Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown).

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, while we are debating a rule for a bill that would strip workers of their overtime pay, since President Trump took office, dangerous bills like this are more likely to become law. Just a few weeks ago, President Trump signed a bill into law that strips the American people of our online privacy, allowing internet service providers to sell yours and my sensitive information to the highest bidder without our permission. This information includes location, financial and health data, information about our children--even pictures of our children--Social Security numbers, web browsing history, app usage history, content of communication: emails, video chats. It is simply wrong. For this reason, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Jacky Rosen's bill, H.R. 1868, which would reinstate the Federal Communication Commission's internet privacy rule. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, sometimes you need a redo or a retake. When this body narrowly passed the bill that President Trump signed that took all of our private data and allowed internet service providers to sell it without our permission, it was a mistake. Hopefully enough Members of this body have since realized it is a mistake and they will now change their vote and support defeating the previous question allowing for immediate consideration of Representative Rosen's bill to protect our privacy. As we know, broadband access through internet access providers is a critical way to have access to a world of information and commerce, but the price of that access should not be all of your private information, including your kids' photographs and birthdays and your Social Security number. Under the bill that became law, everything you enter on the internet on any site, regardless of their privacy policy, would be owned by your broadband provider and be able to be sold by your broadband provider without your consent. That is simply wrong for America; it is wrong for consumers; it is wrong for innovation. It casts a shadow over the entire internet ecosytem, which not only has brought so much enjoyment to so many but has created millions of jobs in my district and across our country. If we can defeat the previous question, we can do a redo on this bill. We can pass H.R. 1868, which would reinstate a rule that has broad, popular support. I haven't heard a single constituent of mine say that they don't want their broadband privacy protected, and I have had hundreds of them say that they do want their broadband privacy protected. I am hoping that, since my Republican friends have now had the chance to have townhalls and to listen to their constituents, they will agree that we should reinstate the Federal Communications' internet privacy rule to protect our privacy subject to the terms of use; information can be sold if you consent for it to be sold, but without your consent, all the information you enter on the internet should not be the property of the broadband provider for their use and for sale. It is common sense. The vast majority of the American public agrees. I think it is time to call the question on Congress to see if we can get Congress to agree. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I am surprised that people in Alabama weren't clamoring to protect their online privacy at the gentleman's townhall meetings. I will certainly take him at his word. Perhaps it is because they were so concerned with Republican attempts to increase their healthcare insurance rates by 15 to 20 percent, Republican attempts to raise their taxes, and Republican spending that will increase the deficit by $12 billion in this continuing resolution that were brought before us. Maybe they were so overwhelmed by the Republican efforts to get rid of their health care, increase the deficit, spend more money, and take away their rights that they didn't get down their list of concerns to broadband privacy. Certainly in my district, Mr. Speaker, dozens of constituents in my townhalls--both Republican and Democratic constituents--brought this issue up as a way of arguing how out of touch House and Senate Republicans are to say that, at this time in our Nation's history, what we need is less privacy, not more. I think that there are a lot of things that people are concerned about, and that is certainly one of them. This debate is about that, frankly, Mr. Speaker, because, if we defeat the previous question, I will be bringing forth Ms. Rosen's bill. Members of this House will have an opportunity to vote on bringing up Ms. Rosen's bill to protect our broadband privacy. Mr. Speaker, the more work, less pay bill before us is yet another example by Republicans to roll back workers' rights under the guise of doing the opposite. Again, if the Republicans have a sincere desire to actually enhance and improve workers' rights, then we are all for that. The labor movement is for that. Let's talk about that. But don't pretend like you have the voices and concerns of workers in mind when workers' advocacy groups say you are stripping away their rights. We are happy to have that discussion. In many ways, the veto statement from President Clinton in 1997 still lays out as relevant, today, some of the very criteria the Democrats would want to see in a bill that we could support that would empower workers to choose additional comp time, a concept that many Democrats support. I wish we were working to protect American families today. But instead of collaborating with Democrats to produce a bill that actually accomplishes the stated goal of increasing worker flexibility, instead, the Republicans have chosen to move forward with their 22-year-old bill that weakens the 40-hour workweek, that President Clinton threatened to veto, that hasn't become law and won't become law, just perhaps as a check-off box rather than to do anything to actually empower workers to choose comp time instead of overtime. They