representative Webster Barnaby, a Republican, would require doctors in Florida to perform tests to determine if a fetus has a detectable heartbeat before performing an abortion. If a physician detects a heartbeat, according to the bill, abortion would be prohibited. The measure also would allow doctors to be sued if suspected of performing an abortion after detecting a heartbeat, matching a powerful provision in the Texas law, known as Senate Bill Eight, or SB-8. The bill appeared to be a clear example of a Texas copycat law in another large, GOP-controlled state. In the days after the Texas law took effect, abortion clinics turned away hundreds of patients. It was seen by abortion-rights supporters as an end-run around Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that has been the foundation of abortion rights in the U.S. ever since. Florida's Republican House Speaker Chris Sprowls said through a spokesman that he supported stricter abortion restrictions, but said that any bill brought to the floor would have to withstand judicial scrutiny. ``We look forward to bringing to the Floor a bill that saves every unborn life possible,'' he said. ``I have asked House Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Erin Grall and House Health & Human Services Chairwoman Colleen Burton to review the various proposals, look at other ideas, and take point on this issue this Session.'' Still, the Florida proposal sparked immediate condemnation from abortion rights advocates, who called legislation unconstitutional and part of a flurry of harsh restrictions on women's rights. ``We are horrified to see anti-choice politicians in Florida following in Texas' footsteps, and there's no question that lawmakers hostile to reproductive freedom in other states will do the same,'' Adrienne Kimmell, acting president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. Early this month, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the Texas law, which outlaws most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. SB-8, bars abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected and puts clinics at risk of being shut down if they are found to be in violation. Asked about Barnaby's bill on Wednesday in Kissimmee, Desantis said he considered his record ``100% pro-life'' but added that he had not seen it. Desantis, a Republican seen as a potential presidential candidate, has rejected coronavirus mask mandates and so- called vaccine passports, saying his position is largely about an individual's right to determine their healthcare choices. He said Wednesday that the abortion question was different because ``another life is at stake.'' Democratic candidates vying to replace Desantis in the 2022 election firmly opposed the legislation. ``This is a direct attack on a woman's right to choose,'' Charlie Crist, a former governor, said on Twitter. ``We're going to have to fight tooth and nail to protect reproductive freedom.''

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, and I thank the ranking member for his support, longtime friends. Let me quickly indicate that as I have embraced the NDAA over the years, it has always been my focus to deal with the military personnel and to make us the best, the strongest, and the most well respected and appreciated. I want to thank this committee and the Rules Committee for allowing my amendments Nos. 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, and 198. Many of them speak for themselves. Let me clearly say that I have worked year after year as a breast cancer survivor to ensure that triple-negative breast cancer, which is one of the most deadly forms of cancer--that women in the military have the services that they need. Let me just share with you that triple-negative breast cancer has a survival rate of 5 years. The key to beating this cancer is early detection. There is $10 million to enhance research and to help these women. In addition, I have asked for $2 million for post-traumatic stress disorder. I even, under then-Colonel Murtha, organized a center in my district. But the most important point for supporting this amendment is that it still exists--Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, 11 to 20 out of 100; Gulf war, 12 out of 100; Vietnam war, 30 out of 100. It is still needed, and we appreciate this amendment. I also want to thank you for recognizing that we are going into space. My amendment says that we should have a bill that studies the risks proposed by man-made space debris in lower orbit, including recommendations and remediation of such risks. It is extremely important. Finally, I want to speak to a very important amendment dealing with the longstanding history of African Americans in the United States military, to create a task force that respects the fact that Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave who escaped--during the Boston Massacre to the present day--an escaped slave who fought in the Revolutionary War with George Washington. This story is a long-story story. The United States Army and others have a very long history. This task force will determine the impact of slavery and the impact of our soldiers from the very early years, who happened to be ex-slaves fighting all the way through the many different wars. I believe we will find that those who are descendants of enslaved Africans have fought in wars from the very beginning. It is an important story. It should be told. I am very pleased that this particular amendment is included.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I will just conclude that this task force, which will be a very significant historical study, will be very much appreciated. But let me quickly say that having worked with our various nominees to the military academies, one in particular was an individual who stuttered. By the time he finished, they said he could not have his command. They never assessed him in the academy while he was there. I believe this is an important assessment, to assess that vital $250,000 student, so that when he graduates, he will have a command even if he is a stutterer because he made it into the academy; he was successful academically; and he should be allowed to serve his country. I thank you for considering my amendments and for them to stay in to become law. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my Amendments in the En Bloc Amendment No. 2 to H.R. 4350, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2022, which incorporates Jackson Lee Amendments Nos. 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, and 198. I thank the Rules Committee for making these amendments in order. I also thank Chairman Smith of the House Armed Services Committee and his staff for working with me and my staff to include the Jackson Lee Amendments in this En Bloc, and for his great work in shepherding the bill to the floor.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for her leadership. Let me make a proclamation here on the floor of the House, that when you have the responsibility of governing, you govern. The President of the United States, President Biden, who believes in transformational government, the House and the Senate, the House under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, the Senate under the leadership of Chuck Schumer. You govern. Today, we are making an enforced, pointed, and open statement about governing. Let me quickly start with the NDAA, the vehicle that helps the men and women who put on the uniform unselfishly on our behalf. I am excited about the increase in quality-of-life dollars, the raise in personnel salaries, the concern about families. I am increasingly excited about cyber protection, and as well that we ask the hard questions about Afghanistan and how we will not see the return of such. But we are not afraid to govern by asking those questions so that we can move forward. I am also excited about recognizing that the quality-of-life issues for our members in the military are important. The Jackson Lee amendments emphasize those points: $10 million to fight triple-negative breast cancer impacting our women in the United States military, particularly women of color. $2.5 million in PTSD. I have heard many times we give to PTSD, but it keeps growing and growing, and there are those in our constituency, our constituents who need these ongoing services. I have been working on this for a long time. To recognize that we must treat our men and women that go into the United States military academies fairly. Does anyone know that they admit people with speech disorders? Good for them. But when they graduate, they are not given a command. My amendment, that I hope to become law, will determine that you analyze all of your military students to make sure they have a command when they graduate. I am most excited about one that I will talk about quickly later. And then, of course, we have done so much great work with the momnibus to look at maternal mortality rates for military members traveling around the world. Space debris, to determine how we can remediate the risks and outline plans to reduce the incidence of space debris. To be able to ensure that we stop students from being recruited when they go overseas to be engaged in spy operations. That happens. And we are glad to have that, as well as to begin looking at renaming some of these bases after historic African Americans. Let me quickly say that amendment No. 194 should be one that we all come together on, tracing the history of the service of African Americans in the United States military, particularly in slavery, to recognize that they can be a vital legacy to the United States.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I will talk further about that as we move into the NDAA, but let me talk about my original premise of governing. The continuing appropriations is crucial, and I support the lifting of the debt ceiling not to spend money, but--when you have responsibility to govern, you govern--to pay our bills. Does anyone want to suggest that we should not? I am looking for a few good men and women on the other side of the aisle that will stand with us as Americans and be responsible to our fellow Americans, governing, so that we can ensure we have a supplemental food program and other aspects of it, but we have to govern. More response to COVID-19. And finally, it is important to give women back their rights. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and we are going to pass that legislation along with my anti-stalking and vigilante bill because people are suffering with the Texas law. It has no place in society. It is a violation of the Constitution of the United States, and it should be quashed, with the Roe v. Wade codification. I ask the other body to support us in that. I ask everyone to support the underlying bills.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, the House, led by the Democratic majority, did its job, passing 10 of the 12 appropriations bills earlier this year, but Senate Republicans failed to hold a single markup of appropriations bills, making it necessary to pass this Continuing Resolution to avert a shutdown that would only further damage our economy. Throughout the 117th Congress, House Democrats have worked to deliver results for the American people, passing legislation to address each pillar of the ``For The People'' agenda: lower health care costs, higher wages by rebuilding America, and cleaning up corruption and strengthening our Democracy. And under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, the House has passed hundreds of bills, including legislation to crush the COVID-19 pandemic, build our economy back better, lower health care and prescription drug prices, raise wages, advance economic and retirement security, end gun violence, act on the climate crisis, protect Dreamers, and strengthen voting rights. Mr. Speaker, let me briefly list several of the programs vital to Americans that are protected or extended by H.R. 5305. Section 101. Same Terms and Conditions for Continuing Appropriations as FY 2020. Section 101 states that appropriations are under the same terms and conditions, including relevant authorities and prohibitions, as the fiscal year 2021 appropriations bills. Section 106. End Date of CR. Section 106 provides that the CR ends at the earlier of the enactment of a full-year appropriations bill or December 3, 2021. Section 112. Restrictions on Furloughs or Termination of Employees. Section 112 restricts furloughs or termination of employees due to lack of funds during the duration of a CR. Section 113. Waiver Language for Intelligence Programs. Section 113 provides waiver language for certain intelligence programs as well as agencies that operate under the State Department Basic Authorities Act and Foreign Relations Authorization Act. Section 118. Commodity Supplemental Food Program. Section 118 allows the Food and Nutrition Service to spend at a higher rate during the CR to provide supplemental USDA foods to low- income seniors (age 60 and over) and to some low-income women, infants and children up to age six. Section 127. Increased Flexibility for White House COVID Response. Section 127 allows a higher spending rate for the White House to support continuing COVID19 operations. Section 129. Increased Flexibility to Process Certain SBA Business Loans. Section 129 allows the Small Business Administration flexibility to spend at the rate necessary to accommodate potential demand increases for commitments for business loans through the 7(a) and 504 business loans, for the Secondary Market Guarantee Program, and for the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program. Section 130. Extension for District of Columbia Voucher School Accreditation. Section 130 allows District of Columbia voucher schools an additional year to be accredited and therefore remain in the program. The accrediting process requires in-school visits, which are not happening during the coronavirus. Section 131. District of Columbia Local Funds Section 131 allows the District of Columbia to spend FY 2021 funds received from local tax revenues and other non-Federal sources in the amount and for the programs and activities provided in DC's FY 2021 Budget Act. Section 132. Extension of Certain Bankruptcy Judgeships. Section 132 extends the term of certain bankruptcy judgeships. Section 134. Disaster Relief Fund (DRF). Section 134 allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to access the entire DRF appropriation for fiscal year 2021 under the continuing resolution as necessary to respond to declared disasters. Section 135. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Section 135 continues the authorization for the NFIP through December 3, 2021. Section 148. Maintaining Funding for the TANF and Child Care Entitlement to States Programs. Section 148 extends funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and the Child Care Entitlement to States program during the period of the continuing resolution. The extension will allow HHS to make first-quarter payments to States. Section 152. Extending Availability of Funding for NIH multiyear research grants. Section 152 extends the availability of funding for multiyear research grants supported by the National Institutes of Health that were interrupted in fiscal year 2020 by COVID-19 and would have expired at the end of the fiscal year. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and strongly support the inclusion of Divisions B and C in the legislation before us. Division B provides emergency supplemental appropriations in the amount of $28.6 billion to address the rising cost of climate change: recent natural disasters, including Hurricanes Ida, Delta, Zeta, and Laura, wildfires, severe droughts and winter storms, and other natural and major disasters declared in 2021 and prior years. This funding will help working families, small businesses, and communities get back on their feet and rebuild, while repairing damage to federal facilities. Division C provides $6.3 billion in supplemental appropriations to support Afghan evacuees includes funding to temporarily house evacuees at American facilities and in foreign countries, provide necessary security screenings, and ultimately resettle eligible evacuees in the United States. The legislation also includes funding to provide humanitarian I assistance for Afghan refugees in neighboring countries. Finally, Mr. Speaker, as another example of the extraordinary and responsible leadership of Speaker Pelosi and Appropriations Committee Chair DeLauro, the legislation checkmates the announced Republican intention to vote against raising the debt and to have the federal government default on its obligations by extending the public debt limit through December 16, 2021. Mr. Speaker, American families do not get to choose which bills to pay and which ones to ignore; neither can the United States Congress without putting the nation into default for the first time in its history. Long ago, in 1789, Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first and greatest Treasury Secretary, understood that the path to American prosperity and greatness lay in its creditworthiness which provided the affordable access to capital needed to fund internal improvements and economic growth. The nation's creditworthiness was one of its most important national assets and according to Hamilton: ``the proper funding of the present debt, will render it a national blessing.'' But to maintain this blessing, or to ``render public credit immortal,'' Hamilton understood that it was necessary that: ``the creation of debt should always be accompanied with the means of extinguishment.'' In other words, to retain and enjoy the prosperity that flows from good credit, it is necessary for a nation to pay its bills. To preserve the sanctity of the full faith and credit of the United States, protect American jobs and businesses of all sizes, and ensure the continued growth of the economy, I strongly support the provision in the bill before extending the public debt limit to December 16, 2021. I strongly support this legislation and urge all Members to join me, in voting for H.R. 5305, the ``Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act.'' Mr. Speaker, I also offer my strong support of the Rule governing debate of H.R. 3755, the Women's Health Protection Act (''WHPA''), which would enshrine access to reproductive health care into law for all women across America. The refusal of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to halt implementation of the odious and offensive Texas S.B. 8, the threat of other state attacks on the constitutional right to reproductive choice recognized in Roe v. Wade, and decades of precedent have together mandated that the House act to protect women's reproductive rights.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I want the Haitian community in America and in the United States to know that we have not forgotten them. Haiti has been a strong ally of the United States that, unfortunately, has been caught in the quagmire of destructive poverty and, of course, governments that sometimes have not worked. Recently, they experienced a horrific earthquake; 800,000 people homeless. So now that we see Haitians by the thousands coming to our border, we have an obligation not to deport them. We have an obligation to provide the potential review that comes about by having the number of immigration personnel to determine their status. We have an obligation for humanitarian relief. I know our borders are closed; I recognize that. But I also know that there is opportunity for asylum through credible fear, and there is also an opportunity to deal with whether or not these individuals have family members. Let me simply say, Madam Speaker, the question we have now is sending these Haitians to a country that is so impoverished and violent is not the right way to go. Let's work together to do it right.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to be representing the Congressional Black Caucus as the Special Order chair. I want to thank our chairwoman, Joyce Beatty, for her leadership on ensuring that the message of the Congressional Black Caucus--Our Power, Our Message--is reflected on the floor of this House and to the American people, to our constituents, the millions and millions of Americans that the 57 members of the Congressional Black Caucus represent. General Leave

