Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, we are holding 154 people at Guantanamo, 77 of whom have been cleared for release. That is to say they have been found guilty of nothing, are thought to be guilty of nothing, and have been judged not to pose any danger, but nonetheless, they are not released. There is no reason and no right for us to hold them further. The others should be brought to the United States and tried in a secure facility, tried for their offenses. Madam Chair, I wonder which of our colleagues doesn't believe in the American system of justice. I wonder which of us does not trust our own American courts. I wonder who among us does not believe in the Bill of Rights, who does not believe in the right to counsel or that people should have an opportunity to have their guilt or innocence established in court. What we have at Guantanamo is a system that is an affront to those beliefs and to the United States. In the last decade, we have begun to let go of our freedoms bit by bit, with each new executive order, each new court decision, and each new act of Congress. We have begun giving away our right to privacy, our right to our day in court when the government harms us, and with this legislation, we are continuing down the path of destroying the right to be free from imprisonment without due process of law. The language in this bill, without this amendment, prohibits moving any detainees into the United States or releasing any at all and guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely, people who may not be terrorists, who may not be enemy combatants, some of whom we may suspect to be terrorists, none of whom have been proven to be terrorists, none of whom have had a day in court. We will continue to hold them indefinitely without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to any notion of due process. Mr. Cotton says that this Congress has judged that these people are dangerous people. This Congress has no right, under the Constitution, to make such a judgment. That is called the bill of attainder and is specifically prohibited. People to be found guilty must be found guilty in a court, not by a legislative body. Because of this momentous challenge to the founding principles of the United States that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law and certainly may not be deprived of liberty indefinitely without due process of law, we must close the detention facility at Guantanamo now, in order to restore our national honor. This will afford the detainees no additional constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled that detainees at Guantanamo have the same constitutional rights at Guantanamo as they would if they were brought here. They should be brought here. They should be tried in a Federal court, where they can be convicted if guilty and acquitted if innocent and not wait for years for military tribunals which have succeeded in convicting nobody at trial at all. We must restore the honor of the United States and eliminate this exception to our traditions and to our rule of law and to our rule of justice. Just because we think or somebody in the government thinks that somebody is terrorist does not mean that that person is a terrorist--he may or may not be--and it does not mean that he does not have the right to his day in court.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike a legislative rider that was put in the bill to prevent the Department of Defense from decommissioning nuclear missile silos. As you know, the Defense Appropriations bill requires the administration to keep 50 soon-to-be-empty silos--silos with no missiles--on warm standby. The missiles in these silos will be eliminated under the New START arms control agreement, and the administration was hoping to be able to destroy the silos eventually and save some money, but this bill will keep them in warm standby forever. This is not without costs. Under New START, those extra empty silos will have to be counted against our launcher totals, meaning we will have fewer permissible bombers or submarine-based missiles because we have, instead, empty ICBM silos. These silos have been precisely targeted by the Russians for decades. While it is important that we have an appropriate, flexible, and survivable nuclear deterrent, these land-based missiles are the least survivable leg of our deterrent, and, of course, empty silos deter no one. What this rider says is that we should have 50 empty silos and 50 fewer submarine-launched ballistic missiles or bombers. While it is true that, as an offer of support to Senators whose States have missile bases, the administration proposed to keep these silos warm temporarily, there is absolutely no reason to do so forever. This provision is not about security but about pork and political favoritism. Is it any wonder that the most ardent defenders of this provision are from the States of Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, and Wyoming and is not the chairman of the Armed Forces Committee? is not the ranking member of the Armed Forces Committee? In fact, they had worked out a sunset at one point. Mr. Chairman, micromanaging our Nation's nuclear defenses is really not in the best interest of our country. Remember, we have some 450 Minuteman III missile silos. My amendment would change the status of 50 empty silos and only if our national security experts determined they wanted to do so. It would not affect any silos with actual missiles in them, and, therefore, it would not affect our deterrent. I would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, which would allow the President to remove those silos from warm standby at a time of his choosing, when the military tells him it is appropriate to do so and to avoid the cost of keeping open empty silos without any function or usefulness to the national defense. But I want to make a broader point about our broader nuclear strategy. I want to call attention to the obsolescence of the concept of the nuclear triad. Something