Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the President has repeatedly claimed that the ballroom would actually be entirely funded by private sources. Leaving aside the legality of that proposition, now they are asking the American taxpayers for $1 billion for the ballroom when the cost of it would have been zero had he not gone ahead and bulldozed the White House without the permission or consent of Congress which has control over all Federal buildings and property. It is up to us, not the President, and yet he thinks that the White House is like a personal vacation home. He bulldozed it, and now they are asking us for $1 billion. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee for coming here to talk about this very serious issue. I am very glad he is moving to recommit so we can have some serious legislative investigation into that outrageous proposal. I want to link it to the bill from the gentleman from Arizona. That is because if you think about it, Mr. Speaker, neither of the agendas being proposed have anything to do with the national common good. The ballroom, the gilded ballroom for Donald Trump and his family and friends, has nothing to do with what is going to advance the well-being of the American people. Similarly, this bill is all about picking a fight with or retaliating against one monitor they are upset with about one case. They might be right or they might be wrong. It sounds to me like they are wrong, but, in any event, those merits have nothing to do with the rest of the country and what the rest of us are dealing with. However, on the Republican side of the aisle, now it is all about I want my thing; I want to get my thing before the whole ship goes down. We know Donald Trump's numbers are sinking like a stone across the country making him the most unpopular President in American history, so everybody wants to get a little piece of the action for whatever they can. No one is thinking about the public interest. Who is thinking about getting healthcare to all the American people? Who is thinking about lowering the cost of groceries for the American people? Who is thinking about getting housing to the American people so young people can afford a place to go live? None of it. The President said he was going to lower inflation on day one. Inflation is soaring. Now the cost of gasoline is up $1.50 across the country because of his illegal, unconstitutional war he has waged against us. They want us to be spending our time talking about one Federal monitor under the supervision of one Federal judge in Maricopa County, Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman really wants to save the taxpayers money, then why not encourage the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department actually to implement the reforms that have been required by the court for more than one decade and finally redeem itself from the shameful legacy of entrenched racial and ethnic discrimination conducted by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I have not heard one word in utterance of criticism of Sheriff Arpaio by the distinguished gentleman from Arizona. Is he here to say that Sheriff Arpaio did nothing wrong and that all of those court judgments are wrong and the court orders are wrong, that there never should have been a monitor in the first place? Or is he saying: Oh, well, yes, he made some egregious systemic structural errors, but actually the process was completed and everything is fine now, but the monitor doesn't see it and the court doesn't see it. In any event, why are we litigating this case from Phoenix, Arizona? That just makes no sense. Congress is not allowed to adjudicate cases. We govern the interests of the whole country. The gentleman keeps going back to the Attorney General's statement. This is the first time I ever heard him refer in any kind of positive way to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Great. Terrific. Does Attorney General Garland support this legislation? He hasn't mentioned it to me. I haven't heard anything from him about it. Did the Deputy Attorney General who worked on their report endorse this legislation? I haven't heard anything about it. Ms. Gupta didn't get in touch with me. Did they go and testify out in Arizona? Or did they just want to use that as a fig leaf for this effort to go and get this monitor that they don't like? Mr. Speaker, that is not serious legislative policy. That is kind of like a drive-by hit on Congress on your way out, like: Oh, I am going to go after this one guy. We can't govern on that basis. How come there is no U.S. Senator who is introducing this legislation targeted at Maricopa County? If it is all about that one case, why don't we tell the people we know there--and I don't know anybody there--but why don't we tell the people we know there to comply with the law? I think that the average is around 5 years for a court monitor. Some of them have gone 15 or 20 when you have a real case of obstructionism, defiance, and intransigence. This one has gone on for more than a decade, which doesn't speak well for what is happening in that office. In any event, most of the monitors are gone within several years because compliance is accomplished. The gentleman doesn't seem to recognize that the whole purpose of having a monitor is to see that the government will comply with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rights of the people. That is what is at stake here. Are we going to just stampede in there and squash one monitor