Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Donna Lombardi, the director of nutrition for the Worcester Public Schools in my hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, for receiving the Healthy Start Leadership Award. This award is being presented by the EOS Foundation, a Massachusetts-based foundation that is committed to expanding universal free breakfasts in the classroom across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I want to thank Donna for her tireless work at the Worcester Public Schools. She is a leader in our efforts to provide quality, nutritious meals to all kids in our school system. She recognizes the critical importance of not only providing nutritious meals to our kids, but also ensuring that every single child in our school system starts off the day with a healthy, nutritious meal. The breakfast at the bell plan, where every child would receive a nutritious meal in the classroom after school starts, is an important part of the schoolday and should be implemented in every school across this country. There are two important reasons why universal free breakfasts, or breakfast at the bell, is the right policy for every school to implement. First, we know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Kids physically and mentally develop better when they eat healthy meals. That is a simple fact. But we also know that kids learn better on a full stomach than they do on empty ones. Hungry kids do not learn. And that breakfast each morning is as essential to their ability to learn as a textbook. Second, universal breakfast served at the beginning of school ensures that every kid gets to eat and not just the ones who get to school early. It removes a stigma that adults may not recognize but that children feel: it is that feeling that a child is different, that because they are poor, they need to come in early to get the food that they don't have at home. Donna Lombardi is a leader in breakfast at the bell, and I am proud of the fact that she is leading Worcester Public Schools in this direction, and I am proud to call her my friend. Now, unfortunately, not everyone is on the same page. Many school districts and employees are opposed to this idea. There are some who think that it is too onerous on schools, that it creates too much waste, and that it isn't a good use of time in the morning. I think those are shortsighted excuses, and I am dismayed that there are those who continue to cling to these notions that have been disproven time and time again. We know what works, and we know what doesn't work; and we know that breakfast at the bell is one of those policies and programs that works. I want to congratulate the EOS Foundation for its hard work and dedication on this issue. Most importantly, I want to say that Donna Lombardi is an incredible individual with the passion and talent for providing nutritionally balanced meals for the children of Worcester. Sadly, as in every community in our country, too many of our children go to bed hungry in Worcester. Donna has made it her mission to feed them, to reach them first thing in the morning with a nutritious school breakfast and throughout the day with school snacks, school lunch, after-school meal programs, and summer meals too--school by school, classroom by classroom, child by child. The magnitude of her impact on the lives of thousands of children inspires me and inspires all of us, and I am delighted to congratulate Donna on this much-deserved recognition. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would say to my colleagues, let us learn from Donna's example and replicate what works all over this country, and let us be inspired by those who work to end hunger in our country and make that our mission as well. We can end hunger now.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I ask the gentleman from Florida whether he has any additional speakers or whether the chairman will want to say any more.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Nugent) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, welcome to witch-hunt week here in the United States House of Representatives. Our economy is slowly recovering, slower than any of us would like. Millions of unemployed Americans have been left behind because their unemployment benefits have expired. Our immigration system is broken. Millions of Americans are living in poverty because they don't earn enough to make ends meet. And we have a pay equity issue where women, on average, earn less than men for doing the same job. I mean, climate change is a real issue and is getting worse. So what is the response from the House Republican leadership? A jobs bill? No. A fully funded transportation bill? No. An extension of long- term unemployment benefits? No. Comprehensive immigration reform? No. An increase in the minimum wage? No way. A pay equity bill? No. A sensible energy policy? No. Of course not, not from this leadership. You know, when it comes to jobs or improving the economy, my Republican friends have no ideas. And here is the deal: they are afraid the American people are going to figure this out. And so what do they do? They create distractions and diversions, more investigations, more investigations. Mr. Speaker, instead of tackling the issues that actually matter to people, House Republicans are once again playing to cheap seats with hyperpartisan political witch-hunts. Now, this rule before us today contains two bills. One would hold Lois Lerner, the former Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations in contempt of Congress; the other would