Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. O'Rourke).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings).

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3731. This bill would raise the cap on overtime pay for Secret Service agents through next year. These agents pursue the unique dual role of the Secret Service, which consists of protective and investigative functions. Secret Service agents are most commonly known for their role in protecting the President, Vice President, their families, and other dignitaries. Their duties, however, also involve rotations into units that investigate threats against our financial system, certain types of identity theft, and related cybercrimes. This bill before us today is before us because the demands on these agents have increased significantly under the Trump administration. President Trump seems to travel to properties in Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia almost every weekend, and the number of individuals in the Trump administration under Secret Service protection has exceeded 40, in comparison to just over 30 under the Obama administration. Protective overtime hours for special agents are 15 to 20 percent higher than those during the last non-Presidential campaign year. Because of the increased workload, many Secret Service personnel will hit the statutory pay cap this year, and next. This bill would raise the cap through calendar year 2018. This change is necessary to allow Secret Service agents to be compensated for the extraordinary rigors and time demands placed upon them as they work diligently to fulfill their critical mission. The adjustment is necessary for the retention of well-trained agents and the recruitment of new ones. I also note that the bill would require GAO to conduct a study of the Secret Service's implementation of recommendations concerning training and personnel made 3 years ago by the Secret Service Mission Panel. Congress will benefit from receiving a progress report on this effort. The various provisions of this bill will help make the Secret Service a more effective agency in pursuing its dual mission. Mr. Speaker, I, therefore, support H.R. 3731 and ask that my colleagues do the same.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3317. Unfortunately, this bill is needed to help protect young women and girls from the horrible practice of female genital mutilation. H.R. 3317 would increase the maximum penalty from 5 years to 15 years for female genital mutilation to appropriately punish those who commit this horrible crime. FGM, female genital mutilation, is internationally recognized as a violation of the human rights of girls and young women. It is currently a crime in 26 States, including New York, in addition to the prohibition in the Federal criminal code. Around the world, at least five girls are mutilated in this way every single hour. An estimated 100 million girls and 140 million women worldwide are living with the consequences of genital mutilation. Despite the fact that female genital mutilation has been banned in the United States since 1996, people continue to engage in this abusive practice. Recently, the first prosecution was initiated under the Federal statute. A doctor in Michigan was charged with performing female genital mutilation on two girls who had been brought across State lines for this purpose. Those who commit these horrendous crimes should be held accountable for their actions. I support increasing the maximum penalty under Federal law from 5 to 15 years in order to reflect the severity of these injuries and their long-lasting consequences and, perhaps, to better deter these crimes. Therefore, I support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember a great champion of the people who passed away last week at the age of 79. Maurice Hinchey was, indeed, a great champion of the people, a great patriot, and a great leader. I served with him in the State Assembly in New York for 16 years and here in the Congress for 20 years. He was perhaps one of the foremost environmentalists of his generation. He led the successful fight to get General Electric to clean up the PCBs in the Hudson River, to clean up that river and make it not quite drinkable yet, but make it environmentally safe. He led every environmental battle. He is one of those people who made it easier to serve in Congress because you could always check and say, ``Did I do the right thing on an environmental vote,'' by looking to see how Maurice voted. Maurice was a liberal in a conservative area, and everyone loved him because they knew what a wonderful man he was, and they knew how much he cared about his constituents and about the country. It didn't matter whether he was liberal or conservative. Everybody loved him. We all did, we all do, we regret his passing, and may he rest in peace.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act. This bill would take a number of steps to help protect the mental well-being of those who take extraordinary steps to protect all of us. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the Department of Justice reports that law enforcement has an occupational fatality rate three to five times higher than the national average for the working population. Officers respond to horrible situations that are dangerous, stressful, and sometimes life-threatening. In addition to protecting law enforcement officers from the physical hazards associated with doing their daily jobs, we must also do more to protect them from the mental and emotional difficulties resulting from their work. That is why I support this bill, which would initiate several efforts to help the mental wellness of our law enforcement officers. The bill calls for the collaboration of the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to determine which mental health practices and services from the military agencies may be adopted to help civilian law enforcement. The bill would expand the allowable uses of existing Justice Department grants to include establishment of mental health and wellness programs within State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies. The bill would direct the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop educational materials for mental health providers about the culture of law enforcement agencies. Finally, the bill would consider improvements to crisis hotlines to better serve those from law enforcement who seek to use them. Although I am particularly proud of New York's finest, I am glad that this bill will help law enforcement officers in every jurisdiction across the country. Their service certainly deserves the assistance this legislation will provide. Therefore, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill today.