Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan legislation, and I extend my praise to the distinguished gentlewoman from Missouri who has demonstrated a remarkable initiative and high octane energy in organizing the House of Representatives behind it. We are grateful to her for her efforts and also to Mrs. McBath, who is the ranking member on our Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee for her efforts in always making sure that we put crime victims first. When we have a crime and there is a prosecution, it is State v. defendant or people v. defendant, but what is left out of that is the victim, and she always makes sure that we keep the victims very much in our sights, in our minds, and in our hearts. The Crime Victims Fund has been significantly depleted, resulting in a $630 million cut to victim services in fiscal year 2024. Deposits into the fund have dropped dramatically since 2018. From 2008 to 2017, deposits were, on average, $2.56 billion annually. From 2008 through 2023, annual deposits averaged only $737 million. So that is much greater than a 50 percent drop. There are different reasons for this that we need to analyze and address, but in the meantime, the consequences for VOCA grants are devastating. These grants are the primary source of Federal funding for thousands of victim service providers across America, including programs serving victims of human trafficking, drunk driving, domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. These are our people, our family members, and our community members who are suffering who need the help. VOCA grants are funded by the statutorily created Crime Victims Fund, which is supported by criminal fines, assessments, and penalties paid for by convicted Federal offenders. However, these are being progressively wiped away. Without congressional action, victim service providers will be forced to make more dramatic cuts to critical services while many others will simply have to close their doors. In order to stabilize the balance of the fund and prevent further cuts, H.R. 909 would add unobligated funds from actions brought under the False Claims Act to the sources of revenue that are deposited into the Fund. Deposits would be made into the Crime Victims Fund only after whistleblowers and defrauded Federal agencies are paid first and other preexisting obligations are satisfied. This is a temporary change that will give Congress time to assess its overall efficacy and conduct robust review before deciding whether to renew, adopt an alternative remedy, or create a permanent, long-term fix. Mr. Speaker, I suppose you could say this is a Band-Aid solution, but having cut my finger recently, I like Band-Aid solutions. Band-Aids are necessary sometimes to stop the bleeding, and I think that is where we are right now. We have an obligation to the millions of victims of crime across the country who rely on the services made possible by the Crime Victims Fund. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 909, and I hope all my colleagues will do the same.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan legislation, which will help ensure that Americans have access to bankruptcy relief when financial disaster strikes and they need it. The legislation would increase compensation for chapter 7 trustees for the first time in more than 30 years, extend vital temporary bankruptcy judgeships, and ensure that our bankruptcy system continues to be self-funded and poses no cost to the American taxpayer. Chapter 7 proceedings are designed for people who are most in need of financial relief. In chapter 7 bankruptcy, an individual debtor who has fallen on hard times, rather than go to debtor prison, which was the old-school method, can settle his or her debts, pay off back taxes, stop further collection actions, and secure a fresh start. The process is means-tested, so it is available only for those who really need it, and it often comes with credit counseling and debtor education courses that can help our constituents achieve financial literacy and avoid bankruptcy a second time. Nationwide, this process is overseen by trustees who help to distribute millions of dollars annually to local, State, and Federal Government agencies and private creditors of all types. In 1994, Congress set the pay for trustees at $60 per case, and we have not revisited that $60 pay rate in the decades since. This bill would increase that paltry amount at long last. By doubling their fee to $120, we help to ensure that debtors will have the assistance they need to navigate the complicated and convoluted world of bankruptcy proceedings. The bill also extends 29 temporary bankruptcy judgeships that are set to expire. In my State of Maryland alone, we are on track to lose three out of seven temporary judgeships. That is nearly half of our entire bankruptcy bench. We cannot afford to lose these judges at the very moment that bankruptcy filings are rising everywhere, up 30 percent in our State alone over the last couple of years. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bill to increase the access and opportunity provided to all Americans under the bankruptcy system. I ask all of our colleagues to read it and to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, again, I restate my strong support for this bipartisan legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6719, the Combating Online Predators Act, and I echo my distinguished colleague in noting that sextortion is a serious and rising threat faced by countless unsuspecting teens all over America when they use the internet and social media. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC, operates a Cyber Tip Line to receive reports of suspected child exploitation. The Cyber Tip Line has received many more reports of sextortion of minors in recent years, amounting to tens of thousands of potential victims. These crimes have deadly consequences. NCMEC has identified 36 teens who took their own lives after being subjected to harsh and incessant harassment from callous perpetrators of sextortion. The problem is everywhere. Last May, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland announced the guilty plea of a man who had coerced at least 108 different girls to send him pictures and videos of themselves engaged in sexual conduct. The victims ranged in age from 5 to 17 years old and lived all over the U.S. and even around the world, from Tennessee and Massachusetts to Australia and the United Kingdom. When the man asked for access to the social media account of an 11- year-old, he wrote: ``Add me back or I'll post all your vids online and in servers. I have everything saved.'' When some victims said they did not want to send him any more images, he threatened to post the images online, come to their house, or tell their parents. The man victimized a 12-year-old, her friend, and her 5- year-old sister through Snapchat. Investigators obtained an IP address linked to the Snapchat account, which eventually led them to the perpetrator's house, where they recovered a laptop, two hard drives, and four iPhones containing evidence of the coercive treatment of more than 100 different girls. In this case, the man pled guilty to an existing crime of producing child sex abuse material. Prosecutors have said the existing statutes do not always fully address the scope or severity of the conduct involved in these terrible cases. This bill would close that gap and ensure that more of these criminals are held accountable. I hope we continue to work with our colleagues in a bipartisan way to strengthen and improve our laws to address these new and dangerous crimes and to keep our children safe online. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to support H.R. 6719, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, to close, I strongly support H.R. 6719, the Combating Online Predators Act. I encourage all of our colleagues to support it, and I praise the gentlewoman for her leadership on this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am rising in strong support of H.R. 6715, the Child Predators Accountability Act of 2025. Mr. Speaker, the decision that the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina references out of the Seventh Circuit, United States v. Howard, threatens to significantly limit prosecutors' ability to hold some of the worst child predators to account legally. The question may appear to be technical, but the human consequences are grave and brutally simple. Title 18 of the United States Code, section 2251(a), criminalizes the production of child sex abuse material. For decades, prosecutors have used the law to target predators who prey on children or who produce ghastly images of child sex abuse, but the Seventh Circuit's ruling in the Howard case in 2020 jeopardized prosecutors' ability to go after these dangerous people until they actually abuse the child and create an image of the abuse. The Howard decision narrowed the scope of section 2251(a), holding that the mere physical presence of the minor in a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct does not automatically violate the statute. To obtain a conviction for production of CSAM in the Seventh Circuit, the child in the photo, video, or image must themselves be engaged in the explicit conduct. This is an absurd reading that we can and must legislatively resolve. The Howard ruling undermines the ability to prosecute common scenarios involving the surreptitious recording of kids; for example, when criminals plant concealed cameras in bathrooms, locker rooms, and bedrooms to record sexually explicit images of children who are unaware that they are even being filmed. Criminals who record themselves sexually violating very young children, such as infants and toddlers, who are too young to understand that they are being filmed in sexually explicit scenarios could also conceivably avoid prosecution under the pinched reasoning of the Howard decision. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6715 would make clear that even the passive use of a child in the production of child sex abuse materials is a crime, and it will eliminate any confusion caused by the Seventh Circuit's ruling in Howard. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), my good friend who is the ranking member on the Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Georgia.