are just checking the box for the big bosses and moving on to the next item without seeing this through into law. There are a lot of bipartisan bills this body could be taking up this week. Frankly, one of them is Representative Rosen's bill that I will be bringing up when we defeat the previous question, but, sadly, this bill is not one of them. I am very disappointed that even in the majority, even in the governing capacity, even controlling the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, Republicans are wasting time on what we around here call messaging bills rather than real bills to address issues that Americans want us to work on, like bringing down the cost of college, fixing our broken immigration system, rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, or reforming our complicated tax system to make it more friendly for growth in our country. Mr. Speaker, I support legislation that puts the needs of workers first, but this bill before us does the opposite. This legislation lifts up the big bosses with the hope that a worker may or may not see a benefit down the line without interest if the company stays in business. It is the wrong way to go about it. I oppose the rule. I oppose the underlying bill. I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to begin by wishing my colleague from Georgia a happy International Copyright Day, right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas as great American holidays. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. Look, first of all, 60 hours; we have less than 60 hours before the Federal Government of the United States will shut down, and here we are filling time with a bill. Of course, the concept deserves to be debated and fleshed out, but is it really what we should be talking about when we are 60 hours away from the shutdown of our Federal Government? Now, it feels like we have been here before. Now, sometimes it is because, unfortunately, we have been brought to the brink of economic disaster, just as Republicans seem to do every time government funding or the debt ceiling is about to expire. We know it has happened before. We know it will happen again. Maybe it is time for a short-term CR; maybe it is an omnibus, but, look, that is what we should be doing right now. There will be plenty of time, plenty of time to figure out the intricacies of copyright and the oversight of the Office after we make sure that the basic functions of government are able to continue after 60 hours. And even if we do keep the government open, all we are doing is kicking the can down the road and not allowing American businesses or individuals to plan for the future. Can you imagine if your family didn't know if you would have a job or what salary it would be at every few months? Now, look, congressional salaries, they are exempt from government shutdowns, of course. If they weren't, perhaps we would be discussing the government shutdown with 60 hours to go until other Federal workers are prevented from coming to work. Even at this moment, we don't have a full-year appropriations bill. We have a continuing resolution that expires midnight on Friday. Those are the priority issues that the American people want us to focus on. When we deal with what is urgent, that will allow us the time and the space for thoughtful consideration of Copyright Office oversight. We need to get past this bitter partisanship and this brinksmanship. Even the rule we are considering today is problematic and partisan, which is why I am in staunch opposition. It doesn't allow all the amendments to come to the floor, including one from my colleague, Ms. Lofgren, that I tried to amend the rule to allow, and it was turned down in Rules Committee by a partisan vote. We don't have an open rule, as Speaker Ryan promised to provide as we got back to what was called regular order, allowing our Democratic and Republican colleagues to improve and enhance bills, offer their ideas up for consideration. If a majority adopt them, they can be included in the overall bill. Instead, we are considering a rule that effectively stops debate on important amendments that were omitted and brings forward a politically motivated bill about the head of the Copyright Office. Simply put, this bill would take the authority of hiring and firing the Copyright Register, who is the head of the Copyright Office, from the Librarian of Congress, and give it to the President, with Senate approval. It effectively politicizes the Office of the head of the Copyright Office. Now, it sounds innocuous, but what it means is that special interests will be involved with picking the person to make decisions over who receives a copyright. Yet, again, through this bill, Congress is choosing the big, powerful interests over the consumers, over innovation, and over the little guy. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation said: this bill is ``designed to . . . allow powerful incumbent interests to use their lobbying power to control this increasingly politicized Office. And while the Librarian of Congress still oversees the Copyright Office, the Librarian of Congress would not be able to remove the Register no matter how poorly they perform their job.'' Under this bill, the position of Register of Copyrights will be yet another political position and will, frankly, stall one of the great projects they are embarking on, the modernization effort that is desperately needed at the Copyright Office. The last thing we need is political cronyism in the Copyright Office. Let's talk a little bit about the history of the position of the head of the Copyright Office. Most of the first century of America, U.S. District Court clerks processed copyright applications themselves. Now, that was obviously inefficient to foist on the judicial branch, and, in 1870, Congress centralized the power of copyrights at the Library of Congress. Seven years later, the Copyright Office was created as a separate department within the Library, and the Register