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. I do have one more point to make, and the gentleman reminded me of it. In 2004, when we had the repatriation, we told the big corporations they could bring all the offshore money home and pay only a fractional tax on it; they were going to create jobs and so forth. And what happened? They didn't create jobs. They had buybacks. They enriched their executives. They didn't create jobs. The fundamental problem with this analysis is not that corporations don't have enough money to invest, and, therefore, if you give them lower taxes they will have more money to invest; they have plenty of money to invest. They don't see the investment opportunities, and that is a different problem. There is plenty of money to invest. They are rolling in cash. There is not a dearth of investment opportunity. There is not a dearth of investment cash. So if you give them more cash, they will pay their CEOs higher. They will put more money into stock buybacks. The shareholders may benefit, but they won't hire more workers. The economy won't benefit; and we will be taking money away from the middle class and lower-income people, and we will be taking money away from the governments, local governments, that have to spend the money on schools, housing, health, roads and bridges, and so forth to build up this country.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for organizing this Special Order on this terrible Republican tax scam. This scam is a desperate, disgraceful attempt to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans and corporations at the expense of the middle class. And for what? We are told the corporate and upper income tax cuts will result in more investment, in greater economic growth, which will yield more jobs and more revenue for the country and higher wages for the middle class, but that is bull. They have run this scam twice before. Ronald Reagan passed similar upper class tax cuts and told us they would generate such economic growth that they would pay for themselves. George W. Bush pulled the same scheme. What happened? President Reagan's cuts sent the national debt--the national debt accumulated from George Washington through Jimmy Carter, which was a little less than $800 billion in 1980--from $800 billion to $4.3 trillion 12 years later, quintupled. President Bush's tax cuts turned the projected 10-year, $5.65 trillion surplus--remember at the end of the Clinton administration, we were having surpluses, and the projected surplus over 10 years was $5.65 trillion. His tax cuts turned that, in 8 years, into $10.63 trillion debt. It turned a $5.6 trillion surplus into a $10.6 trillion debt. So the argument that these kinds of tax cuts for the upper-income people and for corporations generate greater economic growth to generate more tax revenues has been tried twice, not to mention in Kansas, recently. It doesn't work. There is nothing in this bill to argue that this tax scam will have a different impact on the economy than Reagan's or Bush's. In fact, this scam is so skewed toward the rich and corporations, it could actually be worse. The bill would eliminate the alternative minimum tax. To put it in perspective, in 2005, the only year for which we have at least the summary pages of Donald Trump's tax returns, in that year, Donald Trump paid $38 million in taxes. Of that, $31 million was the alternative minimum tax. The Republicans want to eliminate the only tax that we actually know that Donald Trump has ever paid. His taxes would have been $5 million, not $38 million, if it weren't for the alternative minimum tax. Of course, he wants to eliminates it. Republicans will repeal the estate tax, despite the fact that the estate tax is paid by only the wealthiest 5,000 estates in the country every year--two-thousandths of 1 percent. Wealthy Americans would also see immediate personal benefits from cuts to corporate taxes. This bill immediately and permanently cuts the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. It also cuts the rates for pass-through corporations from 39 to 25 percent. Once again, Republicans claim this will help small businesses, but it simply isn't true. These pass-through corporations are extremely wealthy partnerships and private companies. If you need a good example, I have a great one just outside my district; it is called the Trump Organization, which is organized as a pass-through corporation. Now, they tell us that middle-income businessmen will profit by this, but middle-income businessmen are not paying more than 25 percent to start with, so this will only benefit the rich, again. But while billionaires and corporations will enjoy all these benefits, the Republican bill hands working families ticking time bombs. Unlike the corporate tax changes, which are permanent and indexed to inflation, every benefit in the Republican tax scam for the middle class sunsets after 5 years or is indexed to a slower rate of inflation. Speaker Ryan brags about a family earning $59,000 a year getting a $1,500 break in their tax burden next year. Well, even in his example, by 2023, that family is right back where they started; and by 2027, they will be paying $500 more than they were this year. This bill wipes out nearly every deduction and credit that helps working families make ends meet--the deduction of State and local income taxes, which hundreds of thousands of middle-income New Yorkers rely on each year. When the income tax was first enacted to finance the Civil War, and when it was re-imposed to finance World War I--and we have had it since then--we have always had a deduction for State and local taxes. Why? Because you shouldn't be taxed on a tax. You shouldn't be taxed doubly. It is unfair. But now we will be. The medical expense deduction, which families use to pay for everything from fertility treatments to nursing home care, this deduction says: If you are a middle-income family, and your out-of- pocket expenses, beyond your insurance, if you have insurance, beyond your Medicare, if you are a senior citizen, total more than 10 percent of your total gross income, you can deduct your medical expenses to the extent it exceeds 