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, we seem to have the bipartisan convergence that we need to reverse the error of the interpretation that is in the Howard decision to make sure we can always hold accountable the perpetrators of this seriously corrosive crime. H.R. 6715 strives to right this wrong, and I am proud that we are acting in a bipartisan way to do that. I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 6732, the CSAFE Act, which creates a new crime to prohibit people from compelling children into physically harming themselves or animals. Coercing kids online to hurt themselves or others is spreading harm that all of us need to take seriously. We have seen an alarming rise in episodes of this in recent years, and it has become clear that there is no Federal statute that effectively addresses this extreme misconduct. Violent online groups have emerged on popular platforms geared toward children and teenagers. These groups, and individuals acting alone, encourage kids to commit horrifying acts, including cutting themselves, creating child sex abuse material, sexually exploiting other children, harming animals, swatting, doxing, and, in the most extreme cases, taking their own lives. This happened to Jay Taylor, a 13-year-old who was struggling with an eating disorder, gender identity problems, and a sense of isolation. He found a connection on the online platform Discord. Members of 764, an online network that targets and exploits vulnerable young people, got their hooks into him and devastatingly coerced Jay into taking his own life while live-streaming. The FBI agents who worked on his case repeatedly encountered roadblocks while attempting to get prosecutors to file charges in the case, with one U.S. attorney telling the agents that it simply was not possible to do anything. The bill before us now, the CSAFE Act, seeks to address the shortcomings in existing Federal criminal law when it comes to investigating cases and prosecuting criminals who coerce and extort children online. I thank the chairman for working with me to address some of the constitutional concerns I raised at our committee's markup of this legislation back in December of last year. I am very pleased to support this bill today, which I think is legally seaworthy and will survive any constitutional challenges. Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).

Mr. RASKIN. I have no further speakers, Madam Speaker. I will just restate my strong support for this legislation. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Arizona for bringing it forward. It is certainly a lot more fun to be with him on legislation than against him on legislation, and I am delighted we were able to work on this bipartisan bill together. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, many of us in Congress are calling for the immediate release of Mr. Ekrem Imamoglu, who is the mayor of Istanbul, Turkiye. Istanbul is Turkiye's largest city. It is one of the world's great cities where 16 million people live and stand strong for democracy. They elected Mr. Imamoglu as their mayor three different times, and he is focused on improving public infrastructure and serving nutrition and health to the millions of kids who live in that city. He was detained in March 2025, along with 106 other leaders in Istanbul. The Turkish Government has now seized his family business, suspended his Twitter account, revoked his college diploma, and banned any public images or posters of him. I want to tell Mayor Imamoglu that he has many people in the United States Congress closely following this outrage against democracy and the rule of law. We are wishing his family happy holidays, and we are working and demanding to see that he be released.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, why did the Framers vest the power to declare war in Congress alone? It was because the kings were constantly plunging their entire nations into wars of vanity, of conceit, of caprice, of mere whimsy. They didn't trust one man to be able to take the entire country to war. They wanted that question proposed in the representatives of the people because it is our sons and daughters who will go fight, and it is the whole country's treasure that will be put at risk. Now, Donald Trump, buffeted by dozens of election losses all across the country from Virginia to New York to New Jersey to California to Mississippi and Georgia, sinking in the polls like a stone because of his catastrophic unconstitutional tariffs and his complete destruction of the healthcare system of the country, now wants to turn the metaphorical war on drugs into an actual, physical war on drugs. Well, Donald Trump's real interests in supporting dictators and big- time drug dealers were made clear with a series of Presidential pardons of major drug dealers, including the former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez. The guy was sentenced to 45 years in prison for bringing 40 tons--I am sorry--400 tons of cocaine into the country. Eight hundred thousand pounds of cocaine he brought into our country, and President Hernandez says: I am going to stuff the cocaine up the noses of the gringos. President Trump pardoned him without any explanation. We eagerly await an explanation from someone on that side because they have blown up 26 vessels on the high seas which have at most, if each one has 2 tons of cocaine in it, 52 tons, and he pardoned this guy who brought in 800,000 pounds of cocaine to stuff up the noses of the gringos.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I urgently commend to our colleagues across the aisle the speech that President Lincoln, the founder of their party, made about the Mexican-American War. He stood in this Chamber and said: On something as important and as grave as going to war, we want to know exactly what the rationale is, exactly why we are doing it. He got the nickname Spotty because he said he wanted to know the exact spot where American blood was shed. Well, there is a real accounting to be done in terms of what is the factual predicate for this war that Donald Trump wants.