Tom McClintock

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, you want to understand successful law enforcement, the first place to look is the career of El Dorado County Sheriff John D'Agostini. It's not hard: it was under his leadership-- indeed, because of his leadership--that the day-to-day operations of his department became the subject of the popular TV series, ``The Sheriffs of El Dorado County''--that ran from 2014 to 2019. It is the very definition of successful policing--pioneered by Sir Robert Peale and perfected and practiced by Sheriff D'Agostini. Ideal police departments are run as extensions of the communities they serve--they work in partnership with local citizens--and this was the heart of Sheriff D'Agostini's success. I've seen that in action over and over. During the devastating King Fire, I watched him at his post even when his own ranch was imminently threatened. During the Caldor Fire, he opened that same ranch to the stream of evacuees who had fled the devastation with only the clothes on their backs. I can't tell you the number of times I watched him during these terrifying disasters--always calm, always focused, always reassuring, and omnipresent. He is loved by his community and his department because he loves them--and that caring is what binds the community to the Sheriff's department and exemplified and indeed, defined, his successful record of modem policing. He was first elected in 2010 by a margin of less than 1,300 votes. But as he proved himself--he became a beloved institution in the community and won re-election overwhelmingly in 2014 and 2018--and would have won by acclamation in 2022, but for the fact that he chose to retire back into the community he has so faithfully served and protected. They were not all easy years. He lost a deputy to an illegal alien in an illegal marijuana grow in 2019 and became a national figure warning of the dangers that our porous border and sanctuary policies present to communities across America and to those who risk their lives to protect us. When state bureaucrats ordered businesses to shut down during the Covid hysteria, Sheriff D'Agostini stood up for the constitutional rights of his constituents and refused to destroy their livelihoods. His courageous stand has since been affirmed by the mounting evidence that the lockdowns cost lives, destroyed livelihoods and did nothing to slow the spread of the disease. Sheriff D'Agostini worked his way up through the ranks, first graduating from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Academy in 1993. Throughout his career, Sheriff D'Agostini served in numerous positions including Patrol Deputy, Detective, SWAT Team Member, Narcotics Investigator, Rangemaster and Firearms Instructor, and investigator for the Amador County District Attorney's Office. Sheriff D'Agostini is well known for his many accomplishments and contributions to the community including his leadership in constructing a new Public Safety Headquarters located in Placerville. This building now provides local law enforcement with emergency operation services, a 9-1-1 dispatch center, a morgue, an evidence building, a special operations and training building, as well as an indoor shooting range and armory. Madam Speaker, without law enforcement there is no law, and without law there is no civilization, which is why it is impossible to overstate the necessity of our local police departments and the law and order they uphold within our communities. I am proud today to congratulate John on his numerous accomplishments and his exemplary leadership, and on behalf of grateful citizens across El Dorado County, to thank him for his extraordinary service. El Dorado County has been extremely fortunate to have had his leadership for the past 12 years. And although he isn't going anywhere--he's retiring right back into the community that raised him, and although his successor is well prepared under his tutelage to carry on his successful policies--it won't stop us from missing him in the role he defined and the responsibilities he discharged so well.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

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

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot about self- determination today, but let's put that to the smell test. The options that the Democrats are presenting to the Puerto Rican people don't include the most obvious choice, to remain as a commonwealth. So if you prefer the status quo, you are completely out of luck. The Democrats have already decided you are not allowed to vote for that. That is not self-determination. That is rigging an election. Now, if none of the three options the Democrats have chosen for you gets 50 percent, then there is a runoff, even if the option dropped was the clear second choice of voters. And a narrow, transient majority seems to be most likely, since the November 2020 plebiscite scored just 52.5 percent in favor of statehood, 47.5 percent opposed, with just 53 percent turning out to vote. Completely ignored is the right of all the American people to discuss and decide so momentous and irreversible a question as this. Statehood would mean that in the next reapportionment, other States will lose a total of four seats in the House of Representatives in order to accommodate the Puerto Rican delegation. Only about 20 percent of the population is fluent in English, which means that we would be admitting a State whose vast majority is isolated from the national political debate that is central to our democracy. Nor will statehood solve Puerto Rico's economic problems. Residents would now have to pay all Federal income taxes from which they are currently exempt. The GAO estimates that would cost Puerto Rico 70 percent of its existing manufacturing base. There is not even a CBO estimate of the cost to American taxpayers of admitting a chronically mismanaged and utterly bankrupt