10 percent of your total gross income. So it has got to be large. If your income is $75,000 a year, you can only deduct the medical expenses that exceed $7,500, not the first $7,500. This will be gone, too. Now, if you have got parents in nursing homes, you depend on this. If you have got a child with cerebral palsy--God forbid--if you have got a kid with cancer, you depend on this, but it is going to be gone. The student loan interest deduction will be gone. So people go to school, they go to college, they come out with these terrible, huge debts. They have to repay the student loans. At least they can deduct the interest on the student loans. Not anymore. The adoption tax credit, child care spending accounts, even deductions for teachers who buy school supplies for their classrooms, all gone. And why? To pay for tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. But, as has been pointed out, under this scam, corporations keep these deductions for their income. They keep the State and local tax deduction, but individuals don't. How can Republicans claim this bill helps the average American when families are denied the deductions that corporations get to keep? If this bill is so blatantly harmful to working families, why are my Republican colleagues so crazy about it? Does it create jobs or give the economy a boost? No. As I said, we have tried that twice before with disastrous results. Kansas, Brownbackistan as they call it, after Governor Brownback tried that, with disastrous results, so that the Republican legislature had to increase taxes earlier this year, over the Governor's veto, to start getting out from 4-day school weeks. Under this plan, Republicans would tax companies less when they produce goods overseas than when they produce them here in the U.S. It is a giant incentive to large corporations to send jobs overseas. And if you ever doubted the Republicans were doing this at the bidding of corporate donors, well, just last week, Chairman Brady, of the Ways and Means Committee, tweaked an excise tax multinational corporations opposed and gave those corporations back $100 billion in revenue. No such change was made for working families. Now, we know--we know from experience--that a few years from now the Republicans will use the $1.7 trillion deficit this scam creates to say: Oh, my God. Look at this massive deficit. We have to make terrible cuts to Social Security, to Medicare, to education, to infrastructure, not that we want to. We love Medicare. We love Social Security, but we have got to savage them in order to pay for these terrible deficits which we created. That is what they are building in now. That is what this tax bill is designed to produce. The Republicans are scamming America. They are offering a facade of lower taxes that most Americans will never see, in exchange for massive and permanent tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, and guaranteed cuts down the road, in fact, some of them right away, to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, infrastructure. I do not accept that deal, and the American people shouldn't have to either. We can find bipartisan common ground that allows us to support working families, create jobs, and see every American pay their fair share. American corporations, huge corporations, have $2.4 trillion stashed abroad, which they don't pay taxes on until they bring it home. We don't have to allow that. We can make them pay taxes on it right away, whether they bring the money home or not. Why should we encourage them to keep the money abroad, to create jobs abroad, by telling them they don't pay taxes if the money is abroad? And the Republican bill just makes that worse. This Republican tax scam is not a fair plan. It is not a plan to increase the economy. It is not a plan for economic growth. It is not a plan for fairness to the middle class. Let me just say one other thing. A number of years ago, while we were told--I have seen ads--we were told by the Republican leaders that the economic growth from this bill will produce huge gains for the average family. Never mind the tax cut that the average family will or won't get. Because of the economic growth from this tax plan, wages will go up, and the average person will get $1,500 or $1,800 or $2,000, depending who you are listening to, in extra wages. Well, a number of years ago, we were told the same thing about a bankruptcy bill. This bankruptcy bill that the big banks pushed and all the Republicans pushed, we were told that if we passed this bill, the banks would save so much money from certain deadbeats that the average American would save $400 a year in lower interest rates. I offered an amendment to say: Fine, mandate that the interest rates be lowered. And, of course, the Republicans voted that down. Well, we passed that bill. We passed that bill 12 years ago. Have you seen the interest rates go down? The interest rates are still sky high. The banks raked in the money, hand over foot. The lobbyists did very well. The Republicans collected the campaign contributions. The American people did not benefit. Same thing here. There will be no increase in economic growth as a result of this bill. There will be no increase in benefits. There will simply be a huge sucking sound as the money is taken from the middle class and low-income people and given to the superrich. This bill is disgusting. It ought to be rejected.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans are scamming America. They are offering a facade of lowered taxes that you probably will never see in exchange for massive and permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. And for what? We are told the corporate and upper income tax cuts will result in more investment and greater economic growth, which will yield more jobs and more revenue for the country and higher wages for the middle class. But this is bunk. They have run this scam twice before. Reagan passed similar upper class tax cuts and told us the tax cuts would generate such economic growth that they would pay for themselves. What happened? The national debt--accumulated from George Washington through Jimmy Carter--went from $800 billion in 1980 to $4.3 trillion 12 years later, and growth was less than under President Clinton. George Bush's tax cut turned an anticipated 10-year $5.65 trillion surplus into a $10.63 trillion debt in 8 years. And 3 or 4 years from now, Republicans will use the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion deficit this scam will create to say: Look at this massive deficit. We have to make savage cuts to Social Security, Medicare, education, and infrastructure. That is what they are building in now. The Republicans are scamming America, and we must reject this bill.