appoint a special counsel to investigate the targeting of nonprofit groups by the IRS. And that is just today. The House Republican leadership will be doubling down on the crazy later this week by creating a select committee to exploit the tragedy of Benghazi. It is shameful. This is ridiculous. The IRS clearly overstepped in the way they identified and targeted nonprofit groups. That is not an issue for debate. But an issue of this magnitude and importance, potential abuse by the Internal Revenue Service, deserves to be handled in a bipartisan and professional manner. That standard has not been achieved during these investigations. I say ``these investigations,'' plural, because multiple committees have spent nearly a year looking into this. From nearly the beginning, Republicans have operated on their own and not in a bipartisan and professional manner. To date, 39 witnesses have been interviewed, more than 530,000 pages of documents have been reviewed, and the IRS has spent at least $14 million of taxpayer money cooperating with all of these requests and investigations. And what do we have to show for all this work? We have had a circus in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform--a circus. We have seen Ms. Lerner assert her Fifth Amendment rights, and we have seen Chairman Issa literally cut the mic while Ranking Member Cummings was speaking. In all my years as a Member of Congress and as a staff member, I have never seen such behavior in a committee before, ever. And during this investigation, we have seen over 30 legal experts come together and state that Chairman Issa's contempt proceedings--one of the bills that we are considering here today--are constitutionally deficient. In other words, more than 30 legal experts--both Democrats and Republicans, and also including former House counsels--believe that the courts would throw this contempt resolution out of court. Now, of course, Chairman Issa is entitled to his own opinion, but we cannot just ignore the legal opinions of more than 30 legal experts, including two former House counsels. Ranking Member Cummings had a great idea, a sensible idea, and I can't quite understand why my friends on the other side haven't accepted it. He said let's hold a hearing with many of these legal experts and get to the bottom of why they feel Chairman Issa's actions are deficient. But Chairman Issa nixed that quickly and said no way, no hearings. This is the Oversight Committee. This is the committee that is supposed to be nonpartisan, when you think about it. I mean, the investigations are supposed to have some credibility. But Chairman Issa nixed that. In fact, he is refusing to hold such a hearing. And actually, it just baffles me. If Chairman Issa firmly believes that this contempt resolution has merit and has legal standing, then what is the harm in holding a hearing and considering these legal experts' opinions? The truth is that Chairman Issa and the Republican leadership really do not care about doing this fairly, and they never have. This is an exercise in political theater, designed for the conservative media closed information loop. Mr. Speaker, speaking truth to power is important. Investigating abuses of power is even more important. But abusing the process in the name of investigating abuse is wrong. We have been down this road before. We have seen this kind of witch-hunt steamroll through this very Capitol. But not even Joseph McCarthy was able to strip away an American citizen's constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment, as Chairman Issa is trying to do. The Congressional Research Service found that the last time Congress tried to hold witnesses in contempt after they asserted their Fifth Amendment right not to testify was in the 1950s and 1960s in Senator Joseph McCarthy's committee, the House un-American Activities Committee, and others. In nearly every case, the juries refused to convict or Federal courts overturned those convictions. This exercise that we are engaged in today is nearly identical to the actions of Senator McCarthy. It was wrong then; it is wrong now. This is sad because it demeans this House of Representatives. It may be red meat for the extreme right wing, but for too many Americans, it adds to the cynicism that this is a place where trivial issues get debated passionately and important ones not at all. Mr. Speaker, the IRS is a powerful agency. The Tax Code, itself, can be either daunting or beneficial, depending on where you sit. The IRS and the Code can be used to help people, like through the EITC, the child tax credit, and the R&D tax credits; or it could be used punitively, as it was during the Nixon administration. The IRS, under the Obama administration, must be held to a high standard. We must keep politics out of the way the IRS is run and the way it operates. In fact, the hearings, depositions, and investigations held to date actually show that there was no White House involvement in this case--none. The problem here is that the narrative that my Republican friends have doesn't fit the facts and they are frustrated, so they want to kick the ball down to the court and have more committees, more investigations, more special counsels. Maybe they will find something. In addition, these hearings that were held, these depositions and investigations show that the targeting of nonprofit groups by the IRS was not limited to conservative groups. Unfortunately, this whole process is so political that my friends, the Republicans on the Oversight Committee, intentionally limited the scope of what they are focused on to just