Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

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

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member McBath for her extraordinary leadership. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act, which seeks to improve law enforcement officer safety and wellness by requiring that the AG and other Federal officials issue regular reports on attacks on police officers, aggression against police officers, and on officer mental health. I salute Mr. Fry, a freshman to this body, for his stewardship of this bill. The collection of this information is important and useful, but the mere passive gathering of data does little or nothing to actually improve officer effectiveness or public safety. In fact, none of the bills we have considered from the majority during this law enforcement week would actually produce any measurable gains in public safety. We spent the week voting for bills that will do nothing really but increase the number of weapons on our streets, our buses, our trains, our subways, parks, restaurants, and in our schools. That is a strange way to improve public safety or aid law enforcement in doing their jobs. Now, there are things we can actually do to improve public safety. Mr. Speaker, forgive me. I know Mr. Fry is in his second term, not in his first term. He is a valuable member of our committee. Mr. Speaker, the last gentleman to speak said he never wanted to hear about defunding the police again, and I agree with him completely. The problem is, he is about to hear about it because DOGE is defunding the police as we speak and, unfortunately, with your cooperation and your passivity, they are getting away with it. Now, this self-anointed fourth branch of government, DOGE, which I think is getting run out of town right now because of its rank incompetence and lawless assaults on the privacy data of hundreds of millions of Americans and its unlawful summary mass firings of professional civil servants like air traffic controllers, food and drug inspectors, pediatric cancer researchers in my district, Forest Service, and firefighters. They are getting run out of town now. I don't hear a lot about Elon Musk. He has lost some elections for my friends across the aisle, so they are trying to let him sink into anonymity, but he has done his damage. Over at the Department of Justice--and I have got to correct myself. I was saying that his employee, who I can identify now as Tarak Makecha, was responsible for slashing more than $500 million in public safety, local law enforcement, and victim assistance organizations across the country. Although that was technically correct, more than $500 million, it really understates the gravity of this offense against public safety. It was $811 million in grants that were terminated. Now, understand what a grievous assault this is on our system of government. Congress passes budgets. They are initiated here in the House of Representatives. We voted to appropriate that money to the Department of Justice. The House voted for it. The Senate voted for it. It was signed into law by the President. The money went to the Department of Justice. It was programmed for those purposes. $811 million was awarded to each of those grantees and now we have got some reportage explaining what happened. It all came down to this one guy, Tarak Makecha, working for Elon Musk. Did anybody elect him around here? Did anybody confirm him for any job? I don't think so. He wrote some memos under the authority of dusk, which now I think is an invalidated, discredited authority if you read the opinion from the Federal District Court of Northern California on Friday night because they remember how the Constitution works. We don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk or Tarak Makecha. This guy wrote memos to the deputy attorney general demanding that all of these grants to law enforcement and public safety and victim assistance groups across the country in our districts be deleted. He wouldn't rest until they were deleted. They were deleted so he said he could report it to his superiors and to the White House. Now, why aren't we using this valuable time not just to pass a mere reporting bill, which is fine, but how about an action bill? How about a bill that restores hundreds of millions of dollars to actually promoting criminal law enforcement, public safety, aid to victims of rape and sexual assaults, organizations fighting child sexual abuse across the country? Why don't we do that? Why don't we just pierce the fog of rhetoric a little bit and get down to something that is actually happening? Then we can follow that up with what I think would be a significant symbolic statement, as Mrs. McBath urges us to do, let's put up the plaque to honor the officers who defended us against the rampage of January 6. The gentleman from North Carolina, I think, tried to change the subject as if one mob rampage justifies another. I am against all mob violence. I am against all mob rampages. I don't feel like I have to speak out against one of them. If I can't speak out against the one that comes to our House, who will trust me to speak out against mob violence anywhere else? I denounce it wherever it takes place, under whatever guise, under any ideological auspice at all. I denounce mob violence. I challenge my friend from North Carolina to find me one Democratic official who incited violent insurrection or incited mob violence on that day because I will tell you, this Chamber voted to impeach that President who incited mob violence against us in a sweeping bipartisan vote, Democrats and Republicans, together. Then the Senate voted 57-43. The President, in his inimitable way, was able to beat the constitutional odds, but nonetheless, commanding majorities of both Chambers found that he incited violence against us in order to overthrow a Presidential election he had lost by more than 7 million votes. Find me a Democratic Governor who pardoned any of the mobsters or the violent insurrectionists or people burning down buildings. Can you find me one? Can you find me any Democratic politician who wants to honor those people? Can you? I can show you a United States President today who seems to think that it was the rioters and insurrectionists who deserve honor and praise. Don't give me any false analogy or false comparison. We denounce violence everywhere. Will our colleagues have the courage to ask for the plaque honoring the police officers who opposed the violence that came right into this Chamber? I can hear them chanting: ``Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence.'' Remember him? He was the Republican Vice President of the United States, and they chased him out. Now, they would like his memory to go down that Orwellian black hole so nobody remembers him or so nobody remembers the things the Republicans said. They called it terrorism at the time, but now it is inconvenient. Donald Trump doesn't want police officers being honored for the work they did defending our Constitution, our democracy, our Capitol, and the Members of Congress, including people who sit on that side of the aisle as well as the Members who sit on this side of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman stirred me out of my stupor there by coming back with a couple of grants that apparently were eliminated. I will take his word for it. If I did the internal math correctly, that was less than $2 million out of $811 million cut in awards that were made by the Department of Justice to local law enforcement citizen community safety groups, and so on across the country. Now, apparently there are certain grants that the gentleman doesn't want ever to go out. For example, I take it the gentleman doesn't think very highly of anything having to do with citizens who are transgender. We differ about that, apparently, because I think everybody has civil rights and everybody's voice needs to be heard. In any event, that needs to be brought up in the Appropriations Committee where we can vote on it democratically. That should not be up to one of Elon Musk's midnight riders, a computer hacker who comes in and simply decides to wipe out all of the handiwork of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate signed into law by the President and then awarded by the Department of Justice. We do not have a fourth branch of government here, which is what the Federal District Court, Northern California, was saying on Friday. Are my colleagues aware that there have been more than 250 cases brought against the reign of lawlessness and authoritarianism brought down on America in the first 5 months of the Trump administration? There are 156 preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders right now. A couple of hours ago, the Supreme Court heard the case about Donald Trump in an executive order trying to destroy birthright citizenship in America. Every sixth grader in America knows that if you are born in America, you are a citizen of the United States. They tried to reverse that. That got struck down by four courts. They call them radical left rogue judges. Well, two of the ones who struck it down were Democratic appointees, one by President Obama and one by President Biden. The other two were Republican appointees, one appointed by President Bush and one appointed by President Reagan, who said that in his four decades on the bench he had never seen a more unconstitutional law than that one. He had never seen an easier case than that one. You don't have to be a lawyer to understand what is wrong with that. You just have to know how to read. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment says: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. . . . `' These people are finger painting all over the Constitution. They are usurping the rule of law as adopted by the Congress of the United States. They are creating new branches of government. I am glad that they finally ran Elon Musk out of town because he was no longer politically useful to him, but in the meantime we have to deal with the wreckage. If he, by accident, did something the gentleman agrees with, bully for him, great, but in the meantime, he has undone the will of Congress. He has nullified and canceled hundreds of millions of dollars going out to public safety and criminal law enforcement across America. Let's get back to the rule of law. Let's get back to law enforcement.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is Police Week. In colloquial terms, it is Law Enforcement Week. Traditionally, we do two things in Law Enforcement Week. One, we recognize the valor, the sacrifices, and the commitment of the police officers who serve our communities, who serve us in Congress, and who serve across the country. Two, we try to think of ways we actually can assist them in doing their jobs better so we can make their work more effective and safer, and we can make the police function generally more efficacious for the American people. Unfortunately, with this bill, we are not doing either. In fact, the majority is really falling down on the job in terms of both of those major objectives. In 2022, on March 15, we passed H.R. 2471, to post in the Capitol on the west side of the Capitol a plaque in honor of the hundreds of police officers who nobly served us on January 6, 2021 when our institution, when our democracy, came under attack by Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other violent extremists who stormed the Capitol, drove Members of the House of Representatives out of our Chamber, drove Members of the Senate out of their Chamber, and attempted to overthrow a Presidential election. Now, the new administration has seen fit to pardon more than 1,500 rioters and violent insurrectionists who attempted to overthrow our constitutional form of government on that day, and they succeeded in bloodying, wounding, injuring, and hospitalizing more than 140 police officers on January 6. Several officers died in the subsequent weeks, and several people died on that day. Now, we have passed a law, not a recommendation, not an idle promise, and not a suggestion in a suggestion box, we passed a law to post this plaque in the U.S. Capitol. Yet Speaker Johnson has done absolutely nothing to post this plaque. I know that some of my colleagues think that they are being most effective when they are doing nothing. This is a Congress that is getting a reputation for being perhaps the greatest do-nothing Congress in the history of the United States. Here is one thing that this Congress can do, which is to post this plaque which reads: ``On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.'' What extraordinary irony that is. Their heroism is already being forgotten, or at least there are some people who would like us to forget their heroism. That is on the symbolic front, because everybody wants to pay lip service to the police, and everybody wants to say that we honor them. Let's really honor them. Let's put up a permanent plaque for future generations of Americans to see that these officers risked their lives for the people in this Chamber, for the Members of the House and the Senate, for the leadership of the House and the Senate, for the staff who work here, and for the reporters who work here. We have many officers who have had to leave the police service because they have been wounded and disfigured permanently by the injuries they suffered at the hands of these people. This is the very least we can do at a time when the President of the United States says that he wants to create a fund for January 6, not a fund for Michael Fanone who had a heart attack and had to beg for his life; not a fund for Sergeant Gonell who was forced out of the force because of permanent injuries and now is living on a fraction of the salary he had before trying to support his family; not a fund for Officer Hodges who was tortured in the eyes of the world, who got caught in the doorway while the insurrectionists beat him with all of their weapons that they brought back that day. No, it is not a fund for them that President Trump is suggesting. He wants a fund for the rioters. He wants a fund for the families of the insurrectionists. As Sergeant Gonell said recently, it seems like he believes that the rioters and the insurrectionists were the ones defending the Capitol on that day. Let's get this plaque up. We voted for it on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. I appeal to Speaker Johnson to enforce the law even if he doesn't like it anymore and even if he changed his mind about the plaque. This is the law. Let's get it up there. Now, secondly, we should be talking about how we could actually aid, abet, and assist law enforcement officers in their work. Unfortunately, we have not had from the majority a single bill that they are willing to bring to the floor to increase any funding for local law enforcement. On the contrary, the emissaries from DOGE--and here I don't necessarily hold my colleagues accountable for this because they didn't seem to know about it any more than we did--but the functionaries of DOGE slashed more than $500 million that the Department of Justice was giving to local police departments across the country, community safety groups, and organizations assisting victims of rape and sexual assault. As far as we can tell, one person in DOGE, one unelected, midnight bureaucrat whose career was made with Elon Musk, who seems to have skipped town now, that guy cut out hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to local law enforcement and community safety groups across America. I introduced an amendment in the budget reconciliation process in the Judiciary Committee to restore all of that money. Not a single Member, neither a Democrat nor a Republican, spoke against it, and my Republican colleagues did not say a word, but they all voted against it. They voted to uphold that nasty handiwork of DOGE slashing hundreds of millions of dollars, which we appropriated on a bipartisan basis in the House, in the Senate, and it was signed by the President, programmed by the Department of Justice and awarded to their communities, my community, your communities, communities across the country, and one young person, a midnight computer hacker from DOGE, Elon Musk's emissary, destroyed all of it, more than 300 grants. Now they come forward with a budget for next year that would cut more than $1 billion out of law enforcement: FBI, Department of Justice, and ATF, you name it, Mr. Speaker, right down the line. I will have some more to say about that after. So what do we have? Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. In 2004, Congress passed LEOSA, a law that allows both off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms irrespective of State law. It compelled all States to allow off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms under the terms set by Congress overriding the rules of the State. Now, when Congress debated it 20 years ago, members of the Judiciary Committee on both sides of the aisle expressed anxiety about the bill trespassing on the rights of the States to decide on gun laws for themselves. The Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, Congressman Sensenbrenner, opposed LEOSA for the reason of federalism and State rights. He voted against it. Several police groups opposed the legislation expressing concerns about how it would affect officer safety, how it would create confusion in the event of an active shooter, how it might expose their agencies to more liability, and the insufficiency of training requirements for retired officers. Despite all of that, LEOSA became the law after Congress legislated some important limits on it and imposed commonsense training requirements on the former officers. Those have been in place for more than 20 years. Now, H.R. 2243 would terminate the realm of discretion that States have to limit when and where individuals may carry their concealed firearms under LEOSA. It would force States to allow off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms onto all private property open to the public, including restaurants, bars, parks, national parks, and playgrounds. It would also force States to allow off-duty and retired officers to carry concealed firearms on buses, trains, and subways. It would even force States to allow for the concealed carry of firearms in gun-free school zones. It also allows the off-duty and retired officers to completely disregard State laws prohibiting high- capacity magazines. This legislation not only supersedes the considered policy judgments of the States, but it threatens the safety and security of Federal agencies by forcing them to allow concealed carry in many Federal buildings. Forcing Federal offices and buildings to allow concealed carry is a completely unnecessary and dangerous risk. The legislation also weakens training standards. Under current law, a person carrying a firearm must meet State training requirements every year, but this bill would allow individuals to do concealed carry with training certifications obtained every 3 years. This is troubling given that the bill extends nationwide concealed carry to retired officers who are no longer receiving the training that accompanies their old employment. Our colleagues have different reasons that they advance for this, which I think are pretty refutable. In the big picture, this bill does nothing for existing police officers right now. It does nothing to enhance public safety, and our friends have completely missed the mark I think in terms of what law enforcement week should be all about. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my distinguished colleague's suggestion that I may have the wisdom of somebody who has been here for 21 years, but actually I wasn't here either. I got it just from the books myself. I was here, I should say, in 2021, when the Chamber was stormed, and that is a day I will never forget. Forgive my passion on the point of getting that plaque up. I wish our colleagues would just help us convince the Speaker of the House that this is something that is simple, and it should be done. It is not a partisan issue. On that day, we were not Democrats or Republicans. We were Americans, and we were legislators together being hounded and chased out of this Chamber by people who did not accept the constitutional rules of the game. To me, it is a matter of great regret and melancholy that somehow it has become politicized to the point where people can't even acknowledge what they were saying at the time. We had Republican leaders who were describing it as terrorism and saying it was absolutely inexcusable and indefensible. Now, all of a sudden, we have the majority which will not even follow the law by posting a plaque in honor of the officers who gave blood and sweat and tears on that day. One of them, Officer Hodges got caught in the doorway. The whole world saw him screaming to high heaven for probably--I don't know if it was 45 seconds or maybe it was up to 90 seconds, as he was being beaten and pummeled, and he was being crushed in the doorway. When they finally dislodged him, they took him back where they were taking the officers. We were very short-handed. They wanted to tell him to just stay there and wash his eyes out. He took about 5 to 10 minutes while they were pouring water in his eyes, and he got up. Do you know what he did? He went back outside, and he rejoined the battle because he said he knew that they needed him. We were outmanned, and we were outflanked by the forces of violence that came down on us on that day. That is the kind of bravery that we should be at least acknowledging, if not praising. I know at the time we thanked them for saving our lives, and people did die that day. Again, there were more than 140 officers who were wounded and brutalized and injured, and many still have the physical injuries and scars that they are dealing with, as well as the mental scars, because there is a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder. Several of the officers who were there had been in the Iraq war, and they had been in the Afghan war. They testified before the January 6th Select Committee, and several of them testified they had never seen violence as brutal and as bloody as what took place on January 6, 2021, with the various extremist groups that came and led the attack on the Chamber and then gave bloody instructions to the rest of the mob about how to treat police officers in their effort to go and ``hang Mike Pence.'' That was the chant. I can still hear in my mind, ringing off the walls of the Capitol: ``Hang Mike Pence.'' ``Hang Mike Pence.'' ``Where's Nancy?'' ``Where's Nancy?'' We are not going to allow this to be buried into some kind of Orwellian memory hall. We have got a law requiring that that plaque go up, and we are going to see that that plaque goes up and that the law is enforced. As for the LEOSA reform, again, it doesn't even purport to do anything for police and law enforcement. Today, it would, I suppose, increase some of the mobility of retired officers, off-duty officers to go to places like restaurants, bars, public parks, national parks, metros and buses, and so on, if they are police. I think that that should be decided by our communities, whether people are doing concealed carry there. I thought that a belief in federalism was something that unifies us. That is something that the State governments can decide in cooperation with the local governments. The Congress of the United States does not need to be making decisions about restaurants in Charleston, South Carolina, or bars in El Paso, Texas, or what have you. Why don't we let the people of the States and the localities make those decisions. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent presentation of the bill. I wish it were one that we could be together on, but I think it just goes way too far in terms of trespassing on States' rights and States' powers. We have a nice equilibrium and stasis in terms of where the law has been for the last two decades, and this seems unnecessary. It does seem to me like a diversion from the things we actually could be doing to be making the lives of police officers safer. The reason why so many police organizations are with 90 percent of the American people in supporting a universal violent criminal background check is because nobody should be accessing guns, any kind of gun, if they are not able to pass the Brady background check. That background check has saved countless lives since it was instituted. The reason the vast majority of the people support it is because we need to close those loopholes. You should not be able to skip a background check by finding a gun online. You should not be able to skip a background check by going to a private gun show or engaging in a so- called private sale or transfer. We need a universal violent criminal background check. That will do far more than anything we are looking at today to make the lives of police officers better, to make their jobs easier, because they are on the frontlines of these killing fields across the country. America's rates of gun violence are completely out of control when compared to the nations in the European Union or Canada, our next-door neighbor. We are losing 5, 10, or 20 times the number of people that the residents of those countries are losing because our gun laws are like Swiss cheese. They are filled with holes. Let's close those loopholes. It doesn't diminish anybody's Second Amendment rights. Justice Scalise said it himself in District of Columbia v. Heller. You can have criminal background checks to make sure that only the right people are getting guns and not the wrong people are getting guns. There are things we can do to improve public safety and to assist police officers, and we should be working on those. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentlewoman for her eloquence and lucidity in those remarks and for sponsoring this legislation. I speak very strongly in favor of Ms. Wasserman Schultz's resolution, which recognizes Jewish American Heritage Month and the important contributions that Jewish Americans have made to our country, and I thank her for her continuing leadership within Congress and also within the American Jewish community. The resolution calls on elected officials, faith leaders, and civil society leaders to condemn and counter all acts of anti-Semitism. I also want to salute Mr. Schmidt, the distinguished Member from Kansas, for his powerful endorsement of this idea. The resolution also goes on to urge the House to take ``all possible steps to ensure the safety, security, and dignity of American Jews in all aspects of their lives.'' We are called upon to condemn anti- Semitism and to ensure the safety of the Jewish community, along with everyone else. The appeal is appropriate and timely. We have to do everything in our power to counter the poison of anti- Semitism, racism, and other forms of bigotry, which are really the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy in our country. That obligation means fighting anti-Semitism, even when, perhaps especially when, it is expressed and endorsed by officials of the United States Government. Last week, President Trump finally withdrew the nomination of Ed Martin to serve as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Mr. Martin's confirmation in the Senate faced many insuperable obstacles. It was doomed. First of all, he had no prosecutorial experience and no administrative experience running a prosecutor's office. Secondly, he had shown an extraordinary devotion to the extremists who participated in the violent insurrection against the Capitol and against Congress on January 6, 2021. He represented many of them as a defense lawyer, but he championed the cause of a great number more in not just legal but in political and civil contexts. He also failed to disclose that he had appeared more than 150 times on Russian state propaganda networks, like Russia Today and Sputnik, when he was nominated to be the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. These are networks that were forced to register as foreign agents of Vladimir Putin's government. The truth is that his nomination was doomed, regardless. I would say that all of these disqualifications by themselves pale in comparison to Mr. Martin's long and troubling relationship with a Hitler-loving neo- Nazi named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who was sentenced to 4 years in prison for breaching the Capitol during the January 6 attack. Hale-Cusanelli is an outspoken anti-Semite who proudly wears a Hitler mustache, advocates killing the disabled at birth, and told coworkers that Hitler should have finished the job. At his sentencing, a Trump- appointed Federal judge warned him that his actions and statements make everyone, including Jewish people, less safe in our country. How did Ed Martin, President Trump's pick for one of the most important jobs in the American criminal justice system, react to all the extraordinary statements and the lawless actions of Mr. Hale- Cusanelli? He invited him to go on his podcast multiple times to spout his fascist propaganda. He presented him with an award before a big audience. He praised him as an extraordinary man and an extraordinary leader. By attending President Trump's inauguration with his good friend, he continued to promote him in establishment