Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the situation that so many DREAMers--aspired Americans who know no other country--face is becoming more and more urgent in the face of President Trump's cancellation of their legal status in March. I want to point out that over 100 are losing status every day and losing their permission to be able to go to work--their legal status-- in our country. If we fail to act, one million aspired Americans will be unable to work legally and live legally in the only country they know, instantly creating over one million more people who are here illegally--the opposite of what President Trump ran on and the opposite of what the American people want. I know that we can pass a solution through this body. I have heard so many Republicans and Democrats talk passionately about providing permanent status for the DREAMers. Let's pass the Dream Act, any of these bills. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to cosponsor a new one yesterday that will finally provide some certainty for young people who want to do nothing more than work hard, play by the rules, and contribute to make our country, the only country they know, the United States of America, even greater.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, once again, Congress finds itself rushing to try to pass legislation to keep the government open; ensure that our youngest, most vulnerable Americans have access to health insurance; and protect young, aspiring Americans from being deported from the only country they have known as home. Yet here we are debating other things with the clock running out in the eleventh hour--issues that, no doubt, have a few people here and there who care about them, but zero people have called my office on, Mr. Speaker. My constituents are demanding that we address access to the childhood healthcare insurance program and demanding that we act on the DREAMers with the deadline approaching and 100-plus DREAMers every day losing their status. It sounds like, from all we are hearing, that the House is going to consider yet another short-term spending bill to maybe keep the government running for another 4 weeks or 6 weeks. It is actually the fourth short-term spending bill for this year, not allowing the Department of Defense to plan to keep our country safe and not allowing any of the departments across the Federal Government to make any of the investments they need or have any degree of certainty that contractors will be paid. It is no way to govern, Mr. Speaker. Part of the reason that we are left doing this is we are using our precious floor time on all of these other issues like the ones before us today. It is not that these issues don't deserve their day in the sun, and we will talk about them for the rest of the day today, apparently, but we are facing the closure of the entire Federal Government in 3 days if we don't act. We are doing the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. This is an absurd exercise in doing some narrowly tailored special interest bills rather than addressing what we all know to be the 1,000- pound gorillas in the room. Seniors, military veterans, and people with disabilities shouldn't have to question whether they will actually receive their benefits month to month because we don't know whether the government will remain open. In the meanwhile, Republicans, Democrats, and the White House are all trying to put forward bipartisan solutions for the hundreds of thousands of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and DREAMers, and we could be debating that on the floor and putting together the final package now to do that by this Friday. But instead, we are discussing these bills that my constituents aren't telling me that they are sending me to Washington to pass. A lot of my colleagues say that the deadline for DACA isn't until March, but, in reality, over 100 deferred action DREAMers every day lose their protected status as their benefits expire. Every day the Republicans fail to act, they are creating over 100 more illegal immigrants in this country. If Republicans fail to act by March, they will have created over 800,000 more people here illegally in our country. We have about 18,000 DREAMers in Colorado able to work legally today. They have come from countries near and far in search of a better life for themselves and their families. They grew up in our schools, sports teams, cheerleaders, don't know any other country, and many of them don't speak any other language. One DREAMer that I have gotten to know from Colorado is Anarely, whose family stayed in Colorado to help take care of their grandmother. Anarely is a triple major at Colorado State University, studying political science, ethnic studies, and international relations. She has built a life in Colorado--the only life she knows--and continues to build a bright future in the U.S. if we can give her the certainty with regard to her legal ability to work and, of course, take her place alongside other American citizens. What makes America so great is we are a country of immigrants made up of people from all backgrounds, all quarters of the world. We embrace people from different cultures and different countries. We value the contributions based on the individual and the values of individual responsibility and hard work. That is what makes our country and our communities vibrant and our economy successful. Mr. Speaker, a group of bipartisan House and Senate Members are working together to find a solution to protect DREAMers and improve border security. I am proud to cosponsor the USA Act, which we dropped yesterday with Mr. Hurd and Mr. Aguilar which would provide DREAMers long-term protections and improve our border security to prevent this kind of situation from happening again. But instead of legislation that addresses long-term funding or protects aspiring Americans, here we are bringing bills to talk around the fringes about consumer protections and, of course, a bill that would chip away at reproductive health rights. The rule we are debating today considers two pieces of legislation that are not anything to do with the expiration at the end of this week of government funding or the over 100 DREAMers who lose their status every day--the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the World Bank Accountability Act. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act has long been a tool to monitor the mortgage lending practices and patterns of financial institutions to ensure equal and fair access to credit. The information that lenders are required to report shows that they are meeting the housing financing needs of their communities. HMDA data is very important in fair lending assessments and helps make determinations of where to target community development resources. Congress has made changes to HMDA as a response to legitimate concerns about the role that widespread predatory lending played in the financial crisis. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was charged with updating how lenders report HMDA. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau adopted a standard for the new reporting requirements that took into account the burdens imposed on banks by new standards to ensure that the data is being reported to monitor fair lending practices to prevent another systemic meltdown like we had in 2008 and 2009. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even temporarily raised the reporting threshold eliminating the need for low-volume banks to report through 2019, in order to conduct research to determine the right way to document open-ended loans. We should not codify this threshold, removing the flexibility of the agency that we in Congress set up to prevent another financial meltdown. It would literally tie their hands and prevent them from acting, even if there was a need to, to prevent a financial meltdown. I strongly support regulatory relief for community banks and small financial institutions. This bill would actually exempt 85 percent of depository financial institutions and 48 percent of nondepository lenders. Congress should want to encourage increased access to housing finance and combat unlawful practices that can prey on vulnerable home buyers or lead to systemic risk which leads to people coming to this town demanding another Republican taxpayer bailout. This rule also considers debate for H.R. 3326, the World Bank Accountability Act--another issue that does not relate to the expiration of government funding at the end of the week, does not relate to the illegal aliens that the Republicans are creating every day, and does not relate to the Children's Health Insurance Program expiring. What it does is it places a restriction on funding to the World Bank International Development Association--again, something I am not hearing from my constituents on, that they are not sending me to Washington and demanding that I take action on--and try to get them to reform to improve their management accountability and fight extremism, which I am sure is fine. It is true that, of course, they probably need to improve accountability and oversight, and Congress can have this discussion, but here we are, backs to the wall, the government is about to close, DREAMers are facing deportation, children are going