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 469, the newly renamed Congressional Article I Power Strengthening Act. This bill stitches together three unrelated bills, each one problematic in its own way. Title III of the bill, the Article I Amicus and Intervention Act, would permit as a right the House to intervene as a party where an amicus in a lawsuit with the Department of Justice declines to defend the constitutionality of a law or regulation. While this proposal may have some merit, it was introduced only last week. It was the subject of no hearing. It has had no markup. We simply do not know the full implications of the measure. If it is a worthy proposal, we should take the time to consider it in committee before moving forward. Title II of the legislation, the Judgment Fund Transparency Act, would require additional reporting about the funds paid out of the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund by the United States Government to resolve legal claims against it. This legislation raises significant privacy concerns. It would require publishing sensitive, personally identifying information about individual claimants who are the victims of government misconduct, such as medical malpractice, racial discrimination, or sexual harassment. Our laws should carefully balance the need for public disclosure of government spending with the need to protect the personal privacy of individual citizens. This bill upsets that balance. By far, the most concerning aspect of this legislation is Title I, the Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act. This provision also poses as a transparency measure, but its real aim is to disrupt and delay the process for issuing rules that protect public health and safety. Congress frequently sets a statutory deadline for an agency to complete a rulemaking, but the agency sometimes misses that deadline. Under current law, private parties can sue the agency to meet its statutory obligations. Since there is little dispute that the agency has failed to do its duty, these lawsuits often end up settling, with the agency agreeing to a new schedule in which to complete the required rulemaking. That is perfectly reasonable. However, the Republican majority and the businesses that are the subject of such regulation believe these lawsuits have some nefarious purpose. They have concocted an imagined vast conspiracy by which private parties collude with the government to file a lawsuit, and the government happily either settles or enters into a consent decree, supposedly allowing it to impose obligations or rules beyond what it could otherwise do. Unfortunately for supporters of this bill, there is no evidence of such a conspiracy and no evidence, in fact, of any problem. To solve this nonexistent problem, this bill adds numerous procedural requirements before a settlement or consent degree can be entered into. The effect of these requirements would be to make any settlements or consent decrees more difficult and more time-consuming to enter into, with the predictable result that agencies will not even bother to enter into them at all. Most troubling, the bill would create a special and more permissive rule for virtually any party to involve itself in the case as an intervener. These interveners would do their best to ruin, block, or delay any settlement, including during what should be private negotiations. That, of course, is the true purpose of this bill. They seek to tie government agencies up in years of litigation so that they are unable to issue rules protecting public health and safety. The real conspiracy here is the Republican plot to destroy the regulatory state. With one hand, we defund the agencies; and with the other hand, we build all sorts of hurdles in the regulatory process so that the agencies have no ability to complete their work. It is a shameful effort that may save big businesses some money and regulatory compliance, but it will cost our citizens their health, their safety, and possibly their lives. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this terrible legislation.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 732. This misguided legislation would restrict the government's flexibility to resolve lawsuits against corporate wrongdoers and would make it harder to provide a remedy to all those who are harmed by the company's malfeasance. Under well-established law, when settling claims with some corporate defendants, the Department of Justice may seek to include among the terms a contribution by the defendant to a third-party organization. Because it is often difficult to identify each individual who was harmed by the company's actions, particularly those who suffered the secondary effects of such wrongdoing, these third-party payments are intended to address the generalized harms caused by corporate bad actors. But this bill would prohibit any payment to a party that is not for restitution or to remedy a harm that is ``directly and proximately'' caused by the defendant. Such restrictions will needlessly hamper the Department of Justice's ability to efficiently resolve claims and to provide relief to all those injured by a defendant's actions. For example, in the wake of the financial crisis, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Holder, sued several large banks whose egregious misconduct destabilized the housing market and threw millions of people out of their homes, with millions more placed on the brink of foreclosure, all while the banks reaped massive profits. The banks agreed to resolve these claims by paying record-setting fines to the government in recognition of the tremendous damage they had caused. Some of these voluntary agreements also included payments to housing counseling agencies and legal aid organizations responsible for assisting homeowners devastated by the foreclosure crisis that those banks helped create. The Republican majority sneers at these nationally recognized community organizations, however, and dismisses them as nothing more than activist groups. Republicans are so concerned that funds were going to organizations that help level the playing field between corporations and individuals that they