that has been accepted as gospel for many years no longer makes sense. Our nuclear arsenal is designed to serve as a deterrent to prevent anyone from even considering attacking the United States. In order to deter an attack, any potential adversary needs to know that we have enough nuclear weapons that will survive an initial assault and will retaliate with overwhelming force. As part of the triad, we have ICBMs, which are very vulnerable to an enemy strike; we have bombers, which can be made less vulnerable; and we have submarine-launched missiles, which are not vulnerable. The ICBMs, because they are fixed targets and are vulnerable to attack, need to be launched immediately and are, therefore, at the greatest risk of being launched by mistake or by accident. There is almost no time to verify that a radar contact is actually a flock of incoming missiles and not a flock of seagulls or a sounding rocket. So why do we even need the ICBMs, which are not only vulnerable but dangerous because you have to use them or lose them, especially when we have the subs and the bombers? That debate is for another day. Today, all we are saying is that our generals should have the discretion to spend money on nuclear weapons that best protect the interests of the United States. They should not be forced to waste taxpayer dollars to keep empty missile silos warm when they have limited real utility and are not in our strategic best interests. They should not be used to keep these empty silos warm when it means, under the treaty, we can have 50 fewer submarine-launched missiles--real missiles--as opposed to empty silos. It simply makes no sense. I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment, which would restore to the President and to the military the flexibility to determine whether we want to keep empty silos or real missiles.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. NADLER. In reclaiming my time, I am not suggesting what we should do other than that we should leave the administration and the military with the discretion. They may decide they would rather have more submarine-based missiles rather than empty silos or they may not decide that, but that should be a decision for them. Personally, I think I would rather have more missiles than empty silos or maybe save money, but that is my personal preference. We should leave the decision to the administration. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join the people of New York's tenth congressional district in saying a fond farewell to President and CEO of the William F. Ryan Community Health Center, Barbra Minch, as she enters her retirement. After 35 years of service to the community, Barbra leaves behind an incomparable legacy and has been an immeasurable asset to the community as a whole. The Ryan Center's wonderful contributions would not have been possible without her dedicated service. Barbra E. Minch has lived and worked in the Upper West Side community for over 42 years. As a single parent raising two children, Ms. Minch has been an advocate for affordable housing and quality public schools, a teacher, and an educational administrator. In 1979, Ms. Minch joined the William F. Ryan Community Health Center as an Administrator, and was soon promoted to Deputy Director. In 1995, she was appointed Executive Director by the Board of Directors, and was then appointed President & CEO in 2001. In this role, Ms. Minch provided leadership to 17 sites throughout Manhattan and has represented the Ryan Center in the Community Health Center movement on a federal and statewide scale, contributing unmatchable leadership and philanthropy. Over the years, I have worked with Barbra on many issues regarding health care on the Upper West Side, in Chelsea and Clinton, and in Lower Manhattan. I have always found her to be irrepressible, creative, energetic, and singularly focused on improving access to quality health care at minimal cost to the low-income people among us. Our community has been blessed by Barbra's energy and dedication for many years, and despite her having trained and put in place a dedicated team to continue her work, we shall sorely miss her continuing contributions. Ms. Minch has served on the Board of Directors of the Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS) as First Vice Chair and chaired its Legislative Committee for several years. She is a member of several committees of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), including the Legislative Committee, Credentials Committee, Ethics and Grievance Committee, and Membership and Rules Committees. She is also a member of the Health Care Executive Forum, which advances health care leadership and management. Ms. Minch was the first and only Community Health Center representative on the Board of Trustees of the Job Security Fund of the 1199/SEIU Employment Training and Job Security Program. In 1998, Ms. Minch played an integral role in helping to establish the Coalition to Preserve Access to Community-Based Health Care Providers, which set the stage for direct funding to Community Health Centers from New York State. Ms. Minch has won many awards in recognition of her excellent work and dedication including: The Jeffrey T. Latman Award from CHCANYS; the Palma Award as Health Administrator of the Year from the Latino Coalition for Fair Media; and the distinguished John Gilbert Community Healthcare Award of Excellence from NACHC. Most recently, Ms. Minch was inducted into the NACHC Hall of Fame, one of a small group of community health advocates throughout the nation, and the first New Yorker to receive this prestigious award. Barbra is undoubtedly deserving of all of her commendations, and I hope to offer her another one by wishing her the most sincere congratulations on behalf of myself and my constituents as she finishes a singular career of public service. I wish her the best of luck in everything the future holds for her. I know she will find many more ways to contribute to the lives of residents throughout New York City and beyond. I ask my colleagues to please join me in recognizing Barbra's efforts.