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, it is clear that we will be dealing with Build Back Better for the time of this week and into next week, so the Congressional Black Caucus will come very briefly this week to discuss and let our constituents and Americans know that any distorted representation of the $3.5 trillion, as not being able to afford it or that it is too extensive, is really a misrepresentation. First of all, we support, as the Congressional Black Caucus, Build Back Better enthusiastically. It is a $3.5 trillion package over 10 years for a country that is nearing 350 million people, a country that has not seen infrastructure investment, climate investment, investment to deal with electric cars, investment to deal with the new economy, the care economy--we have not seen this for decades, or at least we have not seen this as we have moved into the 21st century. The Build Back Better plan makes the transformative investments that we need to continue our growing economy, lower costs for working families, and position the United States as a global leader in the innovation and jobs of the future. The $3.5 trillion gross investment will build on the successes of the American Rescue Plan and set our Nation on a path of fiscal responsibility and broadly shared prosperity for generations to come. Almost 4 years ago, in 2017, the Houston area and most of the Southern region, all the way to Florida, including some of our Commonwealths, experienced Hurricane Harvey. This is my district, where the water looked like an extended ocean-- $155 billion worth of damage, so much damage that we are continuing to work with it. Why? Because we did not have the infrastructure. We did not have the bayous that were constructed in a way that would hold the water. So much damage, so much loss, so much pain. So a combination of the INVEST Act and Build Back Better is a must. They must walk hand-in-hand. One without the other does not answer the call of the American people. It does not reflect the Lincolnesque attitude that we all are in this together. Let me read a quote from President Lincoln, who reminds us so much whenever we speak of the idea of what America is. Abraham Lincoln, in 1862, as he was seeing the divide coming into this Nation, offered these words: ``The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.'' As we move forward with Build Back Better and the INVEST Act, the $3.5 trillion and the $1 trillion, there is no time to isolate ourselves as one or I or me. This is a time when we stand with America as we, working to ensure that this magnificent contribution to the infrastructure--to some of the worst infrastructure problems, from dams to highways to the electric grid--can also stand alongside childcare and the care economy. For example, in the State of Texas, this bill would help the local economy. It would send more than $400 million in Texas to support the expansion of an electric vehicle charging network, with up to $2.5 billion more available through grants. Texas would also receive $3 billion to improve pipes and the delivery of clean drinking water so needed in our State, in urban and rural communities. And Texas would benefit from the bill's $3.5 billion investment in weatherizing energy grids across the country. Millions of Texans who sat shivering in their dark living rooms during the last winter's freeze will undoubtedly welcome that improvement. We lost over 150 people in that short span in February when we saw temperatures in Texas that we had never imagined. People literally froze in their beds. One comes to mind that is so emotional: An 11-year-old boy froze in his bed in February 2021. Critically, the bill would provide at least $100 million for broadband access in a State where 14 percent of households don't have an internet subscription, and 4 percent of Texans have no broadband infrastructure at all. My view is that we cannot simply go for one versus the other. Let me just tell you about the Build Back Better $3.5 trillion bill. It will provide childcare to help our workforce and contribute to the economy where that is needed. Therefore, the plan supports families in need of childcare, providing access to safe, reliable, high-quality childcare, delivered by well-trained childcare providers. As it relates to education, we will be productive and having our children have high-quality education. That is why this plan makes necessary investments to increase quality education by 4 years for all students at no cost to hardworking parents. The plan will provide 2 years of free pre-K and 2 years of free community college. We are investing in people. In regard to healthcare, too many Americans are forced to choose between medical care and putting food on the table. The plan expands access to quality, affordable healthcare by strengthening the Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care marketplace programs that millions of Americans rely on. But now more could be added, in addition to providing dental, hearing, and vision benefits. That is when we go it together. Not I's and me's, but we, us together. Paid leave that can help us get on our feet when we are having issues with family and healthcare. Tackling the climate crisis. We have seen the ravages of hurricanes. We have seen Hurricane Ida--devastation that is unspeakable, electricity that people do not have, a million people without electricity. The climate crisis and climate change are here. It is crucial that we begin to invest in a plan that empowers comprehensive action to build an equitable, clean energy economy with historic investments to transform and modernize the electricity sector. It is imperative that we do that. We must take a moment to pause and to recognize that any positive steps on climate will be because of us, because of the most powerful lawmaking body in the Nation, taking a moment to pause and realistically confronting it, providing the research dollars, working with universities, such as the University of Houston Energy Institute and Texas Southern University, looking at ways to provide the best approach to a green approach and climate response as well as providing the necessary research on new kinds of energy. That is what we need to do. Just for a moment, may I step back to the point about healthcare. We know it all too well in Houston. We were the poster child in Texas for the most uninsured persons when the Affordable Care Act was implemented. Six million people, 25 percent of the State of Texas, were uninsured. We still do not have access to healthcare as we should. Then to add this horrific burden and insult to the women of Texas, to write the most heinous bill that would, in fact, disallow a woman's access to healthcare, this horrible bill that would have a bounty hunter that would seek to follow you in the midst of you getting good healthcare. I think this is clearly an unfortunate set of circumstances that we should correct. Healthcare, your own personal decision with your provider, your faith, and your family, choices that no one wants to make, yet this State law was put in place to create a vigilante community to attack women and those that might help them provide access to healthcare. That is what it is, access to healthcare, a decision that no one offers to make lightly. But here we are, a vigilante being enticed by $10,000-- gossip, spying, standing outside dorm rooms, watching Uber cars, standing in front of doctors' offices, standing in front of organizations like Planned Parenthood that deal with healthcare for women, and just plain providing a sense of intimidation and fear. That brings me to the legislation that we hope that we will see passing, H.R. 5226, Preventing Vigilante Stalking that Stops Women's Access to Healthcare and Abortion Rights Act of 2021. I hope my colleagues will join me in a simple bill that simply says you don't have the right to stalk a woman who is seeking healthcare. It may be that she is going for a mammogram. You don't know. But by creating this atmosphere of money being given to a whole industry of people, ne'er- do-wells and others, some with good intentions in their mind but seeking to make profit on someone else's pain, that is unacceptable. I hope my colleagues will join me in that legislation. Healthcare is a right, and we should give that to families, to women, to men, to children, and to seniors. That is what building America back better will do. Affordable housing, helping homeless persons, tax cuts for families and workers, I am so grateful. And I want everybody to know how Democrats worked so hard for the child tax credit--excuse me, let me correct that--the child tax cut. In fact, as I hear it, my constituents, your constituents, their constituents, are receiving those child tax cuts right now. Many people are making ends meet, helping their children get into school. That is what Democrats do, and that is what this bill is going to do--research, development, and innovation on good, forward-thinking infrastructure. Working with HBCUs, helping them be historically relevant but also helping them to be stronger in terms of their infrastructure. I support that and thank one of our colleagues, Congresswoman Alma Adams, who has been a leader on making sure our HBCUs are front and center, are surviving. These are our historic colleges founded in the 1800s. Immigration, of course, is a very important issue, and I might say, another issue that we worked on in the Judiciary Committee with our allotment of $107 billion, and that is, of course, community violence intervention. We put in $2.5 billion on community violence intervention. And that of course was $107 billion, $107.5 billion in Judiciary. Part of that, of course, was to deal with the issue of community violence intervention. So you can see there is no time to waste. There is no time to delay. There is only time to work hard on getting this legislation passed. We must do it as an INVEST Act, we must do it as a budget reconciliation, or the Build Back Better Act of 2021, the better name. We must do it together. The Congressional Black Caucus stands to be able to say, ``No more Hurricane Harveys,'' but more, work with communities, rebuilding streets, historic preservation, and making a difference. That is what historic infrastructure investment can do, and that is what we in the Congressional Black Caucus stand for. I look forward to us continuing our discussion. Madam Speaker, I take the opportunity at this point in the name of unity, reconciliation, a new pathway for transformational government, passing of the INVEST Act, passing of the Build Back Better Act, and making sure that we have voting rights, that we give women the right to choose, that we pass H.R. 40, the commission to study slavery and develop reparation proposals. A long agenda. I know that we can do this in the spirit of unity. Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, I yield back the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Committees on the Judiciary, on Homeland Security, and on the Budget, and the Congressional Black Caucus, I am pleased to co-anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order with my colleague, the distinguished gentleman from New York, Congressman Ritchie Torres. I thank the Chair of the CBC, Congresswoman Beatty of Ohio, for organizing this Special Order to discuss the reasons why the CBC strong supports the Build Back Better Agenda conceived and advanced by President Biden and House Democrats to support visionary and transformative investments in the health, well-being, and financial security of America's workers and families. Over the next hour, several of our colleagues will share their perspectives on why it is essential that we ``go big'' in building back better to our nation and all of its people have the opportunities and resources to compete and win in the changing global economy of the 21st century. Madam Speaker, it is often said that the federal budget is an expression of the nation's values and the investments made to Build America Back Better are a clear declaration of congressional Democrats' commitment to ensuring that our government, our economy, and our systems work For The People. Madam Speaker, these long-overdue investments in America's future will be felt in every corner of the country and across every sector of American life, building on the success of the American Rescue Plan, accommodating historic infrastructure investments in the legislative pipeline, and addressing longstanding deficits in our communities by ending an era of chronic underinvestment so we can emerge from our current crises a stronger, more equitable nation. Should our friends across the aisle join us in this endeavor, it would send a powerful signal to the American people if our colleagues across the aisle would join us in this effort because nothing would better show them that their elected representatives can set partisanship aside and put America first. And that bipartisan achievement would portend success for similar initiatives in the area of strengthening the infrastructure of democracy in which every American has a vital interest, national and homeland security, and criminal justice and immigration reform. I would urge my Republican colleagues to heed the words of Republican Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia who said colorfully several months ago: At this point in time in this nation, we need to go big. We need to quit counting the egg-sucking legs on the cows and count the cows and just move. And move forward and move right now. The same sentiment was expressed more eloquently by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 when he memorably wrote: The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Madam Speaker, the bipartisan action we took in February 2021 when we passed the American Rescue Plan was a giant step in the right direction, but it was a targeted response to the immediate and urgent public health and economic crises; it was not a long-term solution to many of the pressing challenges facing our nation that have built up over decades of disinvestment in our nation and its people in every region and sector of the country. We simply can no longer afford the costs of neglect and inaction; the time to act is now. The Build Back Better Plan makes the transformative investments that we need to continue growing our economy, lower costs for working families, and position the United States as a global leader in innovation and the jobs of the future. This $3.5 trillion gross investment will build on the successes of the American Rescue Plan and set our nation on a path of fiscal responsibility and broadly shared prosperity for generations to come. The Build Back Better Plan will provide resources to improve our education, health, and child care systems, invest in clean energy and sustainability, address the housing crisis, and more; all while setting America up to compete and win in the decades ahead. The Build Back Better Plan is paid for by ensuring that the wealthy and big corporations are paying their fair share and Americans making less than $400,000 a year will not see their taxes increase by a penny. Let me repeat that: No American making less than $400,000 a year will not see their taxes increase by a penny. In sum, Madam Speaker, the investments made by the Build Back Better Plan will expand opportunity for all and build an economy powered by shared prosperity and inclusive growth. No one is better prepared or more experienced to lead the American renaissance that will be produced by the investments made by the Build Back Better Plan than President Biden, the architect of the American Rescue Plan and who as Vice-President during the Obama Administration oversaw the implementation of the Recovery Act, which saved millions of jobs and rescued our economy from the Great Recession the nation inherited from a previous Republican administration. And let us not forget that President Obama also placed his confidence in his vice-president to oversee the rescue of the automotive industry, which he did so well that the American car industry fully recovered its status as the world leader. Madam Speaker, let me briefly highlight some of the key investments made by the Build Back Better Plan:

