Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in proud support of H.R. 8717. Sergeant Bill Hooser, who, as I understand it, is not a Hoosier from Indiana but rather is from Utah, launched his career in law enforcement when he joined the Santaquin City Police Department in 2017. In February 2024, this year, he was promoted to sergeant for his strong commitment to keeping communities safe. He was tragically killed on duty on May 5 of this year. We extend our very sincere condolences to his family, his friends, and the whole community that was traumatized by his death. This legislation would honor Sergeant Hooser's legacy by naming the post office in Santaquin after him. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for introducing the legislation. I urge passage of this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the former distinguished majority leader of the House of Representatives.

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

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

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

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 10 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for those beautiful remarks. Elijah Cummings was a great Representative for the people of Baltimore and for the people of Maryland. He was a great leader, and he was a great teacher, too. I remember when I was in my third term in office, and I had started off here on the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight Committee, to which Chairman Cummings had recruited me. I was also on the House Administration Committee. Then, I had an invitation to go on the Rules Committee, but I was afraid that I might be overextended. I went and sat right over on the floor next to Chairman Cummings where he liked to sit, and I told him that I was afraid that I might be overburdening myself with too many committees. He turned silent for a moment, and then he said: ``Raskin''--he spoke very sharply to me at that moment. I had never heard him use that tone of voice. I said: Yes? He said: You are never too busy to do that which you ought to be doing. I never forgot that, and I have used that line for a lot of other colleagues. People will complain about being tired and exhausted and so on, but we are never too busy to be doing that which we ought to be doing. Congressman Mfume, with this visionary legislation, is setting up a post office at 340 South Loudon Avenue in Baltimore that will be graced with the name of the great Elijah Cummings. How fitting that is, a place where people go to send letters and messages, because another thing I remember Chairman Cummings always saying was that children are the ultimate message that we send to future generations of people who we will never meet. He meant we have to invest in children and young people because they will end up defining a world that will long outlast and outsurvive us. I hope that post office lasts forever, and I hope when parents take their kids to that post office to mail their letters, they will be able to tell them that there was once a great man named Elijah Cummings whose whole life repays a lot of study for all of us. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I urge all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support H.R. 9544, legislation in honor of a true American hero, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very proud support of H.R. 9544. It is a proud day for people of Maryland. It is a proud day for the House Oversight Committee. It is a proud day for the United States Congress that we have the opportunity to vote on a post office named after the late, great chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings. Mr. Speaker, Elijah Cummings was a favorite son of Maryland who devoted his life and his career to making the government an instrument of the common good for everyone and uplifting everybody in our society together. He was always seeking that higher ground, always telling us in the midst of debate and discussion we are better than this, that we can always lift ourselves higher to find unity and consensus around the values that make our country great. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Mfume), who is both his predecessor and his successor in office.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I restate our strong support for the post office being named after Mr. McCloskey in honor of his service and his sacrifice and in recognition of the sacrifice of his whole family. I am sorry to intrude on Mr. McCloskey's time here by just returning to the general problem we are having. I thank the chairman for his remarks, and I thank him also for helping us to pair together a post office favored by a Member of the minority with a post office favored by a Member of the majority, both of whom did not get the complete support of their delegations. We paired them together and we have decided to proceed in a bipartisan way to make that happen. I am just addressing the general problem that seems to be spinning out of control a little bit where there are Members who are deliberately blocking unanimous consensus within their State, and that is going to create real problems. We don't want it to be a tit-for-tat situation where we have legislative sharpshooters trying to bring down post office namings in someone else's district or someone else's State. I hope we can sit together and have a meeting and brainstorm about this for the next session because this is, obviously, at the very lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy of legislative need. However, if we can't even get together to do the postal namings as we have done for decades, it doesn't hold a lot of promise for bigger things like the budget, climate change, and so on. I do hope the chairman will work with us in trying to address both the specific State eruptions that have occurred, and let's hope that we can keep them from spilling outward. That is not any kind of finger- pointing. We have had the problem on both sides, as the chairman knows. Let's just see what we can do to restore what I think has been a very good tradition, custom, and policy for several decades. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Manning), my colleague and, indeed, my cousin, for her thoughtful and eloquent remarks about Mr. Ferencz. Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support and great pride in this legislation, H.R. 6116. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel) for any remarks she may have.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel) for bringing this forward. Mr. Ferencz was, indeed, a great lawyer, a great humanitarian, and a great defender of freedom and democracy. We are proud to be able to push this legislation forward. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purposes of closing. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage with the improvements aforementioned. We have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, every year, Federal agencies spend billions of dollars purchasing software, including custom-developed code for websites, public databases, and mobile apps to improve the public's experience using government services. Too often, agencies keep custom-developed code for internal use rather than sharing it across the Federal Government with other agencies. This can undermine interoperability, security efficiency, and certainly cost-effectiveness in the Federal Government's acquisition and use of software. The SHARE IT Act seeks to address these problems. In 2016, President Obama released a Federal source code policy requiring the custom source code developed by or for the Federal Government be made available for reuse by all Federal agencies. Among other things, the policy required GSA to create code.gov to facilitate code sharing. As of 2019, code.gov featured more than 6,000 code bases from 26 different Federal agencies. Despite this success, many of the 24 largest agencies required to post their custom-developed code inventory to code.gov under the policy still haven't done so, and the policy lacks an effective enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance. To improve compliance and further unlock the benefits of sharing custom-built code, the SHARE IT Act would require agencies to list the custom code the purchaser produced and to share such code, either publicly, or governmentwide. Among other things, it assigns agency chief information officers the responsibility of overseeing compliance with the act. Mr. Speaker, I support the purpose of this bill, which is to promote innovation, collaboration, efficiency, and better value. However, as the administration has pointed out, it will require several key improvements before it can truly live up to its full promise. Most importantly, Federal entities will need additional funding in order to effectively meet the new requirements of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve 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 support of H.R. 9775 to honor Noah Shahnavaz. Born and raised in Indianapolis, he joined the U.S. Army in 2016 where he was deployed to the Middle East as a sergeant with the 591st Military Police Company. Officer Shahnavaz transitioned to a new service role in law enforcement by taking a position with the Elwood Police Department in 2021. Tragically, he was killed on duty on July 31, 2022, during a traffic stop. This bill would honor the life and the great service of Officer Shahnavaz and also recognize the sacrifice of his family by naming a post office in Elwood, Indiana, after him. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from Puerto Rico for her kind words. We have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority for working together with us to bring this bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP, to the floor. The office has the critical responsibility to coordinate the whole- of-government response to the Nation's continuing brutal addiction and substance abuse crisis, which affects every community in the land. In the face of this crisis, new data shows that opioid overdose deaths have decreased 14.5 percent over the 12-month period ending on June 30, 2024, due, in no small part, to the strong actions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. To understand the addiction and overdose crisis, the Biden-Harris administration sees the need to address the problem at both the levels of supply and demand. ONDCP has taken decisive action to intercept the flow of fentanyl and other illicit substances into the country. This reauthorization will further bolster our efforts to block the supply of drugs, including by funding the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program providing more than $275 million in grant making to law enforcement entities that will help keep illicit and harmful drugs off of our streets. The reauthorization also confronts the problem by countering the demand for illegal drugs. The Drug Free Communities Program, for example, brings together approximately 35,000 people across the country to help prevent and combat youth substance abuse. I am proud this authorization would make sure that this successful grant program continues. Research shows also that harm-reduction strategies, programs that meet people where they are, work. Under the Biden-Harris administration, ONDCP has adopted harm-reduction strategies as part of the national campaign to address the addiction crisis and save lives. The office has supported community access to naloxone, syringe service programs, and fentanyl test strip distribution. The legislation will allow the office to continue these harm-reduction programs and will direct an evidence-based examination of opioid reversal medications, like naloxone. During last year's hearing examining reauthorization, we discussed the importance of empowering ONDCP to identify and respond to new and emerging illegal drug threats, including Xylazine, a street drug that is used by veterinarians as a tranquilizer for large animals. This legislation will enable the office to continue this work as new threats come to market and begin to besiege our communities. I thank the chairman and his staff for working with us on this bipartisan legislation in a bipartisan way, and I am happy to support reauthorization through 2031. Mr. Speaker, I reserve 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. 