Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to say to the gentleman who just spoke, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I have great respect for him, but that is a lot of words basically to say that Democrats and Republicans will be denied the right to be able to debate and vote on a warrant requirement. Madam Speaker, I have already spoken about how terrible the bills in this rule are, but let me just take a minute to talk about how much of a dumpster fire the last 48 hours have been from a process standpoint. The way this place is being run by your so-called leadership, Madam Speaker, is beyond incompetent. It is pathetic. We spent all night waiting around while Republicans fought amongst themselves. We were told nearly at midnight on Monday to go home. We were then told Rules would meet at 8 a.m. on Tuesday. We showed up for that meeting only to be told there would be no meeting because Republicans were still busy fighting with each other. Madam Speaker, you guys had all weekend. Didn't you think to do a Zoom call or something like that with your members to find out where they were? On FISA, this thing has been going on for weeks. Didn't you have a meeting or a phone call or a text thread or something to try to work that out? Finally, at long last, we convened and reported out a rule, but based on public reporting, it is not clear whether the rule that we are debating right now can pass. So what the hell are we doing here? I mean, can somebody please, please call the Republican whip and ask his office if they have the votes? Maybe they can ask them if they know how to count. We keep running around in circles here, Madam Speaker, and I will tell you why. You guys have a tiny, slim majority. Rather than trying to work things out with Democrats, you cut us out of the process. The result is endless chaos, endless incompetence, and endless delay, and everyday Americans are the ones who pay the price. Here is just one example. Democrats tried to make in order many Republican amendments in the Rules Committee last night. One of them, authored by Representative Biggs, would require a warrant before the government spies on Americans. Last time the amendment came to the floor, it tied. Clearly, this is an important issue with members of both parties on both sides. It is exactly the kind of debate Congress should be having out in the open. What did Republicans do? Well, there were two Republicans who voted with us to bring the amendment to the floor--again, an amendment to make sure the government can't spy on Americans without warrants. That was what the amendment was. Then, a third Republican, as I mentioned before, kept getting up and leaving the room every time we called the vote. It was really comical. That is why we won't be having a floor debate, again, on a Republican amendment. That was a Republican amendment we tried to bring to the floor, and it was blocked by a Republican who literally had to get up and leave the room because if he didn't, it would pass. I just wonder who asked him to leave. What an embarrassment to this institution. For the record, it isn't just one amendment Republicans have blocked here. It is hundreds. Seven out of 10 Republican amendments are blocked. Eight out of 10 bipartisan amendments are blocked. Nine out of 10 Democratic amendments are blocked. Let me repeat that: Nine out of 10 Democratic amendments are blocked in this rule. Over 50 times in the Rules Committee last night, we asked to simply have an up-or-down vote on these important issues on the floor. Over 50 times, we were blocked. I understand my ideas won't always prevail and win, but to not even be able to get a vote--I mean, what the hell are Republicans afraid of? Isn't it our job to debate and to vote? This is an interesting statistic. For the record, we had more amendment votes in the Rules Committee last night than we have had on the House floor this entire year. That is not okay. We call ourselves one of the greatest deliberative bodies of the world, and we aren't deliberating on anything, for God's sake. Republican leaders are blocking nearly every amendment, and that is what this rule does. It blocks idea after idea after idea from being debated and voted on. We can't debate more aid for farmers. We can't debate more help for hungry families. We have Republican Members who are publicly threatening to take down this rule because their amendments were blocked, too. I disagree strongly with some of their ideas, and I would vote ``no,'' but they deserve a vote, don't they? These bills are take it or leave it. The leadership dictates every single letter, every comma. This is no way to run this place. It is no way to run a banana stand. It is pathetic. It is a disgrace. The Speaker and the majority ought to be embarrassed by what is going on here. You are screwing over your own Members. Madam Speaker, you write bad bills, and you block good ideas. You refuse to work with Democrats in a bipartisan way. You bend over backward to appease the people in your Conference who have no interest in governing. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), a member of the Rules Committee who was there during the entire fiasco in the Rules Committee yesterday, to further expand on what I have been talking about.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would remind the gentleman from Wisconsin that he is in the majority party and that 100 percent of his amendments were blocked. I don't know what he did to tick off Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia, but he voted against his amendments in the Rules Committee last night. By the way, I am somebody who believes that we ought to debate amendments, even the ones that I don't always agree with, because I think this is a place where diversity of opinion and ideas ought to be brought to the floor and ought to be debated. I am sorry the gentleman doesn't share that passion. I will tell you this: If you vote for this rule, as you just said you would, you can look forward to your future amendments being blocked by the majority in your own party, because that is what they have been doing. We haven't had a debate on a single amendment on this floor in nearly 100 days. I am not okay with that, and I hope my Republican colleagues are not okay with that, either. They ought to send a message to your leadership that this bs has to stop now. Individual Members have to be respected, and their ideas need to be brought to the floor. I will say one final thing on the E15 matter. I think it is a legitimate issue. Our problem with it is that we are told that we can't address the issue of hunger and food insecurity because it adds to the deficit and the debt. The Republican leadership in here knows that the Office of Management and Budget has said that the E15 provision will cost billions--billions with a b. Rather than offset it, they came up with a clever way to vote on it separately and then merge it with the farm bill at the end and send it to the Senate. Again, none of this is paid for. What happened to fiscal responsibility? I guess when it comes to helping poor people, everybody on that side is: Oh, we can't do it because we have to be fiscally responsible. On other things, the sky is the limit. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter).