drafted this legislation to prohibit the government from entering into a settlement that provides for any third-party payments. Homeowners and communities across the country are still struggling with the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis, and the third-party payments negotiated by the Obama administration have been vital in helping both the direct victims and all those who suffered the collateral consequences of the banks' misconduct. Attorney General Sessions recently announced that his Justice Department will not include such terms in the settlements it negotiates. But supporters of this bill insist that we must tie the hands of future administrations as well, weakening their ability to efficiently resolve claims and preventing them from using this tool to seek relief for the victims of corporate misdeeds. This unnecessary and irresponsible legislation is yet another attempt by the Republican majority to favor wealthy corporations over individuals, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to share one last thought before closing. In our markup of this bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell) had this to say about a recent experience in the Intelligence Committee: ``We had interviewed a witness just 2 weeks ago with respect to our Russia interference investigation. . . . ``After the interview, he gave a public statement . . . and said that he had withheld information from the committee because he was not under subpoena. ``And he also stated that he felt like he had certain privileges to assert that allowed him to withhold this information. ``And so I saw right there . . . that even under a subpoena, individuals believe''--some individuals believe--``that without necessarily having a judicial or legal basis for privilege that they could just assert it. ``And I believe that is because the public is starting to perceive that our subpoena power does not have the weight that it should.'' Wherever the Intelligence Committee's investigation lands, Mr. Speaker, we have a great deal of work to do. Given some of our current challenges, it is more important than ever for the House to conduct substantive oversight of the executive branch. This bill contributes to that effort, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4010, the Congressional Subpoena Compliance and Enforcement Act of 2017. My support of this legislation is tied to my view of our committee's responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch. Nearly a century ago in McGrain v. Daugherty, the United States Supreme Court framed that responsibility this way: ``A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information--which not infrequently is true--recourse must be had to others who possess it.'' In other words, it is our responsibility to ask for the information we require to do our jobs effectively, and the Constitution empowers us to enforce those requests if we are at first denied. We should be very clear on this point. Congress does not require a statute in order to enforce its subpoenas in Federal court. We know this, of course, because in 2008, the House Judiciary Committee went to court to defend that authority. Ruling in favor of the committee, the court held that the Bush administration's claim of absolute immunity from our process ``is entirely unsupported by existing case law.'' In effect, both government officials and private individuals have a legal obligation to comply with the duly issued congressional subpoena whether or not the bill before us today is enacted into law, still this legislation is useful as a means to codify certain practices and to expedite enforcement of subpoenas in Federal court. It also puts the House on equal footing with the Senate, which has had a statute in place since 1978, allowing that body to enforce at least some of its subpoenas in Federal court. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Goodlatte for working with us to make sure that we strike the right balance. This bill both protects our existing authority and mitigates many concerns about abusive subpoena power by a runaway committee. I also want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) for his leadership on this issue. We often disagree about the issues we should prioritize for oversight, but I suspect that we stand together on the importance of oversight, both to our committee and to the Congress as a whole. Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues support the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for yielding the time to me. Madam Speaker, more than 40 years ago, the Supreme Court held that women have the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability or at any time to protect the life and health of the mother. This bill is flatly unconstitutional on both counts. The Supreme Court has blocked every other 20-week ban because 20 weeks is well before the point of viability. Further, the bill includes no exception for the health of the mother, only waiving the ban if a woman's life is at imminent risk, in clear violation of a woman's constitutional rights. Shamefully, the bill places new and cruel restrictions even on women accessing abortion after rape or incest. Once again, the Republicans are proclaiming the falsehood that 20- week-old fetuses can feel pain, contrary to the conclusions of every reputable researcher in the field. What about women like Danielle from New York, who found out in the 29th week of her pregnancy that her baby's brain was dangerously deformed and that, if she and the baby were to survive the pregnancy, the baby would only live a short, extremely painful life. Danielle and her husband had two young children and faced a heartbreaking decision: Should they put Danielle and their family through the pain and suffering of a dangerous pregnancy and birth and allow their baby to suffer and die in pain, or should she terminate the pregnancy and mourn their baby as a family? The Constitution guarantees Danielle the right to make that choice with her family and her doctors. It does not grant that right to the politicians sitting in this room. I will close with Danielle's words: ``What my husband and I experienced was just so horrible. Unless people have walked in my shoes, they don't understand. I did what was right for my son and my family, and it's no one else's business.'' On behalf of Danielle, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this horrible bill. We must stop the bans.