1695, the SAMOSA Act. I thank my friend and distinguished, imminent, erudite, and eloquent colleague, Mr. Cartwright of Pennsylvania, for his vigorous leadership on this bipartisan bill that will achieve big cost savings for the American people. The government will spend tens of billions of dollars this year on software purchases and maintenance, which is a big chunk of the estimated $100 billion that they will spend on IT annually. Previous efforts to increase oversight and transparency of expenditures on software, including the MEGABYTE Act of 2016, have helped the agency save hundreds of millions of dollars over just 3 years. Serious challenges remain. For example, a recent audit by GAO found that software license data reported by the agencies was inconsistent due to wide variation in how agencies track and maintain their computer inventories and contracts. Current software contract and asset management practices fall short of achieving enough transparency to allow the agencies to purchase software products and services that actually will meet their needs and priorities. H.R. 1695, the SAMOSA Act, would require Federal agency chief information officers to conduct comprehensive assessments of the software paid for by government or in use in government or being deployed there. These assessments would update and expand the software inventories required by the MEGABYTE Act. The bill would require agencies to submit these comprehensive assessments to GSA, OMB, GAO, and Congress to facilitate more effective oversight of Federal software contracts. Agencies would be required to use these assessments to develop a plan to better manage software procurement and management, which would be required to include remediation of deficiencies, automation of management processes, and workforce training. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security says the bill could save taxpayers up to $5 billion a year. This bipartisan legislation would enable the Federal Government to operate more effectively, efficiently, and transparently. I am happy to support its passage. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, 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. 8976, which has bipartisan support. Again, it is an honor to be able to support legislation named after Corporal Matthew A. Wyatt, who was a proud member of a military family, who joined the Marine Corps after graduating from high school in June of 2001. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Marine Corporal Matthew Wyatt was deployed to the Iraqi-Jordanian border, where tragically he was killed in action at the age of 21. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this legislation, which would honor his legacy by naming a post office in his hometown of Millstadt, Illinois, after him. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I thank Representative Bishop for those beautiful and eloquent words. I am not sure in the extraordinary encyclopedia of President Carter's accomplishments if the gentleman from Georgia had a chance to mention his work with Habitat for Humanity, but I got a chance to work on a Habitat for Humanity project once with President Carter, and that is an indelible experience in my mind. He is someone who operated with great compassion, as Lincoln said: ``With malice toward none; with charity for all.'' I thank the gentleman for doing this. That will be an amazing post office for people to be able to go to, and people will be able to travel there with pride. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, 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 the Federal Agency Performance Act. I also thank my colleagues, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Timmons) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), for leading this bill to modernize the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, which we refer to as GPRA, I believe. I am pleased to support this bipartisan legislation. I thank Senator Peters, the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, for his leadership of the bill on the Senate side. GPRA established a performance management framework in 1993 for Federal Government agencies. It was last modernized in 2010, so we are overdue serious attention to make sure the framework is operating as effectively and smoothly as it can. This bill would promote both accountability and transparency. It would codify OMB's practice of conducting regular strategic reviews of Federal agency performance goals, and it would also set new requirements to improve publicly available data on performance.gov, allowing the public greater transparency into agency progress toward the goals that have been set forth. The bill makes commonsense updates to ensure agencies are providing services to the people as efficiently and as effectively as possible, which is why we have a government, to serve the people. I encourage all my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.