at the behest of one Congressman and one hearing taking place in one city without any serious legislative analysis of what is going on? I doubt very seriously the House of Representatives will do that. I know the Senate will not do that. This seems to me to be a completely hopeless exercise in vain and a complete distraction from the real issues of the country, like the illegal, unconstitutional war Donald Trump has unleashed in the world, costing us more than a billion dollars a day; like the billion dollars they want from us now for the gilded ballroom of his dreams and visions; like the ruinous effects of their illegal, unconstitutional tariffs on American businesses, small businesses, and consumers across the country; and their continuing coverup of the Epstein files and their refusal to deal seriously with that situation. They want us to talk about Maricopa County. No, thanks, Mr. Speaker. No, I am not interested in that. I don't think there is going to be anybody voting for this silly legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose and to deplore this partisan resolution. As you just heard, H. Con. Res. 96 is another tiresome and loathsome exercise in partisan MAGA polemics. Unlike H. Res. 1252, which was honestly written to honor law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, and which received an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the House just a few hours ago, this nonbinding rhetorical resolution desecrates the solemnity and abandons the nonpartisanship of Police Week by scrawling a bunch of false and inflammatory anti-Democratic and pro-Trump graffiti on what has always been, until now, a simple nonpartisan resolution expressing the national consensus supporting law enforcement. It is not difficult to write these resolutions in a way that garners widespread bipartisan support. Last year, Congress passed H. Con. Res. 30, a bipartisan resolution expressing our mutual common support for local law enforcement. The year before that, together we passed H. Res. 1213, condemning calls to defund the police and violence against law enforcement officers. We have always strived for bipartisanship in these resolutions on Police Week to show that the whole community is together. But just as 21 Republicans voted against the Congressional Gold Medal for officers who defended this Capitol and this Chamber against rioters and insurrectionists on January 6, 2021, now, the Republicans bring forward a resolution designed not to unify but to divide. The resolution before us invites us to endorse a tired, false, cliche-ridden partisan claim about defunding the police when, in fact, it is Democrats who have repeatedly promoted robust funding for law enforcement, while congressional Republicans, the Trump administration, and Elon Musk have cut funding for law enforcement and public safety programs that actually work as they slashed $500 million from State and local crime-fighting and victim assistance grants and programs under the DOGE and Elon Musk's crusade against the Federal Government. The resolution also invites us to sign on to the demonstrably false claim that the Trump administration's focus on restoring law and order has contributed to a notable decline in homicide rates. The significant decline in violent crime in major cities over the past couple of years has nothing to do with the Trump Presidency as the resolution asserts and everything to do with the Democrats they denounce and the Biden Presidency's investment in State and local law enforcement. In fact, homicides skyrocketed during the first Trump administration, and the historic nationwide decrease in violent crime began during the Biden administration and was the result of Democratic-led investments in public safety through both the American Rescue Plan, which House Republicans unanimously opposed, and the historic Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Thanks to these sweeping investments in public safety and our common security, cities leveraged Federal funds and innovation to pursue a variety of effective programs to combat violent crime, with some cities recording the lowest murder rate since the 1960s, or even before that. Madam Speaker, instead of restoring law and order, as the resolution claims, the current administration has systematically undermined law enforcement and jeopardized public safety without any objections from the party that claims to back the blue. The administration canceled millions in critical grant funding that supported State and local law enforcement. It reassigned more than 25,000 Federal agents tasked with fighting organized crime, terrorism, and human trafficking away from their missions in order to do immigration roundups. The administration invaded American cities with a lawless paramilitary force, unleashing chaos and deadly violence on U.S. citizens, like Renee Good and Alex Pretti, under the pretense of fighting the worst of the worst. The administration stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, announced that in its first week in office. It fired dozens of experienced Justice Department lawyers and FBI agents just because they participated in the largest criminal investigation and prosecution in American history against the people who attacked this Chamber and the Capitol and the Congress and the Vice President on January 6, 2021. This administration has also pardoned dozens of white-collar criminals and fraudsters, including the former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, an