Mr. NADLER

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

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

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I offer this motion to recommit on behalf of Ms. Velazquez. This is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended. It is unfortunate that we are here today debating inadequate policies while our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are hurting. While I do not doubt the underlying bill was made with good intentions, it is not just inadequate for all the victims of the hurricanes, and it is insulting to the people of Puerto Rico. They are hurting. They have no food, no water, no power. They need our help. Estimates suggest the storm caused $40 billion to $85 billion in insurance claims throughout the Caribbean, with 85 percent of those losses in Puerto Rico. Nearly all of the island is without power, and 85 percent of cell towers were knocked out. The hurricane ravaged 80 percent of the crop value in Puerto Rico--a $780 million loss. This will result in higher food prices at a time when Puerto Rico faces shortages. These are only the initial estimates. Each day we learn more about the scale of devastation, and likely won't know the measure of damage for some time. FEMA has indicated that it has ``provided more than 1.5 million meals, 1.1 million liters of water, nearly 300 infant and toddler kits, and nearly 12,000 emergency roofing kits to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria's landfall.'' That is a quote from FEMA. Yet the total population of American citizens in Puerto Rico is 3.4 million. The total in the U.S. Virgin Islands is over 100,000. It has been 7 days since the storm. The math simply doesn't add up, and neither does the bill as it is written. This motion to recommit would do more for the people of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands than the underlying bill. Unlike the underlying bill, this motion will give them funds to help them rebuild. The dollars are directed for rebuilding and other economic support. It considers specific provisions to ensure long-term growth is capable on the island, and it strives to treat disaster victims equally. By taking the politics out of natural disasters, all of our constituents, from New York, and Puerto Rico, to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, will automatically have the necessary aid to rebuild. Giving them this peace of mind will give them the ability to focus on what matters: their families and communities. Rather than putting forth a fig leaf to offer themselves cover, as the underlying bill does, this motion would provide immediate, greater benefits to the people of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. They cannot wait for assistance. By voting for this motion, you would be voting to help our fellow Americans. I urge all Members to vote ``yes.'' Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed in its current form.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2792, the hopelessly misnamed Control Unlawful Fugitive Felons Act. As has become sadly routine in this Chamber under Republican rule, this bill considers those merely accused of a crime as if they were convicted felons without bothering with little niceties like due process. Having dispensed with basic constitutional protections, the bill then cuts off vital government assistance to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Under current law, the Social Security Administration helps law enforcement track down individuals with an outstanding arrest warrant for an alleged felony or an alleged violation of probation or parole. Those who are actively fleeing law enforcement can also have their Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, benefits terminated. Under this bill, however, SSI benefits, which serve as a lifeline for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, would be terminated, whether or not people are actually attempting to evade justice. The mere issuance of a warrant or an alleged parole violation with no arrest, no trial, and no conviction would be enough to cut off vital benefits to the neediest among us. This is not just unconstitutional, it is inhumane. The bill would ensure that many low-income seniors and people with disabilities will lose their benefits unfairly and unnecessarily. The vast majority of people affected by this bill have outstanding warrants that law enforcement chooses not to bother serving, often because they are for very old or minor offenses. Many people do not even know that an arrest warrant has been issued for them, but this bill would consider them as felons fleeing justice. Many warrants are issued on the basis of mistaken identity, inaccuracies, or paperwork errors. It can take months to resolve such errors, which might involve traveling to a distant jurisdiction, hiring an attorney, and working through an overloaded court system. And supporters of this bill expect people living on less than $750 a month to do all of this: to go to a different jurisdiction, to hire an attorney, to do all of this while the benefits they rely on to subsist are cut off? That is outrageous. We heard from the gentlewoman from South Dakota about various exceptions to the bill, you can go through this process and that process. With what attorney? With what money? Does this bill have an appropriation in it to supply attorneys for people faced with this cutoff, people who, by definition, are the poorest people, who can't afford an attorney? This legislation is a blatant violation of due process, and it will cause untold suffering to the people who need our help the most. At a time when Republicans are unveiling their proposal for massive tax cuts for the wealthy, this bill is a shameful illustration of the majority's priorities. It is also a shameful illustration of something we have seen on this floor too often, and that is the assumption that anyone accused of something is guilty and that we don't have to bother with a trial, we don't have to bother with proof, and we don't have to bother with due process. That eviscerates much of the reason for the existence of this country, to vindicate due process, to give people rights and not to assume that anyone who a judge or someone thinks may have committed a crime is automatically guilty. We believe in due process in this country. Mr. Speaker, I urge this bill's defeat.