Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to bring forward this bipartisan bill. Let me express why it is important. To delay the expansion of a successful charter school for 5 years and prevent States from having the flexibility to deploy these resources after 3 proven years only consigns more kids to failure and lack of opportunity. It is an important amendment because it provides flexibility for States and charter schools to expand what works. And 1 year could be an aberration, 2 years of proven success can be lucky, but 3 years of success is hard to dispute. When a school has 3 years of proven success, to make it wait 5 full years before it's eligible to expand with Federal money only consigns all of those students who would have been served to otherwise reside on the waiting list and are forced to attend schools that provide less educational opportunity. We are only young once in life, and that's why with regard to education and improving the quality of our public schools, we all feel the fierce urgency of now. When a charter school starts out, it is not possible to predict whether it will be successful or not, and that's the purpose of the innovation grants. Without this amendment, charter schools that have proven success could be forced to wait 5 years before being able to replicate and expand, a wait that our Nation can't afford and, most of all, those kids on the waiting list can't afford. This revision is especially needed for charter schools that don't use the grants for planning, which is another year before the charter school starts, so it could be 1 year or 3 or 4 years. But if they don't use the year for a planning year, it is actually a full 5-year wait before the school would have access to expansion and replication resources without this amendment. So I am particularly glad of Mr. Paulsen's effort to bring this forward. The national activity section of the bill already reflects this. In fact, the national activity section provides funding after 3 years of demonstrated success, but that's only 2.5 percent of the total funds of the bill. Most of the funds under this bill are pushed to the States and allowed for the dual purpose of innovation and expansion and replication. And essentially what this bill remedies, it reflects the national activities language in saying that the States have the discretion, they are actually allowed to require 5 years of demonstrated success. I wouldn't encourage them to do that, but they have the flexibility to do it with 3 years of demonstrated success to ensure that proven educational opportunities for kids can reach more kids sooner under this amendment which is why I am proud to lend it my support. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, again, this process really demonstrates strong bipartisan leadership and a commitment to our Nation's children from both Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Miller, as well as all the members of the committee and their staff. And I express not only my deep appreciation but, I am sure, the deep appreciation of the many millions of children that this bill will help provide additional opportunities for to them both. This manager's amendment makes a good bill even better, including allowing priority for States that allow charters to have autonomous school food services. It's critical charter schools are allowed to have independent food services. Many lack cafeteria space in some facilities, and this amendment will prioritize States that allow for that. We all know how important nutrition is for success. Transportation to and from charter schools is also critical. The bill also allows for the expansion, for the very first time, a replication of successful charter school models, again deferring to States in that regard. Previously, these monies were only eligible for the establishment of innovative new charter schools, a worthy goal and one that is preserved under this bill as well. But we are now 10 years later down the road. We know a little bit about what works and what doesn't work. Based on that, the bill in the manager's amendment, A, upped the ante on the best practices for the States in terms of being good authorizers, and, B, allowed some of the funds to be used to expand and replicate proven success, as well as preserving some for the continued innovation, which is also necessary to drive our education system forward. This manager's amendment also supports dropout prevention and recovery and rural needs. Figuring out how charter schools can fit in the context of rural and smaller school districts has also been an important learning curve over the last 10 years. This bill and the manager's amendment incorporate some of the very best thinking in that regard in terms of making sure that States have plans to ensure that charter schools can also benefit rural areas. This bipartisan amendment exemplifies the great work of the committee leadership overall in the bill and truly does improve upon the base bill. I am very proud to be strongly supportive of the manager's amendment as well as the underlying bill.

Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from California and the gentleman from Minnesota. There is a lot of good in public education today. When we look across our country, just as we see examples of what doesn't work--drop-out factory schools where kids are falling further and further behind each year, schools that are unsafe learning environments for their kids-- just as we have that, we also have examples of what works, what works with our most at-risk populations in this country showing that every student in this country can learn and can achieve, given the right opportunity and the right school environment. Now, charter schools aren't the silver bullet or the solution, but they are a tool in the arsenal of school districts in the States to address the learning needs of all students. Nationally, there's over 5,000 charter schools representing just over 5 percent of all public schools in the country. Many of those charter schools couldn't have gotten off the ground without the Federal start- up grant that this bill reauthorizes. Importantly, again because we have examples that this works, this bill, for the first times, allows States to use the money to expand and replicate learning models that work. I point to one in Colorado, the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy. Ninety- three percent free and reduced lunch, 86 percent English language learners, and yet they scored far above the State average in the past 3 years, 95 to 100 percent proficient in math and about 20 percent higher than the State average score--the State average score that includes wealthy suburban districts as well. Yes, these students can learn, and schools like Ricardo Flores Magon Academy will now under this new authorization have access to expansion and replication money. So, when models work--whether that's a model like KIPP nationally, which has successfully served some of our most at-risk communities, or whether it's grassroots efforts across our country--they will be able to access resources to serve more students and grow or to open up additional branches of the same school. National, State, and local research consistently shows that, yes, not all charter schools work. Some underperform other public schools. Some perform at the same level, and some do better. What we do with this bill is we provide for best practices nationally. We've learned a lot in the last 10 years with regard to charter schools. We now have some best practices in this bill, like removing caps on the number of charter schools in districts. Through the manager's amendment, we ensure that charter schools can participate in food services as well as in transportation services in districts. I want to point out the importance of the transportation because, to make choice meaningful, to add the emphasis to choice, you have to have transportation options to get the most at-risk kids to school; otherwise choice is simply an empty promise. By focusing Federal investments, as H.R. 2218 does, it ensures that we maximize the impact of our limited Federal resources on improving student achievement and reducing the learning gap across the country. To succeed as a Nation, we need to do a better job with our human capital in preparing the next generation of Americans for the next generation of jobs, and this bill will be an important tool in that arsenal. I strongly support this bill.

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we can help American workers and allow this House to deliberate on an amendment that deserves debate in this body. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule as well, having left off several amendments that would otherwise improve these bipartisan bills. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the Intelligence Authorization Act is not perfect. There are some provisions that have already received a veto threat from the President that need to be amended. Thankfully, the chairman and the ranking member have worked together to submit a manager's amendment that would do just that. It is vital that this manager's amendment pass because of two provisions in particular. The first would make the Director of the National Security Agency a Senate-confirmed position. This would unnecessarily politicize one of our most critical intelligence needs. Traditionally, this position has already been indirectly subject to confirmation through the Senate's confirmation of military officers who have been promoted into the position. We can't afford to damage the management of the intelligence community in this manner. The second provision would modify the reporting requirements regarding Guantanamo detainees. This would require the Director of National Intelligence to provide State Department cables to the Intelligence Committees. While effective oversight is an essential role of Congress, we also must not interfere with the ability of the State Department to conduct effective diplomatic negotiations. Therefore, I call on my colleagues to support the manager's amendment as well as the amended version of the underlying bill. I also want to thank, with regard to the Charter School bill, Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Miller for their excellent work both on the bill as well as their manager's amendment that would improve the bill in a wide variety of ways, including prioritizing States that authorize charters to be their own School Food Authority so that they can serve healthy meals to their students, including transportation considerations to help ensure that kids have access, and that choice is made more meaningful by ensuring that families who don't have the ability to carpool or transport their kids to school also have choices within the public education system. This truly bipartisan bill and manager's amendment really exemplifies what the House can do to support good public education and improve student outcome. I agree with my colleague, Mr. Hoyer, who said that this is a start. While many of us would rather see a full reauthorization of ESEA, this is a very promising start to what will hopefully be a very productive session with regard to education, one of the most important goals of this Congress as well as absolutely necessary to improve the economy in the long run. Unfortunately, one of the amendments disallowed by the Republican majority under this rule is one that I proposed to help facilitate charter schools in obtaining Federal competitive grant funding by adding priority for States that allow charter schools to be LEAs, or Local Education Agencies. Effectively, my amendment would have reduced paperwork and overhead. If the school districts and charter schools agree, the charter schools themselves could effectively function as their own fiscal agent for Federal purposes and to compete for Federal grants. What happens now, and it works in most cases 9 out of 10 times-- unfortunately it's the cases where it doesn't work out that cause the difficulty--is charter schools have to go through their LEA, their authorizing institute, or their school district in order to apply for Federal grants. What does this mean? It means there's another set of bureaucrat's eyes that have to see every proposal, another person that has to sign off. Sometimes this can lead to unnecessary delays. At worst, it can lead to missing deadlines if funding applications are submitted to districts and not turned around in enough time to meet Federal deadlines for grant funding. So it would be nice to continue to work on this with the committee, and I think that many of us would like to see charter schools recognized as LEAs for purposes of Federal funding. I am proud to say that, in my home State of Colorado, we were able to get this fixed in the last legislative session, and now charter schools are recognized as LEAs. In fact, about half of the States allow charter schools to be LEAs for Federal purposes. A key goal of the bill is to ensure charter schools have equitable funding as well. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order an amendment by Mr. Garamendi of California, one which would give priority to eligible entities working with charter schools that plan to use materials made in America for the construction or renovation of school facilities. Once again, it would make that amendment in order and allow for a discussion and vote by the House on that amendment. Republicans blocked this germane amendment last night in the Rules Committee by a party- line vote. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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

