Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Allred) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. ALLRED asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Cunningham.)

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Washington an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 41) rejecting White nationalism and White supremacy.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the measure under consideration.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, this resolution stands for one very simple proposition: White nationalism and white supremacy are hateful expressions of intolerance that have no place in the United States of America. Unfortunately, what should be an obvious statement in 2019 has been challenged in recent days, and not for the first time, by one of our own colleagues. As those elected to represent all of America, Members of Congress should be the first to condemn white nationalism and white supremacy, which are the source of so much violence, so much hatred, and so much divisiveness throughout our Nation's history. These hateful ideologies are diametrically opposed to what America is supposed to be. But, as the New York Times reported last week, Mr. King of Iowa was quoted as saying: ``White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization--how did that language become offensive?'' Well, I will tell him, and anyone else who may be confused. This language has always been offensive. We fought a civil war to establish that. But this language and the philosophy it represents persisted. It motivated the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize African Americans; it sparked Jim Crow laws that oppressed African Americans through institutionalized racism; it inspired the murder of nine Black congregants in a Charleston, South Carolina, church; and the murder of 11 Jewish worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue; and it inspired racists, anti-Semites, and other assorted bigots at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that spread fear, hatred, and, ultimately, violence in celebration of white supremacy. These hateful ideologies are dangerous, not because they too often lead to violence. These noxious views can also infect the policies that govern our Nation, sowing more division, and leading to more injustice in our society. When we establish Muslim bans; when we try to build walls to keep out those who do not look like us; and when we reverse a half century of progress on voting rights and civil rights, we are putting these hateful views into action. I thank the distinguished majority whip, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), for bringing this resolution forward. He knows from his experience--both as a leader in the civil rights movement, and as a Member of Congress whose own constituents were recently targeted in a vicious attack motivated by white supremacy--that when we see bigotry and hatred expressed in any form, we must condemn it, loudly and forcefully. We can pretend that these sentiments do not exist in our country, in this Congress, or in the White House. We can try to sweep them under the rug, and to convince ourselves that we have moved past our shameful history on race. But we ignore white supremacy at our peril. If we do not speak out now, collectively as a Congress, clearly and without reservation, we will send the message that these views are acceptable, and they will continue to fester in communities across the country, generating more hatred, more repression, and more violence, in their wake. Madam Speaker, I call upon all of my colleagues--Republican and Democrat alike--to reject the hateful ideology of white nationalism and white supremacy, the policies that flow from such hatred, and anyone who would espouse those views. Vote ``yes'' on this important resolution. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the distinguished majority whip.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina.