political circles, and he headlined a fundraiser together with Mr. Hale-Cusanelli in Florida last year. By pretending not to know that he was a vicious anti-Semite, even after he clearly had evidence that he was, Mr. Martin continued to legitimize and validate the views of this man. Mr. Martin's weak protests that he didn't know anything about what his views really were were debunked not only by National Public Radio but by the record of Martin's involvement with other extremists. For example, Mr. Martin has also praised Jack Posobiec, an anti- Semitic conspiracy theorist with links to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and several other white nationalist organizations. Mr. Martin frequently praises Mr. Posobiec online and calls his anti- Semitic insights valuable and incredible. Mr. Martin's own views are saturated with deranged analogies that dilute the meaning of Nazism and Fascism. In one episode about the 2024 election, he compared President Joe Biden to Adolf Hitler, which either means that Biden committed genocide or that Hitler was just a regular old politician. In another episode about the election, he repeated the defamatory lie that Jewish people who vote for Democrats are somehow less Jewish than those who vote for Donald Trump. How did President Trump treat this disturbed individual after his nomination just collapsed across the hallway in the U.S. Senate in the face of this mountain of evidence of his extremism? It was not by cutting him loose, as he should have, but by appointing him to serve in a senior role in the Department of Justice that does not require confirmation by the U.S. Senate. President Trump named him to be the U.S. pardon attorney, and he named him to be director of a task force on the weaponization of government. This was a perfect assignment, perhaps, for a man who writes vituperative threat letters to Democrats when he hears them say things that he doesn't like. Mr. Speaker, it makes me wonder why President Trump would put up with this and would insist upon placing him in a position of such critical importance in the Department of Justice. President Trump saw very fine people on both sides of the anti-Semitic riot that took place in Charlottesville. We know that he had Nicholas Fuentes to his house, another neo-Nazi Holocaust revisionist. Mr. Speaker, I believe that this is a matter of fundamental importance, that both Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate demand that Ed Martin not have a role in the U.S. Government, given his close association with all of these extremists and his very damning statements in the past, not to mention the fact that he had more than 150 appearances on Russian propaganda state networks. We should be rejecting anti-Semitism wherever it appears: on the left, on the right, or in the center. It doesn't matter what you call yourself. If you align with hatred against any group, you are a danger to American constitutional democracy, and we should not allow it to gain a foothold in the Government of the United States of America. Mr. Speaker, let us adhere to the spirit of President George Washington, who said in his famous letter in 1790 to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, that ``the Government of the United States . . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.'' If these words are to mean something in our day in the 21st century, we must insist that men like Ed Martin and his anti-Semitic associates and friends have no place representing the people of the United States in our government. We must pay more than lipservice to the idea of fighting anti- Semitism. We must fight anti-Semitism when we see it in the Government of the United States itself and even amongst our friends. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Let's put the words and the spirit of this resolution into practice. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have not had the good fortune to meet our new colleague from Florida, and I will be sure to come over to introduce myself right after. I am glad the gentleman is in support of the resolution. The very first sentence of it says: ``The House of Representatives calls on elected officials,'' which presumably includes us, ``faith leaders, and civil society leaders to condemn and counter all acts of anti-Semitism.'' If a discussion of anti-Semitism and the contributions of Jewish Americans is not an appropriate time to talk about anti-Semitism in the government, I wonder what is. I would be very happy to pursue with my new colleague the subject of Ed Martin. I don't know exactly where he stands on Ed Martin, whether he opposed the President's withdrawal of his nomination after it came out about his close association with a neo-Nazi. The story behind it, if the gentleman is really interested in it, is National Public Radio confronted him with all the evidence of Hale- Cusanelli's Nazi statements, including: ``Hitler should have finished the job.'' Hale-Cusanelli was also associated with statements like he was right about disabled people and when babies are born disabled, they should be put to death immediately, and so on. They presented him with a complete litany of it, and Ed Martin's response to it was that National Public Radio is a propaganda network paid for by the government, and he had nothing of substance to say about his good friend's, this ``extraordinary leader,'' anti-Semitic remarks. It seems that for some people, there is never an opportunity to actually repudiate and denounce anti-Semitism when it actually appears. When it came out that he did know about it, they were forced to withdraw the nomination. Mr. Speaker, imagine everyone's surprise when Donald Trump decided to then make him the United States pardon attorney overseeing a large office of people considering pardon applications from across the country. Is that someone that I think can be trusted to deal fairly in terms of minority groups, such as Jewish Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans? I don't think so. I am sorry the gentleman doesn't think it is appropriate to talk about anti-Semitism when we see it. We just have an honest difference of opinion about that, but if the gentleman is interested in pursuing it some other time, I would love to discuss it with him. I think my colleague will come to find that we use the floor of the House of Representatives to talk about a lot of things going on. My Republican colleague might be able to stick narrowly to one particular topic. Good for him if that is what he would like to do, but we like to talk about all of our legislation in context here. This is a matter that is actually called for directly in the very first sentence of the resolution that we are all about to approve. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I thank Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the distinguished Representative from Florida, for being such a great leader in opposing not just anti-Semitism but all forms of racism, bigotry, and anti- Semitism. One could say it was the original form of racism. It goes back millennia, and it mutates and appears in different guises and different forms and at different periods in history. Mr. Speaker, anti-Semitism and racism are the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy, so we need to recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of Jewish Americans, along with the extraordinary accomplishments of members of other groups, and to fight and resist bigotry of all forms, as George Washington talked about. Mr. Speaker, let us continue to fight for an America that is going to be open to the contributions of everybody, and I appreciate Ms. Wasserman Schultz' ability to bring before us again the Jewish American Heritage Month resolution. I am delighted to support it, and I urge all Members of the body to vote for it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my distinguished constituent and friend, Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, as his fourteen years of remarkable leadership as the Washington Director of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action come to a close. I have been proud to partner with Bend the Arc in the fight for strong democracy, solidarity and justice. For over a decade at Bend the Arc, Rabbi Jason has modeled these principles every day in his role as a core leader within the interfaith solidarity movement. When leaders in government face stark moral and political choices, Rabbi Jason hasn't hesitated to pray--not just with his hands and his mind but with his heart and his feet, in the tradition of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel--to influence public actions. He is quick to remind us of our collective imperative to advance social justice and fairness for all Americans. I have seen him communicate the intricacies of budget reconciliation through a parable from the Torah. Throughout his career, Rabbi Jason has shared his profound knowledge about the complexities of antisemitism, immigration, mass incarceration and war and peace, both within the American Jewish community and with my colleagues in Congress. He's been at the forefront of movements to protect and expand voting rights; to institute a living wage through the Fight for $15 movement; to end the injustice of mass incarceration and to fight the appalling Muslim Ban and other unjust immigration policies. Rabbi Jason also carefully cultivated Bend the Arc's Selah Leadership Program to imbue the next generation of Jewish social change leaders with core skills and practical experience. Rabbi Jason is a man of society and a man of nature, a man of public engagement and private life. I see him and his wife Devora on multiple occasions enjoying a long Shabbat afternoon hike through the forests of Maryland's beautiful Eighth District. I know he deserves the additional time he will be able to spend with his family now. Bend the Arc derives its name from the assertion by 19th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker--and made famous by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--that ``the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.'' For more than a decade, Rabbi Jason has dedicated his waking hours to carrying this prophetic voice forward and bringing Bend the Arc's promise into reality. He is a gentleman and a scholar who brings soulfulness and warmth to his interactions with everyone, no matter their background, their age or their political affiliation. Rabbi Jason has shown us what it means to devote one's life's work to solidarity and what Dr. King called the beloved community. Through the relationships he has built and his unwavering commitment to creating a better future for all people, Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block has made a profound difference in Washington. It is an honor to represent him and support his righteous causes in Congress. On behalf of the good people of Maryland's Eighth District, I proudly salute his 14 years of service at Bend the Arc.