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the bill would subject doctors, nurses, other medical providers, and even parents to up to 10 years' incarceration in Federal prison and up to $250,000 in criminal fines for providing gender- affirming healthcare like hormone therapy to minors. They want to criminalize more than a dozen different evidence-based medical treatments and procedures that are presently being recommended and used for gender dysphoria including the prescription of puberty blockers, which are commonly used by families for young people who are not trans but who face all the medical and social problems associated with early-onset puberty. The gentlewoman's bill would engineer a massive invasion of the privacy rights of families engaged in medical decisionmaking in America. I thought a belief that families should be able to make their own decisions for their own children was something that united Liberals and Conservatives. These are hard and often agonizing decisions that loving American families in our country face. Our colleagues now want to invite the Federal Government to come barging into the family dining room and in the doctor's exam room like a raging bull in a china shop. Does anyone believe the Freedom Caucus and President Trump love America's children more than their own parents do or that they can make better decisions for tens of thousands of American children than their own parents? I can't understand the logic of it. At a time of skyrocketing healthcare costs--which our colleagues will do nothing about except perhaps a handful of them who have crossed over to join us today in a discharge petition--at a time of skyrocketing healthcare costs, grocery prices, and housing, not to mention the recent news of escalating unemployment higher than the last 4 years, does anybody think that what the American people need right now and are looking for is a Federal law authorizing FBI agents and government prosecutors to investigate doctors, nurses, hospitals, and parents for providing AMA-recommended medical care to children? The politicians that have brought America to a point of crisis in healthcare coverage for millions of Americans--and can't seem to do anything about it--cannot be trusted to make the most intimate and fundamental decisions for the physical, mental, and emotional well- being of America's children. Let us leave it to people's parents. Let us leave it to the families. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, at a time when our colleagues are perfectly content to see millions of Americans lose their health insurance, when they do nothing to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that millions of Americans are depending on, at a time when they are happy to throw millions of people off of Medicaid coverage, they decide to change the subject in order to vilify and demonize a small minority. That is a time-honored tactic in the authoritarian playbook, to pick a small minority of citizens--here, we are talking about around 2 million people who are transgender in America--and scapegoat them, dehumanize them, demonize them, satanize them, take away their basic freedoms, and even deny their very existence. It is happening to gay people right now in Putin's Russia and in Orban's Hungary. It is happening to Uyghurs and Tibetans in China. It is happening to Christians and free-thinkers in Pakistan. It is happening to Muslims in India. Now, it is happening to trans people in America when they are happy to attack them, vilify them, and try to destroy their community. If they purport to be acting in the name of the trans community, why is it that the trans community opposes their legislation so strongly? Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentlewoman from Oregon.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, we know that the proponents of this legislation are certainly not speaking for the families that have to deal with this problem because all of them are lobbying against this. They are saying that the last thing we want at this point is to send the FBI and Federal prosecutors in to deal with the problem. Let them deal with it. Well, perhaps they are speaking from medical authority? No, not at all. Look at the letter that was just sent to Members of Congress. ``We, the undersigned medical professional organizations, write in strong opposition to H.R. 3492 and H.R. 498. These bills would criminalize and dismantle healthcare for transgender young people and as such represent a direct threat to patient welfare. We urge you to reject these extreme proposals.'' Look who signed this: American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American Psychiatric Association, and so on. The leading medical authorities in the country are saying: Hey, we can work this out at the State level. The gentleman referred to California. There are States that are regulating in the field as they regulate lots of different kinds of medical treatments and procedures. Suddenly, we are going to turn the United States Congress into a super-medical licensing board for the entire country? This is why our colleague from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Roy, raised the question of whether this is even constitutional. Where is the Federal jurisdictional nexus for us to be overriding State medical boards in order to bulldoze into people's living rooms and their kitchen tables to usurp the family decisionmaking process of Americans across the country? Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Salinas).

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter), who is both a mom and a doctor.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Frost).