international narcotrafficker who brought 800,000 pounds of cocaine into America, saying he would shove it up the noses of the gringos, and he was going off to jail for decades when President Trump decided to pardon him for reasons unknown. He has released people from prison from January 6 who went on to commit serious new crimes against our people, such as Mr. Johnson who got out because of his Trump pardon and went on and sexually assaulted two 12-year-old children and now has been sentenced to life in prison because of that. Those kids' lives have been irrevocably altered by the mass pardon of all of these people that included armed robbers, violent felons, domestic abusers, you name it, and a lot of them are back at it right now. Madam Speaker, the administration has repeatedly threatened to cut off funding for State and local law enforcement in numerous jurisdictions and attempted to commandeer State and local police officers and resources to do the Federal Government's job at State and local expense. All of this compromises public safety and is an insult to the officers who work to keep us safe. Republicans in Congress have done nothing to put the brakes on Donald Trump's weak-on-crime agenda, and we were going to give him a chance. The fact that he has 34 Federal criminal counts that he is convicted of himself doesn't mean he had to be soft on crime, but he is soft on crime, and we are not going to help the Republicans pull the wool over America's eyes. We are not going to do that to salvage their leader who is sinking like a stone in public opinion polls for his illegal tariffs, his unconstitutional war, his soaring inflation, and runaway corruption throughout the government. Donald Trump has a staph infection, and America can see it every day. House Republican appropriators recently rejected the Trump administration's proposal to increase ATF's budget by 4 percent and agent head count from 2,400 to 3,000 agents in the coming fiscal year. Instead, they want to cut ATF's budget by $285 million, which would leave ATF with even fewer resources to support State and local police as they work to prevent and investigate and prosecute gun crimes. Meaningless polemics against leftist activists and progressive politicians have no place in a resolution purportedly meant to honor law enforcement. This is the first time that any majority has fallen into the political trap, but they can't help themselves because they are so desperate because of the plummeting poll numbers of Donald Trump and his administration. Now that you raise it, it is worth noting that Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have actually voted to defund the police in the 119th Congress. H.R. 7640, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act of 2026, would strip Federal funding from jurisdictions that have laws placing any limits on State and local law enforcement officers' involvement in Federal immigration matters despite the fact that immigration enforcement is the job of the Federal Government and not an unfunded mandate that can be put on the States and cities and localities. All of this undermines public safety. I cannot support this resolution, which lies about Republicans and this administration's real record on crime and public safety. The observance of National Police Week and Peace Officers Memorial Day marks a time of solemn remembrance when our Nation should come together to honor the courage, sacrifice, and dedication of our law enforcement officers and personnel, and promote awareness of their service to our communities. Let's stand united and reject this shameful effort to inject divisive partisan politics into this resolution and this week. If you want something that can bring us together, please support the bill that I introduced today to create a fund to compensate the law enforcement officers who defended the Republic, this Capitol, the Congress, the Vice President against that violent attack on January 6, 2021. They continue to suffer the physical, medical, psychological effects of that atrocious attack. The Trump administration wrote a check for nearly $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt despite the fact that there were two different investigations which determined that the police had acted reasonably, lawfully, and honorably. Yet, they just gave them a check for $5 million. What do the families of the officers who defended our lives get? So far they have done nothing. We are introducing legislation to make that happen, and I hope everybody in this body who really believes that law enforcement should be stood by and should be defended in their work will get with us on this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), who is the ranking member of the Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The worst Congress in modern American history cannot even write a resolution praising law enforcement that maintains bipartisan support-- something that every other Congress, Democratic or Republican, has been able to do--because they are so desperate to cover up their miserable record. The Trump administration has done nothing more to improve public safety than it has done to lower the ruinous inflation they unleashed on us with their illegal tariffs or to open up the Strait of Hormuz, which was closed only because of the illegal war Trump has already spent $29 billion of our money on. Well, our colleagues have some very fine rhetoric about how much they love public safety. So why don't we look at their fiscal year 2027 budget