without healthcare, and, yes, of course, World Bank accountability, great, let's discuss it, but can't we do it next week after we get through this? In fact, I believe the Republicans are sending us all on vacation next week. I think most Americans wish they had 10 days off at the end of January. I don't understand this. It makes no sense. I think Congress is about to do a last-minute funding bill and then send every Member of Congress on a 10-day vacation saying: Good job, we dealt with World Bank accountability. That is what the voters want. Forget about government shutdowns, forget about Republicans creating more illegal aliens, forget about Republicans plunging our Nation deeper into debt with their tax-and-spend policies. That is where we are headed, Mr. Speaker. Of course, we should have a debate on the best way to make reforms in the U.S. and engage the World Bank to encourage those reforms. Again, fiddling while Rome burns, Mr. Speaker, it is a common theme over here, and the American people are seeing through it, which is why the approval rating of this institution is under 15 percent--no shock. We can be debating World Bank accountability every day for the next year if you want. That is why people think this body is out of touch. We are just not addressing or dealing with the issues the American people sent us here to deal with: skyrocketing debt; over 12 million people who are here illegally, and yet this Congress fails to take up comprehensive immigration reform; expiration of the Children's Health Insurance Program; fixing the Affordable Care Act. Withholding funds to the IDA has a lot of positives and negatives. We could influence them to act. Others fear it could punish people in the developing world. It could hamper their ability to fight famine. It could force the necessary reforms. Again, fine, we will have that discussion under this rule for an hour or two and Congress will debate that. Congress will pass a bill, and we will see whether the Senate even takes it up. They often don't. But, again, it is backs to the wall, fiddling while Rome burns, the eleventh hour, record debt, Republicans creating more illegal immigrants every day, and here we are debating accountability for different aid programs. The 15 percent must be, like, the family members and cousins of the Republican Members. I don't know anybody who is satisfied with this Congress, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, last week, President Trump tweeted: ``The Democrats are all talk and no action. They are doing nothing to fix DACA.'' That is deeply insulting to those of us who have worked so hard for years. I was even here when the Democrats passed the DREAM Act in December of 2010. This is the 18th time we have attempted to bring up the bipartisan bill, H.R. 3440. We are about to do it again with my colleague, Mr. Gomez. The Dream Act makes our position clear. We want immigration policies that make America safer. We want to make sure that our aspiring, de facto Americans can take their place alongside of us with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Unfortunately, President Trump made his position clear, as well. I am not sure which position; he changes every other day. But at times, he said he will sign whatever we do. At other times, he said: My standard is very simple: America first, and Make America Great Again. That is an easy one. This bill we bring up if we defeat the previous question will absolutely make America greater. According to the conservative think tank CATO, repealing DACA would actually cost the government over $60 billion, reduce economic growth by $280 billion, and make us all poorer. We just want to make America wealthier, make us better, and recognize the aspiring Americans and let them work hard and play by the rules and pay taxes and live the American Dream. That is an America first policy that we can all get behind. This is the 18th attempt here to do this. But I am a Jewish American, and 18 is actually a lucky number. ``Chai'' means ``life,'' when you do the numerology. Mr. Gomez is lucky to be here for number 18. For our Jewish friends watching on C-SPAN, Mr. Speaker, they will recognize that. It is kind of like seven. I don't know if seven is a Christian lucky number or pagan or what, but I have heard seven is a lucky number, too. But 18 means life, and this is life for the DREAMers. That is what Mr. Gomez's motion is all about: it is letting young people who have that uncertainty and don't even know if they can go to their job and work hard come March, or even come today or tomorrow for the over 100 a day whose status is expiring. I really hope that my Republican colleagues join Mr. Gomez and me in defeating the previous question so we can bring up H.R. 3440, the Dream Act, which would pass this body, Mr. Speaker. You and I know that. It is bipartisan, bicameral. It would help thousands of young people who are Americans in every single way--de facto Americans, aspiring Americans--except on paper. 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, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez) to discuss our proposal for the 18th time: chai, or life.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, here we go. We are finding ourselves staring down self- created deadlines, and I want to be clear about that. The deadline for the expiration of the DREAMers in March and the fact that 100 are expiring every day is self-created by President Trump. It is a manufactured crisis. We, of course, could do immigration reform while not having our backs to the wall on that issue. This shutdown of the government is a construct of this body, this House. They said that they would only fund the government through January 19. So we are facing another deadline. Again, I believe, from what I am hearing, that Congress will then create another artificial crisis sometime in February, when we are going to be facing a government shutdown again. All in the face of record deficits and tax-and-spend Republican policies, the American people have had enough. Hundreds of thousands of DREAMers are at risk of deportation by this administration. Millions of children are at risk of losing their health insurance. We are all being plunged deeper and deeper into debt, not just for ourselves, but our future generations: my kids and many of our grandkids, for those who have them. We are facing another government shutdown of necessary, important government services, including economic drivers in areas I represent, like Rocky Mountain National Park, with over 3 million tourists a year. It would close down if the government shuts down. Air traffic controllers. So many other important parts of our necessary infrastructure to succeed as a country faces an expiration this Friday. Even if somehow the Republicans say, ``Okay, here is another 2 or 3 weeks of funding,'' the uncertainty that that creates--meaning they can't plan for short- to medium-term capital projects: a simple repair that might take more than 3 weeks; knocking down a wall; fixing a building; making a hire and an employee not knowing whether they are going to have a job in 3 weeks, or contractors not knowing whether they are going to be paid, and then having to reflect that in their pricing and ultimately charging the taxpayers more for the work they are doing because they don't know if the government will pay. What kind of country are we running, Mr. Speaker? I know we can do better, and that starts by defeating the previous question so that we can just pass the Dream Act and move on. It will pass. Sixty, seventy, or eighty percent of this body will probably vote for it. I know there are people who don't like it. Let the people's House work its will. Let us vote. That is what we are here to do, Mr. Speaker--Republicans and Democrats. Let us work our will. We have the votes on the Dream Act and we have the votes to keep the government open, if you simply allow us to have an open process to do it. That is what this floor time should be used for today. This is precious floor time--the time that we are in session debating-- especially considering Republicans are sending Congress on a 10-day vacation at the end of this week. Let's use this floor time to do what matters. Sure, there will be a day to discuss the finer points of World Bank policies and the finer points of the threshold for regulatory forbearance for mortgage cutoffs. Those things are fine, Mr. Speaker. Those are fine to discuss, but not while the Republicans are creating over 100 more illegal immigrants a day and they are going to create 800,000 more in just a couple of months; not when the Republicans are plunging our Nation deeper and deeper into debt with their tax-and- spend policies; not when Republicans are forcing another government shutdown, if not this week, then in 3 weeks or in 4 weeks. Crisis to crisis to crisis, manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis, the American people count on us to be stewards of the greatest Republic that has ever been created on the face of this Earth. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, Congress is letting them down. Let's defeat the previous question and defeat this rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, over 3 months ago, the funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, expired. Today, families throughout the country, including 90,000 children in my home State of Colorado, face great uncertainty about the future of their healthcare. When CHIP was first passed, over 20 years ago, it was done in a bipartisan manner, and, until recently, CHIP has always been a bipartisan, nondivisive issue. It is unfortunate to see that, today, here, we are in this body under Republican leadership and, somehow, even children's health insurance has become a political football while we while away our time, our precious legislative time, on bills that have passed this body before and don't go anywhere. In our most recent Band-Aid for government funding, House Republicans made a claim that CHIP was extended until March 31, but that wasn't the case. By some reports, States could run out of funding in the next few weeks. In fact, in Colorado, our own budget experts predict the State will run out of children's health insurance money by the end of February. Cancellation letters are literally scheduled to go out at the end of this month. Mr. Speaker, this simply isn't a way to govern, crisis to crisis, ignoring the real issues people care about in order to consider special interest legislation. Republican leadership and the Trump administration continue to refuse to work on finding a bipartisan solution for the hundreds of thousands who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival--or DACA recipients--who are in limbo. We can simply put that bill on the floor today, the Dream Act, and I feel it would pass. We have the votes to do so, Mr. Speaker. Let's simply have a vote. It is a purely manufactured crisis. I am happy to say we will be giving the opportunity for Members of this body to defeat the previous question and move to a vote on the Dream Act, shortly. My colleague, Mr. Correa, has joined us to offer that motion in a few minutes. Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle often say that the real deadline for a DACA solution isn't until March, but, in reality, every day, already over 100 Deferred Action recipients lose their protected status, are unable to work with their situation unresolved. For those DACA recipients, the deadline isn't March. The deadline has already passed, hence, the urgency. Now is the time to pass the Dream Act, to allow these DACA recipients to continue to live and work and serve in the only Nation that many of them have ever known their whole lives. All the while, congressional Republicans still refuse to work with Democrats on a long-term government funding solution. Here we are less than 10 days from another government shutdown. The Federal Government continues to move from quick spending patch to quick spending patch, costing taxpayers more in the long run by preventing our agencies from doing the planning necessary to improve efficiency. Today we are only 5 legislative days away--9 actual days--from a government shutdown and the huge negative repercussions that would follow. As a former businessowner, I know, firsthand, the value of long-term budgeting and stability. Millions of Americans know how to plan their family budget and their home budget. Why can't Congress do it for the country? Instead of working on a long-term budget solution, the House is spending its time on other legislation. Here we have a bill that undermines workers' rights and their protections under the National Labor Relations Act. In addition to this controversial bill, there are two attached pieces of legislation that were originally separate bills that easily could have gone on the suspension calendar and would have largely been noncontroversial. They passed on unanimous consent in the Senate and in the House Natural Resources Committee, but their fate is put in jeopardy by putting them onto a controversial bill. The first bill amends the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification Act of 2010. To clarify, that is a separate economic development fund known as the WMAT settlement fund that can be accessed to cover potential cost overruns for this rural water project. The Interior Department has said it is unsure if the settlement fund could be used for additional costs, and so this clarifies that water- related economic development projects would specifically include the planning, design, and construction of the rural water system. This legislation could have passed and, likely, could have become law but, instead, has been put into jeopardy by affixing it to a bill that is unlikely to go anywhere. The second uncontroversial bill that is wrapped up is regarding the authority of pueblos. It concerns two New Mexican pueblos and simply clarifies that they could lease their lands that are held in trust by the Federal Government for 99 years. This legislation ensures Native Americans have the right to their lands that they deserve. It respects their sovereignty and nations in a noncontroversial way. I am fully supportive of these two technical and simple pieces of legislation, but, unfortunately, because they are attached to a bill that isn't going anywhere, are very unlikely to become law. These are the types of bills that could go straight to the suspension calendar and straight through the Senate and should be signed by the President, but, instead, they are being put in jeopardy by lumping them in with a bill that is unlikely to become law. There are so many of these types of Natural Resources Committee bills from both Democrats and Republicans that should be making their way forward as stand-alone items. I am glad, for instance, that one that I authored, my Bolt's Ditch and the WEDGE Act--actually, two that I authored--were put forward and passed by this House and not attached to other controversial legislation. I am also reintroducing, soon, a bicameral bill that I also consider noncontroversial, the Continental Divide Wilderness, Recreation and Camp Hale Legacy Act bill. It would preserve over 90,000 acres of wilderness and recreation lands in Summit and eastern Eagle Counties, and is endorsed by local businesses, commissioners, and towns across the area. It was crafted with input from dozens of stakeholder groups, including the Wilderness Society, Vail Resorts, the Outdoor Industry Association, the International Mountain Bicycling Association, Conservation Colorado, and many municipalities and local businesses. It will help sustain our recreational economy in Eagle and Summit Counties, protect watersheds, and preserve important wildlife corridors and tourism opportunities. These are the kinds of bills that we should be moving forward from the Natural Resources Committee, not controversial bills that actually take away the rights of American citizens, including Native American citizens. And, while we are not today, we should never be moving forward on Natural Resources Committee bills that actually whittle away at the public lands we all own and the Antiquities Act by shrinking monuments like Bears Ears or making it easier to destroy lands we cherish and value. All I ask is that we separate out these two Natural Resources bills, send them to the suspension calendar, and not let them be put in jeopardy by affixing them to the fundamental underlying legislation which is controversial, namely, the Tribal labor bill. That is the bill that is the main controversial bill in this package. And, of course, I stand here as a supporter of the rights of every American to organize. I am a supporter of workers' rights, and I am also a strong supporter of Tribal sovereignty, not only principles under American law, but the right thing to do. I, like many of my colleagues, place a great deal of importance in Tribal self-determination, autonomy, local control, and independent governance for our nations. In fact, I have been the champion of sovereignty, and I have long voted in favor of legislation that allows Tribal discretion in the judicial processes and in education. But, of course, the right to organize is an inalienable right of every American, protecting our workers, including Native American workers, to fight for a safe working environment regardless of what entity owns the company they work for. Legislation balancing these two competing principles is possible. Reconciling these two priorities can be difficult, but I think that there is a way to do it. Instead, this bill drives a wedge between issues or groups that have a history of working strongly together, such as Native Americans and labor unions. We can balance critical rights to sovereignty with the protections that are due to every American citizen regardless of their race, ethnicity, cultural practices, membership in an Indian nation, or governing structures. This legislation does not find the right balance. It hurts workers of all stripes and colors, including many Native American workers. Workers have the right to collectively bargain; otherwise, workplaces become unsafe, sexual harassment can go unchecked, and the income gap continues to widen. This legislation would strip Native Americans and non-Native Americans, many of whom work for Native American enterprises, of the right to collectively bargain. Without the right to self-governance, we would not have the strong communities present across the country today. Without the right to collective bargaining, we would not have the strong and