conservative groups. It doesn't matter what happened to progressive groups. The truth is that both liberal and conservative groups were targeted. That is a fact that is conveniently left out of the arguments and accusations posed by my friends on the Republican side. Mr. Speaker, I understand what the Republicans are trying to do here. It is crystal clear. They do not want to talk about the issues that matter to people. From the economy to the environment to immigration, they don't want to talk about those issues because a majority of the American people disagree with them. They don't want to talk about those issues because they have no ideas, nothing, nothing to offer. They don't even want to talk about ObamaCare anymore now that 8 million Americans have health coverage. They don't know what to do now, so they are coming up with these desperate attempts to try to create distractions. So this is what they are left with: sad little scraps of political nonsense that they keep trying to peddle as leadership. Mr. Speaker, this rule and resolution are colossal wastes of time. They do nothing. They do nothing at all to try to ensure that the IRS is above politics. They do nothing at all to try to achieve any kind of justice or truth. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and to get on with the business of actually solving real problems that affect real Americans. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have great respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but I think he has kind of highlighted kind of the differences between the two parties here. He mentioned that we are trying to focus attention on gender inequalities and other issues. We are. I think there is something wrong when women in this country make 77 cents on every dollar a man makes. I think that is outrageous. I think women ought to be paid the same as men to do the same job. So, yeah, that is an issue, and that is something we should talk about. And it is not just a women's issue, by the way; it is a family issue. The Senate sent us over an immigration bill that would reduce the deficit by $900 billion over the next 20 years--$900 billion. They did it in a bipartisan way. We can't even get a vote here. We can't even get a vote here in the House of Representatives. There are millions of our fellow citizens who are unemployed and whose unemployment benefits have run out. We can't even get a vote to extend unemployment benefits for these people--maybe because they don't have a super-PAC, maybe because those aren't their natural constituencies. I don't know what the reason is. But those are important issues. And, quite frankly, yes, that is what the American people want us to be talking about--things that matter to them. The problem with what we are doing here today, this is so blatantly politically motivated, even in terms of the scope of the investigation, that it just is laughable. It is laughable. Listening to the debate in the Rules Committee last night amongst those on the Oversight Committee, the back and forth, and realizing how broken that committee is, how partisan that committee has become because of the leadership in this House, it is really sad. No one here is defending the IRS. No one here is defending Lois Lerner. But what we don't want to do is trample on the Constitution, and we don't want to unnecessarily politicize these proceedings, which is what is happening right now. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just remind the gentleman that 32 legal experts have said that my friends are wrong. I would like to yield to Mr. Connolly to clarify that.

Mr. McGOVERN. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just so everybody is clear here, we are not just talking about any attorney. We are talking about legal scholars. Quite frankly, the overwhelming opinion is that my friends are overreaching here, and, again, it makes a mockery of this House and especially at a time when we ought to be doing the people's work. Millions of our fellow citizens who are unemployed can't even get a vote on the House floor to extend unemployment benefits. These are the people we are supposed to represent. We are telling them, forget it, you are on your own. We have all these excuses why we can't bring that to the floor. The minimum wage, we have people working full-time in this country who are stuck in poverty. My friends went after people on SNAP, the program that they like to target, a program that provides food to hungry people, and they say everybody ought to get a job. Well, the majority of able-bodied people on that program work, and they earn so little because wages are so low that they still are entitled to some benefit. If you work in this country, you ought not to be in poverty. So, Mr. Speaker, on both this issue of unemployment and the minimum wage and on the issue of immigration, those are the things we ought to be debating here today. That is what the American people--that would be solving problems, not creating partisan political theater. So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask people to defeat the previous question. If they do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would restore unemployment insurance and provide much- needed relief to countless families across this country. To discuss our proposal, I would like to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, wow, when we talk about tyranny, I should remind the gentleman that you have two bills coming to the floor under a closed rule--absolutely closed. Nobody can offer any amendments. It is your way or the highway. They