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I am sorry that my colleague from Georgia does not believe that we can help both farmers and hungry families, but I do. That is what I am fighting for. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to adopt the Senate amendment to H.R. 7147, the bipartisan compromise bill that the Senate unanimously passed twice now to fund all the law-abiding agencies under the Department of Homeland Security. Enough is enough. This is the deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security while we discuss changes in ICE and CBP. It is a bipartisan measure. It passed unanimously in the Senate twice. The situation is so dire now that even the White House has sent a letter urging the House to pass the bill. I am, once again, giving all Members of this body a chance to do the right thing and to provide a vote on this bipartisan DHS bill. Stop the games. Stop the games. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record along with any extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. I urge all Members to reject this madness and the games my friends are playing on the other side of the aisle and vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can fund, finally, DHS. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I just wish the E15 measure was paid for and wasn't going to explode the deficit. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I don't have any more speakers, and I am prepared to close. Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, prices are up, debate in this House is down. We are debating culture war nonsense instead of adhering to an affordability agenda. We are giving more money to ICE and CBP that are lawless and that don't need any more money. We are giving more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. Farmers are getting screwed over, poor people are getting screwed over, hunger is going up in this country, and enough is enough. Enough is enough. My friends on the other side do not care. I will say to my Republican colleagues: If you are tired of getting rolled by your own leadership, then vote ``no'' on this rule. Vote ``no'' on this rule.

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

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

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chair, it is now nearly 11 o'clock at night. This is nuts. What the hell is wrong with you people? You guys are bringing this farm bill to the floor 3 years late in the middle of the night. It is prime time in Guam, for God's sake. Republicans spent the whole day fighting with each other. You know what most Americans spent doing today? Working, going to school, taking care of their kids, living their lives, wondering, praying, if this institution might give a damn about their hopes and dreams, their concerns and fears. What Republicans have shown time and time again is that they don't care. If they did, they would not be bringing this farm bill to the floor, because this bill makes hunger worse. It means more kids go to bed without food, more seniors end up in the ER after taking pills on an empty stomach, and more parents put groceries back on the shelf. Hunger is a political condition. It is the result of decisions made in this Chamber. Republicans decided in their big, ugly bill to make hunger worse. With this farm bill, they are deciding to keep it worse by locking in massive cuts to food assistance. Forty-eight million people in this country cannot afford food. As a Congressman and as an American, I am ashamed of that. I am ashamed that in a nation as rich and powerful as ours, the people in charge of this town don't seem to give a damn. SNAP is food for seniors. It is food for families, food for veterans, and Americans with disabilities. That is the majority of who is on SNAP. When it comes to the rest, most have a job. They work 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and they still can't keep food in the fridge. People don't want to be on SNAP. We are talking about 6 bucks a day, for God's sake, and they need help because we have a broken economic system. They need help because the average price of a pound of ground beef is now higher than the hourly Federal minimum wage. They need help because our tax system rewards wealth instead of workers. They need help because grocery prices are too damn high, and Trump's war and his tariffs are making them worse. Instead of helping everyday people, Republicans take away their food and use it to give billionaires another tax break. It is outrageous. It is immoral, and it is wrong. This farm bill should address hunger. It does not. It should strengthen our food system from the farm field to the kitchen table. It fails that test miserably. By the way, Republicans are running this place in a way that is an embarrassment, a disgrace to the institution and the people we represent. It is hard to keep track of all of the shady side deals this Speaker is making and breaking on the floor today. Quite frankly, I wouldn't trust this Republican leadership to tell me the correct time. But based on what I have heard, we will be coming back to Rules Committee on this bill after the district work period. I want to put you all on notice: I intend to offer, among other amendments, Representative Luna's proposal to protect proposition 12, which was, unfortunately, left out of the rule that we are debating today. The American people are watching. They are sick and tired of what this Republican majority is doing. How dare you bring a bill to the floor that makes hunger worse in this country. How dare you bring a bill to the floor that doesn't help regular farmers. How dare you bring a bill to the floor that is filled with all these giveaways to special interests. Vote ``no.''