of Copyrights was established as the head of that Office. Why depart from history so radically now? Why give in to increasing executive authority in a time when many of us are concerned about the growing powers of the Presidency? Frankly, some of this seems to be about the personal dislike of the Librarian, Dr. Carla Hayden, or the general situation with the most recent Register who departed last October, Maria Pallante. It appears that some believe that Dr. Hayden should not have reassigned Ms. Pallante, so there is a micromanaging of particular personnel issues, but an inspector general's report stated that Ms. Pallante was clearly deficient in her duties, especially around those of modernization of the Office. As just one example, the inspector general discovered that the Copyright Office wasted 6 years and nearly $12 million attempting to implement an Electronic Licensing System. Based on the IG report, it would seem that the Librarian had a valid reason to reassign the Copyright Register last October, and she definitely had every right to do so, as the head of the Library. The last thing we want is politically motivated decisionmaking in a personnel process around performance at the Library of Congress. Since the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, was appointed in 2015, she has been pulling the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office into the 21st century. And if we move the appointment into the hands of the President, we are taking away the ability for the Librarian to supervise the Office of Copyright and continue to do this work. We are going to stop progress dead in its tracks. With hundreds of Presidential appointees who haven't even been nominated, no less approved, and the glacial pace of Congress, it could be years before a Librarian is confirmed under this new scheme. Look, we all understand and agree that there are problems that we need to work on together with regard to the copyright process to bring it into the 21st century. Again, with 60 hours away from a government shutdown, now might be a time to focus on keeping government open and perhaps having a more thoughtful debate, removing the passions around the personnel involved after we continue to keep government open. This bill, unfortunately, does not solve the problems with copyrights. It makes the situation worse because it slows down a desperately needed modernization indefinitely and would hurt the public and consumers. The last thing we need is a more autonomous Copyright Office. After the obscene wasting of taxpayer dollars, do we really want to provide for more politically motivated decisionmaking within the Office of the Copyright? I think the answer is no; that is why I oppose the rule. I oppose the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), the distinguished ranking member on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentlewoman from California an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), who is the ranking member on the Subcommittee of Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet on the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. DelBene.)

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today President Trump plans to unveil a tax cut proposal that would vastly reduce the business tax rate for international corporations and even for his own real estate empire. We have no way of knowing how many millions he personally might save through this so- called Trump loophole--no idea--unless he releases his tax returns. Democrats have been calling on the President to release his tax returns for this reason and so many others. We cannot allow the White House to be used as a tool to enrich the President and his family. Up until now, every President since Gerald Ford has disclosed his tax return information. These returns have provided a basic level of transparency to help to ensure the public's interest is placed first. The American people deserve the same level of disclosure from this administration. If they continue to refuse to provide it, then we, as the people's elected Representatives, should hold the executive branch accountable. If not us, who? Mr. Speaker, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Eshoo's bill, which would require Presidents and major party nominees for the Presidency to simply release their tax returns. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our excellent proposal, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. What I really think this bill is about is President Trump wanting to put a Big Business friend in charge of an office that can do personal favors for him and his family. We know that the President and his family have, or are seeking, dozens of copyrights. Here is a great one--here is a copyright on his book, ``Trump: The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received.'' Now, don't get me wrong, he probably deserved a copyright. I am sure a ghostwriter wrote it for him and he had a strong contract with that ghostwriter. Since it seems that all the President spends his weekends and our taxpayer dollars doing is golf, the last thing we want is want him to put one of his golfing buddies in charge of the Copyright Office. Who is to say the next copyright application from Donald Trump won't be disputed? Placing his friends, business associates, and, yes, golfing partners in high places could help tip the scales in his favor, providing profits for him and his family at the expense of the American people. I would like to take a moment to speak to a few of the defenses I have heard about the need for this bill. There is the one stating the President would pick the Register from a list of experts provided by a group, including the Librarian. But guess what? That list is nonbinding, so the President can easily ignore the recommendations and do whatever he wants, which is what this President usually does anyway. I have also heard the argument that the Register will be more accountable and somehow transparent as a