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, since 1992, the Housing Opportunity for Persons With Aids, or HOPWA, has provided a vital safety net for people living with HIV/AIDS. In the United States, 50,000 people become infected with HIV every year, and 1.1 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. More than 500,000 of those individuals will need some form of housing assistance during the course of their illness, but 145,000 of these individuals will have unmet housing needs. Housing interventions are critical in our continued fight against HIV/AIDS, and research clearly shows that stable housing leads to better health outcomes. Inadequately or unstably housed individuals are less likely to access routine medical care and more likely to rely on costly emergency and acute care that leads to far higher health care costs. Providing stable housing to people with HIV/AIDS has an immediate impact on the health outcomes, reducing the risk of transmission to a partner by 96 percent, reducing emergency room visits by 36 percent, and reducing hospitalizations by 57 percent. In other words, investing a modest amount in HOPWA today saves us millions, if not billions, of Federal taxpayer dollars in the future, not to mention many lives. HOPWA is the only Federal program to provide cities and States with dedicated resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with HIV/AIDS. And yet, despite the bipartisan agreement on HOPWA's effectiveness and the clear need for additional funding, this legislation provides only $305.9 million for HOPWA in FY15, a cut of more than $24 million from last year, and pushes HOPWA funding below its fiscal year 2008 funding levels, despite an estimated 300,000 people being newly infected with HIV since that time. At this abysmally low funding level, thousands of families and individuals will lose access to HOPWA and face dire health consequences. My amendment would stop this devastating cut by increasing HOPWA funding by $29.1 million and restoring the program to $335 billion, the level it received 5 years ago in fiscal year 2010. I recognize $29 million may sound small by Federal budgeting standards, but this additional funding will ensure that those families and individuals who rely on HOPWA for secure, stable housing will not suddenly find themselves back on the street with no access to lifesaving medical treatment. To protect those living with HIV/AIDS and to stay within the House rules, my amendment offsets this additional funding through cuts to HUD's Information Technology fund. I recognize--I recognize--the importance of providing HUD with phones and computers, but nothing is more important, quite simply, than saving lives. We must pass this amendment and give those families battling HIV/AIDS a fighting chance. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, we can all agree, I think, that this amendment is necessary. We are talking about denying tens of thousands of families and seniors access to an efficient, cost-effective program that keeps families together and lowers the government's costs over the long term. Without this amendment, we will see a spike in homelessness, a spike in medical costs, and a spike in hungry kids. I understand the point of order. I understand that the rules demand an offset for any funding increase in the bill. I also appreciate the chairman's efforts to support Section 8 and public housing. But when funding levels are this restrictive across the board, as they are in this bill, it is impossible to offset such drastic underfunding without hurting other people in need. The rules and the drastic underfunding of this bill make it impossible to meet basic human needs. I hope that, as we go forward, we can find a way to provide these funds so that kids, working families, and seniors are not out on the street, as I guarantee you this bill at this funding level will do.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, two of our central responsibilities as Members of Congress are to support a strong national infrastructure and to ensure that every American has a place to call home. The funding levels provided in this legislation will make it impossible to fulfill either of those responsibilities. There can be no question that we must put people back to work and bring our crumbling, outdated infrastructure into the 21st century. At the funding levels provided in this bill, few of those goals can be accomplished. The bill cuts the FTA's Capital Investment Grant Program, more commonly known as New Starts, by $252 million. It includes a $500 million cut to the TIGER grant program, funding it $1.15 billion below the President's request, and it cuts $200 million from Amtrak's capital funding, while providing no funding for high-speed rail. Beyond simply cutting critical funding, the bill places restrictions on the use of TIGER grants and high-speed rail, and it exempts three States--Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Idaho--from truck size and weight limits on Federal highways. Congress should not preempt the comprehensive study currently being conducted by USDOT, required as part of MAP-21, the last legislation we enacted on the subject, by enacting piecemeal riders on appropriations bills. The devastating impacts these cuts will have on our economy will only be exacerbated by the cuts to vital housing programs for hardworking families. The HOME Investment Partnership Program is funded at its lowest level since its creation in 1992, and the Public Housing Capital Fund falls below its sequestered funding level, adding at least $1 billion to the backlog of capital needs, but perhaps most startling is the failure of this legislation to provide enough funding for every low-income senior and hardworking family to access affordable and secure housing through HUD's tenant-based rental assistance program, or section 8. My amendment finally provides enough funding for HUD to renew every