State government. The economy of Puerto Rico is expected to underperform the national economy, which is itself a disaster. For American taxpayers, it would mean a new State that has the lowest per capita income in the country and the largest per capita debt. Its labor participation rate is 40 percent, compared to 62 percent nationally. Forty-three percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Its academic performance would be the worst in the Nation. So how does it benefit America to admit a State that would be the most indebted, uneducated, poorest, and least employed State in the Nation? We don't get to consider that question, because under this bill, Congress gets no further say in the matter once Puerto Rico has voted. That makes it a blanket abrogation of the responsibility of Congress to make these decisions in the best interest of all of the people of the United States. Whichever of the three options is chosen would be automatically enacted without any further debate or decision by Congress. It hands the constitutional authority reserved for the welfare of the entire Nation to the hands of what would be a narrow and transient majority in Puerto Rico. The only debate in Congress on Puerto Rican statehood is the debate that we are having right now, when the Nation is oblivious to the legislation or its implications. Our constituents will awaken across the country to the realization of a fait accompli that was quickly rushed through the very last days of session with no opportunity for national debate on the implications of making such a profound and permanent change in the fabric of our Nation. This is as cynical as it gets. If the motion to recommit is adopted, I will introduce an amendment that will require the question to be returned to the House for a full national debate on such a momentous issue and require a two-thirds vote to assure a broad, bipartisan consensus. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the motion to recommit.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, ironically, this bill doesn't even serve the interests of immigrants from around the world except for two countries, China and India. By removing the per-country caps on employment-based visas, the practical effect of this bill is that, for the foreseeable future, the citizens of only two countries, China and India, will be admitted to work here. Workers from every other country will have to wait many years until that backlog clears. Supporters contend that no one currently awaiting a green card will be adversely affected. That may be true as far as it goes. But what they leave out is that this bill will produce long delays for future applicants from every country except for China and India. Even the liberal American Immigration Lawyers Association points out that ``many applicants will now face longer wait times.'' Now, supporters are fond of comparing the populations of various countries as an argument that uniform percentage caps are unfair. But what they forget is that when a country's allotment isn't reached, its vacant slots then spill over to higher-demand countries. India, for example, accounted for 35 percent of the green cards issued last year, five times their percentage cap. But that, apparently, isn't enough for the left. The bill also threatens our national security. China has been stealing U.S. technology for years through programs like the H-1B visa. According to The Washington Post, one such initiative resulted in ``the arrests of six Chinese researchers accused of lying on their visa applications about their ties to the People's Liberation Army'' and ``more than 1,000 researchers who had hidden their affiliation with the Chinese military'' fleeing the U.S. within months. The supporters assure us that anyone with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party is not eligible, but that completely ignores the fact that the CCP exerts coercive control over all Chinese nationals, whether or not they are CCP members, so this assurance is meaningless. As currently drafted, this bill would also result in the immediate exclusion from green cards special immigrant religious workers from around the world for the next few years. Those cards will, instead, go to special immigrant juvenile green cards for unaccompanied alien children from the Northern Triangle countries. It is precisely this provision that has been exploited by the crime cartels in trafficking unaccompanied minors into this country, and this bill makes it worse. But the most pernicious provision allows certain temporary visa holders to file an application for adjustment for status despite the fact that no green card is available to them. That is the reason you have the long delays that the gentlewoman mentioned. The result is that many temporary visas will essentially become permanent because the alien visa holders will be able to live and work in the U.S. as if they had a green card. That raises an important question: What is it that the Democrats have against American workers? This bill is a direct attack on their job opportunities and livelihoods. So much for the advice to unemployed fossil fuel workers: Well, just learn to code. All this becomes a theater of the absurd in light of the mass illegal migration that the Democrats have aided, abetted, and encouraged since they reversed the Trump border measures that had finally secured our borders. It was no coincidence that as the flood of illegal migration slowed to a trickle, working-class families saw their biggest wage gains in decades, and the income gap between rich and poor began to narrow. Now that the borders have been collapsed by the Democrats, those wage gains have been wiped out as millions of illegal aliens are deliberately allowed into the country to compete with those struggling American families. The Democrats remain silent on this continuing crisis. The American people had trusted the Democrats to look out for their interests, and they are now discovering how tragically misplaced that trust has been. That is the crux of this bill, a big fat middle finger to America's working families, and I am afraid that won't change until the people responsible for these policies are turned out of office. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. I think it is important to note why we have those per-country caps. Ours is a Nation of immigrants. Except for those descended from Native Americans, every one of us is an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant. The American people are drawn from every country on this Earth; and from these disparate and diverse populations, we have created one great Nation, the American Nation. Here there is only one race, the American race. This remarkable achievement is made possible by a single word-- assimilation. Our immigration laws were written specifically to accommodate that process. They were written to assure that as immigrants come to our country they bring with them a sincere desire to become Americans, to raise their children as Americans, to acquire a common language, a common culture, and a common appreciation of American principles. That is the only possible way to blend so many discordant, disparate, and diverse populations into a common people devoted to the same principles that have produced the happiest, most just, most prosperous, most free, most advanced, and most envied civilization in the history of mankind. But assimilation is hard. As Winston Churchill said from that very rostrum: ``We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies because we are made of sugar candy.'' Becoming an American requires learning a new language, accepting and adopting new customs, adapting to a new culture, and accepting new beliefs. Assimilation breaks down if the concentration of immigrants from any single country reaches a level where assimilation is no longer necessary for that population. Instead of e pluribus unum, from many nations one great nation, from many people one great people, we instead see e unum pluribus: from one nation, many isolated, insular, and segregated communities that become foreign enclaves rather than an integral part of our national identity. We have all heard the heartbreaking tales of American workers not only being displaced by foreign workers but being forced to train their replacements as a condition of severance pay. This bill assures a never-ending supply of foreign labor for American corporations. Under this bill, any alien on an employment-based green card waiting list for more than 2 years could apply for adjustment of that status. Once an alien has filed an adjustment of status application, he or she is eligible for a work permit. However, unlike an employment-based green card, which generally requires a showing that the wages and conditions of Americans are not adversely affected, this work permit is considered an open-market employment authorization document, meaning the alien can take any job at any wage, and there are no protections for American workers. So this bill essentially converts temporary visa holders to permanent status at the expense of American tech workers. This rewards the very same companies who for years have fired their American workers only to replace them with cheaper foreign labor. American workers, particularly Black and Hispanic Americans, are going to be particularly hard hit. Pew Research estimates that each group only accounts for about 9 percent of the STEM workforce, and this measure assures that competition for those positions will become much greater and the wages much lower. The per-country caps exist to assure that the population of no single nation can come to dominate the overall immigrant population coming to these shores. Thus, under current law immigrants from one nation cannot claim more than 7 percent of the visas, but under this bill, the employment-based limit is eliminated. If this is allowed to happen, assimilation breaks down and the entire foundation of a nation of immigrants is shattered. As I said earlier, the practical effect of this bill is that the population of only two countries, China and India, will almost exclusively dominate the receipt of employment-based green cards for the foreseeable future at the expense of the people of virtually every other country in the world. Instead of an equitable distribution of green cards across all countries, they will in effect be limited to two. In one employment-based green card category, EB-5, all the green cards will go to Chinese nationals for several years. In another category, EB-4, religious workers will be precluded from getting green cards. Instead, these will go to the alien juveniles from Northern Triangle countries who crossed our border illegally. This imbalance would undermine the fundamental mechanism of assimilation, and I fear that is the point. Assimilation has become a dirty word to the left. They seek not unity, not one united people but, rather, a people divided into warring, racial, and ethnic factions, divided by language, culture, ethnicity, and ultimately grievances. No nation can survive very long tearing itself apart this way. The collapse of our southern border and refusal of the Democrats to defend the sovereignty of our Nation from the unprecedented illegal mass migration that they have unleashed will spell the end of this Nation if it is allowed to continue much longer. This bill is a small part of that policy, and it is destructive in its effect if not its intent. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, DHS Secretary Ali Mayorkas has repeatedly asserted, including in sworn testimony to multiple committees of this House, that the southern border is secure. This, of course, is a lie, and not even a subtle one. We know the numbers--a stunning 4.1 million encounters since inauguration day, when Joe Biden reversed the Trump administration's enforcement measures. In the same period, another 1 million known got- aways have entered the country while the border patrol has been overwhelmed changing diapers and arranging for transportation for thousands of illegal crossings each day. So how do our Democratic colleagues react to this unprecedented illegal immigration they have unleashed? Do they call on the Biden administration to stop the releases? Do they call on the President to actually enforce U.S. immigration law or at least stop incentivizing this mass illegal immigration? No. Instead, they produce this bill, that readmits immigrant veterans who were later deported, mainly for committing criminal offenses. This needs to be clearly understood. A noncitizen who joins the military promising to defend our country, and instead commits crimes against the citizens of our country is subject to deportation, and rightly so. This bill adds a political advisory committee, handpicked by Mr. Mayorkas that, in effect, can override our deportation laws, and it invites criminal offenders who have already been deported back into our country. It presumes they are of good moral character despite their criminal offenses simply by producing a green card. This is astonishing. Let's be very clear, that the vast majority of legal immigrants who enlist in our military do so because of patriotism toward our country, and they are exemplary citizens and exemplary members of our Armed Forces. In recognition of their service, we offer them special avenues for naturalization under the Immigration and Nationality Act. That is as it should be. About 3 percent of U.S. veterans today are foreign-born, and many of them have chosen to become U.S. citizens. But that is not what this bill is about. This bill is about the bad apples who have been ordered deported for breaking our laws. Since its creation in 2002, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has naturalized over 148,000 members of the U.S. military. If an alien servicemember or veteran is removed from this country, it is only after that alien has had their due process in immigration court and an immigration judge has issued a final order of removal. Alien servicemembers and veterans are also afforded a special process upon encounter by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, under which, through a totality of the circumstances approach, ICE agents determine whether arrest and placement in removal proceedings are the appropriate actions to take. However, in this bill, the Democrats have decided that an advisory committee of people chosen by Secretary Mayorkas is better equipped to determine whether an alien's actions warrant removal than a trained ICE official. Yesterday in the Committee on Rules, the chair of the subcommittee even indicated that these random people chosen by the Secretary would be better than a trained immigration judge at determining whether an alien should be able to stay in the U.S. During the Committee on the Judiciary markup, my Republican colleagues offered an array of amendments aimed at ensuring alien servicemembers, veterans, and their family members who committed serious crimes would not be able to benefit from the provisions in this bill that prevent removal and allow green cards to be issued. We tried to prevent individuals with convictions for things like drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, explosives trafficking, perjury, domestic violence, obstruction of justice, and even illegal voting from being able to benefit from the bill's provisions, but the Democrats rejected nearly all such amendments. They did reluctantly agree to exclude murderers, rapists, and child sex abusers as beneficiaries of this bill. I suppose we can claim some progress. They couldn't even bring themselves to accept an amendment to preclude aliens who have DUI convictions from benefiting from this bill. They decided that five DUIs were too many. So, ridiculously, the bill allows aliens to have four DUI convictions and still benefit from this bill. Democrats in committee also opposed an amendment to ensure that alien veterans who benefit from the bill were honorably discharged from the military. Right now, as the bill stands, it only requires that the alien have been discharged under other than honorable conditions. Democrats also rejected a Republican amendment that would have given the victims of a crime committed by the alien servicemember a say in whether or not the alien should face immigration consequences. This bill once again lays bare the true objectives of the Democrats. First, ignore the 4.1 million illegal aliens encountered by Border Patrol and the 1 million got-aways as well, blurring the distinction between legal immigrants who obey our laws and the millions of illegal immigrants that the Democrats are now happily allowing to stream into our country. Then, they introduce bills like this that blur the distinction between the many legal immigrants who have honorably served in our Nation's Armed Forces and the handful of bad apples who have broken our laws and have been ordered deported for doing so. This is the woke insanity that grips the Democratic Party today. Thank God the voters have just broken their grip on the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Bost).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct that the legislation emanating from the Judiciary Committee doesn't have anything to do with the border because the Democrats, having created this monumental crisis, refused to do anything to address it. Instead, we are left with bills like this that set distractions on the most important question facing America today. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

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

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