Presidential appointee. Hogwash. That is the opposite of the truth. There is as much transparency for a non-Presidential appointee once in their position; and it is much less likely that a President is going to demand the resignation of the Register than the Librarian is going to reassign them, as the Librarian did last year when the Register was failing, as confirmed by the inspector general report. Finally, there seems to be the argument that there were a large number of hearings in the committee on this issue and that somehow this is the work product of those hearings. Well, if you look at the record, there was not one hearing on this bill. There were hearings about general copyright reform. There was no hearing on how this bill might have a devastating impact on the need to modernize the Copyright Office, creating huge delays for important efforts. There was no hearing on whether this bill could profit the President and his family at the expense of the American people. This is a problematic bill under a problematic rule that doesn't allow good ideas to come forward and be debated. We aren't even able to debate helpful amendments. I know of at least one important amendment that isn't being allowed to be debated on the floor, which is Representative Lofgren's amendment that would allow the current Librarian to fill the existing vacancy at the Copyright Office, and when that Register leaves, the new process would then apply. It seems like a commonsense transition process. Why can't we get a simple vote on that amendment? I say again, this bill is a solution in search of a problem. Frankly, this bill makes the problem worse by giving the President the chance to put his business associate and golf buddies in charge of his own copyrights. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I am sure the President's personality is perfectly charming. I certainly wouldn't disparage his personality. What I am talking about is him putting a golf buddy or a business associate in charge of an office that he receives a direct profit from. That is called conflict of interest. That is what we are debating here today. It is not about the President's personality. Obviously, he is perfectly charming in person. I would be happy to have dinner with him. I am still waiting for the invitation. The Copyright Office has an important function. In order to fulfill that function of registering copyrights, it needs to be a neutral arbiter. By making the head of the Copyright Office a political advocate, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, it will increasingly politicize copyrights, the basic protection Americans rely on regarding the tradeoff between payoffs for innovation and the right of consumers for dissemination. There is no chance a political appointee will be neutral, by nature of them being a political appointee. A political appointee will likely be the puppet of big corporations and the administration in their decisions around registration of copyrights. That doesn't help the budding author, it doesn't help the budding musician in a dispute, and it certainly doesn't help anyone trying to navigate an outdated and archaic system that needs to be modernized. This bill will indefinitely delay the modernization process. I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and ``no'' on the bill. The last thing we need is President Trump's golf buddies to be in charge of his own copyrights to further profit the President and the First Family, who have pleasant personalities. Do we really want to give more power to the administration so they can do favors for themselves and their own business interests? I hope not. Let's vote ``no.'' We should be considering a funding bill to keep the government open instead of waiting until the absolute last second, hurting businesses and Americans with the huge amount of uncertainty created. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, ``no'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, every day, we wake up and we have a choice of how we can look at the world: through the murkiness of fear or through the clarity of truth. I challenge you to choose clarity, choose a perspective that is grounded in truth and in love. Today, President Trump announced the opening of the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, or VOICE, an office that will spew propaganda highlighting crimes committed by immigrants as opposed to equally harmful crimes committed by nonimmigrants. It is a waste of taxpayer money that will manipulate law enforcement data in an attempt to play on fears and anxieties. I am countering the opening of VOICE with the Saved By American Immigrants National Task Force, SAINT. The SAINT task force will collect and share stories of the countless immigrants who have saved Americans lives through heroic acts. I am calling for stories like the story of Maytham Alshadood, a Coloradan who grew up in Baghdad. He aspired to be veterinarian and began his studies, worked with the American Army as a translator, and had to leave because of the increase in violence. He came under a special immigrant visa. He started school in America. He is now a registered nurse, saving and transforming lives in America every day, including those of veterans. Let us reject attempts to fearmonger and tear apart American families, families that are just like ours, families that are ours.