growing economy that supports our middle class. This legislation simply does not succeed in balancing both of these values. I also want to point out that President Trump agrees with me, or at least he did last time he commented on this 25 years ago. In 1993, at a hearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources regarding the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, then private citizen Trump testified regarding the legal barriers facing labor unions at that time to organize workers employed at Tribal casinos. His testimony said, in part: ``At present, even union workers in States like New Jersey would have no federally or State protected rights or the ability to organize in casinos on Tribal lands. The unions hope to do something about this. They hope to gain the right to recognition, the right to organize if they so choose. Quite frankly, I hope they have better luck than we have had so far.'' Mr. Speaker, the last time the President commented on this, it is clear that he also believed that workers on Tribal land should have the right to collectively bargain. I hope that his administration would not be supportive of this legislation if it were to move through Congress, which it is unlikely to do. Instead of policies that benefit those at the top, I have a number of ideas that I will be talking about later that we can move forward to empower workers and help make sure that the 21st century economy works for everyone. 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 want to address some of the things that my colleague, Mr. Cole, said. The big difference here between Tribal-owned and -run businesses and State and local governments is that State and local governments are not generally in the business of owning/operating companies. With very few exceptions, we don't have a socialist form of government in this country where cities or States are actually operating businesses in competition with the private sector. Tribes, in addition to their Tribal workers, which are more analogous to State or local workers--and it is an appropriate discussion--also happen to own businesses, which is fine, and they produce revenue for the Tribes, which is great. However, they should play by the same economic rules as other businesses, which in no way impede businesses from succeeding in our country. Of course, many of these Tribal-owned businesses are the main source of support and income for Tribes. If our labor laws work for any other business, they should also work for them. American citizens, including Native American citizens of our country, don't lose their rights as workers because of the ownership of the organization and company that they happen to be employed by. That is a key tenet that needs to be balanced with, of course, Tribal sovereignty, which I am a strong supporter of. If the discussion were simply about Tribal employees, it would be a different discussion. To be clear, it is about businesses that are owned by Tribes, and we simply don't have an analogy on the State and local side with very few exceptions. I am sure there is one somewhere. But, in general, municipalities and counties are not the owners of operating businesses that compete in the private sector. Now, I want to talk about what is possible with regard to enhancing the rights of workers and labor. Instead of these kinds of policies that take away the rights of workers, including Native American workers, we should be moving forward on policies that put workers first. My bill, the Giving Workers a Fair Shot Act, would do that. The bill would provide reasonable solutions to address the growing inequality in the United States by helping workers and ensuring that companies follow the law, emphasizing the need for corporate accountability. It would remove unfair obstacles to forming a union, enhance transparency from employers, and increase penalties for violating our labor laws, which are strong but often not enforced. First, all too often, employers frequently drag their feet on a newly formed union's first contract for months, sometimes for years, often with the goal of avoiding an agreement. Sometimes that means a newly certified union that the voters have voted in fails to receive a first contract. My bill would set up a first-contract arbitration system where the union or the employer has the option of seeking mediation if they feel one party is not responding adequately to a negotiation request. It would also ensure that no taxpayer funds are used for union busting or persuaders, activities like planning and implementing activities that deter employees from joining or forming a union. Again, it simply makes sure that no taxpayer funds are used for that explicit purpose. Third, the bill updates the National Labor Relations Act's definition of ``supervisor.'' Too often, workers are reclassified as supervisors for effectively gerrymandering bargaining units. This updated definition helps prevent that sort of manipulation and would make it easier for employees to be able to form a union if they so choose. Fourth, the bill reaffirms the importance for the government to protect workers from having their rights violated by increasing criminal and civil penalties for individuals and executives who violate critical labor laws. Injured workers and worker deaths should never be simply a cost of doing business. These robust protections help make sure that this is truly a criminal issue for the few bad actors that exist on the employer side. Finally, the legislation empowers shareholders and creates new accountability for CEOs and executives by preventing the CEO and chairman at a publicly traded company from being the same person. We would all love to work for ourselves, but that is not in the long-term economic interest of the shareholders, the customers, or the workers. The bill also expands insider trading restrictions for executives to 1 year after they leave a company. In my district and across Colorado, people are clamoring for proactive policies that actually help address the income gap and put the needs of middle class families and workers first. Policies like the Giving Workers a Fair Shot Act would do that. Now, this legislation that we are seeing here today is not the only controversial legislation we are seeing this week. Unfortunately, the next rule up will be one that takes away our constitutional rights as Americans. The FISA reauthorization legislation has been described as a compromise, but that is not the case. This legislation is not the necessary FISA reform bill that many in Congress, including myself, have called for, which is why I and so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are opposed to it in its form and support the Amash-Polis amendment, cosponsored by many others. It is also why the current FISA reauthorization bill is opposed not only by privacy and civil liberties groups and consumers but also technology companies and job creators across the political spectrum. Businesses are, rightfully, afraid that, if this bill passes, it will make it even harder for American companies to engage in international commerce. Many countries in Europe, for example, will simply refuse to do business with a technology company that is housed in the U.S. because they are afraid of what will happen to their citizens' data, perhaps even in contravention of their own stronger privacy laws. This bill does not make any steps in the direction of reform that are necessary. It falls short on several grounds. In fact, in some ways, it makes the FISA program worse by codifying the ``abouts'' collections term that refers to the NSA searching through the internet traffic to collect not only communications to or from an intelligence target but also those that simply mention an identifier used by a target, even though that has been declared unconstitutional twice. It could be the name of a city or State or even a country that can be used as an identifier; in theory, subjecting close to 100 percent of tax and emails and internet traffic to warrantless searches. This bill fails to consider the core concern that I have and that many Members on both sides of the aisle share; namely, the government's use of section 702 information against American citizens in investigations that have nothing to do with national security and does not require a warrant or the due process of our Constitution. Instead, the bill codifies the ability of the government to access the content of our emails and telephone calls without a warrant. It creates an unprecedented and unworkable ``optional'' warrant, which is merely window dressing but does nothing to address the legitimate concerns. These massive flaws could have been addressed, had we proceeded under regular order, but this version was reported only from the Intelligence Committee and bypassed the Judiciary Committee, which was cut out of negotiations when they agreed to go along with the Intelligence Committee railroading their committee. That is why I signed a bipartisan letter with dozens of our Members demanding FISA be handled under regular order. I am proud to have offered the amendment that will be considered later with Representatives Lofgren and Amash and others that would provide a better path to keep American citizens safe and protect our privacy and ensure that American companies can remain competitive abroad. It will protect our constitutional rights and keep us safe. My amendment, which is based off the USA RIGHTS Act, ends backdoor searches, ends reverse targeting, bans ``abouts'' collections, and strengthens FISA court oversight and transparency. I think these are all commonsense and necessary changes that Americans have been demanding for years. Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to oppose the FISA reauthorization and support the Amash-Lofgren amendment when they are brought forth shortly. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I also want to address something my friend, Mr. Cole, said. Again, I am sure you can find a few instances in municipal and State government, but I am sure the gentleman would agree that, relative to size, they are very few and far between. Even most municipal golf courses are run by private operators under contract to municipalities. I am sure the gentleman can find a couple that aren't. I have interacted with businesses in my district that are owned by Tribal nations, and I worked with them. There are a number of provisions in law that help them. I support those. But I do believe that workers don't give up their rights simply because they work for a company that happens to be owned by a Tribal nation, as opposed to an American or even a Native American citizen of our country who, in their personal capacity, is the owner of a company and would not have the same ability to deprive workers of their rights as a company that was owned by his or her Tribe. So, again, we want to make sure we support Tribal autonomy. And I do. Perhaps there is a bill to be had here, but it is simply not this bill. I want to share a story of one of my constituents from Fort Collins, Colorado, that I think will bring this back to what our body should be doing. I understand there are arguments on both sides of this. I understand there are people on both sides of the aisle who have concerns and also who support this bill. But it is not the urgency that we face with regard to deferred action or child health insurance. In July of 2017, Carla and her husband from Fort Collins found out they were expecting another child. Both Carla and her husband work full time. Carla works at a local childcare center. Her husband works at a local retail store. Even with their two full-time incomes, like many Americans, they felt the Children's Health Insurance Program was the only medical coverage for them, and Carla enrolled in CHIP. Carla is due to deliver her baby in March of this year, but she worries that, when the baby comes, she won't have medical coverage anymore. Unfortunately, Carla is right to worry. Right now, Colorado is expected to run out of CHIP funding at the end of February, just a few weeks before Carla is due. That is why this issue is so urgent, Mr. Speaker. For the tens of thousands of children and pregnant women, like Carla, we can't wait another minute to provide a permanent extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program. But instead of finding a bipartisan fix for the Children's Health Insurance Program or for deferred action or to keep the government open, instead, here we have yet another bill that people will have different opinions on, and I feel that it undermines workers' rights and is not supportive in the way that I would be of the rights of our nations. It is, unfortunately, another example of misguided priorities. We have precious little time--I believe 4 days--until the funding of the government expires. We should have acted on the Children's Health Insurance Program last year. We should have acted on deferred action last year. We need to act now. Mr. Speaker, for that reason, I oppose the underlying bill, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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. Mr. Speaker, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule--not just any amendment, but an amendment to bring up the bipartisan, bicameral bill, H.R. 3440, the Dream Act. It is far past time that we consider this urgent piece of legislation, the lack of which is tearing apart the lives of over 100 aspiring Americans every day who are unable to do what you and I take for granted, Mr. Speaker, which is simply go to work the next day. Every day that we fail to act, approximately 122 DREAMers lose their legal ability to work. Mr. Speaker, even Republicans have called for a vote on this critical issue. At the end of last year, 34 Republican colleagues sent a letter to Speaker Ryan urging a vote before the year's end, a vote that never happened, a vote my colleague, Mr. Correa, is giving us a chance to take now. How much longer will this body be complicit in the Trump administration's assault on DREAMers? It is time we listen to the vast majority of Americans and the majority of this body and act to protect courageous, aspiring Americans like the group from Colorado I met with yesterday. 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, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I was gravely concerned last week when Attorney General Sessions removed the guidance of the Cole memo regarding the way that the Department of Justice treats marijuana in jurisdictions where it is legal for medicinal or commercial circumstances. I happen to represent one of those States, the State of Colorado, which has a regulatory system for marijuana that has now been called into jeopardy through a Federal overreach. Effectively, Attorney General Sessions has left the entire fate of not just the industry and those who work in it but also consumers in my State in the hands of 93 U.S. attorneys, including the one for our State who, if they wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, could engage in a mass enforcement action against residents of Colorado who are following our State law. I call on President Trump to overturn his attorney, and I call upon this body to put the appropriate funding restrictions, based on the McClintock-Polis amendment, into the final funding bill in the next few weeks to prevent the Department of Justice from using funds given to them by Congress to contravene State law in jurisdictions that have chosen to regulate marijuana.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, we have a couple problems with this rule. First of all, the rule brings to the floor the wrong bills. These are minor bills. I will give a recap in a moment, but oh, my goodness. Two sentences of a disclosure and a little more filing costs for pensions and investors. Okay. We will get past that. They probably won't become law anyway. You can blame it on the Senate, you can blame it on the House, but most of these things we do don't become law. I understand that many of my colleagues are frustrated with the Senate, but whatever the case, we just do these things. But there is stuff that might become law, that could become law, like tax reform; like the fact that the government is shutting down next week if we don't continue the funding. We have a clock ticking on our debt ceiling. We have 800,000 aspiring Americans who don't even know if they can go to work legally, like they can today, in another few months because of President Trump's decision to end their provisional status. These are real issues--the cost of healthcare going up for my constituents and yours. But we are not doing that. We are bringing up two bills. I will give you the summary of them. Even these two bills, closed process, no amendments. If I was able to offer floor amendments, as I said, I could offer an amendment that would actually move the balance the other way toward investors and empowering investor activism, perhaps even look at giving them a safer pay, if you will, over executive pay, and reining in some of the problems of this bill. But we are not allowed. We are not allowed to offer any amendments here on the floor. Again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again. That is 56, by my count. That is 56 times Republicans have brought bills to the floor and haven't allowed Democrats or Republicans to offer amendments. Look, my colleagues can say: Oh, Democrats weren't great on this, and they had too many when they controlled it. You know what? First of all, Republicans set a record. This is the most number of closed rules ever. Secondly, I am not here to defend the Democrats. If the Democrats were in charge, they should offer more open amendments. There is no question. But Republicans, whatever they complained about the Democrats, they outdid them by a big factor. Ten months, 56 bills that no single Member of the House is allowed to offer an amendment on just to have a fair up-or-down vote. It is wrong. It is wrong. That is why I hope my colleagues can defeat this rule to say: Enough is enough. Mr. Speaker, we have to defeat this rule and move on to the issues important to the American people, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. This rule that we are looking at today has two bills under it, and this is the 56th closed rule allowing no amendments that we are bringing to the floor this year. Over the past year, we have not considered any legislation under an open rule that would allow Republicans or Democrats to bring forward amendments here on the floor. When the 115th Congress