section 8 voucher, including the 70,000 vouchers lost under sequestration, and to support robust staffing at public housing agencies around the country. Rental assistance helps 2.1 million very low-income households rent modest homes in the private market at an affordable cost. Households who use Section 8 have incomes well below the Federal poverty line, and nearly every household using a section 8 voucher includes children, seniors, or people with disabilities. Research consistently demonstrates that this program reduces poverty, housing instability, and homelessness, and helps families live in safe, healthy communities. Despite the success, only about one in four eligible low-income families receives Federal rental assistance. Long waiting lists remain in nearly every community, even as the number of poor families who pay more than half their monthly income for housing costs has risen 28 percent since 2007. These long wait lists are exacerbated by a lack of administrative funding for public housing agencies. In the past, Congress consistently provided the necessary funds to ensure that no one receiving a Section 8 voucher loses access to affordable, decent, and stable housing year to year, but sequestration has had a devastating impact on section 8. With inadequate funding for voucher renewals and extreme cuts to administrative fees, State and local housing agencies assisted an estimated 70,000 fewer families at the end of 2013 compared to a year earlier. The increased funding that Congress provided through the FY14 budget agreement restored less than half of those vouchers, leaving 40,000 very low-income families with no access to affordable housing. This bill does nothing to help those families. My amendment will ensure that public housing agencies can renew every current voucher and restore those lost under sequestration. The amendment funds Section 8 voucher renewals at the President's request of $18 billion and provides an additional $320 million to provide vouchers to the 40,000 families who lost access due to Congress' inability to address sequestration. Of course, this additional funding would go a long way to ensuring that every family who qualifies for rental assistance finds a home. However, at the funding levels for administrative fees in this legislation, it would be impossible for public housing agencies to hire and maintain enough staff to process and renew vouchers. We cannot continue to undermine our hardworking public housing agencies by failing to provide them enough money to function; yet, once again, this bill woefully underfunds administrative fees for public housing by providing only $1.35 billion, a $150 million reduction from last year's enacted level. My amendment would finally address the undercutting at public housing agencies by providing an additional $335 million to match the President's request of $1.7 billion for administrative fees. Mr. Chairman, our first priority must be to ensure that every working family, every senior, and every child has access to a safe, healthy, and affordable home. This amendment will guarantee that no one has to choose between paying their rent and putting food on the table. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time. Point of Order

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I understand that there is an irrational fear of bringing Guantanamo detainees into the United States, even though we would only do so to bring them to justice. In contrast to the military commissions at Guantanamo, which have not reached one verdict other than by plea, the Federal Court system in the United States has been extremely successful at prosecuting terrorists and safely imprisoning them for long periods of time. One of the 9/11 terrorists is in a U.S. prison. The shoe bomber is in a U.S. prison. The underwear bomber is in a U.S. prison. The Times Square bomber is in a U.S. prison. One of the Boston Marathon bombers is in a U.S. prison. We have tried and convicted terrorist masterminds in U.S. courts in my own district. But others are being held at Guantanamo without any prospect of a trial. Ever since Magna Carta, we have denied the government the power to imprison and punish people on mere accusation. Just because the government labels someone a terrorist doesn't make him one. The government must be asked to prove the accusation in court. That has always been a bedrock American principle until we opened Guantanamo. Now we imprison people indefinitely without trial. By what claim of right do we do this? How can we be sure we are punishing actual terrorists and not actual people when we hold no trials? Mr. Wolf said someone may be acquitted. If he is acquitted he should be released. That is our basic principle of justice for the last thousand years. Guantanamo should be closed and its inmates either tried or released. It is beyond time to close Guantanamo so it can no longer be used to rally our enemies to recruit terrorists, to undermine our ability to bring terrorist suspects to justice, and to violate bedrock American principles of due process of law. I am astonished, frankly, that I would hear on the floor of the United States Congress someone say that people might be acquitted, therefore, they should be held in jail forever because maybe the evidence doesn't exist because someone in the government in the all powerful, almighty, all knowing bureaucracy says that if someone is a terrorist that person must be held in jail indefinitely because maybe we don't have the proof. That is not America.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I have heard arguments against this bill, and all of them amount to one argument: the bill doesn't go far enough. I agree. It doesn't, but it is rarely a good argument against a bill to say it doesn't go far enough, if it goes a long way towards solving a real problem. This bill will end bulk collection. It will end it under section 215. It will end it under trace and trap, and it will end it under NSLs. Without this bill--and I hope it is strengthened in the Senate--we will have no chance to end bulk collection, and the current framework which allows the dragnet surveillance of our citizens will continue. I wish this bill were stronger, but it is what we are able to get now. It is a major step forward, and not to pass this bill now would be to say to the NSA: Continue what you are doing, we are placing no restrictions on you beyond what the law already has.