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule, one that provides for consideration of H.R. 1343, the Encouraging Employee Ownership Act. I strongly support the underlying legislation. I wish it had been brought forward to the floor under an open rule that allowed Democrats and Republicans to freely offer amendments that could be adopted by a simple majority vote. Before we get to the specifics of the bill, I want to talk about the importance of employee ownership. I join my friend and colleague from my neighboring district in Colorado in extolling the virtues of employee stock ownership, of ensuring that employees in the company are stakeholders and able to benefit from the value that is being created. You know, we have different stakeholders in our economy, and when you look at a company, you have different stakeholders that that company is responsible to and caters to: You have the shareholders, you have the employees, and you have the customers. In running a company, as I have done, it is always a constant balancing act to make sure that you are able to satisfy the legitimate demands of all those various stakeholders. Now, one of the things that has been out of whack in our economy the last few decades is that a disproportionate share of the value creation has gone to the shareholders and the customers, often to the detriment of the employees. Now, everybody has benefited as consumers and as customers with revolutions in prices and consumer technology. It is so exciting to see people, you know, where a flat screen television used to be out of reach, you now see them in nearly every home; and, in many cases, they cost less than a television would have cost that was significantly smaller 10 years ago--not to mention the remarkable mobile computing devices that middle class families and working families carry in their pockets with them that contains more processing power than a $3,000 computer did just a decade ago. Consumers have benefited and shareholders have benefited. There has been an unprecedented increase in private equity markets, in stocks, a huge amount of value creation in the American economy, both on the balance sheet as well as in the market valuation of companies. Now, the issue is that, while all of this has happened, wages have largely stagnated. A lot of the increases in efficiency and economic growth have gone to benefit consumers and shareholders. Employees and workers have felt, legitimately so, that they haven't seen their share of value creation. Now, there are a number of reasons for that. One of those has been the weakening of the union movement that gave workers a collective voice. But if you look at what some of the remedies are, really none can make a bigger impact than employee stock ownership. This bill doesn't change the ball on that. It is a positive step. There are a lot of other ideas that I hope we can talk about in a bipartisan way. Fundamentally, we need to create an economy that works for everyone, one in which employees and workers can directly benefit from the increase in value of the firm that they helped create. And what better way to do that than employee stock ownership in a variety of models and options for that. This bill deals with one; but we have ESOPs, we have co-ops, we have employee stock option plans, to name a few. Companies find that it is in their interest to help improve morale and maintain a stable employee base to align the incentives of employees with shareholders and, of course, to help align the success of our economy with the success of all the stakeholders in our economy. H.R. 1343 is a bipartisan bill. It was passed last year; it will pass again overwhelmingly this year. It sends a strong statement that Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives want to make employee stock ownership easier. Hopefully, this is a starting point rather than an ending point. The two other bills the Chamber is considering are also bipartisan, and I am hopeful that they can move forward expeditiously. Now, that stands in stark contrast to some of the other actions of this Chamber, for instance, the 15 Congressional Review Act resolutions which simply sought to undo some of the positive steps that President Obama took rather than put forward a proactive agenda of where Republicans actually want to lead the Nation. We also spent countless hours debating healthcare legislation that, thankfully, didn't go anywhere because it would have left 24 million Americans without health insurance and increased premiums by 15 to 20 percent for those who were lucky enough not to lose their insurance altogether. I am glad that we have been able to move past that towards a more bipartisan discussion here that will fundamentally help American innovators and entrepreneurs and help lead to a fair economy that works better for everybody, that shows that Democrats and Republicans can work together to create a real solution that addresses a real problem and takes a first step towards creating an economy that works for workers, consumers, and shareholders. I am hopeful that we can continue this trend after the district work period and move forward on bipartisan legislation that will simplify our complex Tax Code and realign incentives in a positive way, fix our broken immigration system, and make sure that we have the infrastructure we need for our country to succeed in the 21st century. I hope that my colleagues are encouraged by the strong bipartisan show of support for H.R. 1343 and we can work together to bring more bipartisan legislation to the floor instead of divisive bills that make problems even larger. This bill, very simply, updates an SEC rule from 1999 that will allow private companies to offer employees a greater stake in the place they work without requiring additional paperwork or regulation--a simple and good idea. Currently, a private company that offers over $5 million in securities through compensation for employees is required to provide additional disclosures which can, A, often serve as a detriment to going over the $5 million in compensatory stock for their employees, and, B, take up costs, administrative overhead, should they choose to proceed. H.R. 1343 simply raises that threshold from $5 million to $10 million, and this legislation gives a private company more flexibility to reward and retain employees of all levels. Employee ownership of various structures has benefits to both the company, the employees, and the overall economy. It helps align the interests. It results in more productivity, higher employee retention. It can help make a business more profitable and more sustainable. It helps make