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3229, which would extend an important tool in protecting the safety of judges and their families. Each year, Federal judges and certain other judicial employees are required to file financial disclosure reports which are made available to the public. These reports serve a vital function in promoting transparency, particularly of any potential conflicts of interest. By their nature, however, they also disclose sensitive personal information like a home address or family member's place of business. In the hands of a disgruntled member of the public seeking retribution or of an otherwise disturbed individual, this information could put judges and their families at great risk. Under current law, the Judicial Conference may redact information from a financial disclosure form if publishing such information could endanger the safety of the filer or a member of the filer's family. Unless Congress acts, this redaction authority will expire on December 31 of this year. This commonsense bill simply extends the redaction authority for 10 years. Unfortunately, many Federal judges face threats to their safety merely for doing their jobs, and according to the Judicial Conference, the number of threats against them are increasing. For example, an Ohio man recently pleaded guilty to arranging a murder-for-hire plot against a judge; an alleged ISIS sympathizer who was attempting to learn a judge's address was indicted a few months ago for threatening the judge; and last year, a California man, who was already in prison, was convicted of plotting to have the Federal judge, prosecutors, and FBI agents killed as revenge. Sadly, earlier this year, we also saw threats against several judges who ruled against President Trump's Muslim ban. After the President himself launched a verbal assault against the judges and against the Federal judiciary more generally, the judges faced a cascade of online threats and they required heightened security measures. Even without such irresponsible and dangerous behavior by the President, Federal judges regularly face threats, and this legislation is an important tool in protecting their safety. Although disclosure forms should only be redacted in the most extreme and limited circumstances, the Judicial Conference has used its redaction authority sparingly and wisely, and it should continue to have this authority available to it when circumstances warrant its use. I appreciate Mr. Jeffries' leadership in introducing this legislation. I want to recognize Ranking Member Conyers for the work he has done to champion this issue over the years as well. I thank Chairman Goodlatte and Mr. Issa for moving this bipartisan bill forward.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, it has been said about this body that if you invent a nice enough title for a bill, it doesn't matter what you write in the bill because all people know is what the title is. This bill is a good example of that. Who is in favor of criminal alien gangs? No one. But this bill has received no committee consideration in which the questions could have been asked and the answers given to make sure that the bill would do what its sponsors say it does. But this legislation wouldn't provide decent protections against gang violence. It would shred due process protections and would allow deportation of innocent immigrants based on the flimsiest of evidence. It would establish a Star Chamber-like process for designating criminal gangs that would provide virtually no opportunity for them to contest such a designation. Once a group is designated as a gang, an immigrant who is determined to be a member of that gang--determined under undefined procedures and standards--would be almost assured of being deported and would be subject to mandatory detention while awaiting removal. The procedures under this bill would be laughable if they did not have such deadly consequences for so many innocent people. Suppose there are some people in my neighborhood that I think are up to no good. Maybe I have good evidence that they are committing crimes, or maybe I just don't like them. Either way, I submit a tip to Homeland Security that the group is engaged in activity that qualifies as a criminal gang under this bill. Then, based on undefined and unknown procedures, the DHS can designate that group as a criminal gang. In doing so, it would amass some sort of administrative record, which is also completely undefined in the bill, but we know it can include secret evidence. No notice would be given to the group that is under review, and no opportunity would be given to present evidence contesting the designation; no exculpatory evidence. After designation, there is a process for judicial review; but unless the group has the habit of scouring the Federal Register, it would have no idea that it has been labeled a gang and that it needs to go to court in 30 days. If, somehow, the group does learn of its designation, it has just 30 days to contest it, and only in a Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. That review, however, would be based entirely on the administrative record amassed by the government. The