Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I was just reviewing some materials that showed that both the States that the gentlewoman from Colorado and the gentleman from New York represent had noncitizen voting in the 18th, 19th, and, in the case of Colorado, up to the 20th century. So I think if they are talking about giving away the sacred right to vote, their States have done that before. It has got a kind of interesting history to it. To me, it is basically irrelevant because it is not our decision to be making. It is up to the people of D.C., just like it is up to the voters of Colorado and it is up to the voters in New York. But the history of it is intriguing because when the country started--as I am sure the gentlewoman is aware--there were race qualifications for voting and there were gender qualifications for voting. It was only through social struggle that these were removed. But at the beginning of the Republic, all that mattered was the property qualification--the wealth and property qualification--for White men. If you were a White man, regardless of your citizenship status, you had the right to vote. That lasted basically up to the Civil War. But it became a bone of contention between the North and the South because the Northern States were continuing to defend alien suffrage and the Southern States opposed it. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you look at Article I of the Confederate Constitution, the very first thing it does, it says that you must be a citizen of the Confederacy in order to vote there. They didn't want noncitizens voting. Why? Because the immigrants were overwhelmingly antislavery. It was very clear in the debates in Congress about this that the Southern States wanted to get rid of it, which is why the Confederacy banned it. After the Civil War, noncitizen voting spread around the country. But the point is that when we are talking about local noncitizen voting--who is going to vote in your school board or town council elections--that should be decided locally. My colleagues who are the ones determined not to make the District of Columbia a State should be the first ones to say that if it is just a local government, then let them decide on who is going to vote on matters of garbage collection and who their teachers are going to be. The jurisdictions that have done this, like Los Angeles, have wanted to make sure that parents in local public schools get the right to vote regardless of their citizenship status. Most of the noncitizens, of course, are lawful residents, people with green cards, and permanent residents, and they want them to be engaged and involved. In any event, if my friends really support home rule and local self- determination, they will allow the people of Washington, D.C., to decide. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to make a couple of corrections. First of all, the D.C. legislation that would be disapproved by this resolution allows only for voting in local elections--school board elections, Advisory Neighborhood Commission elections, council elections. It does not allow voting in Federal elections for noncitizens. The Constitution, contrary to what the gentlewoman said, permits noncitizen voting at the local level, and there are a number of jurisdictions that do that. Mr. Speaker, yield 5 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 24, which seeks to nullify the duly enacted laws of the District of Columbia and violates the principle of local, democratic self-government, which is at the heart of the home rule charter for Washington, D.C., and also violates the equal protection and democratic principles that animate our Constitution. I would like to begin just by observing a striking juxtaposition in contrast between the address we heard last night, the State of the Union Address from the President, and the lecture that we just received now from the floor leader. President Biden appeared here with a message of unity under the powerful economic growth that we are experiencing as a country--12 million new jobs added, record progress that we are making on climate change, massive investment in the American people in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, the $1.2 trillion investment in the roads, highways, bridges, ports, and airports. We are dramatically reducing healthcare costs for people in the Medicare program, reducing to $35 a month what diabetics have to pay for their insulin shots. We are making progress for America. So, what do our good friends across the aisle come back with today, the day after this great statement of national purpose and progress? They want us to become the supercouncil for the District of Columbia and begin to micromanage the bills that are being passed by the representatives locally of 713,000 people. With no national agenda, with no plans for getting on board with American progress, what do they have? Well, they are going to bring us a whole series of these disapproval resolutions for the people of Washington, D.C. They don't want to vote in Washington, D.C. They don't want to live in D.C. They can move to D.C. and run for D.C. Council if that is their interest, but no, they just want to lord it over the people of Washington. They don't like the District of Columbia's voting rules, and they don't like the criminal justice reform they just engaged in for a period of a decade with judges and lawyers, the D.C. Bar, and the people participating. They don't have a hearing on any of it. They just want to decree that they are going to strike it down. Just you wait, they will be coming back with gun safety laws that will appear in Congress from the people in