are absolutely closed. When you talk about tyranny, we can't get a vote on the House floor on unemployment compensation. We can't get a vote on minimum wage. We can't get a vote on pay equities. We can't get a vote on immigration reform. I don't know what the gentleman is talking about. I mean, it is our side, those of us on this side that can't get our voices heard. Last session, you had one of the most closed Congresses in our history, after you promised a wide-open, transparent process. You have just shut everything down. Even the scope of what this bill is focused on is closed in a very partisan way to focus only on abuses that deal with potential rightwing groups, conservative groups, but you totally cut out any abuse that might have happened to a liberal group or a progressive group, so I don't know what the gentleman is talking about. This is a closed process. We talk about democracy and that we need to promote democracy around the world. We need a little democracy here in the House of Representatives. We don't have any. Let me just say one other thing here, Mr. Speaker. We had 39 experts--39 witnesses that were interviewed by the committee, 39. Not one single one indicated there was any link between the White House and the IRS mess, not one. I mean, if there had been a few, I guess we could have a debate here about whether we need to go further, but not one. So here is the problem: their narrative doesn't fit the facts, and they are upset about it. I get it. You were hoping for some juicy conspiracy that doesn't exist, so you have to create more investigations, more investigations, all the while, we are neglecting our work, our duty to the people of this country. Yes, let's make sure that the IRS is above politics. I am all with you on that. I don't want them tagging anybody for political reasons, and I am committed to that, and so is everybody on this side, but that is not what we are doing here. This is witch-hunt week. Make no mistake about it because we are doing this today, and then we are doing Benghazi tomorrow. That is the theme of the week, and what a tragedy, what a tragedy when so much more needs to be done. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), who is on the Rules Committee.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I respect the comments of my friend, but I think the talk he just gave supports one of the points that we have been trying to make here, and that is we have 39 legal experts, former House counsels, who basically say that what my friends are doing here today are trampling on Ms. Lerner's constitutional rights. It would seem to me that, if you wanted this whole circus to be a little bit more legitimate, that you would have agreed to what Chairman Cummings had asked for, which was a hearing to bring in legal experts to actually talk about the merits of this before kind of rushing to the floor with this purely partisan bill. The second thing I would say to my friend from Tennessee is, when you talk about the number of liberal groups targeted, one of the reasons why we are not talking about liberal groups being targeted here is because the majority kind of stacked the deck. They formed the rules. They only want to focus on conservative groups, so that is why there is even more evidence of the fact that this is a purely partisan exercise. I just want to say, so my colleagues are clear, not one witness--not one single witness interviewed by the committee identified any evidence that political bias motivated the use of the inappropriate selection criteria. The inspector general, Russell George, was asked at a May 17, 2013, hearing before the Ways and Means Committee, ``Did you find any evidence of political motivation in the selection of the tax exemption applications?'' In response, the inspector general testified, ``We did not, sir.'' Oversight Committee staff asked all 39 witnesses whether they were aware of any political bias in the creation or use of inappropriate criteria. Not one identified even a single instance of political motivation or bias. Look, there needs to be reforms to the IRS. We need to make sure that the IRS is above politics, but bringing this political circus, this witch-hunt, to the floor purely because it polls well amongst your base is ludicrous. It is ludicrous because we should be focused on extending unemployment benefits for people who have lost their unemployment compensation. We should be raising the minimum wage. We should be passing immigration reform. We should be dealing with the pay equity bill, so that women get paid the same amount as men do for working the same job. It is also a family issue. We ought to be focused on getting this economy going; but instead, because my friends on the other side of the aisle don't have a clue on what to do, they are asking to look over here, let's do a distraction, let's do a diversion. I think this is outrageous. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say this because facts are important, Inspector General J. Russell George testified before the Oversight Committee that his audit did not look at the IRS be-on-the- lookout list with regard to progressive groups. That is what the inspector general testified, so let's stop this partisanship. I would say to my colleagues, if my friends want to do this correctly, if they want to do this in a way that has some credibility, they ought to do this in a nonpartisan way. It is really quite shameful that the Oversight Committee has become so polarized and so politicized and that this whole issue is being brought before us in this way that really, quite frankly, I think is beneath this House. We ought to do a proper oversight, but not purely because it polls well or do it in a way that plays well with a political base. We ought to do it in the right way. The IRS should not be involved with politics, period. Whether it is going after conservative groups or liberal groups, that is absolutely unacceptable, and we ought to make sure that doesn't happen, but that is not what we are doing here. What we are doing here is a witch-hunt. This is the first witch-hunt bill of the week. We have several that we are going to be doing this week, and I think our time could be better spent on helping the American people get back to work. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. How much time do I have left?

