Zoe Lofgren

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House on the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 3239, back to the House with an amendment.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), my colleague.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Judy Schneider who is retiring from the Congressional Research Service after over forty years of service on Capitol Hill. Last year, when Judy Schneider received a lifetime achievement award from the Congressional Management Foundation, the Roll Call article on the event stated that ``hundreds of members of Congress know how to legislate because Judy Schneider taught them.'' If anything, that does not capture the extent and depth of Judy Schneider's influence on Congress and the legislative process. Judy, who received both Bachelor's and Master's degrees from American University has also worked for the Senate Ethics Committee, the Senate Select Committee to Study the Senate Committee System, and the House Commission on Administrative Review. She has been with CRS since 1979. She has also been active with Women in Government Relations, who recognized and honored her work through their program ``Direct Connect to Congress'' series by creating a fellowship in her name. Congress depends on rules and precedents, decades and sometimes centuries old. We, as legislators, must rely upon guides and pathfinders to navigate the legislative process and to make sure that the institution operates as it should. There have been few, if any, guides and pathfinders as instrumental in serving this institution and in lighting the way for all of us to assist us in working to ensure that this nation meets the challenge of its promise. I thank Judy Schneider for her years of service to all of us and wish her the very best in her retirement.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I do want to address the points made by the ranking member of the full committee. This bill has been around a while. It was introduced in 2011. At that point, we did have a hearing and even a markup. We have had it on the floor before. We have, at this moment, 312 Members on the bill, bipartisan. Addressing the issue that he was reading, and I don't think it is at all confusing, the Department of State is actually the agency that allocates the priority dates. They keep track of the visas. We have communicated with them frequently over the years. We provided in this bill a transition period because as time has gone on, the delays have gotten even worse for large countries, so we wanted to put a transition period in the bill. That is what the section that he read about would do. We do think that this has become an emergency in some sectors. I recently met with a physician and his wife, who is also a physician, who are here on H-1B visas, and they have been for a number of years. They are serving a medically underserved community. Their children, who are here legally as dependents, are about to ``age out.'' They haven't been back to the country of their birth in who knows how long; they don't speak the language; they don't have anybody in the country of their birth; and they are about to be out of status even though they have played by all the rules. Those two physicians told their patients that they were going to close their practice and move to Canada because they just couldn't go on like this. That is not a situation we can countenance. That is happening all over the country. We need to fix it. Mr. Speaker, this bill does fix it, and I hope that we can support it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for the excellent work he has done on this bill; the collaboration that we have had on bringing it forward so it could be considered today; and the tremendous bipartisanship that has been exhibited throughout dealing with this question, going back for nearly 10 years of work on this. I would note that the vast majority, way over 90 percent, of employment-based immigrants who have been sponsored for green cards are already working in the United States on some form of temporary visa. This doesn't bring in additional people. These are people who are already here. The question is, are they going to be able to get the stability that legal permanent residence provides? If they do, it will be good for our country in several ways. One, they are contributing to our economy, whether they are physicians serving in medically underserved areas, whether they are scientists breaking new ground, or whether they are H-1B nurses who are serving in underserved areas. Further, we know from studies that people who are legal permanent residents are not vulnerable to those who might be abusive employers trying to suppress their wages. So, this is good for American workers as well as those who would gain bargaining power by gaining legal permanent residence. Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can have a great vote of support for this bill today. I thank all the cosponsors and those who worked so hard to get us here today. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1044, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, a bipartisan bill that would make a modest, but important change to our immigration laws to alleviate hardships associated with lengthy visa backlogs. Let me begin by explaining what this bill does do and does not do. H.R. 1044 does not increase the overall number of immigrant visas that are available each year. Although raising the ceiling on visas is the only viable way to eliminate backlogs, there is, in my view, unfortunately, no consensus on that issue at this time. But there is broad consensus that we should do what we can to make the system more equitable. This is the focus of H.R. 1044. By eliminating the per-country limit on employment-based visas, all immigrant visa applicants will eventually be restored to a level playing field, where one's country of nationality has no bearing on their place in line. Under our immigration laws, employment-based