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I have no problem with these amendments en bloc. What I have a problem with is all of the amendments that were blocked by this Republican majority. Mr. Chairman, 362 amendments were offered to this farm bill by Republicans and Democrats, and 305 of those amendments were blocked. They were blocked. Bipartisan amendments were blocked 80 percent of the time. Democratic amendments were blocked 92 percent of the time, and Republican amendments were blocked 70 percent of the time. My Republican friends, I guess, are okay with having the majority leadership block their own amendments. I mean, it is ridiculous. This is an important bill. It is midnight, and we are on the floor debating the farm bill, a 5-year authorization. This is shameful. To block hundreds of good, legitimate amendments by Democrats and Republicans because, what, you don't want to deal with them, you don't want to debate them, or it is inconvenient to debate more amendments at midnight? That is ridiculous. The chairman of the committee may be proud of this bill. That is what he says. I am ashamed that we are bringing a bill like this to the floor--a bill of this significance and a bill that, quite frankly, is going to have an adverse impact on my constituents. Please don't sugarcoat the SNAP cuts. Millions of people have already lost their SNAP benefits, and the worst hasn't even happened yet. We are going to increase hunger in America. That is not going to make America healthy again by making America hungry again. We can do a hell of a lot better, but blocking hundreds of amendments--Democratic amendments, bipartisan amendments, and Republican amendments--this process stinks. Again, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this flawed farm bill. Let's start all over again. Let's do this the right way. Let's debate it in the light of day so the American people know what the hell we are doing here. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. McGOVERN