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Ways and Means Democrats found out that there was extensive scrutiny of liberal progressive groups, groups that had names ``Progressive,'' ``Occupy,'' and ``Acorn'' in their name. That is the Ways and Means Committee. That just goes to show how partisan this process has become, how politicized it has become. This is beneath this House. If you do oversight, it ought to be nonpartisan. This has turned into a circus. This has turned into a witch-hunt. Enough of this. Let's start doing the people's work. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is a circus, and it is really sad that we are here on the floor debating this. Just for the record, witnesses testified that progressive groups got a multitiered review and that liberal groups like Emerge went through a 2-year process before getting denied. The other thing you ought to know is that the IRS has begun a path to reform. It has implemented all the inspector general's recommendations, including going above and beyond by eliminating BOLOs altogether. Mr. Speaker, if this were done in a fair and professional manner, we wouldn't be having this controversy today, but the exact opposite happened in the Committee on Oversight. It was a joke. We all saw it on TV. Enough of this. Enough of this. Let's start doing the people's work. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment that I will offer into the record along with extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. This is on extending unemployment compensation benefits. It might be nice to do something that might help somebody around here, that might help the American people, instead of doing this witch-hunt, this week of investigations, this week of distraction, when our economy needs our attention, when people need jobs, when people's unemployment needs to be extended. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, which is a closed rule, two closed rules. Again, when we do oversight, it ought to be nonpartisan. This has become a partisan joke. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I have come to this floor once a week during the 113th Congress to talk about hunger--specifically, how we can end hunger now if we simply muster the political will to do so. Technically identified as food insecure by the Department of Agriculture, there are nearly 50 million hungry people who live in the United States, the richest country in the history of the world. These people don't earn enough to be able to put food on their table. Simply, they don't know where their next meal will come from. Now, let's be clear. This has not been a particularly kind Congress to those who struggle with hunger. We are seeing nearly $20 billion cut from our Nation's preeminent antihunger program, known as SNAP. SNAP is a lifeline for the 46 million Americans who rely on it to have something to eat each day. Yet this Congress decided that Americans who live at or below the poverty line can simply absorb massive cuts to SNAP. Sadly, Republicans and some Democrats joined together to cut a benefit that was already meager and didn't last through the month even before these cuts took effect. These cuts are bad and hurtful, but just as hurtful is how these Americans were described and depicted on the floor of this House during the debate about cuts to SNAP. During the debate on the farm bill, some Republican Members came to the floor to justify cuts to SNAP as a way to prevent murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from getting a government benefit. Poor people have been routinely characterized as ``those people,'' as part of a culture of dependency. They have been described as ``lazy.'' Mr. Speaker, I am sick and tired of poor people being demonized. I am sick and tired of their struggle being belittled. We are here to represent all people, including those struggling in poverty. Unfortunately, insults continue. For the most part, we try to keep campaign rhetoric out of the debate on the House floor. However, today I want to highlight some rhetoric that is even more vile than even some of the language that was used on the House floor during the SNAP debate. A few weeks ago, a Republican candidate for United States Senate in South Dakota actually equated SNAP recipients to wild animals. That's right. We are now at a point where it is apparently okay for political candidates to denigrate our fellow citizens by comparing them to animals. Dr. Annette Bosworth shared a viral image on her Facebook page that said the following: The food stamp program is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They proudly report that they distribute free meals and food stamps to over 46 million people on an annual basis. Meanwhile, the National Park Service, run by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us, Please