visas are granted to individuals under a five-tiered ``preference system.'' The first three preference categories are reserved for priority workers, individuals with advanced degrees, and other professionals and skilled workers. To be eligible for a visa under one of these categories, the applicant must generally have an offer of employment from a U.S. employer, and must submit extensive documentation of their qualifications for the job and the relevant preference category. The applicant's country of birth is simply not a factor, and rightfully so. What does a person's nationality have to do with their merit as an employee? However, country of birth does become relevant after the applicant has qualified for a visa and is waiting in line for a visa number. The so-called ``per-country'' limit prohibits any one country from receiving more than 7 percent of the immigrant visas that are available each year. Because of this, the visa backlogs have a particularly harsh impact on nationals of countries with high populations, and thus, high demand for visas, such as India. As a result, it can now take a decade or more for an Indian physician working in a medically-underserved area, or a particle physicist with a Ph.D. from MIT to receive a green card. How is this good for our country? Our immigration system is in desperate need of reform. We all know too well the plight of Dreamers and the undocumented population. We know now more than ever that our agriculture sector, which relies heavily on immigrant workers, is struggling to satisfy its labor needs and provide a safe domestic food supply. We are reminded daily of the concern we have of the situation unfolding at the border. On top of these very real and very serious issues, we also remain inextricably bound by the imperfections of an immigration framework that was formulated nearly 30 years ago and is out of touch with the needs of the 21st century. Major reforms are required to truly fix our outdated legal system. But as we all know, such reforms have been hard to come by for a long time. If we want to get anything done, if we want to do what is right for our country, we have to find common ground, and we have to compromise. On an issue as contentious as immigration, our failure to work together in a fully bipartisan fashion can only result in legislation that will go nowhere in the Senate. H.R. 1044 is one of those rare proposals where we can agree. H.R. 1044 has strong bipartisan support, with more than 200 Democratic and more than 100 Republican cosponsors. In 2011, the House passed a version of this bill by a margin of 389-15. I urge all of my colleagues to once again vote in favor of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), my colleague.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1044) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants, to increase the per-country numerical limitation for family-sponsored immigrants, and for other purposes, as amended.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), a member of the House Administration Committee.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), a member of the House Administration Committee.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), a new Member of Congress.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers, so if the gentleman would like to yield back, I will close.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think it is important to address a few of the issues that have been raised in the course of this debate. First, we are moving forward with the SAFE Act because of a sense of urgency that we have about the 2020 election. That sense of urgency was fueled by the Director of National Intelligence, and it was fueled by the Director of the FBI who told us that red lights, warning lights were flashing and that the 2016 election was just a prelude to what the Russians were going to do in the 2020 election. We feel a sense of urgency. As has been mentioned by others, H.R. 1 included provisions about ballot security. But I introduced this bill, the SAFE Act, on May 14 because it was specifically addressing election security, and, also, we made some additional enhancements to H.R. 1 relative to cybersecurity and the like. We drafted the bill with the assistance of the Parliamentarian so that it was entirely within the jurisdiction of the House Administration Committee, with one exception. There was a line on page 11 of the committee mark that authorized a study by the NSF. The Science, Space, and Technology Committee waived jurisdiction on markup because it was just a study, and that was very clear. This bill has proceeded in the regular order. It has been noticed according to our rules. And it brings us here today to test whether we are going to meet the challenge that faces us in ballot security: whether we are going to allow the Russians to attack our country by trying to steal our election next year or not. Mention has been made about the need for bipartisanship. I work often on a bipartisan basis with Members of the other party. I will say that we have tried in vain to have the Republican Members buy into the need to require best practices for next year's election, and we couldn't reach agreement. We decided that it is our responsibility to move forward, and that is why we are here today. Just a mention on unfunded mandates, we are authorizing about $1 billion. $380 million was appropriated last year, and as the Speaker mentioned, we are appropriating this year an additional $600 million for ballot security. This bill authorizes the $600 million that we are appropriating, and we think it is important that that money flow to the States to harden our systems so the election cannot be stolen by our enemies. It is ironic that some on the other side of the aisle have complained about unfunded mandates at the same time they tried to impose a 25 percent match requirement on States for receiving these funds that they need to get to harden our system. Just a comment on