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, as tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the attack launched against the United States on September 11, 2001, I rise to remember the victims of that horrific tragedy and those first-responders who risked, and in too many cases, sacrificed their lives to rescue the occupants of the besieged World Trade Center Towers. The morning of September 11, 2001 is, and will always be, a day like no other. It is a day all living Americans will remember because not since Pearl Harbor had there been such a dastardly and deadly attack on American soil. Twenty years later, my heart still grieves for those who perished on flights United Airlines 93, American Airlines 77, American Airlines 11, and United Airlines 175. When the sun rose on the morning of September 11, none of us knew that it would end in an inferno in the magnificent World Trade Center Towers in New York City and the Pentagon and in the grassy fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I stand here remembering those who still suffer, whose hearts still ache over the loss of so many innocent and interrupted lives. My prayer is that for those who lost a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a child, or a friend will in the days and years ahead take comfort in the certain knowledge that they have gone on to claim the greatest. prize, a place in the Lord's loving arms. And down here on the ground, their memory will never die so long as any of the many of us who loved them lives. Madam Speaker, I watched as the first, and then the second, plane flew into the World Trade Center and was horrified when the buildings came down. I was in The Capitol and saw the billowing smoke from the wreckage at the Pentagon and was told about the missing third plane that met its fiery end in the empty fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania thanks to the selfless act of patriotic and heroic Americans. But as hard as it is to believe, out of a tragedy so overwhelming and horrific, something good and great emerged in the aftermath of September 11. On that day there were no Republicans or Democrats. There were no Northerners or Southerners or West or East Coasters. We were not Red State or Blue State. We were all simply Americans. On that day, we were united in our shock and anger and sadness. We were united in our resolve to defend our country and protect the freedoms that has made America the greatest country in the history of the world. Later that day, I joined scores of my colleagues on the East Steps of the Capitol where we sang ``God Bless America''; lit candles, held hands, and prayed for our country and its leaders. In the days ahead I travelled to New York City to visit first responders and victims still recovering bodies and rescuing victims of the attacks and became a charter member of the Committee on Homeland Security to ensure that 9-11 never again happens in America. A united America can never be defeated as Operation Enduring Freedom showed. The brave and valiant armed forces of the United States swiftly toppled the Taliban and liberated Afghanistan, making good on the pledge that ``[w]hether the terrorists are brought to justice or justice is brought to the terrorists, justice will be done.'' And though he ran and hid for almost ten years, Osama bin Ladin could not hide forever and evade the long arm of American justice, which, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, caught up with him on May 2, 2011. Madam Speaker, Americans take care of their own. Americans cherish freedom. Americans cherish liberty. And Americans want peace. Not just for themselves alone, but all persons in every corner of the globe. Madam Speaker, ensuring that America is safe and secure and protected from another attack on American soil is the least we owe to the heroic passengers on Flight 93 and to the brave firefighters of the FDNY and officers of the NYPD and the officers and civilians we lost in the Pentagon who gave faithful service to our nation. Americans want their country to remain safe, free, and invulnerable to another cowardly attack like the one we witnessed twenty years ago tomorrow. We owe that much to the Americans who lost and gave their lives. And we have an obligation to them to ensure that this nation-- and its 241 year record of, and experiment in, democracy--shall long endure and can and will withstand any threat from foreign adversaries or home-grown domestic terrorists. This nation, as with any nation, suffers the conceit that it is immune from attacks from within on its democratic pillars at its peril, as we learned tragically on January 6, 2021. On that now unforgettable winter day, a violent mob invited by the then-president of the United States came to Washington, D.C. and laid siege to the Capitol for the avowed purpose of disrupting the constitutionally-mandated Joint Meeting of Congress to confirm the votes of presidential electors and announce publicly to the nation and the world the persons elected as President and Vice President of the United States. As a result of the mayhem instigated by the 45th president, the congressional meeting was delayed for several hours, at least six persons lost their lives as a result of the insurrection, more than 138 officers, 73 from the United States Capitol Police Department and 65 from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, sustained injuries during the attack on the Capitol Building, several of which required hospitalization and dozens, if not hundreds, of officers will suffer in years to come with post-traumatic stress disorder and cope with coronavirus infections contracted from the unmasked domestic terrorists and rioters who stormed the Capitol. All of this is more than enough to sound the warning bell that we are now engaged, as President Lincoln observed at Gettysburg, in a great contest testing the proposition that this nation, or any nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal can long endure. This illustrates the reason why it is so vital that we enact legislation to strengthen and fortify the foundation of our democracy, which is of course the right to vote and to have that vote counted. To do that, we must enact without delay H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and H.R. 1, the For The People Act. The right to vote is the sine qua non of democratic citizenship; without it every other right is fleeting and temporary. That is why it is important to remember that the true and fundamental purpose of the Voting Rights Act was to give proof to the world that America was living the true meaning of its creed that all are created equal and doing so by protecting and empowering black Americans, who had for two centuries been exploited, victimized, persecuted, scapegoated, cheated, and treated with both benign and malignant neglect all because they were excluded from participating in the political process and the making of decisions that affected their lives. It is interesting to note the absence of the current frantic efforts to disenfranchise black voters and other persons of color had no antecedent in 1994, when unexpectedly Republicans won the House majority for the first time in 40 years and majorities in several state legislatures across the country. Nor did it happen after the 2010 elections when Republicans recaptured the House majority after holding the White House for two consecutive terms. Madam Speaker, what accounts for the lack of vote suppression action then and the desperate anti- democratic actions we see now is clear and simple. In 1994, 27 years ago, and as recent as 11 years ago in 2010, conservative Republicans still believed they could compete for democratic political power fair and square and that their ideals, ideas, principles, and values could attract majority support. But with the demographic changes and generational replacement taking place in America, the maturation and coming of age of the beneficiaries of the Great Society, and the rise of what social and political scientist call the ``Obama Coalition,'' they no longer believe that. So they now hold it as an article of faith that they cannot win if they do not cheat; instead of taking their ideas and arguments to the voters and letting the voters pick their leaders, they have opted to change the rules so they can handpick the voters. In The Flight 93 Election, the controversial, provocative, call to arms, conservative essayist Michael Anton spelled out clearly the perils the antidemocracy forces feel surround them: If you haven't noticed, our side has been losing consistently since 1988. We can win midterms, but we do nothing with them. Call ours Hannibalic victories. After the Carthaginian's famous slaughter of a Roman army at Cannae, he failed to march on an undefended Rome, prompting his cavalry commander to complain: `you know how to win a victory, but not how to use one.' And, aside from 2004's lackluster 50.7 percent, we can't win the big ones at all. In his 1837 Lyceum Address titled ``The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,'' Abraham Lincoln warned that mobs or people who disrespected U.S. laws and courts would always pose the most dangerous threat to the perpetuation of United States: All the armies of Europe and Asia . . . could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. But Lincoln advised us of the best defense against domestic threats and attacks on our democracy: public reverence for the Constitution and rule of law as ``the political religion of our nation.'' Madam Speaker, democracy in America is not an act, it is an activity; it is never finished or complete but always in the process of making our union more perfect; and the nation will always be confronted with challenge of confirming the proposition that this nation, or any nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal can long endure. The price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance. But we can do this. We must do this. After all, we are Americans.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, last week I rose to highlight and discuss the major reasons why Americans are so appreciative that Bill Clinton served as the 42nd President of the United States, especially for his healing words and actions during the time of the tragic and horrific April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing at the Edmund R. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 persons, including 19 children, and wounded more than 800 others. I added that we Democrats thank President Clinton for all that, but for so much more, a subject I wish to elaborate on today. Bill Clinton was the unparalleled visionary Democratic political leader of the latter half of the 20th Century. In the presidential election preceding his, the Democratic candidate was beaten in the Electoral College 426-112, losing 40 states, and trailing in the popular vote by 7.8 percentage points and 7 million votes. In the presidential election before that, 1984, the Democratic candidate lost 49 of 50 states, lost the Electoral College 525-13, and lost the popular vote by 18.2 percentage points and 16.8 million votes. The 1992 electoral map and political outlook were bleak for the Governor of the `small southern state of Arkansas' but he would not be deterred and would not be outworked and did not waver in his conviction that his progressive policies promising shared prosperity and his inclusive vision in which the United States ``did not have a person to waste'' would attract majority support. The happy result of the 1992 presidential election is that the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, won the Electoral College 370-168, won 30 states, won every region of the country except the Deep South, won the popular vote by 5.6 percentage points 5.8 million votes, carrying several states that had not voted Democratic or voted Democratic only once since 1964, including California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. President Clinton repeated the feat in 1996, becoming the first Democratic President to win reelection since Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, carrying 31 states and the District of Columbia, prevailing in the Electoral College 379-159, and winning the popular vote by 8.2 million votes and 8.51 percentage points, and became the first Democrat to carry the states of Florida and Arizona since 1976 and 1948, respectively. And he carried the suburban vote, which for the first time in history comprised the largest percentage of the electorate, gave us a master class in how a candidate for national office should speak and appeal to moms and dads with financial anxieties, growing kids about whose educational and economic futures they are concerned, and worried for their safety of their communities and the health security of their aging parents. A legendary political campaigner second to none ever, Bill Clinton shattered what used to be called the `GOP Electoral Lock' and built the famed `Blue Wall,' which every Democratic candidate since has relied upon for victory and that has made the Democratic candidate the popular vote winner in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. Not only that, because of President Clinton's extraordinary success in managing the affairs of our nation, Republican charges now ring hollow when they shout that Democrats ``are soft on crime,'' ``unwilling to defend the country,'' ``favor welfare recipients over hard working Americans,'' relegating them to invent new bogeymen like ``Radical Islamic Terrorism'' and ``Caravans of Illegal Aliens'' and ``Chinese Communists'' at our doorstep, invoke ``family values,'' ``guns, God, or gays,'' or some other culture war shibboleth, or to spout nonsensical conspiracy theories like the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and rife with fraud. Truth be told, Madam Speaker, the real problem with our friends in the Republican Party is that they have never adapted to the Age of Clinton, in which politics and governance is about meeting people where they live and giving them the tools and opportunities they need to make the most of their own lives, and treating all persons fairly and with respect, and above all, not rationing justice. This is why they have been unable to command majority or plurality support in all but one of the last eight national elections. Madam Speaker, Alexis DeTocqueville came to visit America 190 years ago to study the maiden case of democracy in action and here is what he wrote about political parties; it remains surprisingly relevant and prescient: ``[S]mall parties are generally without political faith. As they are not elevated and sustained by lofty purposes, the selfishness of their character is openly displayed in all their actions. They glow with a factious zeal; their language is violent, but their progress is timid and uncertain. The means they employ are as disreputable as the aim sought.'' What distinguishes the Democratic Party from the Republican Party is the former's abiding faith in the capacity of human beings to improve their social, economic, and political conditions. On the other hand, at the core of the Republican philosophy lies a darker, more pessimistic view of this ``scope of human perfectibility''; instead of looking to the future with courage and optimism, the conservative spirit looks to a nostalgic past with a pessimistic attitude toward a dreaded future. Madam Speaker, because of the remarkable leadership and success role- modeled by the President William Jefferson Clinton, Democrats in Congress and across the nation know who they are, what they believe, and what is important to fight to achieve or preserve; maybe one day our friends across the aisle will be so lucky. I thank President Clinton for all he did as the Nation's 42nd President and captain of the ship of state to make our Nation the most prosperous on earth and at peace in the world.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise in remembrance of one of the true giants of American history and politics, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, who was born 113 years ago today, August 27. It might be fair to say that I have quoted the wise words of President Abraham Lincoln on this floor perhaps more than any other Member and my appreciation and profound gratitude for leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led our country out of the Great Depression and into an economic and military superpower, to victory in World War II, and whose New Deal transformed the way Americans live and work for the better, is unsurpassed. But next to these two greatest of all American presidents, in my view shared by millions, stands Lyndon Baines Johnson, the visionary and architect of the Great Society, which centered federal policy on the growth and human development of the individual, providing educational and economic opportunity to all persons of all races, genders, and creeds living in every rural and urban community in every region of the nation. As I will discuss, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winner and preeminent historian and biographer, Robert Caro, is exactly right when he wrote that with the single exception of Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson was the greatest champion of the poor and underprivileged in the history of the Republic and was the President ``who wrote mercy and justice into the statute books by which America was governed.'' That is why earlier this year I introduced H.R. 115, legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, whose vision and leadership secured passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Social Security Amendments Act (Medicare) of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, to name just a handful of the more than 180 laws that have done so much to shape American society in the 21st Century. The awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal is long overdue recognition of the remarkable record of achievement in the field of domestic affairs of the person most responsible for several of the nation's landmark laws that mark their 56th anniversary this year. Madam Speaker, as a Member of Congress from the Tenth Congressional District of Texas, as Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Vice President and President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson's domestic accomplishments in the fields of civil rights, education, and economic opportunity rank among the greatest achievements of the past century. As President, Lyndon Johnson proposed, championed, led to passage, and signed into law on August 6, 1965 the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which swept away barriers impeding millions of Americans from meaningful participation in American political life. On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Social Security Amendments Act of 1965, which we today know as Medicare, which has transformed the delivery of health care in the United States and which, along with Social Security, reduced the rate of poverty among the elderly from 28.5 percent in 1966 to 9.1 percent in 2012. On July 2, 1964 President Johnson secured passage and signed into law the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations based on race, color, religion, or national origin. On November 8, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Higher Education Act, which provided need-based financial aid to students in the form of scholarships, work-study grants, and loans, and thus for the first time made higher education more accessible to populations of persons who were previously unable to attend college because of economic circumstances. On October 3, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which transformed the nation's immigration system by abolishing the racially based quota system that had defined American immigration policy for the previous four decades and replaced it with a policy whose central purpose was family reunification, with a preference for immigrants with specific skillsets. Madam Speaker, Lyndon Baines Johnson began his working life as a teacher and debate coach in the poor Hispanic community in the South Texas town of Cotulla, where poverty was so bad that he recalled seeing ``Mexican children going through a garbage pile, shaking the coffee grounds from the grapefruit rinds and sucking the rinds for the juice that was left, a sight he never forgot, and which fueled his passion and commitment to ending poverty in America. This teacher who became president served his country in numerous, distinguished ways, including as Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II, as a Member of both houses of Congress, as Vice President of the United States, and as the 36th President of the United States. Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in Stonewall, Texas. In 1927, he enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San Marcos, Texas (Texas State University-San Marcos) and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in August 1930. After graduation he taught at Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas, and taught public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston, Texas, where in the spring of 1931, his debate team won the district championship. In a special election in 1937, Johnson won the U.S. House of Representatives seat representing the 10th Congressional District of Texas, defeating nine other candidates, and would be re-elected to a full term in the 76th Congress and to each succeeding Congress until 1948. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Johnson became the first Member of Congress to volunteer for active duty in the armed forces (U.S. Navy), reporting for active duty on December 9, 1941. Johnson received the Silver Star from General Douglas MacArthur for gallantry in action during an aerial combat mission over hostile positions in New Guinea on June 9, 1942. President Roosevelt ordered all Members of Congress in the armed forces to return to their offices, and Johnson was released from active duty on July 16, 1942. In 1948, after a campaign in which he traveled by `newfangled' helicopter all over the state, Johnson won the primary by 87 votes and earning the nickname `Landslide Lyndon' and went on to victory in the general election, where he served until inaugurated Vice-President of the United States on January 20, 1961. As a member of the Senate, Lyndon Johnson is acknowledged by historians, scholars, and students of politics as the greatest Majority Leader in the history of that chamber. Lyndon Johnson became the 36th President of the United States on November 22, 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. During his administration, education was one of the many areas where President Johnson blazed new ground, proposing numerous education initiatives which became landmark education bills he signed into law. In 1963, President Johnson signed the Higher Education Facilities Act (P.L. 88-204) which authorized a five-year program of federal grants and loans for construction or improvement of public and private higher education academic facilities. This legislation was the largest education program enacted by Congress since the National Defense Education Act of 1958, and itwas the first broad education bill enacted in the post-World War II period that was not tied to national defense. In 1964, Johnson signed the Library Services Act (P.L. 88-269) to make high quality public libraries more accessible to both urban and rural residents. The funds made available under this Act were used to construct as well as operate libraries, and to extend this program to cities as well as rural areas. Later that year, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act (P.L. 88-352), which included Title VI among its landmark provisions authorizing federal authorities to sue for the desegregation of schools and to withhold federal funds from education institutions that practiced segregation. In 1965, in the presence of his first teacher, Mrs. Kathryn Deadrich Loney, President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (P.L. 89-10) at the former Junction Elementary School in Stonewall, Texas, where he first attended school. This legislation was the first general aid-to- education program ever adopted by Congress, and it provided programs to help educate disadvantaged children in urban and rural areas. Later that year, he also signed the Higher Education Act (P.L. 89- 329), which was the first program approved by the U.S. Congress for scholarships to undergraduate students. In 1965, President Johnson launched Project Head Start, as an eight-week summer program, to help break the cycle of poverty by providing pre-school children from low- income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. Recruiting children from ages three to school-entry age, Head Start was enthusiastically received by education and child development specialists, community leaders, and parents across the nation. Currently, Head Start continues to serve children and their families each year in urban and rural areas in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Territories, as well as many migrant children. In 1966, President Johnson signed the International Education Act (P.L. 89-698), which promoted international studies at U.S. colleges and universities. In 1968, he signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Amendments of 1967 (P.L. 90-247), establishing bilingual education programs for non-English speaking children, and providing more funds for special education for disabled children. Later that year, he also signed the Handicapped Children's Early Education Assistance Act (P.L. 90-538), which authorized experimental programs for disabled children of preschool age. In 1965, President Johnson achieved passage of the greatest legislative achievement for the cause of civil rights and equality of opportunity, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern black Americans to vote for the very first time. In other actions on the civil rights front, President Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to the positions of Solicitor General and later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, making him the first African American to serve in either capacity. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a document entitled the ``The Legislative Legacy of President Lyndon Baines Johnson: 1963-1968,'' to remind all Members and the Nation what can be accomplished under the leadership of one who had a servant's heart, an iron will, and as the famed biographer Robert Caro memorably characterized it, ``a natural genius for politics.'' I invite all Members to join me in sponsoring H.R. 115, legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal and recognizing the extraordinary domestic achievements of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States. The Legislative Legacy of President Lyndon Baines Johnson: 1963-1968 1963 College Facilities Clean Air Vocational Education Indian Vocational Training Manpower Training 1964 Inter-American Development Bank Kennedy Cultural Center Tax Reduction Farm Program Pesticide Controls International Development Association Civil Rights Act of 1964 Water Resources Research War on Poverty Criminal Justice Truth-in-Securities Food Stamps Housing Act Wilderness Areas Nurse Training Library Services 1965 Medicare Medicaid Elementary and Secondary Education Higher Education Bilingual Education Department of Housing and Urban Development Housing Act Voting Rights Immigration Reform Law Older Americans Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program Law Enforcement Assistance Drug Controls Mental Health Facilities Health Professions Medical Libraries Vocational Rehabilitation Anti-Poverty Program Arts and Humanities Foundation Aid to Appalachia Highway Beauty Clean Air Water Pollution Control High Speed Transit Manpower Training Child Health Community Health Services Water Resources Council Water Desalting Juvenile Delinquency Control Arms Control Affirmative Action 1966 Child Nutrition Department of Transportation Truth in Packaging Model Cities Rent Supplements Teachers Corps Asian Development Bank Clean Rivers Food for Freedom Child Safety Narcotics Rehabilitation Traffic Safety Highway Safety Mine Safety International Education Bail Reform Auto Safety Tire Safety New GI Bill Minimum Wage Increase Urban Mass Transit Civil Procedure Reform Fish-Wildlife Preservation Water for Peace Anti-Inflation Program Scientific Knowledge Exchange Protection for Savings Freedom of Information Hirshhorn Museum 1967 Education Professions Education Act Air Pollution Control Partnership for Health Social Security Increases Age Discrimination Wholesome Meat Flammable Fabrics Urban Research Public Broadcasting Outer Space Treaty Modern D.C. Government Federal Judicial Center Deaf-Blind Center College Work Study Summer Youth Programs Food Stamps Urban Fellowships Safety at Sea Treaty Narcotics Treaty Anti-Racketeering Product Safety Commission Inter-American Bank 1968 Fair Housing Indian Bill of Rights Safe Streets Wholesome Poultry Commodity Exchange Rules School Breakfasts Truth-in-Lending Aircraft Noise Abatement New Narcotics Bureau Gas Pipeline Safety Fire Safety Sea Grant Colleges Tax Surcharge Housing Act International Monetary Reform Fair Federal Juries Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Guaranteed Student Loans Health Manpower Gun Controls Aid-to-Handicapped Children Heart, Cancer and Stroke Programs Hazardous Radiation Protection Scenic Rivers Scenic Trails National Water Commission Vocational Education Dangerous Drug Control Military Justice Code Tax Surcharge

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise to give thanks and pay tribute to William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, who turned 75 last Thursday, August 19, 2021. It is still hard to believe that the rebellious Baby Boomer Generation, of which I am a member and which in its youth was the hope and promise of the nation's future, is now just young at heart, but in Bill Clinton it produced one of the nation's greatest presidents. As President, Bill Clinton, the ``Man From Hope,'' always put our people first and led our Nation to unrivaled heights of shared prosperity for all, unmatched progress in becoming `one Nation unified,' and brought peace to Ireland, freedom to the people of Kosovo, rescued the economy of Mexico from destruction, and led America to the leadership position in the emerging globalized economy of the 21st Century. Madam Speaker, if anyone wants to know the true meaning of ``American Exceptionalism'' all they have to do is examine the years 1993 through 2001 when President Bill Clinton commanded the ship of state. Under President Clinton, the United States enjoyed the longest economic expansion in American history. The President's strategy of fiscal discipline, opening foreign markets, and investments in the American people helped create the conditions for a record 115 months of economic expansion and our economy grew at an average of 4 percent per year during the years of his presidency. More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years--the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years. We enjoyed the highest homeownership in American history because the strong Clinton economy and fiscal discipline kept interest rates low, making it possible for more families to buy homes, and the homeownership rate increased from 64.2 percent in 1992 to 67.7 percent, the highest rate ever. We had the lowest unemployment in 30 years. Unemployment dropped from more than 7 percent in 1993 to just 4.0 percent in November 2000. Unemployment for African Americans and Hispanics fell to the lowest rates on record, and the rate for women was the lowest in more than 40 years. Between 1993 and 2001, reading and math scores increased for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders, and math SAT scores reached a 30-year high, 49 states put in place standards in core subjects, and federal investment in education and training doubled. During the Clinton Administration financial aid for students was nearly doubled by increasing Pell Grants to the largest award ever, expanding Federal Work-Study to allow 1 million students to work their way through college, and by creating new tax credits and scholarships, such as Lifetime Learning tax credits and the HOPE scholarship. At the same time, taxpayers saved $18 billion due to the decline in student loan defaults, increased collections and savings from the direct student loan program. President Clinton and Vice President Gore's commitment to education technology, including the E-Rate and a 3,000 percent increase in educational technology funding, increased the percentage of schools connected to the Internet from 35 percent in 1994 to 95 percent in 1999. Because of President Clinton's comprehensive anti-crime strategy of smart prevention, more police, as well as commonsense gun safety laws, the overall crime rate declined for 8 consecutive years, the longest continuous drop on record, and was at the lowest level since 1973. As part of the 1994 Crime Bill, President Clinton enacted a new initiative to fund 100,000 community police officers in more than 11,000 law enforcement agencies. Since the President signed the Brady bill in 1993, stopping more than 600,000 felons, fugitives, and other prohibited persons from buying guns, gun crime declined 40 percent during his years in office. President Clinton signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993, which enabled more than 20 million Americans to take leave to care for a newborn child or sick family member without fear of losing their job. President Clinton pledged to end welfare as we know it and signed landmark bipartisan welfare reform legislation in 1996. As a result of the booming economy and welcoming job market, welfare caseloads were cut in half, to the lowest level since 1968, millions of parents joined the workforce, and ``welfare is no longer a political issue to be exploited by demagogues, as people on welfare today were five times more likely to b working in 2000 than in 1992. After falling by nearly $2,000 between 1988 and 1992, the median income for families rose by $6,338, after adjusting for inflation during the Clinton years. In that same time, African-American family income increased even more, rising by nearly $7,000 since 1993. After years of stagnant income growth among average and lower income families, all income brackets experienced double-digit growth since 1993, with the bottom quintile enjoying the largest income growth at 16.3 percent. Because Congress passed President Clinton's Economic Plan in 1993, the poverty rate declined from 15.1 percent to 11.8 percent-- the largest six-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years. In 2000, there were seven million fewer people in poverty than when President Clinton took office in 1993. The child poverty rate declined more than 25 percent, the poverty rates for single mothers, African Americans, and the elderly had dropped to their lowest levels on record, and Hispanic poverty dropped to its lowest level since 1979. In his 1995 State of the Union Address, President Clinton challenged Americans to join together in a national campaign against teen pregnancy, which resulted in the birth rate for teens aged 15-19 declining every year of the Clinton Presidency, from 60.7 per 1,000 teens in 1992 to a record low of 49.6 in 1999. Because the Clinton Administration expanded efforts to provide mothers and newborn children with healthcare, a record high 82 percent of all mothers were receiving prenatal care by the time he left office and the infant mortality rate dropped from 8.5 deaths per 1,000 in 1992 to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 in 1998, the lowest rate ever recorded. The accomplishments of President Clinton were just as impressive in the field of national security and foreign affairs. President Clinton understood from the beginning of his presidency that the most pervasive force in our world is globalization and he understood that while globalization is inexorable, its benefits must be harnessed to advance our objectives of democracy, shared prosperity and peace. Under the visionary leadership of President Clinton, America exercised its influence by building with its democratic partners an international system of strong alliances and institutions attuned to the challenges of a globalized world, by ensuring this system is genuinely open to all who adhere to clearly defined standards, and by being ready to stand up for those standards when they are threatened. After the absence of such leadership the last four years, is it not wonderful that the Administration of President Biden also understands that the power of America's example carries more influence than examples of America's power. But let us get back to the story of spectacular leadership and spectacular results. The Clinton-Gore Administration led the international effort to dismantle more than 1,700 nuclear warheads, 300 launchers and 425 land and submarine-based missiles from the former Soviet Union. President Clinton led the revitalization, adaptation, and expansion of NATO from a static Cold War alliance to a magnet for new democracies, with new partners, members and missions; adapted its command structure; admitted Hungary; Poland and the Czech Republic; and created the Partnership for Peace. President Clinton led NATO in its first military engagement and stopped the killing in Bosnia, brokered the peace in the Dayton Accords, leading to a sustained civil society complete with active opposition parties an non-governmental organizations and national and local elections taking place throughout the country. As Commander in Chief, President Clinton took military action in Kosovo to stop genocide, ethnic cleansing, and regional instability, forcing the withdrawal of Serb forces, disbanding the Kosovo Liberation Army, and deploying an international presence in Kosovo--with a 47,000 strong NATO-led force providing security for the province, resulting in the safe and unconditional return of over 900,000 refugees. Under President Clinton, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles were permanently eliminated from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed; in addition, the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention was achieved. Under President Clinton, the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings were brought to justice and the planned terrorist attacks against Millennium celebrations were foiled. President Clinton developed a national counter-terrorism strategy, led by a national coordinator, and the Nation's first national strategy to protect critical infrastructure, and increased funding on critical infrastructure Protection by over 40 percent since 1998. An admirer of Nelson Mandela, a student of his teachings, and a true friend of Africa and the Caribbean, President Clinton was the second American President to visit sub-Sahara Africa, following President Jimmy Carter's visit to Lagos, Nigeria in 1978. As President, Bill Clinton launched and won approval for the African Growth and Opportunity Act to support increased trade and investment between the United States and Africa, strengthen African economies and democratic governments, increase partnerships to counter terrorism, crime, environmental degradation and disease, and for the Caribbean Basin Initiative enhancement legislation to promote economic prosperity in Central America and the Caribbean. Madam Speaker, between 1998 and 2000, the national debt was reduced by $363 billion--the largest three-year debt pay-down in American history and we were on track to pay off the entire debt by 2009 until the fiscal mismanagement of the succeeding administration. President Clinton converted the largest budget deficit in American history to the largest surplus in history; the deficit was $290 billion in 1993 and was expected to grow to $455 billion by 1998 but instead, thanks to the leadership of President Clinton, the United States had a surplus of $237 billion. In the area of the great outdoors and the environment, it should be noted that President Clinton protected more land in the lower 48 states than any other president, protecting 5 new national parks, designating 11 new national monuments, and expanding two others and proposing protections for 60 million acres of roadless areas in America's national forests. During the Clinton years, federal government spending as a share