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this week, we welcome thousands of law enforcement personnel to Washington for National Police Week. We remember officers who lost their lives in service to our communities and our country, and we thank all officers who work to keep us safe while reflecting on how we can invest in law enforcement to better serve our communities. Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly support this resolution because we strongly support our local law enforcement officers. Yet, we also strongly support our State, Federal, and Tribal law enforcement officers, as well. Why are these brave officers not part of this resolution? This is a strange development. In the last Congress, the 118th Congress, we passed H. Con. Res. 40 to honor local law enforcement. We also passed H. Res. 363 in 2023 to recognize the police lives lost that year and the importance of funding and supporting all law enforcement, Federal, State, county, and local. These were followed by H. Con. Res. 106 and H. Res. 1213 in 2024, which did the same. This year the majority has chosen to have us solely recognizing local law enforcement. Why is that? What explains this strange omission of the Federal police officers who serve us? With President Trump back in office, the majority apparently now sees fit to honor only local officers and not the Federal law enforcement officers who fought so valiantly to protect every Member of this body and the Senate, our staffs, and our democracy on January 6, 2021. Apparently, their commitment to backing the blue is so weak that they now won't even mention Federal officers because they have to maintain the pretense that Capitol officers did something wrong by defending us against the violent rampage of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and other extremist marauders who stormed the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Is that right or will the majority please prepare a resolution honoring Federal law enforcement, as well that we can bring to the floor? This is one troubling sign among many of an ideological abandonment of our Federal law enforcement officers and there are more than 137,000 of them, not just the Capitol Police. Speaker Johnson still refuses to hang a simple plaque honoring those officers as is required by Federal law. The bill mandating the creation and placement of the plaque, H.R. 2471, was signed into law on March 15, 2022, and the plaque was supposed to have been erected within 1 year of that, March 15, 2023. The plaque is finished, it is ready to be placed, and it looks like this. It reads: ``On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6th, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.'' Well, it seems it is already being forgotten by the GOP majority or at least they want us to forget it. Are my friends so captive to conspiracy theories and revisionist fantasies about January 6 that they will not do the bare minimum to honor the police officers who fought tooth and nail to protect every person in this room who was there, including Members on my side of the aisle and Members on the other side of the aisle? The people we are failing to honor by not hanging this plaque include at least 140 police officers who were beaten with poles, bats, American flags, Trump flags, Confederate battle flags, and their own shields. These are people who lost fingertips. They suffered concussions, broken jaws, and broken ribs. They had heart attacks and strokes. They sustained multiple other violent injuries and suffer from them, many of them, to this day, in one of the worst days of injuries for law enforcement officers in the United States in this century. This affront is now adding further symbolic insult to the grievous injury that began at the beginning of this administration. President Trump granted full pardons to more than 1,500 insurrectionists and rioters and commuted the sentence of the rightwing extremists who spearheaded the attack on this Chamber and on the police officers who defended us. More than 600 of those defendants whose pardons are full, complete, and unconditional were charged with assaulting or obstructing law enforcement officers. Now President Trump, backed by his own Justice Department, thinks that the violent insurrectionists should be compensated, not the police officers, but rather the people who perpetrated this assault on America. President Trump said: A lot of the people in the government really like that group of people. He is creating a compensation fund not for the officers and their families who fought and suffered and several died to save our country but for the domestic terrorists, as leaders of the Republican Party described them at the time, who tried to destroy it. That is the decision, to cast his lot with the Proud Boys and other extremists that he incited on that day. Many of the officers who served on January 6 feel betrayed by the officials whose lives they saved that day. Take former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell who was nearly crushed to death on January 6. Sergeant Gonell is an Army veteran from the Iraq war and was upholding his oath to defend and protect the seat of our Nation's government. He said he saw violence on that day here at the Capitol far worse than anything he experienced fighting for America abroad. Despite the fact that he and many other officers nearly lost their lives and now face lifelong injuries that have forced him out of the line of police work, they still cannot get approved for Public Safety Officers' Benefits, which provide disability benefits to officers catastrophically injured in the line of duty. As Sergeant Gonell recently told my staff, Trump is treating the rioters like they were the ones defending the Capitol. He noted that at every turn when Republicans could honor the bravery of law enforcement officers that day, they have instead chosen to do nothing. Of course, if my colleagues across the aisle want to focus on local law enforcement, then I might ask why we are simply honoring them with this concurrent resolution and not taking more meaningful action, like restoring millions of dollars in Federal grants that help support them that were recently terminated by the Department of Justice at the direction of DOGE and Elon Musk. Those grants supported programs like the rural violent crime reduction initiative, which delivered financial assistance directly to dozens of rural law enforcement agencies across America and allowed agencies to upgrade technology and equipment, hire and deploy personnel, support victim services and crime prevention programming, and fill in other gaps in policing for small, rural, underfunded police agencies. We should be grateful for all of our officers, Federal, State, county, and local, who help keep us safe while people are in their communities and while Members of Congress come to Washington, D.C. We should be grateful for all of them. Let's join together to uplift all law enforcement officers whether they are local or State, Tribal, or Federal, and let's support them symbolically with our words but more importantly with our actions. Let's restore all of the funding, the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been cut or that face cuts by this new administration. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee denounce the assault, the violent assault, on Congress, the Capitol, our police officers on January 6, 2021. I wonder if he would work with me to help enforce the law that was signed on March 15, 2022 by President Biden for a plaque to be placed in honor of the police officers who served us so valiantly and so bravely and saved our lives on that day. It was supposed to have been up by March 15, 2023, and the Speaker simply has remained noncommittal and indifferent. The plaque is actually completed. It is ready to be put up. We can show it again. It is not as big as this poster, but it is the smallest token of recognition and honor that we should be able to extend to the Capitol officers, many of whom are still with us on the force, for their sacrifice and the sacrifice that their families made based on their work that day defending us. I wonder if the chairman of the Judiciary Committee would follow through on his very impressive statement that we all denounce the violence of any kind against officers, including the more than 140 Capitol officers who were wounded, injured, hospitalized, some of them permanently disfigured and maimed on that day as well as officers around the country. Now, on the point about defunding the police. Look who is defunding the police: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and their silent partners in Congress are defunding the police. They just terminated $500 million worth of grants, lost funding from the Department of Justice providing Federal support for local violence reduction by community police, community policing and prosecution, victim services, juvenile justice, child protection, substance abuse and mental health treatment, corrections and reentry, justice systems enhancements, research and evaluation, and other State, county, and local level public police and safety functions. I brought this to the attention of the Judiciary Committee because, again, this was an operation by DOGE. We have got a Federal District Court opinion from northern California saying that DOGE basically has no legal status because it wasn't created by Congress. It might be a completely renegade operation in an attempt to create a fourth branch of government. In any event, those of us who voted for the money, and that is people on both sides of the aisle, voted for the money to be distributed by the Department of Justice to local grantees didn't even know about this. I shared with the chairman and with all the members of the committee, the one name of the DOGE employee, an unelected bureaucrat, a juvenile bureaucrat from Silicon Valley who worked his way up through Tesla and so on, and they ended up in DOGE, cut hundreds of millions of dollars to local police. They defunded the police. DOGE defunded the police. Donald Trump defunded the police. I introduced an amendment to try to restore every single grant that they cut off in severing that Federal investment in local police. My colleagues uttered not a word, not a word in opposition to my amendment, but they all voted against it simply because they are walking the line with Elon Musk right off the edge of the Constitution because there is no constitutional grounding for anything that guy is doing. They walked the line behind Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and they just defunded hundreds of millions of dollars from community law enforcement and public safety, so don't give me that lecture about defunding the police, which our side has never supported, but their side has just colluded in right now in terms of what the Department of Justice did. That doesn't even get into their attempt to dismantle completely the ATF, shut down critical functions in the Department of Justice that protect us from foreign involvement in our elections, to take down the kleptocracy task force and so on. I don't want any lectures coming in our direction, either. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I will start just by asking my friend from Ohio whether he is referring to me when he uses the word ``you'' or if he is referring more generally to some other people because I would categorically deny having done any of those things.

Mr. RASKIN. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, the gentleman refers exclusively--and I think he is aware of this because he is an extremely clever debater--to things that different local governments did or did not do. I don't know what Denver, Colorado, or Burlington, Vermont, did. I know what the United States Congress does, and we never defunded the police, and we never tried to defund the police. On the other hand, my good friend, I believe, participated in--and if he didn't, I am happy to stand corrected, but I know a bunch of his colleagues said they wanted to defund the FBI, just like those who want to defund the ATF and shut it down right now, so that is a reality. In any event, why don't we talk about what Congress can actually do? The President's new budget proposes to cut--so this is something that my colleague and I could agree on--$1 billion across 40 Department of Justice grant programs which support local police departments to reduce violent crime, hate crime, and crime against women. Would my colleague work with me to oppose that suggestion in the President's budget? They want to cut $646 million from FEMA for violence and terrorism prevention. Why do they want to do that? I have no idea. They want to cut $545 million from the FBI, cutting its workforce by more than 2,000 personnel. That sounds like defunding law enforcement to me. I know they don't seem to be as fond of Federal law enforcement as they are of local law enforcement, but do they really want to cut more than half a billion dollars from the FBI to be fighting criminals and terrorists? For the life of me, I don't understand how they can do that while they swear fealty to law enforcement. It just makes no sense. They want to cut $491 million from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, making our cyber and physical infrastructure far more vulnerable to attack by foreign bad actors like Vladimir Putin and President Xi and Kim Jong-un. I know there are some people in high levels of office who are fond of those people, who write valentines to Kim Jong-Un, but the rest of us would like to be protected from them. We shouldn't be dismantling the cybersecurity infrastructure of America. They want to cut $212 million from the DEA. Can you imagine? If a Democratic President had proposed any of this, they would be screaming, their hair would be on fire, but Donald Trump proposed it, and they just mumble along like it is no big deal. What about all of these efforts to defund Federal law enforcement, like the DOJ, FEMA, FBI? Will our colleagues work with us to restore that money? Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Yes, the record is becoming increasingly clear here. My colleagues don't want to do anything about the dismantling of hundreds of millions of dollars of funds that we appropriated at the Department of Justice that have been mysteriously deleted by a DOGE employee from local law enforcement. These are grants that go to local police departments and victim assistance agencies all over the country. They got rid of that. Then the President comes forward with a budget that will cut more than $1.5 billion, maybe $2 billion from local law enforcement to go after violent crime, hate crime, to defend the victims of rape and sexual assault, and my colleague changes the subject once again to talk about weaponization. We have never seen weaponization of the government like what we have seen under Donald Trump and his Department of Justice. The first thing they did was they got rid of a dozen experienced veteran criminal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's office and the Department of Justice simply because they had worked to prosecute January 6 insurrectionists and rioters. Yes, let me repeat that. They fired prosecutors for doing nothing more than their jobs to prosecute the criminals who beat the daylights out of our police officers, and they sacked all of those prosecutors. They were some of the most experienced veteran prosecutors that we have in the U.S. Attorney's office. Then he named to be the acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin. He was just forced to withdraw that nomination because he was standing by a Neo-Nazi Holocaust revisionist who said that Hitler's problem was that he didn't finish the job. He also said that those who are born with disabilities should be killed at birth. Ed Martin called him a great man and a great leader. He withdrew the nomination, but still he put Ed Martin in the Department of Justice in a position that is not subject to Senate confirmation. They have weaponized the Department of Justice. They have weaponized the Department of State. They are going after anybody they describe as a political enemy. Ed Martin was writing letters to Members of Congress when he didn't like what they had to say. We have never seen weaponization of the government like what is taking place right now. They took the U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer, and they sacked her because she refused to take the position that Mel Gibson should get his guns back. That wasn't part of her job, but they tried to conscript her to it. The pardon attorney refused to do it because she said that was not her job and there were too many questions about domestic violence episodes. If you want to have a separate hearing on weaponization of the government under Donald Trump, let's do it. In the meantime, let's support local law enforcement and let's support Federal law enforcement. Let's have another resolution praising all law enforcement for what they do, and let's get that plaque up. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, we rarely take time to recognize the hundreds of public servants who, with great diligence, work behind the scenes to support this body's work for the American people. It is a surpassing honor today to praise my constituent William (Bill) Cox's decades of excellent service to the U.S. House of Representatives. For more than 43 years, Bill has been one of this chamber's most dedicated public servants. He's served with distinction in many capacities throughout this institution and for the past 23 years has brought his excellent leadership and fastidious attention to detail to the Office of the Clerk. On June 5, 2025, Bill will retire from the Clerk's Office. Bill was born in Fowlerville, Michigan. After graduating from high school in 1978, Bill moved to Washington, D.C. He made ends meet by working shifts at the Grand Central Station delicatessen in downtown Washington until he got his first Capitol Hill job. It was in the House's ``folding room,'' where government publications were prepared for distribution. His hard work quickly led to his next position as a Publications Assistant, Data Base Manager, and Systems Administrator for Representative Lee Hamilton. During his 12 years serving Representative Hamilton and the people of Indiana's Ninth District, Bill was instrumental in computerizing the office's operational systems. Under his leadership and guidance, the office graduated from a single shared printer, monitor and keyboard unit to a 25-user Unix mini-computer system. Having found his calling, Bill burned the midnight oil to attend night school at the University of Maryland University College. In 1990, he earned a bachelor's degree in information systems management. Three years later, Bill transitioned to serve as an Administrative Assistant and then Administrative Director for the House Committee on International Relations (now the House Committee on Foreign Affairs). In 1998, Bill briefly left the Hill to become the Director of Operations for the Computer and Communications Industry Association. In 2002, Bill returned to the House to accept the Administrative and Technical Support position in the Office of Official Reporters, a division within the Office of the Clerk. In this role, Bill has proven to be an expert in both the digital and physical systems that enable the House of Representatives to function every day. He's been the chief IT Specialist processing committee transcripts and the chief facilitator for office renovations. He has worked for five Clerks of the House: the Honorables Jeff Trandahl, Karen L. Haas, Lorraine C. Miller, Cheryl L. Johnson, and now, Kevin F. McCumber. Always a family man, Bill is looking forward to his next chapter in life with his wife, Toby Long; his son, Charlie and Charlie's wife, Carolyn; and his two grandchildren, Simon and Henry. His family is counting down the

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Francine Kerner, who retired on February 28, as Chief Counsel of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after dedicating over 50 years of her career to public service. On September 11, 2001, Ms. Kerner woke up and went to work, just like any other day. For her, that was as Deputy Assistant General Counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Enforcement Division. She was in her office at Main Treasury when the terrorist attacks began. That fateful day changed the worId and changed Ms. Kerner's life. A few weeks later, Congress enacted the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and established TSA. Ms. Kerner was one of a small group of federal workers chosen to stand up the fledgling agency with a monumental task ahead of them. To secure U.S. passengers and the American people from the grave threat posed by airline hijackers, Congress mandated that TSA begin screening passengers and checked baggage at 450 commercial airports within just a few months. Meeting these deadlines at the time required the largest mobilization of the federal government since WWII and the largest civilian undertaking in the history of the U.S. government. As TSA Chief Counsel, Ms. Kerner was responsible for providing the legal and policy advice for this record level of mobilization. For the next 23 years, she served as a principal architect of TSA's mission- critical programs and operations, supported by the outstanding team of attorneys she recruited, guided, and whose careers in Federal Service she unstintingty advanced. Prior to being named TSA's Chief Counsel, Ms. Kerner's Federal career spanned two decades, beginning as Counsel to the Inspector General (IG) at the Commerce Department in 1979 before serving in several managerial positions at the Treasury. She later helped the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms overhaul its fair hiring, promotion and professional development programs. Ms. Kerner found her way into public service after earning her law degree at the New York University School of Law in 1974. While at NYU Law, she interned for the New York City Law Department and served with such distinction that her supervisor, Mary P. Bass, later asked her to work in the Carter Administration where Ms. Bass was serving as the first IG at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Ms. Kerner is the recipient of numerous awards earned throughout her career of service, including the Presidential Meritorious Rank Awards in 2001 and 2022; the American University Roger W. Jones Award in 2023; the D.C. Bar Association's Beatrice Rosenberg Award for Excellence in Government Service; the Burton Award for Public Service in the Government; and the TSA Federal Woman's Program Trailblazer Award in 2011, in recognition of her efforts to advance the career of women at TSA. Throughout her career, Ms. Kerner never lost sight of the importance of family. She was careful to foster a family-friendly environment in each office she led. Her devotion to her own family set a powerful example for the many employees that she supervised and mentored across her decades in federal service. I want to conclude by recognizing her husband Michael Klein, her children Elizabeth and Adam, her daughter- in-law Robin, and her grandchildren, Maxine, Louis and Sidney. On behalf of a grateful Nation and the residents of Maryland's beautiful Eighth District, I wish Francine Kerner and her family nothing but the best as they begin this new chapter in their lives.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to reflect on the profound responsibility that accompanies public service. As public officials across the country are sworn into office, each affirms a commitment to faithfully execute the duties of public office and defend the Constitution of the United States. But more and more Americans are losing faith that the actions of our public officials are principally guided by our Constitution and our laws. And some of my colleagues even doubt whether truth exists and whether government can operate on the basis of mutually agreed facts, such as who won an election. Gregory Mize--a Georgetown University law professor and retired trial judge--offers a compelling perspective: we can use jury trials as models for attaining higher levels of truthfulness and reliable outcomes in government. After all, our whole justice system is based on the idea that we must all tell the truth and the fact-finder can decide ``beyond a reasonable doubt'' or ``by preponderance of the evidence'' what actually happened. Thomas Jefferson said, ``I consider trial by jury as the only anchor, yet ever imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.'' Indeed, the way a courtroom pursues truth provides a blueprint for encouraging trustworthiness in our public servants. At the beginning of jury selection, potential jurors take a solemn oath to truthfully answer questions posed by the judge and lawyers. The selected jurors take a second oath to ``faithfully discharge the duties of a juror and a true verdict render according to the law and the evidence.'' When testimony begins, jurors observe each witness take an oath under penalty of perjury to ``tell the truth and nothing but the truth.'' Judges, also sworn to follow the law, enforce rules of evidence--including by striking irrelevant or unreliable testimony from consideration by the jury. In some cases, judges must also pre-qualify proposed experts before they can state an opinion on a key issue. A lawyer's questioning then further tests the reliability of those opinions. Thanks to these established procedures, jurors learn the court's high valuation of honesty and come to expect it from their government Rather than relying on a single robed jurist to render a final verdict, our Founders wanted a panel of common citizens to administer justice in honest dialogue with one another. They believed jury deliberations to be a gold standard for reaching truth and achieving just ends. After hearing evidence and receiving legal instructions from the judge, jurors enter a deliberation room. They test one another's recollections and assumptions and assess witness credibility. Studies show that, during deliberations, a jury polices itself. Individual jurors remind others of the obligations of their oaths and the requirements of the law as stated by the judge. As a new year--with a new Congress and President--is underway, it is high time to bring courtroom reverence for truth-telling into the government generally and the public square. As citizens, we must demand a commitment to the pursuit of truth from all of our public officials. While enforcing oaths of office is a big challenge, citizens must demand truth from public officials in all that we do. And as public officials, we must earn that trust by honoring our oaths. The work of Judge Gregory Mize is exemplary in calling America back to the bedrock quest for truth. We owe him a debt of gratitude.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to remember my beloved friend and Montgomery County legend, Jack Fitzgerald, who passed away this week at the age of 89. He will be sharply missed by friends, family, and customers of the Fitzgerald Auto Malls up and down the East Coast. Jack's life embodied the restless, adventuresome spirit of America and entrepreneurial business at their very best. Over the course of his extraordinary life, he built Bethesda Auto from a single storefront in the early 1950s into a massive success, with dealerships across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Florida. An old-fashioned businessman devoted to the community, he was an eloquent champion of customer safety, consumer protection, and employee well-being. He pioneered the installation of child safety seats before it became an industry standard. Jack was friends not just with CEOs of auto companies but with Ralph Nader. Remarkably, Jack transferred his company to employee stock ownership over the last year before his death. His legacy now lives on in his employees and in everybody in Montgomery County, Maryland, who loved him. Mr. Speaker, please join me in saluting the life of Jack Fitzgerald, who was a pillar of our community and a local hero. May his memory be a blessing.