DREs, DREs are not as unsafe as pure electronic voting, but they are not best practices. Much has been mentioned about the State of Georgia. It is worth noting that the Georgia legislature ignored the advice they got from computer scientists that what they were doing did not meet best practices for ballot security. A study published by Georgia Tech indicated that most voters did not actually look at the receipt when it was printed. They also point out that even though printed ballots, when voters do look at them, include the names of candidates, votes will be encoded in barcodes that humans can't authenticate and that are subject to hacking. ``There's nothing speculative about these vulnerabilities,'' said a Georgia Tech computer professor and former chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard. ``If exploited, it would affect the result of the election. It's not a secure system.'' We need to fix these things not because it is partisan but because we need to protect America. The idea that we would allow this just to be decided at a local level is wrongheaded. If the Russians launched missiles at the counties of the United States, we wouldn't say, well, that is just a local issue. We would say, no, that is an attack on the United States of America. We need to harden our systems and protect our country. Madam Speaker, I strongly urge the adoption of this measure. I would like to read from a letter that we received just yesterday from the NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. In their last paragraph, the Catholics say: In a secular democracy, elections are the closest thing we have to a sacrament. We know that nefarious foreign and domestic actors continue to meddle in our democratic systems, and we have been put on notice that previous efforts were only trial runs, presumably for our next election in 2020. The NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice considers our elections to be sacrosanct and that Congress must pass the SAFE Act to protect them. This bill is supported by a broad sector of civil rights groups, including the NAACP and Common Cause. It deserves all of our support. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2722 to ensure the security of our Nation's election infrastructure. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield), a valued member of the House Administration Committee.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. Wexton).

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2722. The SAFE Act is critical legislation to invest in and upgrade the machinery of American democracy. It will help us combat the national emergency facing our country. It will improve the resilience of election infrastructure used in Federal elections. Aging equipment, under-resourced jurisdictions, and interference by foreign entities or non-state actors leaves the system vulnerable to exploitation that can undermine confidence in election outcomes. Ineffective and vulnerable equipment can also discourage participation in Federal elections. It comes to the floor after the Committee on House Administration held three hearings in the first 6 months of this year that addressed the integrity of our elections. In February the committee held the ``For the People: Our American Democracy'' hearing, where the integrity of our democracy--including critical steps to improve the security and reliability of our election infrastructure--was addressed. On May 8 the committee held an election security hearing where we heard testimony about the urgent need to upgrade our election infrastructure and the lack of ongoing investment in the wake of new threats. And on May 21 the committee held an oversight hearing of the Election Assistance Commission, an agency that plays a central role in supporting election administration in this country. I will remind this House that earlier this year, the Director of National Intelligence published a report stating that our adversaries and strategic competitors ``probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. ``They may also use cyber means to `directly manipulate or disrupt elections systems--such as by tampering with voter registration or disrupting the vote tallying process--either to alter data or to call into question our voting process.''' Last year he said that ``the warning lights are blinking red''. . . . Special Counsel Robert Mueller noted in Volume One of his report that the Russian military ``targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. Victims included U.S. State and local entities, such as State boards of elections, secretaries of State, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. The GRU also targeted private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.'' In April, FBI Director Christopher Wray called Russia's interference efforts a ``significant counterintelligence threat,'' and said that the 2018 midterms were a ``dress rehearsal for the big show'' of the 2020 Presidential elections. Early voters in Georgia in 2018 saw machines deleting votes and switching them to other candidates. The machines where voters saw this occur were purchased in 2002. During early voting in Texas in 2018 some electronic voting machines deleted votes and switched them between candidates. The machines were used in 78 of 254 Texas counties. In June of 2016 the Russian GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting a vulnerability in their website. They gained access to a database with information on millions of Illinois voters and extracted data on thousands before the activity was detected. H.R. 2722 responds to this emergency that we find ourselves in as a nation. We ought to be doing everything we can to bolster the security and integrity of our elections from interference and hacking. The bill's section 102 requires that States transition to voting systems that use individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballots, which means a paper ballot marked by the voter by hand or through the use of a non-tabulating ballot marking device or system. Voter-verified paper ballots are the best way to ensure that a voter's ballot accurately reflects their choices and is counted as cast. Paper can be audited. In the last Presidential election, approximately 20 percent of registered voters cast their ballot on voting machines that do not have any kind of paper backup. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that paperless systems ``should be removed from service as soon as possible.'' In at least 40 States, elections are carried out using machines that are at least a decade old. And like any technology, they are susceptible to increasing failure with age. One witness at our election security hearing, Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, explained that some State officials have ``had to turn to eBay to find critical components like dot-matrix printer ribbons, decades old storage devices, and analog modems.'' Aging systems also frequently rely on unsupported software like Windows XP and 2000, which may not receive regular security patches and are thus more vulnerable to the latest methods of cyberattack. This bill addresses many other cybersecurity best practices besides paper-based systems. The bill in section 111 authorizes a $600 million Election Assistance Commission grant program to assist States in securing election infrastructure. States may use the money to replace their aging equipment with voter-verified paper ballot voting systems, but also ongoing maintenance of election infrastructure, enhanced cybersecurity and operations of IT infrastructure, and enhanced cybersecurity of voter registration systems. Originally, the bill, as introduced, would have authorized $1 billion for this initial round of surge funding; however, during the Committee on House Administration's markup, the committee approved an amendment in the nature of a substitute that authorized $600 million instead. Combined with the $380 million that Congress appropriated last year in election security grants, this funding reaches the $1 billion that experts have said is necessary to implement these necessary protections. The bill also provides in section 111 $175 million in biennial maintenance funding. Cybersecurity threats will not dissipate, they will only evolve. State election officials have told us repeatedly they need more funding and a sustainable source of funding. Section 103 of the SAFE Act fosters innovation for voters living with disabilities. It provides grant funding for the study, development, and testing of accessible paper ballot voting, verification, and casting mechanisms. It expressly requires States to ensure that individuals with disabilities and others are given an equivalent opportunity to vote, including with privacy and independence, in a manner that produces voter-verified paper ballots as for other voters. The bill fosters accountability for election technology vendors. It would create a qualified election infrastructure vendor designation where the Election Assistance Commission, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, would craft criteria that vendors would follow to receive the qualified designation. This would include reporting any known or suspected cybersecurity incidents involving election infrastructure to both the EAC and DHS, as well as affected election agencies. The bill in sections 201 and 203 also includes open-source provisions, requiring use of software and hardware for which information is disclosed by manufacturers. This will allow cybersecurity experts and the public to vet the security of election systems regardless of the technology used. As amended in the committee, the bill in section 121 requires States to adopt risk-limiting audits. Risk-limiting audits are the gold standard of post-election audits. They involve hand counting a certain number of ballots using advanced statistical methods to determine with a high degree of confidence that the reported election outcome is accurate. The SAFE Act requires States to implement risk-limiting audits because they go hand in hand with paper ballots. We need audits to ensure that ballot marking devices or optical scanners were not hacked and that the reported results are accurate. Second, as amended in committee, the bill in section 201 includes specific cybersecurity standards to apply to optical scanner voting systems and another set of standards to apply to ballot marking devices. These will apply equally to current and future technology. For example, H.R. 2722 prohibits the use of wireless communications devices and internet connectivity in voting systems upon which ballots are marked by voters or that otherwise mark and tabulate ballots. Madam Speaker, H.R. 2722 is an essential step forward in shoring up our election infrastructure and investing in secure elections. I ask the House to pass this legislation and bolster the trust and confidence in our system that all Americans expect and deserve. Every American--no matter what their choice in politics--should know that their vote will be counted as cast. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 460, I call up the bill (H.R. 2722) to protect elections for public office by providing financial support and enhanced security for the infrastructure used to carry out such elections, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I want to make an important observation. The gentleman has said that what happened in North Carolina is perfectly legal in other States. Fraud is not legal in any of the 50 States. I would like to note that, in our bill, we do have provisions that vendors must be owned and controlled by citizens or permanent residents of the United States and certain other provisions relative to security; but to conflate the allowance in some States--of 27 States and 9 others that designate allowing your mother or your brother or your neighbor to take your ballot with fraud is really pretty low. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Aguilar).