do not feed the animals. Their stated reason for this policy being that . . . the animals will grow dependent on the handouts, and then they will never learn to take care of themselves. The post continues: This concludes today's lesson. Any questions? What an incredibly offensive thing for anybody to say. Mr. Speaker, I was taught to love my neighbor. I was taught to care about the people and to strive to make everyone's life better, and what is being tolerated as political dialogue violates those teachings and my core beliefs in humanity. We can all do better. Some of us may need a hand up in order to get by, but that doesn't mean that they are lesser people for it. They deserve our respect, and they deserve our help while they are struggling. It is hard to be poor, and because of many of the actions that have been taken by this Congress, it is even harder to get out of poverty. Dr. Bosworth should apologize to the 46 million of her fellow Americans who need SNAP to put food on their tables. She should apologize to the nearly 50 million of her fellow Americans who struggle with hunger and don't know where their next meal will come from, and Republicans should repudiate her disgusting remarks. I am an optimist. I believe we can end hunger, and I believe we can end poverty in America, if we just make the commitment to do so, but hurtful rhetoric like this simply divides us and does nothing to help us achieve the worthy goal of ending hunger now. Hunger is a political condition. We have the food, and we have the ability to make certain that nobody in this country goes hungry, but we lack the political will; and demonizing the poor, as so many in this Chamber have done and continue to do so, is a sad commentary on this Congress. Our government has a special obligation to the most vulnerable. It is time we lived up to that obligation. The war against the poor must stop.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Engel, for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this and on so many other issues of human rights. I also want to thank Chairman Royce for his support and Chairman Chabot. I appreciate all that you do for human rights. I admire all of these gentlemen who are here on the floor. They have been outspoken for human rights, not only in Burma, but all around the world. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise in support of this resolution urging the Government of Burma to end the persecution of the Rohingya people and to respect internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma. I especially want to thank my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Congressman Joe Pitts, for his leadership on this issue and for joining me in introducing this bipartisan resolution. Over 800,000 people of the Rohingya ethnicity live in Burma, mostly in the Rakhine State. Even though many Rohingyas have lived in the Rakhine for generations, the Burma citizenship law of 1982 has excluded them from approved ethnic groups, thereby rendering them stateless and vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and abuse. While the Rohingya and other minorities in Burma have historically experienced severe discrimination, there has been a dramatic increase in discrimination and violence against them in the past 2 years. Attacks in June and July of 2012 resulted in the deaths of at least 57 Muslims and in the destruction of 1,336 Rohingya homes. On October 23, 2012, at least 70 Rohingyas were killed, and their township was destroyed. Further, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights reported possessing credible evidence of the deaths of at least 48 Rohingyas in January of this year, and human rights groups reported mass arrests and arbitrary detentions of Rohingya in the aftermath of this violence. In addition, other Muslim minorities have also suffered from violent attacks, and many have lost their lives and property in the last year and a half. Such violence against ethnic Muslim populations, including the Rohingya, is part of a larger, troubling pattern of violence against ethnic and religious minorities in Burma. The Government of Burma remains apathetic to the plight of the Rohingya population, and it has failed to properly investigate the major events of anti-Rohingya violence. Instead, both the Rakhine State and central government continue to impose explicitly racist policies that seek to control the everyday lives of the Rohingya. Authorities require Rohingya to obtain official permission for marriages and have often singled out Rohingya for forced labor and arbitrary arrests. The Government of Burma has forcefully relocated Rohingya into relief camps, where they lack decent shelter, access to clean water, food, sanitation, health care, and the ability to support themselves, or basic education for their children. The Rohingya are the sole targets of the two-child policy and are the subjects to severe restrictions of movement. Further, as evidenced by the latest census in Burma, the Burmese Government continues to deny the Rohingyas their right for self-identification, sending a clear message that the Rohingya are outsiders who have no place in Burma. Today, approximately 140,000 Rohingya are internally displaced, and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries by boats; many have died at sea. Those who remain in the country live in dire poverty and deprivation. Some relief used to come from humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders, but even that aid is no longer available. The Government of Burma expelled Doctors Without Borders in March, allegedly