Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I want to say a word in response to my colleague about the national political logic of statehood. There is both powerful constitutional principle and national political logic that infuses every statehood admission going back to the very beginning of the Republic. The constitutional principle is simply that of no taxation without representation and the consent of the governed. People who are part of the American Nation should be able to participate equally as complete citizens. That is why Thomas Jefferson set out in the Northwest Ordinance that once a community got to be of a certain size--60,000, which, of course, is less than 10 percent of the size of Washington, D.C., today--that it would be eligible to come into statehood, to petition for statehood. The only real constitutional prerequisite is a republican form of government, that is the Republican Guarantee Clause. That is the high-minded political ideal of constitutional principle, but it is also the case, as I have tried to argue with my colleagues across the aisle, that there is a hardcore political logic that is operated, and we see it in their arguments that they don't want to admit two Democratic Senators to the Republic, which is what former President Trump said in objection to D.C. statehood. He said there is no way we would accept two new Democrat Senators. Actually, although I consider it a degradation of the process and a sort of tawdry form of argument, nonetheless, it has been very much part of American political history, which is why States have tended to enter the Union in pairs, like animals boarding Noah's Ark together. That was the situation with Kansas and Nebraska, in the Kansas- Nebraska Act; that was the situation of Missouri and Maine in the Missouri Compromise; that was Vermont and Kentucky; that was Alaska and Hawaii back in 1959. So, I say to my friends, okay, they don't see the problem of taxation without representation in Washington. They don't see the problem of governance without representation. They don't see the irony or the paradox or the contradiction of people putting their lives on the line to defend this Congress, this Union, on January 6 who don't get to vote for voting representatives in Congress. They don't want to see that, fine. But they can at least see this: It has been in the Republican platform since 1940 that Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. Every 4 years, they have said that the millions of people, American citizens, who live in Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. It was in the platform in 2016. It would have been in 2020 if they had had a platform. They decided not to have a platform for the American people in 2020. But in any event, they have taken a very strong position--Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, you name it. In fact, the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico is a Republican who has introduced statehood legislation in this Congress, who is fighting for statehood. So, fine, there is the basis for common ground. Let's get together. The Democrats have been arguing for statehood for Washington, D.C., for a long time. The Republicans have been arguing for statehood for Puerto Rico for a long time. I assume everybody means it. Let's get together and do it the way this has happened periodically, systematically, throughout American history. That is the national political logic of allowing both of these states to come in together. Not everybody gets everything that they want, and I do think that it is antithetical to the democratic form of government to say you don't want people to be represented because you don't like the way they are going to vote because they disagree with you on issues. I think that is fundamentally undemocratic and un-American. Madam Speaker, in any event, we have the grounds for a compromise, and I am still looking for some colleagues across the aisle to stand up and say they will stand for the position that they have embraced for decades, to say these two states should come in together. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon).

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

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the majority leader hardly needs me to defend him, but I know that he was a strong supporter of the D.C. voting rights constitutional amendment where there was actually bipartisan support. In those days, Republicans understood the grievous injustice being perpetrated against the people of Washington, D.C., and they supported granting people in D.C. two Senators, or what my colleague would call two ultraliberal Senators, as well as the Representatives in the House to which they were due. There were certainly people who were saying there were other ways of accomplishing it. Now, unfortunately, that bipartisan consensus collapsed even though it passed the Senate and the House back in the day. I don't hear any of my colleagues saying they are for it now. Mr. Hoyer, the majority leader, is supporting the only viable vehicle for getting equal rights for people in Washington, D.C., that exists today, which is statehood, which is how 37 new States entered the Union with Congress' exercise of its powers under Article IV of the Constitution. The gentleman waxed eloquent about the vision of a great Capital City, but being a strict textualist, I assume that he wants to pay some attention to the text of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, the District Clause, sets a maximum, a ceiling that the District may be no more than 10 miles square, but there is no minimum there. It didn't say it must be at least 6 miles square or 2 miles square or 3 miles. No, that is up to Congress. In other words, it is a political question within congressional power, our plenary power, over the District of Columbia. Finally, the gentleman, I suppose, gets to the heart of the matter when he says that, for him, it is all about two ultraliberal Senators. I would ask every Member of this body to think about that for a second, reflect on that. In America, I don't think we deny people voting rights based on how they are going to vote. I don't think we deny entire States and political communities representation based on predictions of who they might elect. In fact, there is a Supreme Court case about that called Carrington v. Rash. When armed services members in Texas were disenfranchised because it was suggested they would vote in a way more identified with the national government than with local cultural values in Texas, the Supreme Court struck it down and said that, in American democracy, we do not allow government to disenfranchise people based on predictions of how they are going to vote or who they are going to elect. That is precisely what the gentleman invites us to do here, to deny 712,000 taxpaying, draftable U.S. citizens, who came to our aid on January 6, to deny them their equal rights under the Union, under the flag, because he predicts that they are going to elect people whose policy views are contrary to his own. Madam Speaker, I would suggest that is totally antithetical to the meaning of American constitutional democracy. Everyone should take a walk around Washington. You will see flags in the yards of all the people here, yards that we pass by every day when we come to Washington, and they say, ``D.C. 51.'' They want their statehood. Let's listen to the people of Washington. If you can't quite stomach that, then read the Republican Party platform itself, which calls for Puerto Rican statehood, and let's see if we can do it together. Let's bring in millions of disenfranchised people in America. Still, I get radio silence from my colleagues on that. Not a single one will opine about whether or not the people of Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and the previous question. The material previously referred to by Mr. Reschenthaler is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 330 At the end of the resolution, add the following: Sec. 8. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2321) to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a plan to respond to irregular migration surges at the border, to establish an irregular migration surge border response fund, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Homeland Security. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. When the committee rises and reports the bill back to the House with a recommendation that the bill do pass, the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill. Sec. 9. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 2321.