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

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation because it is past time to move beyond the political game of chicken and reopen these critical government agencies. This Republican-passed Senate bill is not perfect. While it maintains current funding for the HOPWA program, it does not include the full $393 million that I led many of my colleagues in requesting last Congress. The House fiscal year 2019 bill reflected that funding level, and I deeply appreciate the hard work of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in achieving that goal. But I support this bill and urge all of my colleagues to vote for it for one simple reason: We must get these programs funded and operating again. People are suffering. They are working without pay or furloughed with no idea if they will ever get back to work. They are watching critical services and benefits slowly disappear, and it will only get worse as this absurd and unnecessary shutdown drags on. The House will pass this bill today, and I call on my Republican colleagues here and in the Senate to get people back to work, to get our government open again, and to put aside this political game of blackmail by the President in which he says the government will remain shut if we don't give him his $5 billion downpayment on a $25 billion wall. That is a judgment for Congress, not to be subject to blackmail by the President holding the American people hostage. I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill, and let's get our government open again.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution authorizing the House to defend the Affordable Care Act in court against baseless but potentially devastating litigation designed to dismantle the law. Because of the ACA, which passed without a single Republican vote, millions of Americans now have access to health insurance, including those with preexisting conditions. Yet ever since it became law, the ACA has been the target of nonstop attacks by Republican politicians intent on stripping Americans of the important protections guaranteed by the law. For the last 8 years, when the Republicans controlled the House, they voted 62 times to repeal the ACA but never once came up with a proposal to protect Americans with preexisting conditions. Despite all the Republicans' efforts, the ACA still stands today, continuing to guarantee access to affordable, quality health insurance. But now, 21 Republican State attorneys general have launched a new attack on the law, based on tortured logic and flimsy legal reasoning. The Department of Justice has a duty to defend every duly enacted law, absent exceptional circumstances. The Trump administration, however, has broken this well-established norm and now refuses to defend the law from this latest challenge, a decision that caused several career Justice Department attorneys to resign in protest. The Judiciary Committee will be investigating how the Trump administration made this blatantly political decision to abdicate its responsibility, and the committee will be holding those responsible accountable for their actions. While the administration turns its back on people with preexisting conditions and people who would go bankrupt without the law's cost- sharing subsidies, with this resolution, the House of Representatives has an opportunity to provide the defense that the ACA and the millions of Americans who depend on it every day deserve. Although legal scholars across the ideological spectrum find the plaintiffs' arguments laughable, it has found a sympathetic judge in Texas who recently ruled the entire law must be overturned. This resolution would authorize the House to intervene in the case as it works its way through the courts on appeal to ensure that the law's vital protections are properly defended in court. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and to allow the House to fend off this latest Republican assault against the health and well-being of Americans.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 756, or the amendments thereto, the First Step Act, as passed by the Senate. This legislation has traveled a long journey to get to this point. Along the way, various aspects of the bill have changed. Although I do not agree with all of the changes, on balance, the measure has greatly improved, thanks to the hard work of many Members on both sides of the aisle from the House and the Senate. Before I get to the substance of the bill, I want to recognize some of the people most responsible for getting us here today. There are a number of champions of criminal justice reform in the Senate, but I particularly want to recognize and thank Senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley for their commitment to getting a bill that includes important sentencing reforms to the President's desk. In the House, I want to thank my Judiciary Committee colleagues, Hakeem Jeffries and Doug Collins, who worked together and with us to achieve a bipartisan compromise that is the foundation of this bill. I also thank the ranking member of the Crime Subcommittee, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who has helped hold this legislation to a high standard, knowing that so many are counting on us to address longstanding injustices. There are many others in the House who have fought for substantial reform for years, upon whose labors this bill was built, who deserve our thanks. Finally, let me recognize Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, who is retiring at the end of this term. He and I have not always seen eye to eye on a range of issues, including some aspects of this bill, but I appreciate his efforts as chairman over the past 6 years to work with my Democratic colleagues on the committee. Today, we join together in supporting an important, bipartisan bill. I thank him for his leadership in bringing us to the final stage of its consideration and for his service to Congress and to the country. As for the bill itself, S. 756 makes a number of reforms to our Federal sentencing laws. It also establishes a new system to provide incentives to some Federal prisoners to participate in programs that will reduce the risk that they will commit crimes once they are released. The prison reform provisions in this bill are similar to those in H.R. 5682, the House-passed measure with the same name as this new bill. The bill before us today includes provisions intended to address concerns that I and many others raised about the fairness of the new recidivism reduction system for Federal prisons. For instance, this revised bill establishes an independent review committee of outside experts to assist the Justice Department in the development of the risk and needs assessment system that would determine the programming for inmates, their risk categories, and their eligibility for early entry into prerelease custody. Also, the bill expands the option for prerelease custody to include supervised release. Changes such as these, in addition to authorizing more funding for the expansion of programming to reduce the risk of recidivism by inmates, help make this new system more fair. In the other direction, however, I am disappointed the bill excludes additional categories of offenders from being able to earn early entry into prerelease custody, reducing the risk reduction incentives for those who perhaps need it the most. The prison reform provisions of this bill also include a number of very positive changes, such as banning shackling of pregnant and postpartum inmates, fixing the calculation of time off earned for good behavior, improving application of compassionate release, and providing other measures to improve the welfare of Federal inmates. In addition, the bill reauthorizes the Second Chance Act, a historically bipartisan effort to help ex-offenders successfully reenter their communities after having served their time. Critically, this bill would not only implement these reforms to our prison system, but it also takes a crucial first step toward addressing grave concerns about our sentencing laws, which have for years fed a national crisis of mass incarceration. It was largely due to the absence of provisions changing our sentencing laws that some of us opposed the House version of this bill, but that exclusion has been remedied, and we now support this bill wholeheartedly. Among the sentencing reforms contained in this bill are expanding the existing safety valve to allow judges greater authority to sentence low-level, nonviolent offenders below the mandatory minimum, applying the crack cocaine sentence reductions from the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactively, reducing certain minimum sentences for recidivist offenders, and stopping the unfair ``stacking'' of mandatory sentencing enhancements for certain repeat firearms offenders. Although we must do far more to address the injustice of mandatory minimum sentences and other policies that lead to mass incarceration, these changes recognize the fundamental unfairness of a system that imposes lengthy imprisonment that is not based on the facts and circumstances of each offender and each case. This legislation is not the end of the discussion. As the title of the bill suggests, it is a first step. It will not solve longstanding problems with our criminal justice system--issues and injustices that will require more aggressive and comprehensive reforms in the future-- but it does make substantial reforms, and it demonstrates that we can work together to make the system more fair in ways that will also reduce crime and victimization. Therefore, I support this bill, and I ask my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time, and I ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) be permitted to control the balance of my time.