of the economy had decreased from 22.2 percent in 1992 to a projected 18.5 percent in 2000, the lowest since 1966. On a related note, Americans enjoyed the lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years under President Clinton, who enacted targeted tax cuts such as the Earned Income Tax Credit expansion, $500 child tax credit, and the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits. As a candidate, President Clinton pledged that he would have a government ``that looks like the American people,'' and he made true on that commitment and then some. President Clinton appointed more African Americans, women and Hispanics to the Cabinet than any other President in history; he appointed the first female Attorney General, the first female Secretary of State and the first Asian-American cabinet secretary ever. Under his Administration, the outright ban on gays serving in the military was ended and the military's policy of ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' worked so well in allowing LGBTQ service personnel to demonstrate their talents and skills that the policy would later be found to be unnecessary and discarded altogether. Madam Speaker, I have laid out the major reasons why Americans are so appreciative that Bill Clinton served as the 42nd President of the United States, especially for his healing words and actions during the time of the tragic and horrific April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing at the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 persons, including 19 children, and wounded more than 800 others. And as he pledged to the Nation he would, the terrorists who perpetrated this heinous act were brought to justice and punished in accordance with the law. We Democrats thank President Clinton for all that but for much more. Bill Clinton was the unparalleled visionary Democratic political leader of the latter half of the 20th Century. In the presidential election preceding his, the Democratic candidate was beaten in the Electoral College 426-112, losing 40 states, and trailing in the popular vote by 7.8 percentage points and 7 million votes. In the presidential election before that, 1984, the Democratic candidate lost 49 of 50 states, lost the Electoral College 525-13, and lost the popular vote by 18.2 percentage points and 16.8 million votes. The electoral map and political outlook were bleak for the Governor of the ``small southern state of Arkansas'' but he would not be deterred and would not be outworked and did not waver in his conviction that his progressive policies promising shared prosperity and his inclusive vision in which the United States ``did not have a person to waste'' would attract majority support. Madam Speaker, because of the remarkable leadership and success role- modeled by President William Jefferson Clinton, Democrats in Congress and across the Nation know who they are, what they believe, and what is important to fight to achieve or preserve; maybe one day our friends across the aisle will be so lucky. Happy Birthday, President Clinton, and thank you for all you did as the Nation's 42nd President and captain of the ship of state to make our Nation the most prosperous on earth and at peace in the world.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I am very proud to be able to stand here today remembering the Constitution and saying to my good friends that this floor belongs to the American people. This floor is a floor, as John Lewis has often challenged us, that calls upon us to be courageous. I am also here to say to you that I have no doubt that the United States military, with the will of the American people, will ensure that all Americans come out of Afghanistan and our allies. But at the same time, I am grateful for the idea of a build back America act that will have Texas get universal pre-K childcare, tuition-free community college. And then, of course, the invest act that will see us get $537 million for bridges, $100 million for broadband, $3.3 billion for public transit so that our climate can improve. I know that the Texas delegation, State representatives who sacrificed and came to this Nation's Capital to cry out for justice, Texas Democratic representatives who are here in this place now, that H.R. 4 is going to save the day, not partisan, but it is going to make us a democratic Republic. And we need to pass H.R. 4 because John Lewis said: Do you have any courage? Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and an original cosponsor, I rise today in strong support of the Rule governing debate of Senate Amendment to H.R. 3684, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; S. Con. Res. 14, Budget Resolution For Build Back Better Plan; and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Committees on the Judiciary, on Homeland Security, and on the Budget, I rise in strong support of the Rule governing debate of Senate Amendment to H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which represents the most significant long-term investment in the United States' infrastructure and competitiveness in nearly a century. This legislation will make life better for Americans across the country, create a generation of good-paying union jobs, grow our economy, invest in communities that have too often been left behind, and better position the United States to compete globally and win in the 21st century. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, yet after decades of underinvestment, the country's roads, bridges, and water systems are crumbling, and our electric grid is vulnerable to catastrophic outages. Too many families lack access to affordable, high-speed internet, clean drinking water, and public transportation, and too often, past infrastructure investments have disproportionately and negatively impacted low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Investing in our infrastructure--and investing in communities across the country--can create millions of good-paying jobs in underserved areas and lay the groundwork for not only a full economic recovery from the pandemic, but also usher in a new era of American innovation and prosperity. The historic Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act invests $550 billion in new federal investment to make an array of transformational investments in our country's infrastructure including: $121 billion to repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users, including cyclists and pedestrians. $89.9 billion to modernize America's public transit, by increasing routes, reducing the transit maintenance backlog, and providing more frequent service, resulting in better options for riders, improved environmental outcomes, and increased access to jobs and essential destinations. $66 billion to modernize and expand passenger and freight rail networks across the country, to position our railways to play a central role in our transportation and economic future. $15 billion in zero emission and clean buses and ferries and to build the first-ever national network of electric vehicle chargers in the United States, in order to address the adoption of electric vehicles and support domestic manufacturing jobs. $42 billion to modernize our airports, ports, and waterways; $50 billion to weatherize our infrastructure and insulate it against the threats of droughts, floods, and wildfires. $55 billion to drinking water infrastructure, including eliminating the Nation's lead service lines and pipes, thereby delivering clean drinking water to up to ten million American families and more than 400,000 schools and child care facilities that currently do not have it, including in Tribal nations and disadvantaged communities. $65 billion to upgrade our power infrastructure to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy. $21 billion in environmental remediation, making it the largest investment in addressing the legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities and neighborhoods in American history. $65 billion to connect every American to reliable high-speed internet, building on the billions of dollars for broadband deployment in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Across this country, far too many communities are struggling with crumbling roads and structurally unsound bridges, outrageous congestion, lead-coated pipes and no broadband access. The Senate Amendment to H.R. 3684 addresses economic disparities in our economy and the consequences of decades of disinvestment in America's infrastructure that have fallen most heavily on communities of color. Through critical investments, the legislation increases access to good-paying jobs, affordable high-speed internet, reliable public transit, clean drinking water and other resources to ensure communities of color get a fair shot at the American dream. These critical investments are first steps in advancing equity and racial justice throughout our economy. Additional investments are needed in our nation's caregiving infrastructure, housing supply, regional development, and workforce development programs to ensure that communities of color and other underserved communities can access economic opportunity and justice. This bill will address these challenges, and will also deliver much- needed investment to my home state of Texas, making life better for millions of Texas residents. Specifically, under the bill, Texas is expected to receive: $26.9 billion for federal-aid highway apportioned programs and $537 million for bridge replacement and repairs with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users, including cyclists and pedestrians; $3.3 billion over five years to improve public transportation options across the state through healthy, sustainable transportation options for millions of Americans; $408 million over five years to support the expansion of an EV charging network in the state; and Texas will also have the opportunity to apply for the $2.5 billion in grant funding dedicated to EV charging in the bill; A minimum allocation of $100 million to help provide broadband coverage across the state, including providing access to at least 1,058,000 Texans who currently lack it. In addition, 8,381,000 or 29% of people in Texas will be eligible for the Affordability Connectivity Benefit, which will help low-income families afford internet access. Madam Speaker, in sum, I encourage all members to support the Rule governing debate of Senate Amendment to H.R. 3684 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, so that we can invest in strengthening our infrastructure and competitiveness, and do so in a way that creates the good-paying union jobs of the future, addresses long-standing racial and economic injustice, and helps to fight the climate crisis. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Committees on the Judiciary, on Homeland Security, and on the Budget, I rise in strong support of the Rule governing debate of S. Con. Res. 14, which reorders budgetary priorities to provide $3.5 trillion investments to build back better and provides reconciliation instructions to 13 House and 12 Senate committees to support visionary and transformative investments in the health, well-being, and financial security of America's workers and families. It is often said that the federal budget is an expression of the nation's values and the budget resolution before us is a clear declaration of congressional Democrats' commitment to ensuring that our government, our economy, and our systems work For The People. Madam Speaker, these long-overdue investments in America's future will be felt in every corner of the country and across every sector of American life, building on the success of the American Rescue Plan, accommodating historic infrastructure investments in the legislative pipeline, and addressing long-standing deficits in our communities by ending an era of chronic underinvestment so we can emerge from our current crises a stronger, more equitable nation. Should our friends across the aisle join us in this endeavor, it would send a powerful signal to the American people if our colleagues across the aisle would join us in this effort because nothing would better show them that their elected representatives can set partisanship aside and put America first. And that bipartisan achievement would portend success for similar initiatives in the area of strengthening the infrastructure of democracy in which every American has a vital interest, national and homeland security, and criminal justice and immigration reform. I would urge my Republican colleagues to heed the words of Republican Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia who said colorfully several months ago, ``At this point in time in this nation, we need to go big. We need to quit counting the egg-sucking legs on the cows and count the cows and just move. And move forward and move right now.'' The same sentiment was expressed more eloquently by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 when he memorably wrote: ``The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.'' Madam Speaker, the bipartisan action we took in February 2021 when we passed the American Rescue Plan was a giant step in the right direction, but it was a targeted response to the immediate and urgent public health and economic crises; it was not a long-term solution to many of the pressing challenges facing our nation that have built up over decades of disinvestment in our nation and its people in every region and sector of the country. We simply can no longer afford the costs of neglect and inaction; the time to act is now. The Build Back Better Plan makes the transformative investments that we need to continue growing our economy, lower costs for working families, and position the United States as a global leader in innovation and the jobs of the future. This $3.5 trillion gross investment will build on the successes of the American Rescue Plan and set our nation on a path of fiscal responsibility and broadly shared prosperity for generations to come. The Build Back Better Plan will provide resources to improve our education, health, and child care systems, invest in clean energy and sustainability, address the housing crisis, and more; all while setting America up to compete and win in the decades ahead. The Build Back Better Plan is paid for by ensuring that the wealthy and big corporations are paying their fair share and Americans making less than $400,000 a year will not see their taxes increase by a penny. Let me repeat that: No American making less than $400,000 a year will not see their taxes increase by a penny. In sum, Madam Speaker, the investments made by the Build Back Better Plan will expand opportunity for all and build an economy powered by shared prosperity and inclusive growth. Madam Speaker, while I am proud to strongly support this Rule and underlying bill, I would be remiss if I did not express my disappointment at the Rules Committee's decision to not include my amendments to this bill. Jackson Lee Amendments #6, #7, and #8 are easy to understand and vitally important--they simply protect state legislators who, in keeping with their sacred oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, refuse to perform unconstitutional acts under the guise of legislative process. Specifically: Jackson Lee Amendment #6 allows for federal judicial review of any warrants issued for the arrest of a state legislator where said state legislator refuses to engage in the state legislative process due to a reasonably held belief that doing so would infringe on the right to vote. Jackson Lee Amendment #7 inserts a Sense of the Congress stating that a state's power to arrest a duly elected representative of a constituency for refusal to engage in a state's legislative process should be subject to federal judicial review where such elected representative's refusal is premised upon a reasonable belief that participation would result in the suppression of voting rights or other violations of the Constitution of the United States of America. Jackson Lee Amendment #8 privileges against arrest any member of a state legislature for any reason except treason or murder while the legislature of that state is debating or voting on legislation relating to redistricting or election practices or legislation relating to the right to vote in federal, state, or municipal elections. These amendments would have critically strengthened H.R. 4 because state legislatures across the country are utilizing every weapon in their arsenal to curtail voting rights; and no one should fear arrest due to fighting for the Constitutional rights of their constituents. This includes my home state of Texas, where earlier this month officers of the Texas House of Representatives delivered civil arrest warrants, signed by the Texas state Speaker of the House, for more than 50 absent Democrats in an attempt force a vote on the naked attempt at voter suppression known as Texas S.B. 7. This is the latest Republican attack on these brave state legislators, which began on May 30, where after a night of impassioned debate and procedural objections, these Democratic lawmakers in Texas took action to block passage of this massive overhaul of the state's election laws. Since the arrest warrants were issued, it is my understanding that mass intimidation of the Texas House Democrats has occurred. State officials came to their homes with the purpose of dragging them back to eviscerate the voting rights of thousands of Texans. These elected Texas Representatives have had to hide away from their friends, their families, and their loved ones, all to ensure that Texans retain their most sacred of rights. They are risking their freedom to ensure every Texan has full access to their constitutional right to vote. Texas Republicans seek to pass voting regulation laws focused on diverse, urban areas, by setting rules for the distribution of polling places in only the handful of counties with a population of at least 1 million--most of which are either under Democratic control or won by Democrats in recent national and statewide elections. Standing between all of this and the voting rights of thousands of Texans are those brave state legislators who currently have a warrant out for their arrest. No elected representative in this great nation should fear that he or she will be locked away for simply standing up for justice and ensuring that America's citizens have the right to vote. For this reason, I believe that H.R. 4 would have been greatly strengthened by the inclusion of my amendments in the Rule. I strongly encourage all Members of Congress to support this Rule and the underlying bill, because it is the responsibility and sacred duty of all members of Congress who revere democracy to preserve, protect, and expand the precious right to vote of all Americans by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Madam Speaker, I am here today to remind the nation that the need to pass this legislation is urgent because the right to vote--that ``powerful instrument that can break down the walls of injustice''-- faces grave threats. The threat stems from the decision issued in June 2013 by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b) of the VRA, and paralyzed the application of the VRA's Section 5 preclearance requirements. Not to be content with the monument to disgrace that is the Shelby County decision, the activist right-wing conservative majority on the Roberts Court, on July 1, 2021, issued its evil twin, the decision in Brnovich v. DNC, 594 U.S. __, No. 19-1257 and 19-1258 (July 1, 2021), which engrafts on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act onerous burdens that Congress never intended and explicitly legislated against. Madam Speaker, were it not for the 24th Amendment, I venture to say that this conservative majority on the Court would subject poll taxes and literacy tests to the review standard enunciated in Brnovich v. DNC. According to the Supreme Court majority, the reason for striking down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was that ``times change.'' Now, the Court was right; times have changed. But what the Court did not fully appreciate is that the positive changes it cited are due almost entirely to the existence and vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. And that is why the Voting Rights Act is still needed and that is why we must pass H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Let me put it this way: in the same way that the vaccine invented by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1953 eradicated the crippling effects but did not eliminate the cause of polio, the Voting Rights Act succeeded in stymieing the practices that resulted in the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans and language minorities but did not eliminate them entirely. The Voting Rights Act is needed as much today to prevent another epidemic of voting disenfranchisement as Dr. Salk's vaccine is still needed to prevent another polio epidemic. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated in Shelby County v. Holder, ``[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.'' For millions of Americans, the right to vote protected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a sacred treasure, earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish extraordinary things. I strongly encourage all Members of Congress to support this bill, because it is the responsibility and sacred duty of all members of Congress who revere democracy to preserve, protect, and expand the precious right to vote of all Americans by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article with breaking news: The Texas Speaker of the House signs arrest warrants for absent Democrats in bid to end chamber's weekslong stalemate to fight against suppression and oppression in S.B. 7. [From the Texas Tribune, Aug. 10, 2021] Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan Signs Arrest Warrants for Absent Democrats in Bid To End Chamber's Weekslong Stalemate (By Cassandra Pollock and Patrick Svitek) House Speaker Dade Phelan signed arrest warrants Tuesday evening for Democrats who broke quorum to block a controversial GOP elections bill. The warrants will be delivered to the House Sergeant-at-Arms Wednesday. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune. Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan on Tuesday evening signed civil arrest warrants for 52 House Democrats still missing from the state Capitol as he aimed to regain the quorum needed for the chamber to begin moving legislation during the second special session. The move was confirmed by Phelan spokesperson Enrique Marquez, who said the warrants ``will be delivered to the House Sergeant-at-Arms tomorrow morning for service.'' The warrants were first reported by The Dallas Morning News. Democrats who may be arrested would not face criminal charges or fines and could only be brought to the House chamber. Dozens of minority party members fled to Washington, D.C., during the first special session to block a GOP voting restrictions bill. The 52 warrants represent all but 15 Democrats in the lower chamber. There were at least 11 present Tuesday. There were no additional new Democrats on the floor Tuesday after four returned a day earlier--and drew the wrath of some Democratic colleagues still in Washington, and prompted a renewed push inside the party to hold the line. Earlier Tuesday, the House voted overwhelmingly to authorize law enforcement to track down lawmakers absent from the chamber. That 80-12 vote came hours after the Texas Supreme Court ordered that those missing Democrats could soon be detained by state authorities. The order by the all-GOP court came at the request of Gov. Greg Abbott and Phelan, both of whom had asked the court Monday to overturn a ruling from a state district judge that blocked those leaders from ordering the arrest of the quorum-breaking Democrats. In a statement after the warrants were signed Tuesday evening, state Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, said it is ``fully within our rights as legislators to break quorum to protect our constituents'' and reiterated Democrats' commitment ``to fighting with everything we have against Republicans' attacks on our freedom to vote.'' Since the Legislature gaveled in Saturday for its second special session ordered by Abbott, the House has been unable to make a quorum as dozens of Democrats have remained absent from the chamber. When the House was unable to meet its 100-member threshold to conduct business Monday, members adopted a procedural move known as a ``call of the House'' in an effort to secure a quorum. That move locks doors to the chamber and prevents members on the floor from leaving unless they have permission in writing from the speaker. That vote earlier Tuesday marks the second time in recent weeks that the chamber has voted to send law enforcement after Democrats still missing from the House. During the first special session in July, and after more than 50 House Democrats flew to D.C., members present authorized state authorities to track down their colleagues-- but the move carried little weight since Texas law enforcement lacks jurisdiction outside the state. By the time that first 30-day stretch ended last week, Phelan had signed only one civil arrest warrant, for Rep. Philip Cortez, a San Antonio Democrat. But that move came too late since Cortez, who had briefly returned to Austin, had already gone back to the nation's capital. Intraparty pressure has been mounting on House Democrats since the second special session started. After at least four of them returned to the floor Monday, bringing the chamber within five members of a quorum, some of their Democratic colleagues who were still in Washington unleashed on them. Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos of Richardson tweeted at the returning Democrats that they ``all threw us under the bus today.'' Pressure ramped up Tuesday morning, when a coalition of Democratic-aligned groups released a statement urging House Democrats to hold firm and continue breaking quorum. The 21 groups included Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the state's Sierra Club chapter, the Texas Organizing Project, Progress Texas, the Communications Workers of America and several groups that advocate for Latino Texans. ``To every pro-democracy Texas lawmaker: the only way to preserve our right to vote and the best way to fight is to stay off the House floor,'' the coalition's statement said. The group also released a four-page memo arguing that far more was at stake in the second special session than just the elections bill, citing a ``host of radical conservative priorities'' throughout the agenda. The memo was particularly emphatic about a new proposal for the second special session--dropping the quorum threshold to a simple majority-- calling it an ``ominous allusion to reducing or eliminating minority rights in the Legislature, breaking centuries of Texas bipartisanship.'' Meanwhile, a number of House Democrats have returned to Texas but have not come to the House floor to help provide quorum. One of them is state Rep. Evelina ``Lina'' Ortega, who says she is home in El Paso but not showing up on the House floor until there is already a quorum or a majority of the Democratic caucus decides to be there. ``I pretty much feel that it's a shame that the governor and Republicans . . . are really using the dirtiest tactic available to them,'' Ortega told the Tribune on Tuesday evening after the House's vote to send law enforcement after the absentee Democrats. ``To me it's all about a power grab. I'm glad to stay away and continue to fight them.'' As for whether she is concerned about arrest, Ortega said she believes it would be a ``big mistake'' by Republicans. ``We'll see what happens,'' she said.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. This is John Lewis, and he says: ``We will stand up for what is right, for what is fair, and what is just,'' and we will ensure that we have courage, the kind of courage that is ``raw courage.'' Today, I ask my Republican colleagues to reject the big lie, to reject the insurrection, and to reject the idea that there is not voter suppression. I stand with H.R. 4, a bill that is the continuation of the reauthorization that I have done over the years as a member of the Judiciary Committee. I thank Chairman Nadler, Chairman Cohen, Terri Sewell, all those who are part of this great effort, and our whip. But the real important point is that we give the vote back to the American people, to the disabled, to young people, to senior citizens, and we reject that unfortunate statement. The State of Texas attorney general, the secretary of state, never found any fraud in the election, in particular in 2020. I am very glad that this will particularly have the look-back. It will protect us against such dilution and diminution. This is a bill that has to pass, and the Senate has to pass it. Give the vote back to the American people. Have raw courage. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and an original cosponsor, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which corrects the damage done in recent years to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and commits the national government to protecting the right of all Americans to vote free from discrimination and without injustices that previously prevented them from exercising this most fundamental right of citizenship. I thank my colleague, Congresswoman Terri Sewell of Alabama for introducing this legislation, to Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Nadler, and the Democratic leadership, and to the many colleagues and countless number of ordinary Americans who never stopped agitating and working to protect the precious right to vote. Madam Speaker, in response to the Supreme Court's invitation in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), H.R. 4 provides a new coverage formula based on ``current conditions'' and creates a new coverage formula that hinges on a finding of repeated voting rights violations in the preceding 25 years. It is significant that this 25-year period is measured on a rolling basis to keep up with ``current conditions,'' so only states and political subdivisions that have a recent record of racial discrimination in voting are covered. States and political subdivisions that qualify for preclearance will be covered for a period of 10 years, but if they have a clean record during that time period, they can be extracted from coverage. H.R. 4 also establishes ``practice-based preclearance,'' which would focus administrative or judicial review narrowly on suspect practices that are most likely to be tainted by discriminatory intent or to have discriminatory effects, as demonstrated by a broad historical record. Under the bill, this process of reviewing changes in voting is limited to a set of specific practices, including such things as: 1. Changes to the methods of elections (to or from at-large elections) in areas that are racially, ethnically, or linguistically diverse. 2. Redistricting in areas that are racially, ethnically, or linguistically diverse. 3. Reducing, consolidating, or relocating polling in areas that are racially, ethnically, or linguistically diverse; and 4. Changes in documentation or requirements to vote or to register. Madam Speaker, while I am proud to strongly support this bill, I would be remiss if I did not express my disappointment at the decision to not include my amendments to this bill. Jackson Lee Amendments #6, #7, and #8 are easy to understand and vitally important--they simply protect state legislators who, in keeping with their sacred oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, refuse to perform unconstitutional acts under the guise of legislative process. Specifically: Jackson Lee Amendment #6 allows for federal judicial review of any warrants issued for the arrest of a state legislator where said state legislator refuses to engage in the state legislative process due to a reasonably held belief that doing so would infringe on the right to vote. Jackson Lee Amendment #7 inserts a Sense of the Congress stating that a state's power to arrest a duly elected representative of a constituency for refusal to engage in a state's legislative process should be subject to federal judicial review where such elected representative's refusal is premised upon a reasonable belief that participation would result in the suppression of voting rights or other violations of the Constitution of the United States of America. Jackson Lee Amendment #8 privileges against arrest any member of a state legislature for any reason except treason or murder while the legislature of that state is debating or voting on legislation relating to redistricting or election practices or legislation relating to the right to vote in federal, state, or municipal elections. These amendments would have critically strengthened H.R. 4 because state legislatures across the country are utilizing every weapon in their arsenal to curtail voting rights; and no one should fear arrest due to fighting for the Constitutional rights of their constituents. This includes my home state of Texas, where earlier this month officers of the Texas House of Representatives delivered civil arrest warrants, signed by the Texas state Speaker of the House, for more than 50 absent Democrats in an attempt force a vote on the naked attempt at voter suppression known as Texas S.B. 7. This is the latest Republican attack on these brave state legislators, which began on May 30, where after a night of impassioned debate and procedural objections, these Democratic lawmakers in Texas took action to block passage of this massive overhaul of the state's election laws. With little more than an hour before the voting deadline, these Democrats staged a walkout, depriving their Republican colleagues of the 100-member quorum needed to pass the measure. And when Governor Abbot called a special session in Texas for the purpose of passing horrific voter suppression legislation, those brave Texas Democrats rose to the challenge again and broke quorum. Under the threat of arrest, those heroes fighting for voting rights have escaped to Washington, D.C. Since the arrest warrants were issued, it is my understanding that mass intimidation of the Texas House Democrats has occurred. State officials came to their homes with the purpose of dragging them back to eviscerate the voting rights of thousands of Texas. These elected Texas Representatives have had to hide away from their friends, their families, and their loved ones, all to ensure that Texans retain their most sacred of rights. They are risking their freedom to ensure every Texan has full access to their constitutional right to vote. Although the Republicans have tried to spin this in many different ways, let's be clear--Texas Democrats are taking a righteous stand for our democracy. Breaking quorum isn't an easy choice--legislators must leave family, friends, constituents, and their important work for days or weeks. But by making this choice, these Texas Democrats are fighting for all of us, because voting is not a partisan issue. Access to the ballot is a sacred cornerstone of our democracy, and we must protect it at all costs. Last month marked one year since we lost a champion for voting rights, and the namesake of H.R. 4, Congressman John Lewis. In his final words, he reminded us that, ``the vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent [we] have in a democratic society,'' and that ``Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.'' We may no longer have John Lewis with us, but in his absence, the Texas Democrats are following his example, and stirring up good trouble, necessary trouble, for our right to vote. They have followed the truth in his words and have sacrificed much to follow the highest calling of their hearts. Texas Republicans seek to pass voting regulation laws focused on diverse, urban areas, by setting rules for the distribution of polling places in only the handful of counties with a population of at least 1 million--most of which are either under Democratic control or won by Democrats in recent national and statewide elections. These bills would limit extended early voting hours, prohibits drive- thru voting and makes it illegal for local election officials to proactively send applications to vote by mail to voters, even if they qualify. These bills are at the forefront of Texas Republicans' crusade to further restrict voting in Texas, which saw the highest turnout in decades in 2020, with Democrats continuing to drive up their vote counts in the state's urban centers and diversifying suburban communities. Standing between all of this and the voting rights of thousands of Texans are those brave state legislators who currently have a warrant out for their arrest. No elected representative in this great nation should fear that he or she will be locked away for simply standing up for justice and ensuring that America's citizens have the right to vote. For this reason, I believe that H.R. 4 would have been greatly strengthened by the inclusion of my amendments in the Rule. Madam Speaker, I strongly encourage all Members of Congress to support this bill, because it is the responsibility and sacred duty of all members of Congress who revere democracy to preserve, protect, and expand the precious right to vote of all Americans by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It is useful, Madam Speaker, to recount how we arrived at this day. Madam Speaker, fifty-six years ago, in Selma, Alabama, hundreds of heroic souls risked their lives for freedom and to secure the right to vote for all Americans by their participation in marches for voting rights on ``Bloody Sunday,'' ``Turnaround Tuesday,'' or the final, completed march from Selma to Montgomery. Those ``foot soldiers'' of Selma, brave and determined men and women, boys and girls, persons of all races and creeds, loved their country so much that they were willing to risk their lives to make it better, to bring it even closer to its founding ideals. The foot soldiers marched because they believed that all persons have dignity and the right to equal treatment under the law, and in the making of the laws, which is the fundamental essence of the right to vote. On that day, Sunday, March 7, 1965, more than 600 civil rights demonstrators, including our beloved colleague, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia for whom this important legislation is named, were brutally attacked by state and local police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they marched from Selma to Montgomery in support of the right to vote. ``Bloody Sunday'' was a defining moment in American history because it crystallized for the nation the necessity of enacting a strong and effective federal law to protect the right to vote of every American. No one who witnessed the violence and brutally suffered by the foot soldiers for justice who gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge will never forget it; the images are deeply seared in the American memory and experience. On August 6, 1965, in the Rotunda of the Capitol President Johnson addressed the nation before signing the Voting Rights Act: The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was critical to preventing brazen voter discrimination violations that historically left millions of African Americans disenfranchised. In 1940, for example, there were less than 30,000 African Americans registered to vote in Texas and only about 3 percent of African Americans living in the South were registered to vote. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and threats of violence were the major causes of these racially discriminatory results. After passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which prohibited these discriminatory practices, registration and electoral participation steadily increased to the point that by 2012, more than 1.2 million African Americans living in Texas were registered to vote. In 1964, the year before the Voting Rights Act became law, there were approximately 300 African-Americans in public office, including just three in Congress. Few, if any, African Americans held elective office anywhere in the South. Because of the Voting Rights Act, in 2007 there were more than 9,100 black elected officials, including 46 members of Congress, the largest number ever. Madam Speaker, the Voting Rights Act opened the political process for many of the approximately 6,000 Hispanic public officials that have been elected and appointed nationwide, including more than 275 at the state or federal level, 32 of whom serve in Congress. Native Americans, Asians and others who have historically encountered harsh barriers to full political participation also have benefited greatly. The crown jewel of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is Section 5, which requires that states and localities with a chronic record of discrimination in voting practices secure federal approval before making any changes to voting processes. The preclearance requirement of Section 5 protects minority voting rights where voter discrimination has historically been the worst. Between 1982 and 2006, Section 5 stopped more than 1,000 discriminatory voting changes in their tracks, including 107 discriminatory changes right here in Texas. Passed in 1965 with the extraordinary leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, the greatest legislative genius of our lifetime, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was bringing dramatic change in many states across the South. But in 1972, change was not coming fast enough or in many places in Texas. In fact, Texas, which had never elected a woman to Congress or an African American to the Texas State Senate, was not covered by Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the language minorities living in South Texas were not protected at all. But thanks to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Barbara Jordan was elected to Congress, giving meaning to the promise of the Voting Rights Act that all citizens would at long last have the right to cast a vote for person of their community, from their community, for their community. Madam Speaker, it is a source of eternal pride to all of us in Houston that in pursuit of extending the full measure of citizenship to all Americans, in 1975 Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who also represented this historic 18th Congressional District of Texas, introduced, and the Congress adopted, what are now Sections 4(f)(3) and 4(f)(4) of the Voting Rights Act, which extended the protections of Section 4(a) and Section 5 to language minorities. We must remain ever vigilant and oppose all schemes that will abridge or dilute the precious right to vote. Madam Speaker, I am here today to remind the nation that the need to pass this legislation is urgent because the right to vote--that ``powerful instrument that can break down the walls of injustice''-- faces grave threats. The threats stem from the decision issued in June 2013 by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 193 (2013), which invalidated Section 4(b) of the VRA, and paralyzed the application of the VRA's Section 5 preclearance requirements. Not to be content with the monument to disgrace that is the Shelby County decision, the activist right-wing conservative majority on the Roberts Court, on July 1, 2021, issued its evil twin, the decision in Brnovich v. DNC, 594 U.S. __, No. 19-1257 and 19-1258 (July 1, 2021), which engrafts on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act onerous burdens that Congress never intended and explicitly legislated against. Madam Speaker, were it not for the 24th Amendment, I venture to say that this conservative majority on the Court would subject poll taxes and literacy tests to the review standard enunciated in Brnovich v. DNC. According to the Supreme Court majority, the reason for striking down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was that ``times change.'' Now, the Court was right; times have changed. But what the Court did not fully appreciate is that the positive changes it cited are due almost entirely to the existence and vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. And that is why the Voting Rights Act is still needed and that is why we must pass H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Let me put it this way: in the same way that the vaccine invented by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1953 eradicated the crippling effects but did not eliminate the cause of polio, the Voting Rights Act succeeded in stymieing the practices that resulted in the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans and language minorities but did not eliminate them entirely. The Voting Rights Act is needed as much today to prevent another epidemic of voting disenfranchisement as Dr. Salk's vaccine is still needed to prevent another polio epidemic. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated in Shelby County v. Holder, ``[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.'' Madam Speaker, in many ways my home state of Texas is ground-zero for testing and perfecting schemes to deprive communities of color and language minorities of the right to vote and to have their votes counted. Consider what has transpired in Texas in recent past, let alone the noxious voter suppression bill, SB7, it is currently trying to ramrod through the legislature. Only 68 percent of eligible voters are registered in Texas and state restrictions on third party registration, such as the Volunteer Deputy Registrar program, exacerbate the systemic disenfranchisement of minority communities. These types of programs are often aimed at minority and underserved communities that, for many, many other reasons (like demonization by the president, for example) or mistrust of law enforcement are afraid to live as openly as they should. In Harris County, we had a system where voters were getting purged from the rolls, effectively requiring people to keep active their registrations and hundreds of polling locations closed in Texas, significantly more in number and percentage than any other state. In addition, the Texas Election Code only requires a 72-hour notice of polling location changes. Next, take what happened here in Texas in 2019 when the Texas Secretary of State claimed that his office had identified 95,000 possible noncitizens on the voter rolls and gave the list to the Texas State Attorney General for possible prosecution--leading to a claim from President Trump about widespread voter fraud and outrage from Democrats and activist groups. The only problem was that list was not accurate. At least 20,000 names turned out to be there by mistake, leading to chaos, confusion, and concern that people's eligibility vote was being questioned based on flawed data. The list was made through state records going back to 1996 that show which Texas residents were not citizens when they got a driver's license or other state ID. But many of the persons who may have had green cards or work visas at the time they got a Texas ID are on the secretary of state's office's list, and many have become citizens since then since nearly 50,000 people become naturalized U.S. citizens in Texas annually. Latinos made up a big portion of the 95,000-person list. Texas Republicans adopted racial and partisan gerrymandered congressional, State legislative redistricting plans that federal courts have ruled violate the Voting Rights Act and were drawn with discriminatory intent. Even after changes were demanded by the courts, much of the damage was already done. Reversing the position by the Obama administration, the Trump Department of [in]Justice represented to a federal court that it no longer believed past discrimination by Texas officials should require the state to get outside approval for redistricting maps that will be drawn in 2021. In addition to affirmative ways to making it harder to vote, we also know face other odious impediments in Texas. Those of us who cherish the right to vote justifiably are skeptical of voter ID laws because we understand how these laws, like poll taxes and literacy tests, can be used to impede or negate the ability of seniors, racial and language minorities, and young people to cast their votes. This is the harm that can be done without preclearance, so on a federal level, there is an impetus to act. Consider the demographic groups who lack a government issued ID: 1. African Americans: 25 percent 2. Asian Americans: 20 percent 3. Hispanic Americans: 19 percent 4. Young people, aged 18-24: 18 percent 5. Persons with incomes less than $35,000: 15 percent And there are other ways abridging or suppressing the right to vote, including: 1. Curtailing or eliminating early voting. 2. Ending same-day registration. 3. Not counting provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct on Election Day will not count. 4. Eliminating adolescent pre-registration. 5. Shortening poll hours. 6. Lessening the standards governing voter challenges thus allowing self-proclaimed ``ballot security vigilantes'' like the King Street Patriots to cause trouble at the polls. The malevolent practice of voter purging is not limited to Texas; we saw it in 2018 in Georgia, where then Secretary of State and now Governor Brian Kemp purged more than 53,000 persons from the voter, nearly the exact margin of his narrow win over his opponent, Stacy Abrams in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Voter purging is a sinister and malevolent practice visited on voters, who are disproportionately members of communities of color, by state and local election officials. This practice, which would have not passed muster under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, has proliferated in the years since the Supreme Court neutralized the preclearance provision, or as Justice Ginsburg observed in Shelby County v. Holder, ``threw out the umbrella'' of protection. Madam Speaker, citizens in my congressional district and elsewhere know and have experienced the pain and heartbreak of receiving a letter from state or local election officials that they have been removed from the election rolls, or worse, learn this fact on Election Day. That is why I am very pleased that H.R. 4 includes language that I worked hard to include in the Manager's Amendment to the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019 that strengthens the bill's ``practice-based preclearance'' provisions by adding specifically to the preclearance provision, voting practices that add a new basis or process for removing a name from the list of active registered voters and the practice of reducing the days or hours of in-person voting on Sundays during an early voting period. For millions of Americans, the right to vote protected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a sacred treasure, earned by the sweat and toil and tears and blood of ordinary Americans who showed the world it was possible to accomplish extraordinary things. Madam Speaker, it is the responsibility and sacred duty of all members of Congress who revere democracy to preserve, protect, and expand the precious right to vote of all Americans by passing H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to thank the Capitol Police and all of those who really created a miracle in the midst of a potential bomb threat just about a week ago here in the United States Capitol again, and to thank them for their astuteness and to recognize that, in spite of all of our commentary from our friends on the other side about the border, that the most serious threat here in the United States is domestic terrorism, and there evidenced an individual, whatever his condition was, wanting to bomb the Capitol. I thank them for their honest and serious work and again credit them for their leadership. Finally, let me say that as we move toward the Voting Rights Act, H.R. 4, it is crucial because Texas Democratic representatives will be here over the next 2 days, the same people who had a civil arrest and were stalked in their own State because they refused to go to a session that was nothing but denying rights to vote to Texans--minorities, ethnic minorities, language minorities, denying them the right to vote. H.R. 4 is crucial. I thank them for their bravery and their service. Let's get on with passing H.R. 4.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 86th anniversary of the passage of the landmark Social Security Act of 1935, the most famous of the New Deal measures and perhaps the most beneficial and consequential government program in American history. On August 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act of 1935 and made good on the Democratic Party's commitment to provide income security to Americans in their old age. Social Security has transformed what it means to grow old in this country. For 86 years, Social Security has represented a bedrock promise to the American people: that a lifetime of work will be rewarded with the peace of mind, certainty, and sense of security of a stable retirement. As we celebrate the 86th anniversary of the Social Security Act of 1935, we should reflect also on the real-life transformative impact America's most successful program continues to have on millions of Americans each year. Social Security has been a stable and secure source of income for millions of seniors and families, many of whom desperately need it, over these last more than seven decades. In the 18th Congressional District of Texas, Social Security is the primary economic lifeline for more than 91,000 seniors and disabled persons. Social Security's economic impact also goes well beyond the seniors and families receiving benefits. It also benefits state economies and local businesses all across the country. In the 18th Congressional District of Texas, Social Security recipients inject more than $97 million into the local economy annually; nationwide, this figure is $775 billion. When more than 58 million Americans use the purchasing power of those benefits, they are supporting businesses with dollars they would not have without Social Security. Madam Speaker, far too often overlooked is the seismic impact that Social Security has had in shaping our national economy and the structure of life chances for hundreds of millions of Americans through the years. Before Social Security, children were wholly responsible for the care and support of aging parents, which meant they were tethered to the towns, villages, communities, and rural areas where they grew up and their parents resided. Madam Speaker, before passage of the Social Security Act, it was very rare for children to leave their hometown to attend college in a city far away and after graduating move to another place far away to start a career, take a job, or begin a business. The Social Security Act of 1935 changed that, not only by providing financial support to aging parents but by providing their children the opportunity to chase their dreams, realize their full potential, and use their skills and talents to make America better by providing the peace of mind that their beloved parents would not be financially destitute in their golden years. Those children would go on to invent new industries creating millions of good jobs, discover life-saving vaccines, design and build systems that won the Cold War and put a man on the Moon and brought him back to Earth, and vastly broadened the frontiers of knowledge. This is also the legacy of Social Security, the visionary social program of FDR's New Deal that helped make America the world's leading superpower. It is shameful that there are congressional Republicans who continue to promote various plans to privatize or partially privatize Social Security--plans that would rob seniors of the economic security they count on. Over the last 86 years, House Democrats have protected and strengthened Social Security; and now and in the future, House Democrats will always act to preserve Social Security and safeguard the rights of our nation's seniors and will extend similar protection to America's children by making permanent the Child Tax Credit, what in future years will come to be known as ``Social Security for Children.'' And as we look to the future, we can celebrate that what was put in place in 1935 with the Social Security Act of 1935 has given us the foundation for a secure and prosperous future for all Americans.