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

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a grave injustice unfolding in Pakistan. Last December, an Ahmadi Muslim educator, Mubarak Ahmad Sani, was sentenced to life in prison; not for violence, not for incitement, but for possessing a Koran. Mr. Sani was convicted under Pakistan's blasphemy laws. His sentence is a stark reminder of how these laws stifle the ability of religious minorities to study, to pray, and to express themselves freely. Sadly, Mr. Sani's case is not an anomaly. It reflects a systematic persecution of Ahmadi Muslims who are denied equal citizenship rights in Pakistan. They are prevented from calling themselves Muslims under Pakistan's Constitution, jailed and prosecuted under anti-Ahmadi laws, denied the right to participate freely in elections, and even prevented from burying their dead with dignity. In Pakistan, discrimination has been given the weight of the law. This has emboldened extremists to target the Ahmadi Muslim community. Extremist groups, most notably a far-right Islamist party known as TLP, have engaged in a coordinated campaign of persecution. They vandalize mosques, form intimidating and violent mobs near community events, and even kill worshippers. Incidents such as these are reported with disturbing frequency. Those responsible are very rarely held accountable. On the contrary, local authorities often bow to extremist pressure. They fail to prevent or contain violence. Then, to add insult to injury, they detain the victims of the attacks. This climate of impunity sends a dangerous message: that persecution is permissible and that some lives are less worthy of protection than others. In recent months, the government has taken steps to crack down on the TLP. Ahmadi Muslim communities have been able to breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief, and that is welcome. However, human rights are interrelated and interdependent. The right to religious freedom cannot be guaranteed without also guaranteeing the right to freedom of assembly, to freedom of expression, and to equal protection under the law. That means the Pakistani Government must take serious, sustained steps to address these broader crises. It must reform or repeal laws that criminalize religious identity, ensure accountability for acts of violence, and uphold the rights of all citizens equally regardless of belief. Mr. Speaker, the implications of this injustice are global. When a state legitimizes persecution, it weakens the universal principles of human rights and emboldens similar abuses elsewhere. I urge the U.S. State Department to speak out clearly and forcefully to press the Government of Pakistan to release Mubarak Sani from prison, end its persecution of Ahmadi Muslims, repeal discrimination and discriminatory anti-Ahmadi laws, and uphold its international human rights obligations. I believe when all is said and done, Mr. Speaker, that if the United States of America stands for anything, we need to stand out loud and foursquare for human rights. I hope we will do so in this case.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, hunger in America is on the rise. Food prices are through the roof. Half of Americans are struggling to afford groceries in this terrible Trump economy. Trump and this Republican Congress have prioritized tax breaks for billionaires, illegal wars, and tariffs that have all come at the expense of cheaper goods for the American people. Now, they are advancing a farm bill next week that locks in their $187 billion cut to SNAP enacted as part of their big, ugly bill in July for the next 5 years. That terrible policy enacted to give tax breaks to billionaires has already stolen basic food benefits from over 2.5 million veterans, seniors, and families with teenagers. Some of the worst provisions haven't even gone into effect yet. SNAP provides people with about 2 bucks per meal to afford nutritious groceries. That is it. Republicans are decimating this program, making it even more difficult for families to afford food. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues who care about making food more affordable for working people to join me in voting ``hell no'' on this disastrous Republican farm bill and not be complicit in increasing hunger in America. For God's sake, let's come together to end hunger now.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place? A 5-year reauthorization--5 years--and Republicans threw it together on the back of a napkin in the back room in the middle of the night. There have been real bipartisan discussions about adding civil liberties and safeguards. Some Members support them, and some oppose them. Just about everyone agrees that this is serious stuff, the kind of debate that Congress ought to have in the open. Instead, Republican leadership just jammed us. Does anybody actually know what the hell is in this thing? It is 11:30 at night. The bill was changed just minutes ago--just minutes ago--and they had to post a corrected version already. That is how sloppy all of this is. Let me be crystal clear to my colleagues across the aisle. This is too damn important to do it this way, way too important--no hearings, no markups, no real process, no transparency, no time to read it, no time to vet it. Yet, we are told that there are major reforms in this bill. There is no real explanation, no real accountability, and basically no time for anybody to figure out what the hell is going on. Now, we are all supposed to act like this is normal. Give me a break. We will have to live with this for 5 years. The American people have to live with this for 5 years. Democrats and, quite frankly, a whole lot of Republicans, too, have barely had enough time to read the text, let alone understand any of its implications. I bumped into a handful of Republicans on the way up here. They asked me: What is going on? What changes have been made? What is in this bill? Your own Members don't know what the hell you are doing. This mess did not come out of nowhere. Republicans knew for months that the April 20 FISA deadline was coming. They knew they had a vote problem before the Easter recess. Instead of staying here and doing their jobs, or spending the district work period trying to work it out, they kicked the can down the road and made this mess even worse. Now, everybody can see the chaos. It is out in the open. They barely got a rule out of the Rules Committee. Three Republican Members in the Rules Committee had to skip the vote just so the rule could be reported out. That is how divided this Republican Conference is. Donald Trump had to jump in and tell Republicans to ``unify'' just to drag this thing forward. That is how pathetic this has all gotten. We are standing here more than 36 hours after we were supposed to debate this rule--36 hours--with a bill dumped on the House and the American public in the middle of the night as the deadline looms. I have to tell you that this is not leadership. This is not legislating. This is not governing. This is not a functioning majority. This is a disaster. This is incompetence. This is incompetence. After all the chaos and all the delays and all the backroom dealing, we are still left with the same question: What the hell is going on here? Mr. Speaker, this process is embarrassing. This majority is incompetent. If this is how Republicans handle something as serious as national security surveillance, then they have no business being in charge. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, this process stinks. She thanks all of her colleagues for coming together to try to work out this deal. As far as I can tell, it is a handful of people in a back room somewhere who put this together. Some of this is handwritten. This was not the result of everybody participating in an open and transparent process. This is a backroom deal. It is 11:40, and people are going to see this for the very first time. Some of us, myself included, were hoping that we would have a serious warrant requirement in section 702. I talked to a lot of my very conservative Republican colleagues, and they agree with me that that was something that they thought was important. This so-called warrant requirement in this draft that you just gave us has nothing to do with section 702. It is already the law that if the FBI has probable cause, they can go to court and seek a warrant. What we are trying to solve is a different problem. Section 702 takes in a massive amount of U.S. person information, and nothing in this bill stops the government from searching it or requires them to go to a judge. The gentleman from Georgia, who the chairwoman says knows everything about everything, let me ask: Is there anything new in this bill that requires a warrant to query U.S. persons in section 702? That is a question. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield for an answer. Let me answer it since I am not getting an answer from the people in charge. The answer is no. The answer is no. If anybody here is voting for this because they think that this issue has been resolved, please know it hasn't. If you vote for it, you are a cheap date because it doesn't solve the problem that we have had many discussions about. We found this out in the 50 minutes that we had to read the text. Again, we just got this bill. Who knows what else we will find in a day or a week when experts have a chance to analyze it? Again, this is an important matter. The privacy of American citizens is an important matter. The national security of our country is an important matter, and you are just piecing this together in a couple of minutes and saying: Take it. Trust us. We just pieced this together in a back room, just take it. Well, we are not. This is a lousy process. This reflects the incompetence of the leadership of this House. It is a disgrace. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thought the gentleman was going to answer my question. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentleman yield? Because that is already in the law.

Mr. McGOVERN. It is.

Mr. McGOVERN. It is.

Mr. McGOVERN. It is.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this is all so damned frustrating because, basically, what the gentleman has done is kind of restated current law. The big reform that he is bragging about is that the administration has to report something to the administration. I mean, give me a break. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).