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, today we have the first chance in more than a decade to finally place some real limits on the sweeping, unwarranted--and at times unlawful--government surveillance that many of us have fought against for years. First and foremost--and as the administration acknowledges in its Statement of Administration Policy--this bill will end bulk collection under section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and will ensure that the government is also prohibited from using its National Security Letter authority, or pen registers and trap-and-trace devices, for bulk collection. It does so by requiring the government to identify a specific selection term--something like a person's name, or an account or telephone number--as the basis for obtaining information. This term must limit the scope of records collected to those that are ``relevant'' to an authorized investigation, which requires a reasonable relationship between the particular records and the subjects of a terrorism investigation. I share the concerns that the current definition of ``specific selection term'' may still allow overbroad collection. But given the ``presumptively relevant'' categories that Congress has already identified in section 215--and because the bill will now require participation of an amicus in the FISA Court who can argue against an overly broad reading of the law--the government would not be permitted to, for example, use an entire telephone area code or an Internet router to collect and warehouse records just because a terrorist suspect might be using a phone in that area code or sending communications that might traverse that router. Moreover, to the extent the FISA Court ever construes a specific selection term too broadly, other reforms in the bill ensure that Congress and the American people would know about it immediately and could rein them in. These changes are quite significant, as are the new restrictions to the use of FISA section 702, which allows the NSA to target persons located outside the United States. The USA FREEDOM Act on the floor today certainly does not give us everything we want or need. It is the product of heated negotiations across party and committee lines and with the intelligence community. It is far from perfect, but it is an important step forward, and we will work to fix remaining problems and strengthen the bill as it moves through the Senate. But a ``no'' vote on this bill today may mean no reform at all, thus leaving in place the framework that could lead to the continued dragnet surveillance of our citizens. This must end. This still makes critically important changes that we should all support. That is why I will vote for it and why I urge everyone else to vote for it. With that, I want to thank Congressmen Sensenbrenner, Goodlatte, Conyers, Scott, and Forbes, and all the staff members who worked on this bill. This is a signal occasion. It is the first real progress we will have made--not enough--but a really good first step.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, we are told in opposition to this amendment that terrorists have no constitutional rights. That is like saying rapists or murderers have no constitutional rights. But accused rapists and accused murders do have rights until it is proven that they are guilty, and then their rights are taken away from them. The same must be true of accused terrorists. Ever since Magna Carta, we have denied the government the power to imprison and punish people on mere accusation. That is tyranny. The government's labeling someone a terrorist doesn't make him one. The government must prove the accusation in court. That was always a bedrock American value until we opened Guantanamo. Now we imprison people indefinitely without trial. This must stop. Guantanamo should be closed, and its inmates should be tried or released. Our Federal courts work. They have repeatedly tried, convicted, and sentenced terrorists to long prison terms. Prosecuting and imprisoning terrorists on U.S. soil has proven to be safer, less expensive, and less harmful to our national security. I urge my colleagues to support our amendment to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, end indefinite detention, and restore our national honor.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I had to depart for a meeting at the White House, and as a result, I missed one vote on May 19, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 219, awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the American Fighter Aces.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Moran-Smith-Nadler amendment. We are told by some in the majority that enemy soldiers should not have constitutional rights. But, Mr. Chairman, a majority, concededly, of those at Guantanamo, were never involved in a hostile act against the United States, and 86 percent were turned in for bounties. We don't know whether these people are enemy soldiers. Some of them may be and some of them are probably not. And we don't know that they are terrorists. Those facts must be determined in a fair proceeding of some sort, but at Guantanamo there are no proceedings. They haven't managed to hold military trials. And we can't hold civilian trials there. So we are holding people for no purpose, with no proceedings, no hearings, no opportunity, for essentially forever. The time to close Guantanamo is now. Guantanamo is a stain on our national honor. Never mind all the foreign policy reasons why it is poisoning our relations with foreign countries and instigating terrorism against it. The fact