the American economy and the amazing value that is created work for everybody rather than just one of the stakeholder groups. For many startups and small businesses, giving employees a stake in the business is a great way to provide an additional benefit, an incentive. It gives companies flexibility to attract new employees when they are starting up, to retain talent as a company grows and matures. Providing workers stakes in their company helps strengthen their retirement savings. Employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs, are a type of retirement plan that offers employees an ownership stake without upfront costs. In Colorado, there are 118 businesses that use employee-owned ESOPs as a way to promote employee ownership. A good example of an ESOP is Fire Safety Services. The owner, Jeff, wanted to offer his employees a stake in the business. He converted his business to an ESOP, an employee-owned company, that allowed him to create a succession plan so the business can stay locally owned by the people who worked to create the value. Jeff noted that, after the conversion, employee morale was up and sales were up. One of our most famous examples of employee-owned companies is in my district in Fort Collins, Colorado: New Belgium Brewing. From the perspective of the employees, New Belgium has a very strong corporate culture of personal and collective growth. The employee owners are concerned about their own professional development and that of their colleagues. They have a vested stake in the management, economic health, and stability of the company. This bill is a commonsense approach and makes it easier for companies to give their employees ownership opportunities. It is a small first step towards encouraging an economy that works for everybody. Now, I want to make sure that this legislation helps employees at all income levels have access to ownership opportunities and that workers' retirement savings are not put in jeopardy by an overconcentration in company stock. That is why I offered an amendment requiring GAO to do a study on the impact of this legislation on employee participation and ownership and the effect this legislation has on securities held by retirement plans that are governed by ERISA. I very much look forward and am grateful that the rule has made in order my amendment. This study will give us important information on how these changes impacting employee ownership also affect retirement. It will give this body information that we need to move forward. The example of my amendment is an example of the many great ideas that Democrats and Republicans could have brought forward had this been brought forward under an open rule. What better bill to bring forward under an open rule than this kind of bipartisan bill where there is nobody in this body who is trying to undermine or sabotage this bill? There may be some Members who vote against it on both sides, I don't know, but the overwhelming majority are for it. I think there are Democrats and Republicans with great ideas who would love the opportunity to take 10 or 15 minutes--10 minutes as I am afforded under this rule. How many other Republicans and Democrats would love that same opportunity to offer amendments to improve this bill to make it even better? The good news is employee ownership is not a partisan issue. Employee ownership strengthens our economy, helps small and medium-sized and large businesses across our entire economic spectrum create and retain jobs, and promotes an increased retirement savings for the middle class. These companies are often anchor businesses in our communities that go beyond offering jobs but are involved with sponsoring Little League or being involved with community nonprofits by giving back, by helping local charities and helping support an ecosystem of entrepreneurship by helping other entrepreneurs get off the ground through mentorship networks and angel funding networks. I am a strong supporter of this bill and, of course, want to point out that it is simply a starting place. We have a long way to go with encouraging employee ownership in all of its forms--ESOPs, co-ops, stock options, outright stock grants--and any other ways that we can come up with or that the private sector can come up with that allow a stake in the company and in the value being created to reside with the employees, aligning their incentive, making our economy work for everybody, and ensuring that stakeholders have balanced benefits from our overall growth. I support this bill. I wish it had been brought to the floor under an open rule. I oppose the rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. You know, the beauty of an open rule, which we did see when the Democrats had the majority and we have not seen since the Republicans took the majority, is it allows the floor debate to inspire good ideas. It allows Democrats and Republicans to bring forward amendments, subject to germaneness, that can be considered and voted upon. Frankly, it seems like the Republicans didn't have much for us to do this week. This would have been a perfect week to try an open rule; and I know that Democrats and Republicans would have, consistent with the spirit of an open rule, brought forth good ideas and offered them. Good ideas would have been included in the bill. But most importantly, we could have set a precedent that open rules work and an open process that values our contributions as legislators and as representatives of 750,000 Americans who would be able to work to improve legislation. So I think that we need to move in that direction. Let the debate on the floor and the back-and-forth inspire new collaboration between Democrats and Republicans, new ideas, new ways of working together. Here you have a concept that Democrats and Republicans join together in support of. How can we reduce the costs or the red tape around administering employee ownership? We would love to remove barriers to employee ownership that exist across all forms of employee ownership. We