Mr. POLIS. I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. POLIS. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, a colleague of mine on the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. POLIS. I yield myself 30 seconds to respond. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California laid down an excellent framework for the potential of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to accomplish their mandate; namely, bringing down tax rates by eliminating loopholes in a way that effectively eliminates expenditures in the Tax Code. For whether something is a subsidy or a tax credit, it is very much an expenditure. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. First, in response to the claim of the gentleman from Texas in regards to saving Medicare, well, if ending Medicare is one way of saving it, I guess that would be consistent. In fact, the Republican package that was passed in this House phased out Medicare. Nobody under 55 would receive Medicare. By definition, Medicare is a medical insurance program for seniors. It would be replaced with a voucher that would pay for part of private insurance that seniors need to get, but it would no longer be Medicare. It would no longer exist. So, certainly, getting rid of Medicare, if you consider that a way of saving it, the Republican budget will do that. But if you want to save Medicare, it requires cutting costs and investing in the system and making it work for more American families. Again, what we have before us today, Madam Speaker, is not a solution; it's further political machinations of the House. Rather than talking to the President, rather than talking to the Senate, unfortunately, the Speaker of this body has chosen to talk to five or six people, move the bill further away from the middle, further away from what the President will sign, further away from what the Senate will pass with only 3\1/2\ days left. Three-and-a-half days left before what? Three-and-a-half days left before this country jeopardizes our credit rating and our good standing as a Nation that pays interest on our debt. And just as American families, when your credit score gets messed up, you pay more, taxpayers will pay more if this bill passes. Madam Speaker, it has been estimated that the approximately 1 percent interest rate increase that a downgrade from AAA to AA would provide will cost taxpayers over $1 trillion over 10 years. And this bill will increase the deficit by $100 billion. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the bill. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

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

Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, before I begin, I have a point of personal privilege. I thank the gentleman from Texas for the time. We on the Rules Committee and as Members of Congress rely on the hard work of our staff people, particularly on Rules Committee, working into the wee hours of the night, last night being an example, until 11:30. After 3 years of tremendous service, my Rules associate, Rosalyn Kumar, has accepted another position in the Senate, and I just want to express my appreciation for her hard work. She hails from the city of Dallas, Texas, and her hometown Representative is my colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. Sessions. I'd like to yield for a moment to my colleague from Texas.

Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to be perfectly clear about what we're talking about here today. From the moment Speaker Boehner walked away from the negotiating table last Friday to the opening bell of the stock markets this morning, shareholders in U.S. stocks, American retirees, investors, our middle class have lost $405 billion based on Third Way's analysis of data from the Standard and Poor's 500 Index, and Americans stand to lose more if we fail to resolve this crisis. Third Way has put together a comparison between the interest rate paid on sovereign debt between AAA and AA nations. This is why credit is important. People understand that. Depending on your credit rating, you pay a different rate on your home mortgage. You might have different financing opportunities on your credit card. If America misses a debt payment, the rating agencies have let us know that it likely will result in a downgrade from AAA status to AA status. I would also point out that this current bill before us would likely lead to that as well because it only contains a short-term, a 6-month renewal of our debt ceiling. Having watched the dysfunction of Congress over the last few weeks, the global investment community, those who loan us money, will say the last thing we need to do is put ourselves through this again in 6 months to ensure stability. Countries that have AAA ratings have an average 10-year bond rate of 2.98 percent. Countries that have AA have an average bond rating of 3.75 percent. So, three-quarters of a percent difference. What does that mean? It means three-quarters of a percent on your variable rate home mortgage; it means three-quarters of a percent on your automobile; and, yes, it means more government expenditures, bigger government expenditures, just to cover the debt that we already have. In fact, that difference, that 0.75 percent difference over the next 10 years, will cost taxpayers, in additional interest payments, over $1 trillion. So here we are with a bill that cuts spending, cuts $915 billion of spending, but, because it will likely lead to a downgrade, will cost over a trillion. The bill before us today will increase the deficit by over $100 billion. At a time of record deficits when we all know we need to enforce fiscal discipline, the last thing we need is an irresponsible bill to increase the deficit by $100 billion, which is what we have before us today. Now, if we had this bill before us 2 weeks ago or 3 weeks ago, I would still oppose it--increasing the deficit is the last thing we need to do now--but it would have been an interesting discussion. It would have been maneuvering and politics and all this stuff that this body does too much of in posturing, in my opinion. But here we are 3\1/2\ days from the debt ceiling expiring, and the gentleman from Texas and the chairman of our Rules Committee and many others have said, We want to. We know we need to do this. We know we need to do this. If we know we need to do this, why are we doing this 3\1/2\ days before the expiration of the debt ceiling? Why are we potentially passing a bill that will increase the Federal deficit? that will almost certainly lead to a downgrade? that the Senate has said they will kill? that the President has said he will veto? I understand that the plan was to pass this bill last night. I understand that the majority party was short of a few votes. That would have been yet another window of opportunity for this Speaker, who has had many, to negotiate a real solution, to be the statesman, to work with the President and the Senate to come up with a bipartisan package to increase the debt ceiling, cut spending, decrease the deficit. The President has talked about decreasing the deficit by $4 trillion. Instead, we have a force of bill that's likely to increase the deficit by $100 billion--the last thing we need from Congress at this juncture in time. Three-and-a-half days is how long we have to get this right. I ask you, Madam Speaker, is this the step we need to take towards that outcome, passing yet another ideological bill that will cost taxpayers $100 billion and cost middle class families another percentage point on all the debt that they have? Madam Speaker, there is a route out of this, and the route out of this does not involve the majority party trying to pull back the four or five or six people that they need over there. The path out of this is the Speaker engaging us, engaging all Members of this Chamber, engaging the President of the United States, who has to sign this at the end of the day, engaging the Senate majority leader and the Senate minority leader, to go back to that table that Speaker Boehner walked out on last Friday, to negotiate a real solution to the deficit crisis and the spending crisis that has gripped this country, that could very well lead to a downgrade and increased deficit spending unless we get our arms around it. Look, I think many on my side of the aisle are open to a compromise. President Obama, himself, has called for a compromise, and I know my office and the offices of many other Members of Congress have received hundreds of calls from constituents who echo that desire to reach a solution on this. I fear that the step before us today is yet another example of the dysfunction of this institution under this leadership, but it's not too late. I call upon the Speaker to move away from this direction and get back to the negotiating table to establish a real solution: to reduce the deficit, retain our Nation's good credit and faith in our system and show that this institution--the institution of the House of Representatives and the institution of Congress--can work and do what's right for our country. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. POLIS. The majority leader in the Senate has never at any time expressed support for this bill and actually opposes this bill. I would ask the gentleman to clarify that.

Mr. POLIS. I would like to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the Speaker of this Chamber has a choice to make with 3\1/2\ days remaining until we risk default on our debt. And what does that mean to American families? It means higher interest rates on your variable home mortgage. It means higher interest rates on your credit card debt. For our own Federal Government, as well as local and State governments, it means more of our taxpayer money will have to go to interest to service these existing debts. At this point, the Speaker of this body has a choice. To be sure, he has a negotiation ahead of him. He has compromise ahead of him. He can choose to negotiate and compromise with only those in his own party further to the right than he is within this very body, or to compromise and come to a deal with those who matter and can actually pass something into law that prevents a default. Namely, I call upon the Speaker to continue negotiations with the President of the United States and the Senate of the United States to resolve this self-caused crisis within 3\1/2\ days and avert a fate that will cost middle class families and taxpayers trillions of dollars.