opened, Speaker Ryan promised regular order bills would make their way to the floor after hearings and markups. Instead, we have seen bill after bill rushed to the floor. Many bills haven't even gone through committee or skipped hearings. That is true for the failed healthcare bill, and it is also true for the tax bill currently in conference, the major bill this Congress. This tax bill, that somehow we understand there is a ``deal'' on before the conference committee even met, was crafted behind closed doors, and no Member was able to offer their ideas on the House floor. I offered several bipartisan amendments in the Rules Committee, but they were locked out, as were amendments from every other Democrat and Republican that chose to offer amendments. The tax legislation would explode our debt. It is a giveaway to wealthy corporations and does nothing to help the middle class. Now, the benefit of having an open process is creating better ideas: having Democrats and Republicans bring forward those ideas, see who can muster a majority of votes here on the floor of the House, and include that in a tax bill. We are a legislature. That is how we are supposed to work. Instead, a bill was crafted behind closed doors to raise taxes on 78 million Americans and add $1.7 trillion to the debt. When you add to the debt, that is a tax on future Americans. Instead of taxing them today, you are taxing them tomorrow. The tax-and-spend Republican Party continues to add to the deficit and add to the debt day after day after day. Mr. Speaker, we only have a few legislative days left before the end of the year, and we have very important work to do, like reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program and funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. There are millions of Americans who have been negatively affected by devastating hurricanes and wildfires in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida, and the Virgin Islands, and Congress has not stepped up to the plate. There are also over 800,000 aspiring Americans who are at risk of being deported from the only country they have ever known as home because of the reckless actions of President Trump. Congress needs to act to find a real solution so DREAMers can continue to work legally in the communities that they live in, and they continue to thrive and give back to make our country even greater. We have a lot of critical tasks ahead, which is why I am really surprised, with all of this work to do, and only 7 or 8 days to do it, that here we are considering two bills where we will have our debate, but they are not bills of great importance. We are using our floor time--very limited, 7 days before the end of the year--when we could be debating tax reform and offering amendments, when we could be addressing the needs of the DREAMers, where we could actually be doing something about the deficit, reining in out-of-control wasteful government spending. We are not doing any of that. We are doing two minor bills that are favors for public companies, or whoever they are. I am happy to talk about them. I am going to do my role in debating them. One I am even fairly supportive of. But they are completely separated from the actual concerns of the American people. No wonder the approval rating of this institution is under 15 percent, because we continue to debate these minor bills under a closed process, when, this very week, we could have had an open process for tax reform. We could be voting on 10 or 20 amendments a day, passing some and rejecting some. I have no problem if I bring forward some Democratic amendment and it fails. That is the process. That is fair. But we have bipartisan, commonsense amendments that should be part of tax reform. Representative Schweikert and I have a bill to provide a de minimis exemption on taxation for use of cryptocurrencies, to allow them to be used for amounts under $600 in everyday purchases and to remove the specter of IRS enforcement. Let's put it in. Let's have a vote on it. Let's see if a majority of Congress agrees with me. I hope they do. If not, I am a big boy. It is my job. I can go home. But to not even be able to fight for the issues that my constituents have hired me to fight for is not only the frustration I have, and not only the frustration many Republicans have, but it is the frustration the American people have with this institution. Now, let's get to these bills. Typically, the Financial Services Committee did not hold a hearing on either of these rules. It is a closed rule. The first one, H.R. 2396, the Privacy Notification Technical Clarification Act, would remove privacy notice requirements for financial institutions to consumers that share or sell a customer's personal information with third parties. We are all for reducing unnecessary regulations. When I get to the next bill, the Republicans are actually trying to add paperwork and regulations. This one does, but it picks a very poor one to get rid of. It gets rid of privacy notices for financial institutions that tell consumers that they can share or sell their personal information. Of all of the places to cut paperwork, why would you want to cut the one piece that consumers and retail investors actually care about? Back in September, 143 million Americans had their personal and sensitive information shared widely, as a result of a data breach at Equifax. Congress should be looking at ways to better secure our sensitive information--a cybersecurity bill, better information sharing--instead of actually making it easier for our personal information to be shared more widely and giving you, as the consumer, less ability to find out where it is being shared. A hearing would be helpful to understand the full effects of this legislation to see what the unintended consequences are. We do know that it would eliminate clear disclosure to consumers about their privacy rights--never a good thing, especially in these times-- including a consumer's ability to opt out from having their information sold to certain third parties. We can do better. The other bill, H.R. 4015, the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act, makes a change to how proxy advisory firms provide information to shareholders. It would require that they make their recommendations available to companies. This bill is problematic from a number of perspectives. Here is what it does. Proxy advisory firms provide independent advisory services for investors and have fiduciary responsibility to their investors. Under this legislation, they would actually have to open themselves up to lobbying for companies and add additional paperwork. They would have to register with the SEC, whereas they now don't, before trying to issue vote recommendations or trying to change the corporate board. Here is who the players are in this fight: On the one hand, you have public companies; on the other, you have investors, which means your pension fund, and mine, Mr. Speaker. It means university endowments. I know you all don't like those, and you are going to tax them soon. It means, perhaps, using an individual investor, through a mutual fund or other vehicle. So investors on one side, public corporations on the other. But the problem is: it is not the shareholders of the public companies, it is the insular governance and management structure of those organizations. Many of them do need to be shaken up in the name of efficiency. There are many examples of investor pressure that has been applied to good effect: to meaningful reforms and corporate governance; preventing conflict of interest, making sure that the board oversees the CEO are not just his golfing buddies, and he is on the board, or she is on the board, of their companies, too. I have generally been on the side of investor empowerment in that: not to the extreme, not to make it impossible to be a CEO on a publicly traded company, to run a publicly traded company. But, if anything, we should make sure that the actual owners of the companies are empowered to make the changes they need to increase efficiency. This bill goes the wrong way. It adds red tape and paperwork. It adds regulations to investors and prevents them from being able to exert influence in the same way they do today, adding one degree of additional regulation and paperwork to allow them to do the kinds of good governance activities in terms of running competitive fights for boards of directors. Now, I get that there is another side. There can be a steamy underbelly to investor engagement as well. There are some investors who only care about short-term gains, who try to institute practices or bully management around in a way that is not conducive to long-term value but, rather, just pump-and-dump schemes that they try to make money off of, and I totally get that. But in general, it is the owners of a company to whom the fiduciary responsibility of the directors and the CEO lie; and we should empower them, for better or for worse, to make the changes to increase the overall productivity of the company. We should not burden investors with additional red tape, as Republicans are doing, by creating more bureaucracy and paperwork and compliance costs with this bill. Frankly, I was surprised to see this bill come out of Financial Services Committee because Republicans have been fairly consistent in trying to remove regulations from Dodd-Frank. That has generally been the approach. I supported the removal of some of those unnecessary regulations. Others are important regulations, like this privacy disclosure that I don't think is a good idea. But here, they are actually adding reporting requirements above and beyond Dodd-Frank. They are out ``Dodd-Franking'' Dodd-Frank. Republicans are saying there is not enough reporting; there is not enough paperwork; there is not enough money going to lawyers and accountants. In Dodd-Frank, we are going to require that they file even more paperwork with the SEC. I think that is the wrong way to go, Mr. Speaker, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to resist this effort to burden shareholders who actually own companies with additional costs and paperwork and prevent them from making necessary management improvements to the companies that, at the end of the day, are run for them, not for the benefit of management. That is why I oppose this bill. Shareholders should have a right to impartial information about the company in which they have invested. We should minimize paperwork where possible. I have been proud to support a number of bipartisan proposals to do that. This bill goes the opposite way. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney) to discuss the proposal.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I include in the Record the Republican bill summary from the majority on the Rules Committee for H.R. 4015. Committee on Rules Pete Sessions, Chairman--December 11, 2017 H.R. 4015--Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act of 2017 Purpose: To improve the quality of proxy advisory firms for the protection of investors and the U.S. economy, and in the public interest, by fostering accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy advisory firm industry. Background and Legislative History: Each year, public companies hold shareholder meetings at which the company's shareholders vote for the company's directors and on other significant corporate actions that require shareholder approval. As part of this annual process, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public companies to provide their shareholders with a proxy statement before shareholder meetings. A proxy statement includes all important facts about the matters to be voted on at a shareholder meeting, including, for example, information on board of director candidates, director compensation, executive compensation, related party transactions, securities ownership by certain beneficial owners and management, and eligible shareholder proposals. The information contained in the statement must be filed with the SEC before soliciting a shareholder vote on the election of directors and the approval of other corporate actions. Solicitations, whether by management or shareholders, must disclose all important facts about the issues on which shareholders are asked to vote. In general, state corporate law governs shareholder voting rights, including the types of corporate actions that require shareholder approval. However, Section 14 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) authorizes the SEC to promulgate rules governing the solicitation of proxies for most public companies. SEC Regulation 14A governs proxy solicitations and sets forth the categories of information that must be disclosed in proxy solicitations. Largely as a result of the SEC's regulations, proxy advisory firms now wield outsized influence in the U.S. proxy system. In particular, regulators, market participants, and academic observers have highlighted potential conflicts of interest inherent in the business models and activities of proxy advisory firms. For example, as indicated above, proxy advisor firms may feel pressured by their largest clients-- many of whom are activist investors--to issue vote recommendations that reflect those clients' specific agendas. In addition, proxy advisory firms often provide voting recommendations to investment advisers on matters for which they also provide consulting services to public companies.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the reason I do this is, my colleague from Georgia somehow said that it was laughable, this characterization that it is adding paperwork. That is exactly what this bill does. In fact, in this exhibit, this is a Republican summary of their own bill. It says: ``The information contained in the statement must be filed with the SEC. . . .'' The whole bill is about adding paperwork. That is what the bill does. You can argue it is paperwork all you want because corporate CEOs want it and many existing board members want it. Investors don't want it. But we are talking about additional paperwork, and there is nothing in that statement that you can refute because the Republican bill summary explains that that is what they are doing. I mean, there is no disagreement. And he is correct. I am sure there are some Democrats who support these bills, some Republicans who support them, some Republicans and Democrats who might oppose these bills, but that is what the bill does, it adds paperwork. That is why I mentioned I was surprised to see it come out of the Financial Services Committee that, in general, had been more interested in reducing paperwork. Here, they are interested in adding compliance cost and paperwork to investors. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Sean Patrick Maloney's bill, H.R. 4585, which would block the FCC's rule rolling back net neutrality from taking effect to ensure the internet remains open to all Americans. 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, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I can see my good friend, Mr. Duffy, is very excited about this, very engaged. It is a hard issue. I don't think many Democrats are that excited either way. They are all going to decide where they stand because it is just a fight between corporate CEOs and big institutional investors. They are both fine. I mean, you have got to pick one or the other in voting ``yes'' or ``no'' on this bill. I think, as Democrats, we are more interested in how the people are doing who are working for those companies. How are we doing about sustainable practices over time? Yes, every Democrat and Republican will cast their vote here either for institutional investors or for corporate CEOs and insular boards. Fine. It does add paperwork. We talked about that. Mr. Duffy said: Oh, it adds paperwork. Democrats should like it. Yes, maybe there are some. I think some Democrats voted for it in committee. There are Democrats that want to increase paperwork. I am not one of them. I want to decrease paperwork and streamline it. But, no, I am sure there will be some Democrats who support it. There are probably Democrats who, themselves, agree with the corporate CEOs over the institutional investors. I have taken a company public. I have run private companies. I have seen this world. I think it is a good thing that the share of institutional investment has increased. I don't have the statistics in front of me. The gentleman from Wisconsin said something along the lines of 46 to 75 percent of the capital is institutional. The big problem in public corporate governance is not too much shareholder engagement; it is not enough. When you have a diffuse shareholder base, when you don't have institutional investors, when you have, proverbially, 200 people who each own half a percent of the company or even more and they never talk and don't know each other, the ability of management to run amok in their own interests, to the detriment of the shareholders, plagues our public marketplaces. So to have sophisticated, active investors who own enough and can work together, sometimes through these proxy fights when it comes to it, to be able to maximize long-term value is a good thing. It is a good thing. Of course, everybody can point to times that it has been good for companies and times it has been bad. Generally speaking, this bill is adding paperwork to move the bar the wrong way, to move it towards management, away from shareholders. I agree you need a balance. I wouldn't support a bill that moved it all the way to shareholders either. You are just encouraging agitators to get in on a short-term basis and speculative basis. But I think we are close to the right place; and if you ask me where I would move it, I would move it a little the other way to empower shareholders. In fact, I have a bill that does that. It is part of a bigger bill, but it is a bill that gives shareholders more of a direct say over the pay of top executives because, again, there is a problem with insular corporate boards. Part of the answer is empowering institutional investors and empowering individual investors. So, look, Democrats will hold their nose and vote for either corporate CEOs or for big investors, and that is fine. I firmly think that the best interests of our economy and the people and sustainability lie in moving it toward the investors. This bill moves it the wrong way and adds paperwork and costs to the investors. So I really think it moves the wrong way, which is why I oppose this bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' There was also a discussion, Mr. Duffy