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of this body and the Committee on the Judiciary, as a witness to some of the revolutionary social and political changes in American life and society, and as a legislator dedicated to advancing public policies that improve the quality of life for all Americans and that make equality of opportunity and equal justice for all not just a virtue but a fact of American life, I rise to pay tribute to an unsung hero of the American Experiment, Jesse Frank Berry, who died at his home in Rockville, Maryland on Monday, August 9, 2021, at the age of 88. In these tumultuous days of crisis and challenge, Members of Congress know well, perhaps better than most, how blessed our nation is to have such exceptional men and women who will go on to become leaders in their local communities, states, and the nation in the areas of business, education, law, government, philanthropy, the arts and culture, and the military. We know this because we see them and benefit from their contributions every day as they serve the American people in our offices doing amazing work as congressional staff members. What produces such persons and inspires them to want to do what they do and to do it so well? Madam Speaker, as Occam's razor posits, the answer is pretty simple and straightforward; they come from all over the nation, and they are produced and nurtured and inspired by their first role-models and heroes: their mothers and fathers. The life of Jesse Frank Berry, the father of my Chief Counsel, illustrates this perfectly, and I want to share briefly with all Members his accomplishments and experiences that provided so much pride and motivation to his four children, five. grandchildren, three great- grandchildren, his siblings, surviving relatives, friends and loved ones, and the thousands of persons he never met. Jesse Frank Berry was born on September 13, 1932, in Asheville, North Carolina, the first of the five children of Thomas and Eva Berry, descendants of South Carolina slaves and sharecroppers who survived daily indignities and injustices and nightly reigns of terror and violence. Jesse Berry's family was part of the historic ``Great Migration'' that saw millions of black Americans migrate from the de jure segregated rural South in search of greater economic opportunity and freedom in the urban North. The family of Jesse Berry, parents and siblings Dorothy, Doris, Thomas Leon, and Elmira, settled in on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, in what is today the 11th Congressional District of Ohio, the district that sent Louis Stokes to the House of Representatives as Ohio's first African American congressman. While Jesse Berry's father provided for the family working as mechanic and handyman and his mother provided a loving home, Jesse took advantage of the opportunity to attend school beyond the elementary grades and excelled in mathematics, mechanical design, and drafting as a student at East Tech High School, the alma mater of another and more famous Jesse, the legendary Olympic champion Jesse Owens, who did as much as anyone to discredit on the world stage Adolf Hitler's false creed of white supremacy and his big lie that Aryans were the master race. After graduating from high school, Jesse Berry worked at a local factory in Cleveland for several years before being called to serve his country during the Korean War, where he served in the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army. In December 1953, Jesse Berry married Bonnie Agnew and to this union was born four children, sons Jeffrey Thomas, Gregory Alan, Michael Leonard, and daughter Bonnie Eileen, all of whom would later go on to graduate from college and lead productive and constructive lives as lawyers, professors and teachers, serviceman, health counselors, and entertainment industry entrepreneurs. In 1959, Jesse Berry and his wife Bonnie led what would soon be another great migration, heading west to California where Jesse had been accepted into the prestigious electrical engineering program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, which he was able to finance with the G.I. Bill benefits he earned for his active duty service in the U.S. Army. He would later earn a master's degree in electronic engineering from California State University at Long Beach. After graduating from USC in 1962, Jesse Berry began his career as an electronic engineer, designing submarine sonar systems that were vital in securing America's victory in the Cold War, working for several of the country's leading aerospace companies and defense contractors, including Hughes Aircraft, North American Rockwell, General Dynamics, and Honeywell. But while America was engaged in the Cold War on the international stage, domestically the demand of the Civil Rights Movement for a new social order of equal justice and opportunity for all was raging. As Bob Dylan put it so memorably in his immortal ``The Times They are a-Changin'': The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is rapidly fadin' And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin' Patriotic but ordinary Americans of goodwill, who deeply loved their country but harboring a passion for justice answered the call. And in that number was Jesse Berry, the electronic engineer and sonar systems expert, who was active in the local Urban League and civil rights groups. Because of his exceptional organizing and logistical skills, Jesse Berry was elected to serve as President of the NAACP for the Orange County, California chapter, where he spearheaded voting registration drives, educational symposia, awareness events, and consulted with civil rights leaders from across the state and around the country. In April 1968, violence and destruction swept many areas of the nation following the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, but the city of Santa Ana in Orange County, California, was left unscathed. That is due in no small measure to the wise counsel and guidance the heartbroken and anguished black residents of the city received from their respected leader, Jesse Berry, who organized a memorial service at the local municipal stadium attended by thousands who comported themselves with dignity out of respect and acceptance of Dr. King's philosophy of nonviolence. The following year Jesse Berry would make history becoming the first African American to win elective office in Orange County, California, securing a seat on the Santa Ana Board of Education. Throughout his life, Jesse Berry was the person that friends, neighbors, relatives, and persons who only knew him by reputation, went to for wisdom, advice, guidance, encouragement, or assistance. But despite the pressing demands on his time and for his attention, Jesse Berry always remembered he was a dad to four children, stressing the importance of a good education and instilling in them a love of learning, showing them how to solve story problems and helping them with their homework, teaching them to swim, and to play baseball and not to be judgmental but to treat all persons with respect and dignity. One of the things that was most dear to Jesse Berry was his love of nature and history; on cross-country trips back to visit relatives, he would often take detours and make side trips so his children could visit and experience the places and events that shape so much of their lives and instill in them a sense of wonder, awe, and appreciation. So it was not at all unusual for Jesse Berry to regard Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Yosemite's Half Dome or Yellowstone's Ol' Faithful, the Badlands of South Dakota, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, the Petrified Forest, New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns, Gettysburg, the Missouri Courthouse where the case of Dred Scott was decided, and United States Capitol as on the way from Los Angeles to Cleveland. And Jesse Berry delighted in photographing these events to chronicle the adventure and relive the good times with his friends and neighbors as they watched the slideshow on his projection screen that he was the first to own. Madam Speaker, the life of Jesse Frank Berry reflects so much the experiences of the ancestors of millions of persons of color in our great nation. Jesse Berry lived through 16 presidents, 5 wars, the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2008, the era of Jim Crow and the Great Society, the transcendent presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the first black president, and the election of Kamala Harris, the first woman and person of color elected Vice-President of the United States. Jesse Berry knew the anger and resentment that comes naturally to one whose family has been refused accommodations at motel or service in a restaurant because of their race. Jesse Berry knew the pride of wearing the uniform of his country even though at the time he was denied many of the rights he was willing to risk his life to defend. He knew the sacrifice it took to become the first in his family to graduate from college and the satisfaction that comes with the realization of a longheld goal. Jesse Berry never lost faith in his country; instead, he worked to do his part to help it live up to the true meaning of its creed that all persons are created equal, and he passed that conviction and determination on to his children and everyone he touched during his remarkable nearly nine decade sojourn--on earth. Madam Speaker, like so many others stretching all the way back to Saul, Jesse Berry ran the great race, he finished the course, he kept the faith, and he has now gone on to his great reward. We can all find solace in the words of the philosopher Sophocles who said: One must wait until the evening to know how splendid the day has been. To Jesse's widow, Mazel Pernell, his siblings, children, relatives, neighbors, friends, and loves ones, but especially to his beloved grandchildren Samantha, Shyeita, Michael, Connor, and Jesse, and his great-grandchildren Alexis, Desmond, and Sydney, I hope it is a comfort to you that so many persons share your grief and are mourning the loss of a truly consequential life well lived. I ask the House to observe a moment of silence in memory of Jesse Frank Berry, who spent his life in service to his Lord, his family, his friends, communities, and to the nation.

Ms. JACKSON LEE

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of the nation's greatest presidents, Barack Obama, who turns 60 years old. It is fitting and proper that we take a moment to recount and appreciate the extraordinary accomplishments of President Barack Obama, the 44th president and one of the singular figures in American history. Madam Speaker, I remember that cold morning of January 20, 2009, one of the coldest days on record in Washington, D.C. But it was nothing compared to the chill wind blowing through the American economy and body politic. The nation was facing economic challenges unseen since the Great Depression: Americans were losing their jobs at a frightening rate of 800,000 per month; the national unemployment rate had risen to 7.8 percent and would continue to climb until reaching its peak of 10.0 percent in October 2009. For African Americans, the numbers were much grimmer, a jobless rate of 13.5 percent in January 2009 which would grow to 16.5 percent by the end of the year. And on top of this, tens of thousands of American families each month were losing their health insurance and their homes to foreclosure. The United States was still bogged down in the quagmire that was the Iraq War and young people by the thousands were being forced to defer or drop out of college because of lack of financial aid. And the average price of gas exceeded $4 per gallon. It was against this backdrop that I watched from the inaugural platform as Barack Obama, surrounded by his radiant and beautiful wife, Michelle, and their two adorable daughters, rose to take the oath of office. After being sworn in as the nation's 44th President of the United States, President Obama reassured an anxious but hopeful nation, saying: ``Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met.'' Watching Barack Obama address the nation that day, spectators in attendance and viewers across the country and around the world understood they were witnessing a historic president, the first African American ever to hold the nation's highest office. But more than being a historic president, Barack Obama's actions and leadership over the ensuing eight years would demonstrate his would be a consequential presidency that changed America for the better. His first and most pressing task was to rescue an economy on the brink of collapse. Working with the Democratic-controlled Congress, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed, which created 3.7 million jobs and saved the jobs of millions of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and social service providers. The Recovery Act also cut taxes for working families, extended unemployment insurance, and expanded the Earned Income and Child tax credits, which disproportionately benefit African American families. The verdict is in on the economic plan put in place by President Obama and the Democratic Congress and it is undeniable. The Recovery Act ended the Great Recession, transformed the economy from one hemorrhaging jobs to one that created over 16 million new jobs over a record 71 consecutive months. The national unemployment rate dipped under 5 percent for the first time since President Clinton left office, the deficit was cut by 71 percent, and the Dow Jones stock market index set 118 record closing highs and stood at 19,732 on January 20, 2017, a three-fold over its nadir of 6,547 at the depths of the Great Recession. And, as an added benefit, the average price of gasoline fell from more than $4.11 per gallon to $1.80, the lowest price since before the tragedy of September 11. The Obama years also effected policy changes in the areas of criminal justice reform, health and education, national security, and foreign affairs. A partial listing of these achievements is substantial, impressive, and varied. President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act in August 2010, which reduces the disparity in the amounts of powder cocaine and crack cocaine required for the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences and eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine. In July 2015, President Obama became the first president ever to tour a federal prison when he visited the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution outside of Oklahoma City. President Obama launched the Smart on Crime initiative through which the Department of Justice modified its charging policies certain federal low-level drug-related offenses, improved diversion and re-entry policies, and strengthened protections for the most vulnerable. President Obama established Smart on Juvenile Justice grant program to expand the use of effective community-based alternatives to youth detention and launched the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program for Incarcerated Individuals to test new models to allow incarcerated Americans to receive Pell Grants and pursue the postsecondary education with the goal of helping them get jobs, support their families, and turn their lives around. President Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management to act where it can to ``ban the box'' by modifying its rules to delay inquiries into criminal history until later in the hiring process and called on Congress. to enact legislation ''banning the box'' on job applications in the private sector. President Obama increased the use of body-worn cameras through $20 million in grants to state and local law enforcement. President Obama issued an Executive Order to increase the capacity of VA mental-health programs by hiring 1,600 more mental- health professionals and expanding the capacity of the Veterans Crisis Line. President Obama provided nearly $60 billion in benefit payments under the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill to over 1.5 million individuals and relaxed the evidence requirements for veterans seeking disability pay for post-traumatic stress disorder with the Department of Veterans Affairs. President Obama acted to reduce gun violence by issuing executive orders requiring background checks for people trying to buy some of the most dangerous weapons and other items through a trust or corporation and an overhaul of the background check system to make it more efficient and effective. President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act passed by the Democratic Congress which has provided access to quality, affordable health insurance to nearly 20 million previously uninsured Americans. President Obama launched the ``My Brother's Keeper'' Initiative in 2014 to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential. In October 2009, Congress passed, and President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, historic legislation extending coverage of federal hate-crime law to include attacks based on the victim's race, religion, nationality, or actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. President Obama established the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy for young undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children in an effort to better focus enforcement resources. President Obama expanded opportunity for America's children by strengthening Head Start. President Obama made college more affordable by increasing Pell grants, keeping interest rates on student loans low, and helping students manageably repay their loans. President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act, which made historic investments: in improved child nutrition and health for the 31 million children who rely on school meals and updated science-based school meal standards to increase fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy, while reducing fats and sodium. In December 2010, the Congress passed, and President Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 into law, allowing gay men and women to serve openly and with integrity in the U.S. military. President Obama also made history by appointing two women to the U.S. Supreme Court, including the first Hispanic American to serve on the Court. President Obama appointed the first African American man and woman to serve as Attorney General and the first woman to Chair the Federal Reserve Board. In the area of foreign affairs and national security, President Obama ended the Iraq War, assembled and led an international coalition to impose sanctions so crippling on Iran that it was forced to the negotiating table that yielded the Iran Nuclear Agreement that prevents Iran from ever attaining a nuclear weapon. And of course, as the world knows, because of President Obama's leadership, General Motors is alive, and Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Barack Obama represented our country with grace, integrity, honor, and distinction. He provided consolation, hope, and healing in the face of unspeakable tragedies such as the massacre of innocent children at Sandy Hook, worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, spectators at the Boston Marathon, and mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona. He expressed and symbolized our joy and pride in the progress made over the last half century--and the distance we still have to travel--when he marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and addressed the multitude from the spot on the steps where Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared his dream for America's future. It is clear beyond doubt that President Obama kept the promise he made to the nation seven years ago on that cold day in January when he said: ``Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real . . . . But know this America: They will be met.'' They were more than just met; under his leadership they were overcome with amazing grace. And because of President Barack Obama, when he left office the United States was stronger, more prosperous, and better positioned than ever to win the future. As a presidential candidate in 2008, then Senator Obama promised the America people ``change you can believe in.'' In office, President Obama made good on that promise, delivering positive change that the American people can see and feel. And that is what makes his one of the most consequential presidencies in American history. I wish President Obama a happy birthday, and thank him for all he did in leading our country to a new era of greatness