proposal. They won't fess up to the fact that they just slashed $500 million out of local and State crime fighting and victim assistance grants, but let's talk about the future. Well, what does their fiscal year 2027 budget proposal say? It proposes significant funding cuts for grant programs under the Office on Violence Against Women, including a $14 million cut to transitional housing grants and a $15 million cut to legal assistance grants to help survivors and their children. They want to cut 62.1 percent, nearly a half a billion dollars from the discretionary budget request for COPS, which would translate into complete elimination of the anti-methamphetamine task forces, the anti- heroin task forces, the Community Policing Development Project, de- escalation training, and the dramatic reduction in STOP School Violence, and other crime-fighting projects. So you are talking about defunding the police and defunding criminal justice. That is what their proposal is for next year. They want to cut millions of dollars from successful programs to fund the Office on Violence Against Women, of course. For example, they want to cut millions from the Financial Assistance to Victims Program. They want to cut from consolidated youth-oriented programming, access to sexual assault nurse exams $12 million and on and on. That is their budget. They want to cut $538 million from the Byrne Discretionary Community Project Grants in the Department of Justice budget. They want to eliminate the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative whose great successes they want to take credit for. They want to cut $50 million from that. They want to cut $17 million in grants from the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes community policing program. And it goes on and on. You don't have to go and make up a bunch of mirages and ghosts about defunding the police. That is in their budget for next year. They want to dismantle one criminal justice program after another. But of course, they want to increase the military budget to $1.5 trillion, which they all leapt up to support even before hearing about what specific military projects and arms projects were contained in it. They want $1.5 trillion for that budget as they continue to drive our budget deficit up to the heavens. They have added already more than $3.5 trillion to the debt. So it is fiscally irresponsible, and it is irresponsible from the standpoint of public safety. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I reserved the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I am prepared to keep going. I am not afraid to keep the debate going. Whatever the gentleman pleases.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, which they propose to slash and essentially dismantle, is responsible for advancing the practice of community policing at the State, local, territorial, and Tribal levels. The COPS Office awards grants to hire community policing professionals, that is something that they propose to gut. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close if the gentleman is prepared to close. He seems to be in a hurry. Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Look, it is unfortunate that we have reached this place, Madam Speaker. Every prior Congress has been able to honor the police on Law Enforcement Week. Yet, they insisted on scribbling polemical, partisan graffiti, attacking Democrats and Progressives and so on, using a nonbinding ceremonial resolution to try to pick a political fight, which is not very wise given their miserable record in terms of crime fighting. One of the first things they did was they said they were no longer going to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Then they gutted anti-terrorism and counterintelligence programs in the Department of Justice. They pardoned 1,600 or 1,500 Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Klan members, violent rioters, and insurrectionists from January 6. Even his own Vice President urged him--or said he supposed the President was not going to pardon those who had committed violence, but he pardoned everybody. Prior to Donald Trump, you know, the way the Presidents did it was there was a pardon office in the Department of Justice, and they would look at very specific requests and applications that came in for a pardon, and they would try to judge whether the person was truly reformed, truly rehabilitated. Every President up until Trump insisted that they actually pay off their fines and pay restitution to their victims. But no, not President Trump. He said: I am going to take all of them together. I am going to pardon them en masse, 1,600 of them. Some of them were armed robbers, domestic felons, violent assaulters. Some maybe it was a first offense, but they were all mixed in together, and then they got their pardon, and they were forgiven for all of their fines and all of the restitution that they owed to their victims. Then the President continued that rampage with all of the white- collar criminals and fraudsters and drug dealers he pardoned. Some of them owed tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. It was all forgiven. That money was, therefore, transferred from the victims of these crimes right back to the criminals. This is the person that they want to praise as being tough on crime and such a great law-and- order President. We were willing to look--aside from the fact that he had 34 criminal convictions of his own and was an adjudicated sexual assailant under the