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, we can now plainly see the effect of the Democrats' open border policies on communities across our Nation; the strain on our schools, our hospitals, our public safety, working class wages and opportunities, and social services. No civilization has ever survived the magnitude of illegal mass migration that the Democrats have unleashed upon our country in the span of just 23 months; and Gallup warns us there are another 42 million people living in poverty just in Latin America and the Caribbean who intend to come here now that they can. When Secretary Mayorkas appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, he couldn't tell us how it benefits the American people to have their classrooms packed with non-English-speaking students, their emergency rooms flooded with illegals demanding basic care, how their families will be safer with increased gang activity and fentanyl inundating communities, or how working families will be made better off by flooding the labor market with cheap illegal labor, or how taxpayers are served by footing the bill for supporting a largely unskilled, uneducated, and dependent population. Now, where is this bill taking us? Well, we already know because we have already had a taste of it. For a while, we allowed aliens on temporary visas and even illegal immigrants here under DACA to enlist so that they could claim a fast track to citizenship. It was called the MAVNI program. One MAVNI enlistment, Ji Chaoqun, was found to be a Chinese spy. A number of foreign nationals who enlisted in our military were subsequently deported for committing crimes. That program was such a debacle that the Obama administration, the architects of DACA, had to suspend it in 2016 because of the danger it posed to national security. Now, foreign nationals who come to America legally, who obey our laws and seek to serve our country because of a love of it and of the principles upon which it is founded, are one of our greatest strengths. Eleven years ago, I spoke at the funeral of Corporal Gurpreet Singh, whose family had emigrated from India legally 11 years before. Let me tell you a little bit about Gurpreet Singh. His father described him this way. He said Gurpreet ``was always a very patriotic man for the U.S. From the time he was a little boy, he knew he wanted to serve in the U.S. military. Gurpreet was very proud of his service with the Marines.'' Corporal Singh was wounded in combat, chose to return, overstayed his assignment in order to relieve a friend, and was killed in action in Helmond Province, June 22, 2011. Yet, the Democrats are either unable or unwilling to tell the difference between a Chinese spy like Ji Chaoqun and an American hero like Gurpreet Singh. It appears the Democrats are attempting to equate the heroism, devotion, and fidelity of heroes like Gurpreet Singh with the convicted criminals that a court has ordered to be deported from our country, or the lawless, illegal mass migration the Democrats are not only ignoring, but actively aiding and abetting with their policies. Now, even if every convicted criminal the Democrats are trying to benefit with this bill were meritorious, wrongly convicted of crimes and exemplary in every way, we are still talking about an infinitesimal fraction of those who are being allowed into our country every day by the dangerous policies of this administration. That includes 120 known terrorists we have intercepted, and God only knows how many more among the 1 million got-aways who have entered our country on Joe Biden's watch. The Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee has done nothing to address this crisis; the Judiciary Committee has done nothing to address this crisis; and the House has done nothing to address this crisis, a crisis that literally began on Inauguration Day when Biden reversed the policies of the Trump administration that had finally secured our borders. I can assure the American people that 28 days from today, all of that is going to change. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I would remind my friend that every alien who serves in our military has the right to naturalize; but that does not give them a right to commit crimes against our country, and that is what this bill does. This amendment sets 90 days as the deadline for promulgating regulations to implement this bill, a bill that overrides the laws governing deportation of aliens who commit crimes in our country if they have enlisted in the Armed Forces. It raises some disturbing questions. Why is it that the bill surrenders legislative prerogatives to the executive? If you are going to write the law, then write it in its entirety in the open. Yes, we have been granting these powers to the executive branch for a very long time. The point is that 10 times more laws are written by the bureaucracies than by the body solely vested with lawmaking authority, but we will save that discussion for another day. Ninety days is an absurdly short period of time to write the regulations, publish the regulations, allow for full public input for the regulations, rewrite the regulations in light of public comments, and publish the final version. It begs the question: Why? Is it possible that the supporters of this law know exactly what they want to do and have no interest in listening to the public? That has been the history of the left's approach to defending the public safety and the Nation's sovereignty, so it would not much surprise me if this is the case. Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that it is clear that the supporters of the amendment are simply trying to rush a bad bill into implementation without the public having any opportunity to see the ramifications of this bill's provisions. As I said earlier, we tried to get into the bill a provision that would allow the victims of these criminal aliens to testify as to the impact of the crimes on their lives, and the Democrats rejected it. Notice and comment periods themselves require 30 to 60 days after the notice of proposed rulemaking is published for the public to submit comments about the proposed rule. After that, the agency has to comb through and respond to all of the submitted comments. There is simply no way to comply with Executive Order 12866's economic analysis requirement for a significant rule, and that is certainly what this is, within a 90-day period of enactment. It is apparent that the Democrats are trying to rush out an interim final rule on this bill before the American public has any opportunity to see what they are doing. We can only conclude that the Democrats know that the American people are not going to like what they see. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment and a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, whether in 60 seconds or 60 hours, it is impossible to do justice to the heroism, patriotism, and service that defines the life of Colonel Bud Anderson. He flew 116 fighter combat missions over Europe in World War II, shot down more than 16 enemy aircraft, and was decorated 25 times, including two Legions of Merit, five Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star, 16 air medals, the French Legion of Honor, and the French Croix de Guerre. Chuck Yeager called him a ``mongoose'' and ``the best fighter pilot I have ever seen.'' After distinguished service in Korea and Vietnam, he managed McDonnell Douglas' legendary flight facility at Edwards Air Force Base. He is still going strong at the age of 100, and today, I am pleased to announce, at the request of Congressman LaMalfa and myself, that the Air Force has just promoted him to the rank of Brigadier General, effective December 14. God bless you, General Anderson. Congratulations, and thank you on behalf of a grateful Nation.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I voted for this bill in committee because it is a worthy objective. Assisting prisoners to successfully reenter society, find jobs, and take their place as law-abiding citizens is essential to the safety and stability of our society. But on further reflection, I have come to believe that this is a program that the Federal Government should not be funding through grants to local organizations. Grants have become the third biggest expenditure of the entire Federal Government, behind only Social Security and National Defense. We give away a half-trillion dollars a year in this manner, that is roughly $4,000 from an average family's taxes, with little oversight, little accountability, little follow-up, and little results. Reentry preparation should be a top priority of Federal and State prison systems. State prisons are a State responsibility. They should be funded by taxpayers of the individual States. Probation departments exist precisely to promote reentry, and the model in this bill should be considered by them. Now, Federal prisons are our responsibility, and we also have probation services that should be striving toward implementing concepts in this bill. If this measure funded Federal programs that expanded reentry preparation within the Federal prisons and probation system, I would strongly support it, but it doesn't. Instead, it takes the money of a taxpayer in one State and throws that money at a nonprofit organization in another State with the hope that some good will come from it. And some might. But more likely, it will disappear into the salaries of various groups who will write glowing reports of their work and apply for more grants next year. And if for some reason the Federal Bureau of Prisons is unable to provide these services, then they should be competitively bid out to contractors with specific performance measurements and accountability. Federal grant spending is completely out of control and it has to stop. Reckless spending--all for good causes--I have never seen a grant program that doesn't promise to do good things, but it is destroying our prosperity. That spending is driving the worst inflation in 40 years and the most ruinous debt in our Nation's history. And it is hard to find a grant program that actually delivers on its promises. I think it is time that we began to spend taxpayers' money as carefully as they spend what they have got left after we have taxed them into debt. This bill falls short of that responsibility.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, the announcement of Mike Garcia's election makes it official: The American people have entrusted Republicans with the House majority. They do so at a time of unprecedented fiscal peril for our country: 40-year high inflation, economic recession, and an approaching debt crisis, all driven by the most reckless spending in our Nation's history. History is screaming this warning at us: nations that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long. Republicans must reclaim the mantle of fiscal integrity and fiscal responsibility, and we should start by renouncing the tawdry, corrupt, and irresponsible practice of congressional earmarks, in which individual Congressmen direct spending to pet projects in their districts or grants to favored supporters, bypassing merit-driven competition. I have proposed to the House Republican Conference a rule forbidding congressional earmarks and expect a vote on it when we return after Thanksgiving. Earmark supporters argue that the power of the purse rests with Congress; therefore, its elected Members, and not unelected bureaucrats, should make these decisions. Well, no, not exactly. Representatives are supposed to be biased toward their districts; that is why Congress is designed to act collectively. Ever since Magna Carta, it has been a settled principle of good governance that the power to appropriate funds should be separated from the power to spend them. This is at the heart of the constitutional separation of powers: Congress appropriates funds but cannot spend them; and the President