is, it is wrong. We are holding 154 people at Guantanamo, 77 of whom have been cleared for release. That is to say, they have been found guilty of nothing, are thought to be guilty of nothing, and have been judged not to pose any danger. Nonetheless, they are not released. There is no reason and there is no right for us to hold them further. The others should be brought to the United States and tried for their offenses. Mr. Chairman, I wonder which of our colleagues does not believe in the American system of justice. I wonder which one of us does not trust our own American courts. I wonder who among us does not believe in the Bill of Rights, who does not believe in the right to counsel or that people should have an opportunity to have their guilt or innocence established in court. What we have at Guantanamo is a system that is an affront to those beliefs and to the United States. In the last decade, we have begun to let go of our freedoms bit by bit with each new executive order, each new court decision, and yes, each new act of Congress. We have begun giving away our rights to privacy, our right to our day in court when the government harms us, and with this legislation we are continuing down the path of destroying the right to be free from imprisonment without due process of law. Indeed, I wonder if some of the people in Guantanamo broke out of jail, inflicted injuries on American personnel in so doing, and were caught, how we would defend ourselves when they said, We were just victims of kidnapping. The United States Government kidnapped us, with no claim of right. We had every right to use force to escape an illegal kidnapping by a government acting, essentially, under no law. I want to commend the gentleman from Virginia and the gentleman from Washington for fighting to close the detention facility at Guantanamo. The language in this bill, without our amendment, prohibits moving any detainees into the United States and guarantees that we will continue holding people indefinitely--people who may not be terrorists, some of whom we may suspect to be terrorists, none of whom have had a day in court to prove they are or are not terrorists. We will continue to hold them indefinitely without charge, contrary to every tradition this country stands for, contrary to any notion of due process. Because of this momentous challenge to the founding principles of the United States that no person may be deprived of liberty without due process of law--and certainly may not be deprived of liberty indefinitely without due process of law--we must close the detention facility at Guantanamo now in order to restore our national honor. This will afford the detainees no additional constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled detainees at Guantanamo have the same constitutional rights as they would if they were brought here. We must close this facility, try these people or let them go, and restore our national honor. Support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, the Better Off Budget will make our country more competitive and will create 8.8 million jobs through investments, repairing our roads and bridges, modernizing our waterways, and educating our young people. It is the only budget that gets America back to full employment, and does it within 3 years. The Better Off Budget puts an end to a system where CEOs pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries and corporations get unneeded tax breaks. This budget restores full funding to food stamps and strengthens Medicare and Medicaid. It makes a clear choice to support working and middle class families, seniors and those in need, and to reinstate fairness in our economy. For the fourth year in a row, Republicans choose to hurt the many while lavishing benefits on the wealthy few. They choose to slash 3 million jobs and destroy the safety net. They choose to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid and slash aide to college students. They choose huge tax cuts for billionaires and tax increases for the middle class. The Republican budget makes a clear choice--billionaires before working Americans and seniors. The Better Off Budget is about building an economy that creates jobs and supports working and middle class families, not just the richest 1 percent. I urge my colleagues to invest in this country and support the Better Off Budget.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4323, the Debbie Smith Act. Every 2 minutes in this country, someone is sexually assaulted. That means, by the time I finish my remarks today, at least one man, woman, or child will have been brutally attacked. By the end of this year, more than 200,000 people--nearly all of them women and girls--will have been victimized in the most inhuman way. Only 60 percent of victims will ever report their attacks, and barely 3 percent of attackers will ever serve a day in prison. These statistics are staggering, and we are not doing all we can to ensure that every victim has access to the justice he deserves. Too often, victims who are willing to report their attacks face invasive examinations, which leave them feeling victimized all over again. They then wait, often living in fear and with no information from law enforcement, while their rape kits collect dust in evidence lockers or sit on lab shelves. Every untested rape kit is a lost opportunity to provide justice and to catch dangerous criminals. To see the importance of rape kit testing, look no further than New York City. In 1999, the city enacted a policy to test every rape kit and to eliminate its backlog of over 17,000 kits, and 15 years later, that policy has made a world of difference. Every kit collected in New York is tested within 30 to 60 days, and the arrest rate for rape has skyrocketed from 40 percent to 70 percent. Compare that to the national rate of 24 percent. Clearly, the more rape kits we test, the more rapists we get off the streets. Imagine what would happen if we tested all of the 400,000 rape kits that are still sitting on