D.C. because there is that part of the home rule charter that gives us this opportunity if we want to micromanage their policies. We will see gun safety laws; we will see abortion legislation; we will see equal rights for the LGBTQ population--all of these things the Republican minority used to do a long time ago. They have brought back the worst possible instincts. They don't want to have a hearing on it. We didn't have a single hearing in the Oversight and Accountability Committee about any of this legislation. None of it. Did they go to the D.C. Council when it was debated? No, they didn't do that. Did they invite the Mayor or the D.C. Council to come here? No, they didn't do that. They just decided they are going to slap around the local population. None of us would accept it for the localities that we represent. Now, it so happens that people in Washington, D.C., are not just a locality and municipality. The people in Washington are involved right now in a petition for statehood admission to the Union. In fact, in the 116th Congress and the 117th Congress, this body voted to approve their petition for statehood, but our friends across the aisle opposed that. It passed the House. If the Senate had approved it, well, then the people of D.C., or whatever their local system is, would be able to decide these things on their own, just like the people in New York City or Albany or any other town in New York would be able to decide for themselves. I thought that our friends over there were interested in local self- government. I thought they supported home rule, but apparently not when it comes to the people of Washington, D.C. We reject this throwback attempt at micromanaging the affairs of the people of Washington. They don't need lectures about voting rights. They need voting rights. They are the only population of taxpaying, draftable American citizens in the country who don't have equal voting rights in Congress. When January 6 came and people stormed this Chamber and waged violence against the Capitol Police, against the Metropolitan Police Department, against hundreds of people who live in Washington, as well as in Maryland and Virginia, the people of Washington stood with democracy. They stood with Congress. They have a legitimate grievance, not a phony, counterfeit grievance. They are not claiming to have won an election they didn't win. All they are asking for is equal rights. Let's grant them their statehood. If you can't stomach the idea that they would be a State, at least allow them their home rule rights to decide for themselves who is going to vote in Washington, D.C., what their criminal laws are going to be, what their laws on abortion are going to be, and what their civil rights and civil liberties practices are going to be in the District of Columbia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call on the Iranian government to immediately release Matin Gorji. On January 8, 2023, Iranian authorities searched Mr. Gorji's home and arrested him simply because he is a member of the Baha'i faith. According to Mr. Gorji's family, the authorities who searched his home physically abused him and, upon arrest, refused to allow him to take his medication for his liver condition with him. His mother was told he faces a sentence of at least 2 years, yet the specific nature of his charges is unknown. Sadly, Mr. Gorji is just one of many members of the Baha'i community subjected to harsh persecution in Iran. Since 1979, Iranian authorities have killed or executed more than 200 Baha'i leaders, thousands more have been arrested and interrogated, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university jobs. In its most recent report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that Iran continues to persecute people of the Baha'i faith, closing their businesses, denying them access to an education, demolishing their homes without warning, auctioning off their property, and blocking their access to bury their deceased in a place of their choosing, instead requiring them to use a mass grave site. In its 2021 Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom, the United States Department of State reported that government officials continue to disseminate anti-Baha'i messaging using both traditional and social media. Further, the community is so stigmatized that private sector employers often refuse to hire those of the Baha'i or dismiss them from their jobs. Today, I call on my House colleagues to stand with Matin Gorji and every member of the Baha'i community in Iran. I call on the Iranian government to immediately release not only Mr. Gorji, but every prisoner of conscience in Iran who is incarcerated simply for their beliefs. It is time to end this egregious repression of religious minorities.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentlewoman makes an interesting argument. Of course, if physical presence in Washington is necessary, then that agency never should have been stripped from Washington and relocated in Colorado in the first place. One could say that entire workforce is calling in or not really working because the entire office has a telework policy. Obviously, she has carved out an exception for that. She thinks they can be effective, even though they are not in Washington, D.C. Look, Mr. Speaker, this has been not just a closed rule but a closed process. There was no hearing in the Oversight and Accountability Committee. Despite the fact that those hearings have been promised, there has been no hearing about it. Let me tell you one of the things we would learn if we actually had a hearing about it. The bill contemplates rolling the clock back to 2019 for every Federal agency. Well, what would that mean for one small agency, the Federal Communications Commission, which has decided upon a plan to reduce its leased office space with a savings of $119 million precisely because of the existence of telework, saying we don't need all that space? Now, since we rolled the clock back and presumptively say you can't do that, we are going to be costing the taxpayers $119 million a year because they have to go back to their prepandemic plan simply because we have this one-size-fits-all, categorical, cookie-cutter approach undertaken without any hearings. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office similarly would be forced to abandon its $12.5 million a year in savings in leasing costs made possible because of reduced consumption of office space by telework. Do we really want to say that we hate telework so much, that we distrust our own workers so much, even though the studies show that it is yielding benefits in office productivity, that we are going to force the taxpayers to pay more money for more expensive office space in downtown Washington, D.C.? We haven't even looked at the question because there was no hearing because there was just a rush to get this to the floor so we could tell workers who are already at work to get back to work. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues seem to betray no understanding at all of what Federal telework policy is. To say that the workforce is not going to the office and it is time to get back to work simply suggests they don't know that every agency, every commission, every department makes its own decisions about this as part of the complete workplace policy, going job classification by job classification, defining when it makes sense and when it doesn't make sense. That is the way that it works, but they want to have a broad-brush, one-size-fits-all, straitjacket policy where they just decapitate a decade of progress, using the pandemic or the end of the pandemic as the excuse for doing that. To repeat: This is not a Washington problem. The vast majority of the Federal workforce is spread out across the country. The hardworking people we see in front of us today who work for the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and for the House are just a small example of the workforce located in Washington, which is a tiny minority of the Federal workforce which is all over America. That flexibility has been given to Federal workforce supervisors all over the country to deal with. They would clearly try to elevate what I think is a frivolous talking point over the cost savings that have been created because of telework policies. They would elevate it over the increased job performance and job satisfaction that is being demonstrated in studies around the country. They would elevate it over the clear success of telework within the private sector. Oftentimes, my colleagues will say we have to be more like the private sector. It is the private sector that has been leading the way here. The Federal workforce has been very much in the rear guard doing it. In any event, remember that they are conflating two completely different things. One is the Federal telework policy that has evolved over the last decade, and the other is the pandemic. It is true that the pandemic response was made far more efficient because there was an infrastructure in place in order to make telework possible. Those pandemic policies can be reversed without destroying all the policies that have developed over the last decade. There are an incredible number of unintended consequences that are exacerbated by the fact we have not had a single hearing on this question, which is of fundamental importance to hundreds of thousands and millions of people across the country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The title of this bill, the SHOW UP Act, consists of the Stopping Home Office Work's Unproductive Problems Act. I understand that in Washington--this really is a Washington problem--there is always a search for the perfect acronym over the actual meaning of the language, but this title does some real violence to the English language. I don't know what an ``unproductive problem'' is. I certainly don't know what a ``productive problem'' is. I wonder whether the person who wrote that was working on telework or wrote it at the office. To me, it makes no difference. Somebody should have said that doesn't really make any sense for a title for Federal legislation. In any event, the point is that Members of Congress, as everyone should know, are able to be very effective, often being in two places at the same time. You might be at your district office, or you might be at a townhall meeting in your district, but you call into a meeting with your chief of staff and your legislative staff, or you call in to have a meeting with subcommittee staff or what have you. I don't understand the sudden effort to demonize technology and all the advances that we have made. I don't take this to be serious legislation. There was no hearing on it. There seems to be no effort to convince anyone that it is serious. I hope we can do better in the days ahead. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, they complain about delays at the IRS and then they oppose funding to assist the overwhelmed workforce at the IRS, which is staggering under the weight of all of these obligations. This is the first time I have heard that telework was the source of the problem, but apparently, that is what it is this week. Of course, we haven't had a real hearing so we have had no witnesses on it; somebody has apparently just dreamed that up. It has just been linked to the debt ceiling. Interesting that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle has voted to lift the debt ceiling three different times under Donald Trump, who increased the debt of the United States single-handedly by more than 20 percent. All of the debt of the United States under one President. More than 20 percent. Mr. Speaker, let's get back to the issue at hand. Members of Congress make very strange opponents of telework policy, not because we don't work hard, because I think we do work hard, but we use telework all the time. Members of Congress might be in their district office working. They might be at a town hall meeting working. They might be here on the floor. They might be in a committee meeting, a subcommittee meeting. They might be meeting with constituents somewhere else. And I dare say the vast majority, if not all of us, engage in telework. We wouldn't say to them, ``Get back to work and stop teleworking.'' We understand that that is part of an overall telework policy. If people have employees who they think are abusing telework, well, they have got a problem with that employee or they have a problem with their supervisor. But to my experience and knowledge, as someone who, I admit, may have been a little curmudgeonly, in the way we are hearing some of the Members are today, when the COVID-19 crisis started, the employees who are super productive at work will be super productive at home. In my case, that is almost all of them. In fact, I think it is all of them. If you have an employee who blows off their assignments at work and doesn't turn them in, they will do the same thing if they are working from home. That is a question of supervision. The real issue is, why all of a sudden they want to turn against a decade of progress on telework policy and start affixing to it all of these other problems. For that, I don't understand, other than people seem to want to blame the Federal workers for everything. Those workers belong to all of our districts. They are all across the country. Eighty percent of Federal workers are not in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. They are all over the country, working everywhere from military bases to Indian reservations to public health service. You name it. These are our people. These are American citizens, and they deserve something a lot more than the implied contempt of suggesting that if they use telework, they are not really working. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to address two points. One, let's grab the bull by the horns with this IRS point. The President's budget included $80 billion to increase staffing and to update technology at the IRS so our constituents can get their calls returned. If you are waiting for your IRS tax refund, that is something that you have planned on. That is part of your family budget. If it is stuck somehow, it is extremely frustrating for people not to be able to get through. Now they, bizarrely to my mind, blame telework for this, and they oppose the $80 billion. I think they say that will create 75,000 or 100,000 new IRS agents who will be chasing working-class people around the country. On the contrary, we have a report showing the $80 billion will produce $200 billion in new revenue and it is rich people who are the ones who are being protected by the refusal of my colleagues to invest in the IRS. Telework is a complete distraction. It is an absolute red herring. It has nothing to do with whether or not you want to invest in the IRS or not. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Mfume), my colleague.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will tell you a story about a couple that both work for the Federal Government. Earlier this month, the spouse of an Army servicemember, seeking approval to go work overseas for the State Department, contacted the Oversight Committee because she was being forced to decide between quitting her very successful Federal career for the State Department or returning to Washington, D.C., to continue her Federal service without her husband and her two children. Her agency was fighting desperately to maintain her expertise and was perfectly fine with her performing her duties from overseas with her husband, who is in the Army who was being relocated over there. Luckily, we were able to help make sure that her overseas telework request was approved. Now, is that someone who is not really working? Do we want to tell her to get back to work? Her situation is common for thousands of families in the Federal workforce where you have one member who is in the military who is being relocated, the other who might be working at a site in Washington who is now able to work out the terms of service under the telework policy, but that is precisely an element of the policy that will be crushed by the legislation that has been brought forward without the benefit of a single hearing in the Oversight and Accountability Committee. Despite the fact that our colleagues have said that they will only bring legislation to the floor after there has been a hearing--and we are just a few weeks into the session--this legislation comes forward without hearing from anybody like this constituent who was being put in such a tough posture or the Directors of the agencies or the head of the Office of Personnel Management who is in charge of actually supervising and coordinating overall telework policy and making the annual report to Congress. Telework is a vital tool for the government to recruit and retain and grow the talented workforce we need to make the Federal Government work. It ensures that Federal workers can serve the Nation even during disasters. Again, it was the preexisting telework policy that established the infrastructure that made for such a relatively smooth transition when we got into the pandemic. I have to say that denials of telework for the spouses of military personnel are still common, and they are consequential, and they would be pervasive if the legislation passed. I hope that all our colleagues will reject this and at the very least send it back to the Oversight Committee for some real hearings so we can talk about what this really means. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We strongly oppose this bill, which is an assault on all the progress we have made over the last several years in telework policy. Telework has strengthened private and public workplaces across the land, enhanced productivity, increased efficiency, improved the morale and satisfaction of the workforce, reduced traffic congestion, and made positive environmental changes. When the chairman says it is time to return to work, I believe this is a misnomer because people who participate in telework are working. They are already working, and so they don't need to return to work. This bill would take a sledgehammer to Federal telework policy and law, which the sponsors seem completely oblivious to, and you can hardly blame them because the leadership brings this measure forward without the benefit of even a single hearing in the Oversight Committee, which means Congress has not heard from the Office of Personnel Management or any of the Federal agency chiefs, and it has not heard from any Federal workers or their collective bargaining representatives. It hasn't heard from any of the stakeholders other than secondhand, I guess, through hearsay the Mayor of Washington, D.C., who not surprisingly seems to be resistant, at least according to that report, to telework policy. This is an arbitrary effort to roll back all of the progress that has been made under legislation and administrative rules over the last decade without any participation at all of the key stakeholders. The bill falsely equates the development of telework as part of a balanced Federal workplace policy by OPM and the agencies with the sudden and near complete shift to virtual work in certain sectors because of the pandemic. Those are two completely different things. This conflation produces nothing but confusion, and the bill is a wrecking ball against telework policy, which has been a critical success in so many workplaces. Colleagues, the workplace is changing because of extraordinary new technology and a new focus on productivity and efficiency as opposed to industrial-age assembly-line seating and command-and-control work relations. Before the pandemic, hybrid and remote work were already growing far more prevalent across professions, particularly for jobs performed in an office setting. The pandemic accelerated these dynamics not only in the Federal workplace but even more dramatically in the private sector. From fiscal year 2019 to 2020, as we entered the pandemic, Federal telework doubled from roughly 500,000 people to more than a million. Practically overnight, traditional barriers to telework, such as technological obstacles and management resistance, began to disappear. Federal agencies implemented sweeping new guidelines as an essential tool for the continuity of government operations. The pandemic, of course, will not last forever. Indeed, the President announced that he plans to end the public health emergency on May 11. The Federal Government will not maintain a pandemic-level telework posture in perpetuity, but we cannot ignore the lessons that we have learned over the last several years. As OPM put it in its 2021 annual report on the status of telework, ``there is no going back.'' Enhanced demand in the national workforce and among Federal employees will continue as workers and supervisors report greatly enhanced productivity and focus from flexible work practices that reduce time wasted in endless in-person meetings, watercooler gossip sessions, and the proverbial BS sessions that overcome so many people's offices. According to a survey by The Conference Board, 82 percent of companies are going to offer hybrid work options to employees going forward, and the number of private companies willing to let at least some portion of their workforce go fully remote has tripled to an astonishing 36 percent. In another survey, 63 percent of employees rated the value of 2 to 3 days being able to work from home as equivalent to a pay raise. To remain competitive with the private sector with which we compete, the Federal Government must offer reasonable telework options. OPM says it will, observing that we must appreciate the sea change in the American labor market. Telework saves money, helps the government recruit top talent, reduces traffic gridlock, makes environmental sense, and ensures a continuity of operations at agencies that Americans rely on every single day. It is a lifeline for people who have disabilities or are immunocompromised, and it offers dramatically expanded opportunities for people living in more rural areas to enter and sustain a career in the Federal service. We cannot enter a time machine and simply wish away the utility of telework in recruiting and retaining new generations of Federal workers. We should embrace telework as part of a balanced workplace policy to promote employee satisfaction and overall mission outcome. OPM Director Kiran Ahuja offers a clear-eyed vision for the future in her annual report saying, ``Federal agencies must continue to embrace workplace flexibilities, such as telework, to remain competitive for top talent. Decisions