spends funds but cannot appropriate them. This is the single most important protection we have against political corruption and pork barrel spending. Earmarks undermine this principle, and it is no coincidence that most of the congressional scandals over the years have involved earmarks. A local company produces a product the Pentagon neither needs nor wants. So what to do? Well, it simply ingratiates itself with the local Congressman and has him tell the Pentagon what it needs and who will provide it. Then it rewards him lavishly at election time and repeats. Worthy projects, in open competitive bidding, do not need earmarks; they rise or fall on their merits. And if there is such a thing as a ``good'' earmark, the price to be paid is all the bad ones. That is a high price indeed. Just the last omnibus spending bill in March included nearly 5,000 congressional earmarks totaling $9 billion for some of the most egregious examples of waste in the Federal budget: feral swine management in Arkansas, a national atomic testing museum in Las Vegas, a sheep experiment station in Idaho. Now, Members can and should advocate for their districts, and make the case for projects they deem worthy of the money that Congress has appropriated. The problem with earmarks is blurring these two rules and having Members both advocate and decide. Now, many say they don't trust this President and his deputies to administer these funds appropriately and evenhandedly, and I agree. But if you don't trust the President to administer the funds that we appropriate, then don't give him the money, period. We hear that earmarks simply assure that local governments get a fair break. No, what they actually do is turn the Federal budget into a grab bag for local pork spending by the most powerful Members in Congress; and they undermine the central tenet of federalism: that local projects should be financed by local communities and Federal spending reserved for the Nation's general welfare. When a local government proposes an earmark, what is it saying? It is saying the project is so low on its priority list it doesn't dare spend its own taxpayers' money. But it is perfectly happy to have taxpayers in other communities foot the bill. The result is a long list of dubious projects that rob St. Petersburg to pay St. Paul for projects that St. Petersburg doesn't benefit from, and St. Paul doesn't deem worthy enough to spend its own money on. Finally, it is said that earmarks can ``grease'' legislation by buying off the votes of individual Members. Add a few local projects for that Member, and suddenly a bill he would never vote for on its merits becomes a local imperative overriding his sound judgment. But explain to me, how is that a good thing? Our new majority needs to make a dramatic, concrete, and credible statement that business as usual in Washington is over. Is there a more powerful statement we can make than to swear off this wasteful and corrupting practice of congressional earmarking?

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, what a strange world the woke are creating. Their open borders policy has produced an epidemic of child sex trafficking. They use taxpayer dollars to transport unaccompanied minors across the country. These children are then delivered to those claiming to be friends or family and then abandoned. The Biden administration has now lost track of 45,000 children that it has turned over to so-called sponsors in this manner. Now, the Democrats won't even discuss the sex trafficking crisis that they have created, let alone do anything about it, because to condemn it is to acknowledge it, and they won't even do that. Yet, they bring a bill to the floor today to virtue signal their opposition to sexual harassment in the workplace. Specifically, it voids certain confidentiality clauses in cases involving sexual harassment. Now, let's be clear, no civilized person condones such behavior, and several States have already passed laws similar to the measure before us today. That is where the Constitution rightly places such questions--with the States. Federalism allows a State to try something out. If it works, other States copy it. If it doesn't, they can avoid it. This bill imposes the same standards across the country. Now, what could possibly go wrong? Well, first, it references a study that includes among the definitions of sexual harassment a microaggression--I believe that is the word the woke use--such as misgendering. The mere allegation of sexual harassment, without the necessity of any kind of proof, invalidates the nondisclosure agreement if the parties reach their agreement before the dispute arose. This bill doesn't define ``dispute,'' so we don't even know when exactly it will apply. If an employee accidentally refers to a colleague by a pronoun that has just changed, should this really be grounds for publicly pillorying the employer for sexual harassment? The woke excel at targeting those they disagree with in such a manner. This makes it possible for them to do so under a wide range of circumstances. Second, if the mere allegation of sexual harassment can void a nondisclosure agreement, would someone simply throw in such an allegation in order to air their real grievances? Remember, this bill voids the confidentiality clause entirely, even though those clauses can cover information unrelated to sexual misconduct. Third, where do such confidentiality carveouts stop? Are references in the workplace to political ideology, religious beliefs, or cultural preferences, already branded as microaggressions by the woke, to be added one by one? We know this bill is just the beginning. The White House said as much this week. Perhaps these are questions best left to the States. Perhaps our time is best devoted to protecting the countless children that the crime cartels are sexually exploiting with their active assistance of the Democrats' open border policies.