after the group cared for the victims of a violent assault on a Rohingya village, an assault which the government denies ever happened. Increasingly, severe restrictions and violent attacks on other humanitarian aid groups have forced the majority of them to flee the Rakhine State, and the Rohingya now remain with no one and with nowhere to turn for help and health care. Every day, more and more people die of causes that could be preventable or treatable if humanitarian groups had the chance to help. According to a March 14 article in The New York Times, which I will submit for the Record, nearly 750,000 people, the majority of them Rohingya, have been deprived of medical services since the Burmese Government banned the operations of Doctors Without Borders. According to the article, during the first 2 weeks of March alone, about 150 of those most vulnerable and in need of care died, including 20 pregnant women who were facing life-threatening deliveries. [From the New York Times, Mar. 14, 2014] Ban on Doctors' Group Imperils Muslim Minority in Myanmar (By Jane Perlez) Bangkok.--Nearly 750,000 people, most of them members of a Muslim minority in one of the poorest parts of Myanmar, have been deprived of most medical services since the government banned the operations of Doctors Without Borders, the international health care organization and the main provider of medical care in the region. The government ordered a halt to the work of Doctors Without Borders two weeks ago after some officials accused the group of favoring the Muslims, members of the Rohingya ethnic group, over a rival group, Rakhine Buddhists. Already, anecdotal evidence and medical estimates show that about 150 of the most vulnerable have died since Feb. 28, more than 20 of them pregnant women facing life-threatening deliveries, medical professionals said. Doctors Without Borders had been the only way for pregnant women facing difficult deliveries to get a referral to a government hospital, they said. At the time of the order, the government said it was suspending the group's operations in Rakhine State in the far north, but it has offered no time frame for when services might be resumed. The deputy director general of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Soe Lwin Nyein, said in a statement that his department would manage the health needs of the ``whole community.'' A spokesman for President Thein Sein, Ye Htut, said the government dispatched an emergency response team with eight ambulances after the Doctors Without Borders clinics were closed. Myanmar's health services are among the most rudimentary in Asia, and with severe government restrictions on movement that prevent Muslims from seeking medical help outside their villages in Rakhine State, the impact of the shutdown will be severe, medical professionals said. Doctors Without Borders was by far the biggest health provider in the northern part of Rakhine around the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, serving about 500,000 people, most of them Rohingya, they said. An additional 200,000 people, many of them Rohingya in displaced camps around the state capital, Sittwe, had access to the group's services. In Aung Mingla, a Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe, patients with tuberculosis, a common disease in the area, said they were down to their last supplies of medicine. The Rohingya who live in Aung Mingla are prevented from leaving the district by barbed-wire security posts and police officers. ``Since Doctors Without Borders is not in Rakhine, I don't know who will provide medicine when my supply runs out in three months,'' said one patient, Muklan, 30, who like many people in Myanmar goes by a single name. ``I hope Doctors can come back as soon as possible.'' Another Rohingya man, Shafiul, who worked for Doctors Without Borders in Aung Mingla, said he was concerned for his patients with tuberculosis, malaria and H.I.V. ``These patients have been getting help from Doctors Without Borders for years,'' he said. In northern Rakhine State, where Doctors Without Borders had run five permanent clinics and 30 mobile ones, about 20 percent of children are acutely malnourished, medical professionals said. An intensive feeding center for those patients was shuttered as part of the government's directive. For the most part, Western donors and the United Nations say they are reluctant to antagonize the government of Myanmar, which has started along the path of economic and political reform. The donors have chosen quiet diplomacy over outspoken criticism of the government's policies toward the Rohingya. But the action against Doctors Without Borders raised some public alarm. ``We are extremely concerned about the situation,'' said Mark Cutts, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar. ``We are in intense discussion with the government in a way that will allow operations to resume as soon as possible.'' The deputy health director, Dr. Soe Lwin Nyein, said the government would accept supplies of medicine for tuberculosis and H.I.V. from Doctors Without Borders. But how these supplies will be distributed remains unclear. Negotiations are underway with the government over the distribution, Western officials said. Other international organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, which supports government health centers around the towns of Sittwe and Mrauk U, have been allowed to continue operations in Rakhine. But Doctors Without Borders was by far the largest health provider. The government targeted the group after its rural clinics provided