mentioned why aren't we just talking about the rule. It is because, Mr. Speaker, like 56 other rules, it is a closed rule. What else can we say about closed rules? We have said everything. There are no amendments. I could spend an hour complaining about how they are not allowing amendments in and it is closed and so are 56 other rules, but it is more productive to get to the underlying issues because we have had the debate on closed rules 56 times just in the last 10 months. That is a record, Mr. Speaker. You should be proud of presiding over a record number of closed rules for a United States Congress. But it is not very interesting to talk about for another hour. So they will talk about an interesting bill, a minor bill. I think I discussed that. I mean, we have a government shutdown; we have an issue with tax reform; we have DREAMers; we have a million things we could be doing. This is a minor bill. Okay. Let's talk about the merits of giving the current corporate boards that might be too insular and the current CEOs and management a little more power, like this bill does, by increasing red tape and paperwork on investors versus the merits of empowering investors. Fine, we will have that discussion. We will cast our ballots. We will see what happens. Another issue that is very important and timely that this Congress should get to is the one my good friend Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney raised. When we defeat the previous question, we can bring up an issue that, again, is not a partisan issue. As the cofounder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, said, the end of net neutrality would end the internet as we know it. It is an issue every American citizen is looking to us to take leadership on. In my time in office, I have had to make a number of controversial votes, whether it is for the Affordable Care Act or repeal of this or that, and oftentimes I hear from constituents on both sides. I remember we got thousands of letters for the Affordable Care Act, thousands of letters against it--very typical. Net neutrality has been a unique and singular experience in my 9 years in Congress. We received 1,500 calls and over 5,000 emails about the issue, and I asked my staff to double-check this because I didn't believe this, and they did. One hundred percent of the emails and calls were for net neutrality. That is right. Not a single constituent of mine contacted me on the other side. In a district that has a plurality of unaffiliated voters and a similar number of Republicans and Democrats, they are never shy to contact me. So it is not partisan. It certainly united Republicans, unaffiliated voters, and Democrats in my district to be unanimously for net neutrality, which surprised me. But it also means that Congress should not be tone deaf to that, and that is why it is important to defeat the previous question. Republican Senators like Senator Thune have come together to call on colleagues to come together and protect net neutrality. My good friend and colleague from Colorado Mike Coffman announced that we should--the FCC should delay their vote and that we should protect net neutrality. It is common sense, Mr. Speaker, and by defeating the previous question, we can get on to an issue that the American people care about rather than a fight between CEOs and investors and which side you take. It is about protecting your internet in your home so you can access the content of your choice--a consumer issue and an issue for small businesses. We had a digital roundtable last night, Mr. Speaker. I think thousands of people from my district watched as I had several experts, including several small businesses from Colorado, talk about the importance of net neutrality to them in creating jobs and being able to have a predictable and sustainable business model, and then being able to compete with large, entrenched companies and be disruptive with new innovation. So I hope that we can defeat the previous question and get on to that. If we don't, I am going to ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the bill that adds paperwork and costs, requiring SEC filings for the investors who are fighting bills, who are fighting proxy fights, and then I urge my colleagues to look closely at the privacy bill. That one, again, I would not characterize as a major bill. I will be voting ``no.'' I understand there might be some Republicans and Democrats voting ``yes'' on that one as well. But, you know, whether they delete that clause or not is hardly the game changer for the economy that tax reform will be. I have ideas, bipartisan ideas, bills that I have sponsored with my Republican colleagues that should be part of tax reform, that would help the economy go, that would create far more jobs than a two- sentence disclosure, whether it is there or not, and, frankly, more important, also, than this, whether the proxy fight people have to file with the SEC. I mean, I am sure they will be able to do it. I mean, yes, you Republicans want to give them more paperwork and create more bureaucracy, but I am sure they will survive. But let's do something important like open process tax reform. We could be debating amendments right now and voting on them like our job--you know, like 100 amendments from Republicans and Democrats. I would even be open to let's just consider bipartisan amendments, throw out amendments that only Republicans support or only Democrats support. To be fair, you are in the majority, Mr. Speaker, how about just amendments that Republicans alone support or are bipartisan? You don't have to do any Democratic amendments only because let's just have an open process. Let's allow some amendments. Every amendment was locked out of tax reform. I offered like, what, 16 myself? I remember my colleague Mr. Woodall was there. They were commonsense ideas. There was a little fix I did with Mr. Tipton from Colorado for Kombucha, that is fermented tea, and it had to do with the tax treatment, de minimis. Senator Cory Gardner supports it in the Senate, our Republican Senator. Noncontroversial, next-to-no fiscal impact, and the Rules Committee still didn't even allow me to debate the amendment on the floor for 10 minutes, for 5 minutes, for 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, enough with these closed rules, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. When I was growing up, I am sure, like most of us here in this body, I was fortunate to be surrounded by hardworking, dedicated teachers who cared about me, challenged me, and helped me succeed. Throughout our public schools in any State and across the country, there are teachers who are giving everything they have to help students thrive. Carolyn, a teacher from Louisville, is a great example. Carolyn shared with me how she spends her own personal money on school supplies for students who can't afford to buy their own. To help mitigate this cost, there is a Federal tax deduction that allows teachers to get back up to $250 of their personal money they put towards supplies in their classroom, but the bill before us denies Carolyn and all of the other teachers that deduction and eliminates the tax benefits in the name of cutting taxes for wealthy international corporations. This bill also rolls back a critical education tax benefit that allows employers to provide up to $5,250 of tuition assistance, pretax. In practice, it encourages workforce training and apprenticeship programs. In fact, this very week is National Apprenticeship Week, and yet the Republican tax bill pulls the rug out from under businesses and workers, actually discouraging apprenticeships by stopping this tax benefit. Mr. Speaker, I was privileged to serve, before I came here, as the chairman of our State Board of Education and school superintendent. I wanted to be the ranking member of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee. I have really seen how important these tax benefits are to teachers and students. I offered amendments last night in Rules to simply restore these important tax credits for children. Unfortunately, in a party-line vote, my amendments were denied. These damaging provisions are just a small part of the overall harmful, misguided attempt at tax reform. Let us reset and let us begin a bipartisan discussion about tax reform that values education, educators, and kids. For this reason and so many others, I oppose the rule and the underlying bill, and I suggest a ``no'' vote. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent on November 6, 2017. Had I been present for the following Roll Call votes: H.R. 3562--To amend title 38, United States Code, to authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to furnish assistance for adaptations of residences of veterans in rehabilitation programs under chapter 31 of such title, and for other purposes, I would have voted Yea as this legislation would make it easier for the VA to assist veterans who are in need of adaptations made to their homes to receive care. On H.R. 1066--VA Management Alignment Act of 2017--Motion on Ordering the Previous Question on the Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 2936, I would have voted Yea as this legislation would require the VA to submit a report on the individual roles and accountability mechanisms of the VA.