about telework, however, must be driven by delivery of mission. We all work for the American public, and how we best serve them needs to be the paramount consideration.'' That means telework does not make sense for every worker in every office or every activity. If you are guarding the Capitol, obviously you need to be present. If you are researching groups that were involved in the insurrection against the Capitol, you might be able to work part of that time virtually. Processing paper tax returns at the IRS may indeed require in-person work. I will note that although people are blaming the problems with IRS responsiveness on telework, that does not make sense to me. Telephone work is something that can be done from the office, home office, or somewhere else, which is why we have been, on our side of the aisle, invested in increasing staff at the IRS because our constituents are so frustrated with being left on the phone and not getting answers returned about when they will be getting their IRS refund. In the Inflation Reduction Act, we added 5,000 new positions for people on the phones to respond to our constituents. I know that some of our colleagues across the aisle have opposed additional funding for IRS positions, and that is surely a far more likely culprit than whatever telework policies are in place over at the IRS. The Biden administration's telework guidance seeks to strike a balance between getting people who need to be in person back in the office safely and helping agencies design their post-pandemic telework plans to build off the prior successes of this policy. 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 do indeed support this significant, commonsense, and bipartisan legislation. I thank the chairman again, and I thank Representatives Palmer and Connolly for their hard work on it. The Settlement Agreement Information Database Act will create a database of settlement agreements entered into by Federal agencies relating to alleged violations of Federal civil or criminal law. The OMB will manage the database and set deadlines for submission. The heads of executive agencies will be required to submit details about the types of settlement agreements they have entered into, the parties who are actually involved in them, the specific violations, and the dates upon which such settlement agreements were made. All information about the settlement agreements would remain public until 5 years after they terminate. The information in the agreements would remain subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but if the head of the agency decided to keep an entire agreement confidential, he or she would be required to provide a specific explanation of that action. This legislation will substantially improve the transparency surrounding so many settlement agreements, which in the past have been very difficult for the public to access or even to find. Transparency is, of course, central to the rule of law. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I would say, in closing, that I was moved by what Mr. Palmer had to say, that democracy is based on consent, and consent is based on access, but there is no access if you don't have transparency. I think about something that James Madison said: ``And a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.'' So people need to have knowledge of everything that our government is doing. We don't want government entities entering into secret, sweetheart settlements with different litigants. It has got to be open to the whole public. Mr. Speaker, I thank him and I thank the chairman for bringing this forward, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my colleague.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing. Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to support passage of this bipartisan legislation. It is an auspicious way for us to begin on the Oversight Committee. I salute the chairman for his wisdom in bringing this forward, 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 support of H.R. 159, the Chance to Compete Act. The bipartisan Chance to Compete Act was introduced by Representative Foxx, who I see is here with us, and Representative Connolly. I thank them both for their hard work on it. The bill aims to make evaluations more useful in assessing the skills of candidates for Federal positions and to alleviate inefficiencies that have long hampered the hiring process. The bill turns away from current reliance on self-assessment and attainment of educational degrees to determine candidate qualifications in the hiring process. Instead, subject matter experts and agencies would design assessments that test specific knowledge for a position for which the agency is hiring. This overhaul would better match qualified applicants with positions and expand opportunities to candidates with more diverse professional and educational backgrounds. The Chance to Compete Act aligns with the Office of Personnel Management's guidance of last May to facilitate an executive order to modernize the process of hiring Federal job candidates. Establishing hiring methods that are more skills-based will improve agency managers' ability to hire people who possess the knowledge and experience to do the job and to hire from a wider array of qualified applicants. The bill also directs OPM to create an online platform for sharing candidate assessments between agencies and maintain a portal for hiring managers to find candidates who have already demonstrated their qualifications for certain positions but were not yet hired. Under this legislation, agencies may assemble talent teams to support this assessment of candidates in the hiring process. The OPM Director would be required to submit annual progress reports to Congress on use of the new assessments. After 5 years, the GAO would conduct a study of the implementation of the Federal job assessment reforms and their impacts on the hiring process. This bill streamlines the hiring process for agencies and will shorten the time it takes to bring new, well-qualified employees on board. I thank Dr. Foxx for her leadership in introducing it. The bill is the result of constructive collaboration by several members of our committee from both sides of the aisle, including Mr. Connolly. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting this bipartisan measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, to my dear friend from Pennsylvania, if you think that this legislation is an attack on President Trump, you simply haven't read the legislation because there is nothing in there attacking President Trump. This is about reforming the Electoral Count Act so it works for the American people. As long as we are going to have the electoral college, we must update it and modernize it to make it work and to make sure that the will of the people is vindicated at every level--at the State level, with the Governor who has to provide the certificate of ascertainment; and then, when it comes here, we have to be able to receive it and not have the Presidential electoral process consumed by a bunch of ideological antics and tantrums. My friend mobilizes a number of episodes of Democrats raising objections in the past. Of course, I could equal each one of those with Republicans raising objections in the past because this has become a fine bipartisan tradition in the history of the electoral college. But if you think it is too easy for people to get up and object, support our legislation because we are saying you can't make an objection until you get one-third of the House of Representatives to sign the objection to attest to its validity and its substance. Then in order for it to be validated, you need not just a third of the House, you need a third of the Senate. You need bicameral adoption of the objection by a third of each body before it is even heard and then debated. So if you think that too much frivolous stuff is going on, well, then you should be supporting our legislation. The rest of what you are saying is just complaint about political rhetoric, and I happen to like the political rhetoric pointing out that Vladimir Putin is an enemy of democracy not just in Ukraine but in the United States and all over the world. Maybe we disagree about that. I know that there are some cheerleaders for Vladimir Putin over on that side of the aisle. In any event, remember this: Today, you can object for any reason at all, and one person can get up and do it if they can find one other person in the other Chamber, but under this legislation, under the Presidential Election Reform Act there will be a neatly cabined set of approved constitutional objections, all of them grounded in the text of the Constitution: For example, if a State purports to submit more electoral college votes than they actually have. For example, an elector in the Presidential election process constitutionally cannot hold another Federal office, so if they hold another Federal office that will be grounds for an objection. For example, a President must be a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age. So it would be a valid objection to claim that the candidate that a State is purporting to cast electors for is only 26 years old. Also, under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Federal office holders must not be guilty of insurrection or rebellion against the Union; something that was insisted upon by the radical Republicans after the Civil War. Therefore, that would be a legitimate ground for objection. Presidents are limited to two terms in office, so that would be a legitimate ground for objection if a State purports to cast electors for someone who has already served two terms in office. Under Article II, section 1, clause 4, and the 12th Amendment, electors must vote on the same day throughout the Nation distinctly by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom must not be an inhabitant of the elector's State. In other words, we finally have provided real precision and definiteness as to what is a valid objection. That doesn't mean the objection is necessarily ratified bicamerally by concurrent majorities, which is what you need in order to uphold it, but it is not a free-for- all. You can't just start finger painting on it. To the extent that the gentleman's only substantive objection I have heard is that in the past it has been too easy for Members of both parties to raise objections, then you should absolutely be supporting this legislation. This is a thorough legislative project that reflects the common sense and the wisdom of people who are the real experts in this field. Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous question. The text of the material previously referred to by Mr. Reschenthaler is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 1372 At the end of the resolution, add the following: Sec 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the bill (H.R. 6592) to require the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to notify the relevant Federal, State, and local officials of a jurisdiction before placing a covered alien in such jurisdiction, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary; and (2) one motion to recommit. Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 6592.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), my friend.