treatment to 22 Muslims in the aftermath of a rampage by Rakhine security officers and civilians in the village of Du Chee Yar Tan in January. The United Nations says 40 people were killed in the violence that night. The government has denied that the deaths occurred, and on Tuesday, a presidential commission sent to the village to conduct an inquiry reported that it could find no evidence of the killings. The commission was the third investigative group sent by the government, and its findings matched those of the previous inquiries. After the killings in January, the government criticized Doctors Without Borders for hiring Rohingya and said the group was giving disproportionate attention to Rohingya patients. Under state regulations in Rakhine, Rohingya are prevented from visiting many of the state-run clinics. Doctors Without Borders says it has treated patients in Rakhine since 1994 regardless of ethnicity, and foreign aid workers point out that the Rakhine Buddhist ethnic group has access to government health facilities that are generally denied to the Rohingya. A radical Buddhist leader in Myanmar, Ashin Wirathu, who has compared Muslims to dogs, arrived in Sittwe on Wednesday for a five-day visit that was likely to stir anti-Muslim sentiments further. In a sermon at the main Buddhist temple Wednesday night, he said that if Western democracies were allowed to have influence in Myanmar, the Rakhine people would be overwhelmed by increasing numbers of Muslims, and would eventually disappear. The monk's visit appeared to be timed ahead of a national census--the first in Myanmar in more than 30 years--that is due to take place March 30 to April 10 across Myanmar. Tensions during the census, funded in part by the United Nations and the British government, are expected to be high in Rakhine. Rakhine politicians have said they oppose allowing the Rohingya to identify themselves as Rohingya when they fill out the census forms. If they did, the census would probably show that their numbers are greater than the current estimate of 1.3 million. The overall population is estimated at 60 million. By shutting down Doctors Without Borders, the government is ensuring that there will be fewer foreigners to witness any outbreaks of violence during the census process, aid workers said.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, when Doctors Without Borders was able to work in Rakhine, they sent approximately 400 emergency cases every month to local hospitals, but according to the World Health Organization, fewer than 20 people received referrals by the government for emergency care in March. Such a difference suggests that the Rohingya who are in desperate need of emergency care are left to suffer or to die. In light of these disturbing events, it is important that the House speaks with one voice today and calls on the Government of Burma to end all forms of persecution and discrimination of the Rohingya people and to ensure respect for internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma. The Burmese Government needs to recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group indigenous to Burma and work with the Rohingya to resolve their citizenship status. Finally, the U.S. Government needs to make the removal of state- sanctioned discriminatory policies a priority in their engagement with the Government of Burma. Let me be clear: the situation is dire and rapidly deteriorating. Multiple recognized independent human rights NGOs, as well as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, have stated that the series of actions directed at the Rohingyas in Burma could amount to crimes against humanity. Further, a recent report by the U.S. NGO, United to End Genocide, states that nowhere in the world are there more precursors to genocide than in Burma right now. In the past few weeks, we have all taken time to remember and commemorate the victims of the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the genocide in Rwanda. We saw the same disturbing signs in other moments of history, and we know what the consequences are of not paying attention. Showing support for this bill is one step that we can take today to fulfilling the solemn pledge of ``never again.'' I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this bill.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Chairman Paul Ryan held a hearing on poverty--a timely and necessary conversation. But the problem is that not one single person living in poverty was a witness at that hearing, and that is really a shame. There are plenty of men and women, like Barbie Izquierdo or Tianna Gaines Turner from the Witnesses to Hunger, who should be invited here to describe what it is like to be hungry or cold simply because there isn't enough money to heat a house and buy enough food to eat. They can describe for Mr. Ryan how difficult it is to stretch a SNAP allotment for the entire month and, most importantly, how hard it is to make ends meet with a job that pays an inadequate wage. We need to hear from those who struggle with poverty and not just those think tank gurus. We need to hear what is working and what is not working on the ground in our communities. Chairman Ryan's hearing missed the mark. When it comes to issues involving poverty and hunger, Mr. Speaker, this majority that runs this House doesn't have a clue. I urge everyone to listen to real people who are struggling in poverty. Perhaps if we did, this Congress wouldn't be so cruel to poor people.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McGOVERN. Does the gentleman have any other speakers?