Mr. RASKIN

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

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1526. I heard the majority was bringing legislation forward to clean up a major policy crisis taking place within the first 100 days of the Trump administration, and that sounded pretty good to me because we are drowning in crises. The problem is that this bill does not address any of the real major policy crises of the first 100 days that Trump has caused for America. They are wasting our time with this bill by misdiagnosing and mislabeling the judicial response to these crises as a crisis itself. The whole country is reeling right now from the economic disaster Trump has plunged us into. He destroyed more than $10 trillion in American wealth in 1 single week, and then he went golfing and bragged to America about winning the tournament at his own golf course. Madam Speaker, that is like bragging about being endorsed by your own campaign manager. With so much winning, the country can hardly stand how much winning Trump is doing for himself, Elon Musk, and his billionaire Cabinet. Perhaps he could have yelled fore on the fareway so tens of millions of Americans could have taken our retirement savings out of the stock market before he hit us in the head with a golf ball. Trump's ruinous tariffs have crushed our relationships with democratic allies and loyal trade partners like Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Germany, and France while delicately carving out an exception for Trump's friends in the home office back in Russia. When asked why Putin uniquely escapes the wrath of Trump's global trade war, we are told it is because Trump doesn't want to interfere with the negotiations taking place between Russia and Ukraine for a cease-fire, an explanation that might have somewhat more force if Trump had not made sure that the tariffs do apply to Ukraine as they do. The basis for this most imbecilic and destructive trade war in the history of the world is the profound economic research and policy writings of one Ron Vara, a completely fictional economist conjured up by Trump adviser Peter Navarro, a real person whom Elon Musk just called a moron and dumb as a sack of bricks. Navarro's last name, delightfully, is an anagram for Ron Vara. Madam Speaker, you can try this yourself at home. Navarro turns into Ron Vara. Navarro figured that out himself. That is perhaps the greatest achievement of the Trump administration so far. What an enchanting and clever basis upon which to crash the economy of the United States of America. Despite the fact that Congress, not the President, has the power to regulate international commerce and legislate tariffs, our GOP colleagues don't even want to have one hearing on the breathtaking economic folly and wreckage of this fling into the abyss of trade war with the world, much less do they want to do anything to reverse this policy nightmare for tens of millions of businesspeople, farmers, workers, retirees, and consumers being throttled by this historic, self-inflicted wound. No, today they want to talk about the real emergency, which is the power of the United States district courts to issue universal injunctions rather than just injunctions that apply to the specific parties in the case. It seems like a rather boutique and esoteric issue to raise in the middle of an economic catastrophe that they just foisted upon America, but there is a method to the madness. You see, Madam Speaker, Federal judges have issued at least 68 court orders that block or pause the administration's lawlessness to prevent irreparable harm in the country from his unconstitutional actions. The judges deciding here were appointed by five different Presidents, both Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents, in 11 different district courts across seven circuits. The judges have explained in painstaking detail what is unlawful about Trump's executive orders and actions. Trump has offered no substantive critique of their legal reasoning, but he and Musk still want the judges impeached. They say they should be removed from office simply for striking down the President's illegal policies, which is odd given that Trump and his party demanded for 4 years that Federal judges strike down President Biden's policies like student loan forgiveness or immigration policies or EPA action on climate change. They seem to embrace Marbury v. Madison and judicial review of Democratic Presidential actions but not of Republican actions. They say that is because Trump just won an election. He beat Kamala Harris by 2 million votes. Guess what, Madam Speaker. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by over 7 million votes, and that didn't stop them from suing to stop numerous Biden policies they thought were unlawful. Sometimes they won, and sometimes they lost. It is the same now. Nearly 160 cases have been brought against Trump and Musk's actions. Trump has won some, and he has lost some. However, our colleagues protest that Trump is different because the courts have issued relief in at least 57 different cases, a record number of cases in American history, at record speed. That is true, but if it seems like an incredible number of cases to lose in less than 100 days, recall that Trump is engaged in a record number of illegal actions at a breathtaking velocity never seen before in U.S. history. As of today, he has already issued 111 executive orders in less than 100 days. Biden issued 162 in all 4 years. Trump can issue as many as he wants, but he has got to make them constitutional because if they are not, they are going to get struck down. When Trump denounces the judges as radical left judges and lunatics who have gone rogue like Judge Boasberg, he is just advertising his complete ignorance of the Federal bench. Judge Boasberg is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court, first nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, who was Justice Kavanaugh's roommate at Yale and a pillar of the conservative bar. We have impeached only 15 judges in U.S. history, always for serious misconduct like taking bribes, embezzlement, corruption, and habitual drunkenness on the bench. It was never because of a doctrinal disagreement and never because of a judge's legal ruling. As Chief Justice Roberts said a few weeks ago, the proper response in our democracy to a judicial decision that you disagree with is to appeal the ruling, not impeach the judge. Donald Trump has gotten some relief in some of his cases already. The system is working. We don't need to turn the whole world upside down to distract from the economic calamities they have brought upon us. All this would be fun and games except the rhetorical assault by Trump and Musk and our colleagues against the judiciary has turned into something far more sinister in some quarters: death threats, bomb threats, and online intimidation and harassment of judges. These judges are currently targets of an onslaught of social media taunts and attacks that call for their exile to GTMO or label them a national security threat or traitors. Even worse, this campaign of vilification has spread to their families, including attacks on a Federal judge's daughter who had her photo and place of work posted on a social media site by Elon Musk to his 290 million followers. These threats followed an actual bomb threat targeting the sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It is a dangerous situation. Now our colleagues want to pass the No Rogue Rulings Act which would effectively ban Federal district courts from providing nationwide relief against unlawful actions by the administration. Litigants could request injunctive relief only with respect themselves. So, for example, if the President establishes a church or bans newspapers or imposes martial law, then each citizen in America would have to bring his or her own case because the courts would not be able to rule to strike down unconstitutional actions generally. That is patently absurd, and we are going to be able to explain how this legislation is a massive distraction from the issues that are really facing America. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.