group would have no opportunity to submit evidence to rebut the designation, which renders the entire review process meaningless. That is not due process under the Constitution. That is a sort of stacked process you would expect in a banana republic or in Russia. It gets even worse. Under this bill, any alien is deportable if he or she is or has been a member of a designated gang or has participated in the gang's activities, knowing that would further its illegal activity. But who determines that a person is a member of a gang? By what procedure? In what forum or what court? Using what standard? The bill, given the Goodlatte amendment, does not say. A person need not have been convicted or even charged with a crime to be deportable under this bill; and even when they are in removal proceedings, they would not be permitted to challenge the gang designation that landed them in those proceedings. Thus, we will have people deported on the basis of an unfair and secret process, with no notice and no meaningful opportunity to contest the basis for the deportation. That turns due process completely on its head. Keeping out members of MS-13 and other deadly gangs is a worthy goal, but this bill would not do that. It would have disastrous consequences for thousands of people each year who may or may not be members of a gang, who may or may not have any evidence against them, who will inevitably be caught up in its hash and overbroad provisions. Mr. Speaker, just last week, President Trump upended the lives of 800,000 DREAMers who now face the possibility of being dragged away from the only country they know. Our highest priority should be providing these young, undocumented Americans the legal status they need to continue serving our Nation and being productive members of their communities. I notice that the Speaker has said that, while he supports relief for the DREAMers, that the bill has to go through a committee. Why didn't this bill have to go through a committee? Instead, the Republican majority seeks to distract us from the plight of the DREAMers by returning to its mass deportation agenda based on the fear and dehumanization of immigrants. This bill brings shame upon this House and this Nation's tradition of due process and fundamental fairness. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this unconstitutional and unconscionable legislation.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the newly-christened Ponsie B. Hillman Way in Manhattan's Upper West Side celebrates a woman who dedicated her life to social justice. This well-deserving recognition will honor the indelible impact Mrs. Hillman left on New York and underserved communities around the country. Having faced personal discrimination as a young African-American teacher in Maryland, Mrs. Hillman's earliest activism in the 1940s and 1950s focused on education equity. After Prince Edward County, Virginia closed its schools in an attempt to evade desegregation orders following the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, Mrs. Hillman traveled to Virginia with the American Federation of Teachers to teach students without pay. After moving to New York City in 1965, Mrs. Hillman immediately stepped into multiple community organizing roles. She was elected to the Executive Board of the NAACP in Manhattan, and worked on affordable housing, education, and health projects. Mrs. Hillman also served as a leader of the local labor movement. As a member of the New York City Central Labor Council's Black Trade Unionist Leader Committee, Mrs. Hillman dedicated many years of hard work to increasing leadership opportunities for African-Americans in their union branches. Over the course of her life, Mrs. Hillman was recognized for her activism by the U.S. Secretary of Labor, American Federation of Teachers, and the New York City Central Labor Council, among others. I am incredibly proud to represent so many institutions and community groups that were the recipients of Mrs. Hillman's service. The renaming of West 71st Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, Mrs. Hillman's long-time neighborhood, will stand as a testament to her important work as an educator, civil rights activist, and New York communal leader. I wish her family heartfelt congratulations on this special occasion.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 3440, the DREAM Act, to protect New York DREAMers like Jessica, who has been in this country since she was two and hopes to become a doctor.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which would eliminate funding for the Gateway Project. The Gateway Project, which includes work on the Portal Bridge and construction of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, is widely recognized as one of the highest priority transportation projects in the country. We should have built new tunnels and expanded capacity on the Northeast Corridor long ago, but the damage to the existing tunnels caused by Superstorm Sandy has brought a new urgency to the situation. If those tunnels were to go down, as they certainly will in the next 10 years without the Gateway Project, there would be no rail service between New York and New Jersey, massively disrupting transportation all along the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston. Twenty percent of the economy of the country would be disrupted. This amendment cuts funding for Gateway and eliminates almost $500 million from the bill completely, sending it to the spending reduction account. It does not direct that funding to other infrastructure projects. It does not restore TIGER funding. It reduces national infrastructure spending when we should be increasing it. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this extremely shortsighted and punitive measure.