would love to see an economy that works for everybody, one that values employees and workers as stakeholders that share in the economic growth that they helped create. That is a big part of the answer to the discrepancies in our economy and the simple fact--yes, fact--that the majority of the benefit of our economic growth has resided with a few and, generally, with shareholders and executives rather than workers. So at the same time we can continue to move forward with conveying value to consumers, I think we can also find a way to make sure that workers are able to participate in the value that is created in our economy. But to be able to do so, we should have an open process that allows Democrats and Republicans to bring forward germane amendments that improve the bill, to create an even better and more comprehensive effort to encourage employee ownership. Employee ownership ultimately touches a number of different committees. There are issues around employee ownership that affect government procurement. There are issues that would reside in the Ways and Means Committee under taxes. There are issues that reside in the Judiciary Committee, and, yes, Financial Services and regulator issues as well. I am hopeful that Democrats and Republicans can work together to create a comprehensive omnibus approach to improving access to employee ownership for firms across our country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to convene several roundtables in my district featuring employee-owned businesses, and it has been great to hear their stories, whether it is New Belgium Brewing, talking to employee owners who are excited to spend their time building value for themselves and creating stability in their own job and bringing a wonderful craft brew product to people in all the States in which they distribute, or medical care companies and so many others that have different variations of employee ownership. As a private sector entrepreneur before I came to Congress, I founded several companies in the technology sector. My companies used stock options for every employee, ranging from entry-level front desk and telephone all the way to executive positions; and, frankly, Mr. Speaker, that has become the standard in the tech industry. So many venture-backed companies and technology companies provide stock options across the board such that people who participate in building that value are able to also participate in sharing the value that is created. That is one of the great aspects of the technology sector, in particular, and the startup sector that I hope can export to other sectors. On the margins, this bill will make it a little bit easier for small and mid-sized companies to provide equity compensation to employees. But again, we need to do a lot more. We need to do a lot more culturally to make this the norm. We need to do a lot more from a tax perspective and from a regulatory perspective to make it easier for companies to share ownership with employees so that employees can benefit from the value that is being created. It is considered the cultural norm and the best practice within the technology entrepreneurship sector, and I hope that that can carry across to other sectors as well. It is very important to have an economy that works for everybody, and employee ownership is a critical linchpin of that effort. Mr. Speaker, we are debating on a rule and a bill that makes it easier for companies to offer employee stock as part of their compensation; but, unfortunately, the backdrop to this discussion is that there continues to be an enduring wage gap in which women are simply not paid the same as men for doing the same job. Any efforts by us to strengthen compensation packages continue to remain hollow for 51 percent of the country--women. Today is Equal Pay Day. I wish you, Mr. Speaker, a happy Equal Pay Day, and it is time that we do something to address pay and equity in our country. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act in addition to the legislation we have been debating, H.R. 1343. So what that means is I will still bring forward this legislation. I will just also bring forward the Paycheck Fairness Act, which I am a proud cosponsor of. Sometimes when we move the previous question, we bring forward a piece of legislation in lieu of the legislation that we bring to the floor under the rule. In this case, once we defeat the previous question, I will offer both of those bills: this employee stock ownership bill and the bill to address paycheck inequity, the Paycheck Fairness Act. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) may be joining us on the floor in a few minutes to talk about her proposal. I have an article written by Ms. DeLauro that I include in the Record. [From Cosmopolitan, Apr. 4, 2017] We Will Win the Fight for Equal Pay (By Rosa DeLauro) Think about 20 cents. It doesn't feel very significant-- there isn't much you could buy with it. But over a lifetime, those 20 cents add up in a major way. Today, we have reached yet another Equal Pay Day--the day on which the average woman's earnings finally catch up to what the average man made last year. This year's Equal Pay Day falls 94 days into 2017--94 days too late. Women are nearly half the workforce--yet they still only earn about 80 cents on average, to a man's dollar. The gap widens even further when you consider women of color-- African-American women make 63 cents on the dollar, while Latinas make only 54 cents on average, compared with what white men earn. This is unacceptable. The National Women's Law Center found that based on today's wage gap, a woman starting her career now will lose $418,800 over a 40-vear career. For African-Americans, the losses are $840,040. And for Latinas, the lifetime gap is over $1 million. These disparities exist at all levels of education and occupation--even at the very top. The world champion U.S. women's soccer team is fighting for pay equality, as are Academy-Award winning actresses from Emma Stone to Viola Davis