the shelves today around the country. I have fought to end the rape kit backlog for nearly 15 years. In 2000, I supported the passage of the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, which provided $40 million to help States analyze DNA evidence. When the rape kit backlog failed to decrease by 2002, I introduced the Rape Kit DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, which would have authorized $250 million to help police departments finance rape kit testing. In 2004, I cosponsored and worked closely with Mr. Sensenbrenner and others to enact the Justice for All Act that created the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, which authorized hundreds of millions of dollars for DNA testing and strengthened the ability of State and local law enforcement to test rape kits. While I am pleased that we will reauthorize the Debbie Smith Grant Program today, I am disappointed that we are not considering a complete reauthorization of the Justice for All Act, including the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Grant programs. DNA evidence is vital to providing justice for all people by putting violent criminals behind bars and by exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. We should not allow a vital program to lapse because it is less politically expedient. It is my hope that we can work together to pass a complete reauthorization of the Justice for All Act as our colleagues in the Senate claim to do shortly. In the 10 years since the creation of the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, we have seen much progress, but the backlog continues to be a major problem, and prosecuting is uneven across the country. I commend the chairman of the committee and the ranking member and all of the other Members who have worked on this bill. I urge my colleagues to support the bill and to work towards a day when no rape kit goes untested and every victim of sexual assault sees justice.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this burdensome and unnecessary piece of legislation. We all know this is a message bill, a one-House bill that is not going anywhere in the Senate and is intended only as political propaganda against the President. It is a sham, and we all know it. In fact, we have come to expect it. Never mind that there are real problems facing the American people that we can and should be working on, like raising the minimum wage, reforming our broken immigration system, creating jobs, extending unemployment insurance. I guess it's not enough for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ignore America's real problems. They have to waste time on invented problems that don't really exist. That brings us to the bill before us today. This bill would require the Attorney General to report to Congress any instance when any Federal officer establishes a policy to refrain from enforcing, applying, or administering any Federal law, as well as to state the grounds underlying such a nonenforcement policy. It expands the current law, which requires the Attorney General to report instances when he determines not to enforce the law because he believes that law to be unconstitutional. This new burdensome mandate would not only result in confusion and drain already-limited law enforcement resources, but would present separation-of-powers concerns as to its constitutionality. The bill would require the Attorney General to oversee every single Federal officer, every U.S. attorney, every deputy U.S. attorney, every agent of any Federal agency, thousands of people, and would require him to determine in every instance when they prioritize enforcement of some classes of cases over others whether such exercises of discretion constitute a ``policy'' of nonenforcement. What a complete mess. Millions of decisions every year. Talk about your bureaucratic nightmare, not to mention your waste of taxpayers' dollars. What is even worse is this bill is a thoroughly flawed solution in search of an imaginary problem. Over the course of two oversight hearings on the topic, the bill's supporters have failed to identify a single example of the President really failing to ``faithfully execute'' the law. It is clear that they have confused constitutional violations with the President's legitimate exercise of enforcement discretion, which is not only well within his authority, but is in fact required by the Constitution's Take Care Clause. Whether it be increasing the minimum wage with Federal contractors, which he is allowed to do; allowing the DREAMers to stay in the country by deferred deportation orders, for which there is much precedent; or even delaying implementation of certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, all of these actions are well within the President's legal authority. Of course the President has the authority to set guidelines for Federal contractors or to prioritize immigration enforcement dollars away from deporting children. Even when it comes to delaying deadlines of provisions in the Affordable Care Act, his goal was not to undermine the law. It was the exact opposite--to ensure that the law continues to work well for the millions of Americans who are benefiting from it: the children under age 26 who can remain on their parents' policies, those with preexisting conditions who can get insurance, women and seniors benefiting from increased preventive care services, of course the millions of previously uninsured who now have health insurance. So, Madam Speaker, I hope my colleagues will be content with their message bill based on half-truths, completely unworkable technically, and completely without any benefit to the millions of Americans who want more from Congress than silly messages. Americans want results. They want higher wages, a better immigration system, and affordable health care. I guess the Republicans are content to have them wait and to try to entertain them with silly nonsense. It is really sad. I hope we can get down to dealing with serious issues in this Congress.