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

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues are invoking the Second Amendment quite promiscuously today, but they obviously haven't read any of the relevant Supreme Court authority because Justice Scalia, in District of Columbia v. Heller, explicitly upheld reasonable, commonsense regulations to guarantee that violent criminals don't get guns. So, everything that we are doing is perfectly in advance of, in pursuit of, Second Amendment rights that are exercised coextensively with the public safety and with the common good. Here is a regulation that we need, that we have known we have needed ever since a violent white supremacist killed nine African-American Christian worshippers at a Bible class in Charleston, South Carolina. He should have been denied a gun, but he got it because the background check search wasn't completed in 3 days. He got it automatically, although he shouldn't have had it, and nine people are dead because of it. We say, let's close that loophole. Just like with H.R. 8, let's make sure that the universal background check is universal. Mr. Speaker, 90 percent of the American people support it.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman very much for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this is reasonable, commonsense gun safety legislation contemplated by Justice Scalia, by the Supreme Court, under the Second Amendment of the Constitution. It is what America needs so that we don't have a rate of gun violence and gun deaths 25 times higher than everybody else in the industrialized world. Yet, some people are so under the spell of the NRA, a deeply corrupt organization that is ripping off money from loyal gun owners around the country, that they are unwilling to stand with the common good.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, Americans are 25 more times more likely to die from gun violence than people who live in other developed countries, and on that point our perpetually outraged and indignant colleagues have absolutely nothing to say. We lose 38,000 people a year, more than 100 people a day. From Newtown, Connecticut, to El Paso, Texas, gun violence is ripping the heart out of our social contract, making life for more Americans nasty, poor, solitary, brutish; in short, a Hobbesian state of war. H.R. 8 will close three gaping loopholes in the law; the gun shows loophole, the internet loophole, and the private sale loophole, cutting down precisely on the traffic in illegal guns, which our colleagues cite as the source of criminal gun violence. In opposing the American Rescue Plan, they voted against science. In opposing H.R. 1, they voted against democracy. And now in opposing H.R. 8, they are voting against public safety and the social contract itself. What a moral collapse for a once-great party.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the amendment proposes to knock out the heart of the Honest Ads Act, so the public won't know who is purchasing ads online. That is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. We need far greater transparency about who is polluting the airwaves and who is polluting the internet with propaganda and fake news. We should know who is paying for all of that. This used to be a very solid bipartisan commitment between Democrats and Republicans. Everybody agreed there should at least be disclosure of campaign spending. Now, they not only want to put out propaganda online, but they don't even want anybody to know who is paying for it. That is the opposite direction that we should be moving in America. We should be defending everybody's right to vote, everybody's right to participate against all of the schemes to undermine voting rights, and we should make sure that everybody knows who is putting money into the political system. I urge a ``no'' vote on that amendment.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, it is a great day for America when we are advancing the civil rights of all Americans, and that is what the Equality Act does. All of the free exercise constitutional arguments being advanced today-- The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. Will the gentleman please put his mask on.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, all of the constitutional arguments being advanced today by our colleagues have been decisively repudiated and rejected by their hero, Justice Antonin Scalia, in the 1990 decision Employment Division v. Smith, where Justice Scalia, for the Court, emphasized that there is no religious free exercise exemption from secular laws of universal application, including civil rights laws, including child labor laws, including child abuse laws. And every scoundrel in American history has tried to dress up his or her opposition to other people's civil rights in religious garb. We saw that in 1964, in the Heart of Atlanta Motel case and in the Ollie's Barbecue case, where motel owners, hotel owners, lunch counter owners came in and said: We have a religious free exercise right not to serve interracial groups or interracial couples. We don't want to allow an interracial couple--you get where I am going.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, smashing windows and beating police officers over the head with fire extinguishers, a bloodthirsty mob attacked the Capitol and invaded this Congress last Wednesday. They erected a gallows and repeatedly chanted: Hang Mike Pence. They stormed Speaker Pelosi's office yelling: Where is Nancy? They brandished the Confederate battle flag and occupied the Senate Chamber. They wounded dozens of people, hospitalized dozens of people, and killed five of our people. For 6 hours, they shut down the counting of electoral college votes--our sacred process under the Constitution for peaceful transfer of power in the United States. They may have been hunting for Pence and Pelosi to stage their coup, but every one of us in this room right now could have died. As Senator Lindsey Graham said: The mob could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all. And now the far right is calling for a return engagement from January 17 to January 20. They are asking the President to pardon the conspirators in last week's rampage as they prepare for a race war again next week. It is a bit much to be hearing that these people would not be trying to destroy our government and kill us if we just weren't so mean to them. Despite the floor leader's desperate effort to polarize this body and this Nation along party lines, it is the chair of the Republican Conference who best articulated what happened in a statement yesterday, and I recommend every American read this. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the elected chair of the Republican Conference, wrote that ``the President summoned this mob, assembled this mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcibly intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States.''