and Patricia Arquette, who have used their platforms to call for equal pay in Hollywood. Men and women in the same job should have the same pay. Period. Wage discrimination takes place not just on the soccer field or the silver screen, but in the board room, on the factory floor, and in countless other workplaces across the country. That is why I am fighting for equal pay--for all women. I am fighting for AnnMarie in Massachusetts, who found out, years into her job, that the university she worked for was paying men more for the same work. I am fighting for Terri in Tennessee, who only discovered she was making less than she deserved because her husband held the exact same job and was paid more! And I am fighting for ReShonda in Iowa, who discovered that her own father was paying women less when she went to work in the family business. Pay discrimination in the workplace is real--and it is happening everywhere. Pay inequity does not just affect women--it affects children, families, and our economy as a whole. That is because women in this country are the sole or co-breadwinner in half of families with children. The biggest problem facing our country today is that families are not making enough to live on--and closing the wage gap would help address that problem. Over 50 years ago, Congress came together--in a bipartisan fashion--to pass the Equal Pay Act and end what President John F. Kennedy called ``the serious and endemic problem'' of unequal wages. The Equal Pay Act made it illegal for employers to pay men and women differently for substantially equal work. Yet we still have so far to go to close the wage gap. In 2009, we took a critical step forward with the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which kept the courthouse door open to sue for pay discrimination. But we must continue the fight and finish the job by passing into law the Paycheck Fairness Act. I first introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act on June 24, 1997--almost 20 years ago. The Paycheck Fairness Act will mean real progress in the fight to eliminate the gender wage gap and help families. The act ensures that employers who try to justify paying a man more than a woman for the same job must show the disparity is not sex-based, but job-related and necessary. It prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who discuss or disclose salary information with their coworkers. The bill would also allow women to join together in class-action lawsuits where there are allegations of sex-based pay discrimination. The bill actually passed the House twice, with bipartisan support. Yet it has never made it to the president's desk-- despite the fact that this is an issue that affects every single state in this country. In the last session of Congress, I was proud to have every single Democratic member of Congress signed onto the Paycheck Fairness Act--and even one Republican! But we need to keep fighting. When women raise their voices, we get results. Take the recent victory for the U.S. women's national hockey team who were able to negotiate a historic new contract to address pay inequality. They spoke up--even threatening to boycott the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship games--and their voices were heard. In January, I attended the Wonnen's March in Washington. The organic energy--the real, tangible power of the people-- was unlike anything I have ever seen. It was a stark reminder of what we can achieve together, when we speak with one voice and demand what we deserve. When I looked out at the sea of pink hats and powerful, handmade signs, I thought of my mother. When she was born, women could not even vote. Yet today, her daughter is a congresswoman. When we fight for equal pay for equal work, we carry on the legacy of all the women who have fought before us. And when we finally succeed, we will create a better future for all the women who will follow us. Equal pay is an idea whose time has come--in fact, it is long overdue. But we have the power. We have the momentum. And I believe that we will win.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, Congresswoman DeLauro's article from Cosmopolitan magazine, dated April 4, 2017, today, talks about how, over a lifetime, the 20 cents that women are missing every paycheck on a dollar earned by men adds up. In fact, the National Women's Law Center found that a woman starting her career now will lose over $400,000 over a 40-year career. That could be a house. That could be college for two kids or three kids. That could be a family vacation every year. That means a lot, which is why we need to defeat the previous question and move forward on both of these worthy bills. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to recognize the achievement of Henry Halgren from Fort Collins, Colorado. Henry is a sixth grader at Liberty Common School, a middle school, a public charter school that is very high-performing in my district. He is the victor from all of Colorado in the National Geographic Bee this last week. He competed against over 100 kids at the University of Denver, and he was able to answer as a sixth grader the following question: Altamira Cave, known for its prehistoric paintings, is found in the province of Cantabria in the north part of what European country? Henry knew that the answer was Spain. He got it right. He won a $30,000 scholarship to CU, some prize money, and an atlas. I am proud to say he will be coming here to Washington, D.C., to represent the Second Congressional District of Colorado in May. And if he is able to win against the competitors from other States, the prize for that is a $50,000 scholarship and a family tour to the Galapagos Islands. Congratulations not only to Henry, but to all the participants who showed such a keen interest in learning about the world around them and about our planet. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Henry and his family and everybody who participates in furthering the knowledge about geography.