Mr. RASKIN. Ms. Cheney says that ``there has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.'' Read Ms. Cheney's statement. Let's come together and impeach the President for this high crime against the Republic. We don't have a minute to spare. He is a clear and present danger to the people.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman reasonably poses the question: Why are we doing this? We think that the President of the United States constitutes a clear and present danger to the Republic and to our people. For example, on the white supremacist websites that helped to build the President's mob, they are now calling for a return engagement on the days of January 19 and 20. They are calling again for an attack on the Capitol, and they are calling again for the State legislatures, now in 50 States, to be surrounded. What will the attitude be of the President of the United States? Will he give them aid and comfort? Will he wink at them? Will he send them positive tweets and messages, calling them patriots? Also, on extreme rightwing websites, they are calling for the President to pardon the organizers of the armed violent insurrection that took place in this body not even a week ago. What if the President decides to pardon them? We know this President is not living up to the most minimal duties of his office. That is why we are doing this, to protect the public. By the way, we are not telling the Vice President what he must do. We have no authority to do that. We are telling him what we think he should do and that the Congress will be with him because we know that he has come under extreme rightwing pressure on everything from the counting of the electoral college votes to his positions on a whole range of things to go along with Donald Trump. So, we are trying to counterbalance that attack on him from the right to say the people want to see a peaceful way through this. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H. Res. 21.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 38, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 21) calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes to begin. Mr. Speaker, we have experienced the trauma of a violent attack on this House of Representatives, on this Chamber, and on all of the people who work here. An armed, lawless, and enraged mob smashed windows, beat up and crushed Capitol Hill Police officers who cried out in agony; overcame and subdued law enforcement; killed or caused the deaths of at least five American citizens, including a heroic Capitol Hill Police officer, Brian Sicknick, and four other Americans; inflicted serious injuries on dozens of our police officers and other people, including 15 officers who had to be hospitalized. Chanting ``stop the steal'' and ``hang Mike Pence,'' they threatened the lives and safety of the three individuals in the line of succession to the President of the United States. They built a gallows right outside the Capitol. They screamed, ``Where is Nancy?'' They stormed the Speaker's office, and they occupied it. They stole government property. They trashed the place. They terrorized officers, staff, and Members. They brandished the Confederate battle flag in the Capitol of the United States, something that didn't even happen during the Civil War. They allowed hundreds or thousands of people to enter the Capitol without metal detectors or any kind of security screening at all, not only to desecrate the temple of democracy and to spit in the face of Congress but actually to interfere with the counting of electoral college votes in the 2020 Presidential election. They may have been looking for Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi, but every person in this room could have died. As a shaken Senator Lindsey Graham said, ``The mob could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all.'' Mr. Speaker, whether or not you believe the President's course of conduct in encouraging, building, summoning, assembling, and inflaming the mob--lighting the flame, as Congresswoman Liz Cheney put it in a very powerful and cogent statement this evening--whether you believe that that was a high crime and misdemeanor, an offense against the Republic, that is a question for another time. And to put my cards on the table, I think it was a crime against the Republic. But leaving that aside, I think every Member in this body should be able to agree that this President is not meeting the most minimal duties of office. He is not meeting the oath that he swore, to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He is not protecting and defending the democracy itself, the process of electing the President. He is not respecting the peaceful transfer of power. He is not taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. He is not protecting the Republic against mob insurrection, invasion, and hostility. He is not protecting the republican form of government for the people of the United States when he allowed this to happen.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Very quickly, the gentlewoman, whom I have not had the pleasure to meet yet, confuses disability and incapacity. Franklin D. Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. He had a disability, and he was one of our greatest Presidents. President Lincoln, according to historians, suffered from depression, but he was one of our greatest Presidents. Incapacity is different. Incapacity is demonstrated by President Trump's complete, total inability to conform his conduct to the rule of law and the Constitution. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the cancel culture of violent white supremacy tried to cancel out all of our lives last Wednesday. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).

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