civil law of New York--and say maybe he will actually invest in fighting crime. But no, it has been quite the opposite. He has been doing everything in his power to undermine criminal law enforcement. Now they want to take credit for what the mayors and Governors have been doing for several years now, which is causing a dramatic decrease in crime by investing in all of the programs that they have pulled the plug on. They just slashed more than $500 million from Department of Justice grants going out to the States and the cities. You want to look for weak on crime? You want to look for defunding the police? Look no further. You found it in the Trump administration. Elon Musk and DOGE came right over to the Department of Justice and slashed $500 million from program moneys that were appropriated by Congress and programmed by the Department of Justice, and they said: Stop the delivery of this money. We are going to cut off these grants. The reason they don't say anything about it is because they know it is true. We heard all about it in the Judiciary Committee. That is the real track record. Now we see in their budget request for next year they want to continue to ravage the crime-fighting budget of the country. Why did President Trump pardon the former President of Honduras who brought 400 tons of cocaine into America? Why? He brought in 800,000 pounds of cocaine. He said: We are going to shove it up the nostrils of the gringos. That is what he said. And Donald Trump pardoned him, saving him from decades in Federal prison. How come they are not talking about that? We wouldn't have brought any of it up if they had just come forward with the same consensus, bipartisan resolution that we have always had. But no, they wanted to pick a partisan fight. Well, they picked the wrong people, because we know what has actually been happening. We know who is standing strong for law and order and who is bringing us down into the mud of lawlessness and authoritarianism in the country. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to my colleague for a moment if he wants to respond about the pardon of the former President of Honduras, whether that is something that our colleagues on that side of the aisle support or not. I don't know if he is interested in responding to that.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I was just offering to yield if he wanted to respond to that question, Madam Speaker.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I reclaim my time. We consider the safety of the people to be the highest law that there is, along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, this administration has been trampling all of it. We saw what happened in Minneapolis where we had U.S. citizens shot down at pointblank range in broad daylight for exercising their First Amendment rights, the rights contained in the First Amendment of our Constitution, shot down in cold blood. Then we saw their then-Attorney General, Ms. Bondi, come out and say that these people were engaged in acts of terror and had been threatening people, which was a lie, and she refused the opportunity to apologize for what she had done. There will be a real investigation. There will be a real investigation of those homicides. There were only, up to that point, three homicides, three murders that took place in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, up until that point of the year, and two of them were committed by Federal agents, two of the three. Well, that is a pretty powerful statement about the law-and-order administration that they want to praise in this completely partisan resolution that they want to push through the House of Representatives today. So the Constitution is under attack, right? They promulgate executive orders telling thousands of lawyers at different law firms they cannot enter Federal buildings, including Federal courthouses, which makes it difficult to practice law. They have used their power of the Federal Communications Commission to force them to settle completely bogus, frivolous lawsuits that the President has brought against media companies. Then they have installed their minders, their little spies, into TV networks, like something out of Putin's Russia or Orban's Hungary. They have been systematically undermining the free press in the country. They are attacking the Constitution, and they are attacking the Bill of Rights. It is so bad that even their stacked-and-packed, gerrymandered Supreme Court has had to strike them down for things like their illegal, unconstitutional tariffs, their global trade war against the world, which has been ruinous for our economy, compounded only by his illegal, constitutional war on Iran where he usurped the power of Congress to declare war. James Madison said it had to be the Representatives of the people to declare war, not a President, not a Vice President, not Tulsi Gabbard or their leaky chat group. No, it has got to be the Representatives of the people, because the kings were constantly plunging their people into wars of conceit and vanity and imperial plunder. They have created lawlessness from the highest levels of the government all the way down to the streets, where they are pulling the plug on Federal grants to help State and local governments fight crime, while they pardon narcotraffickers, white-collar fraudsters, people scamming American citizens. So we are going to have to try to restore real law and order in the country, and that begins at the top. That begins with the Presidency, and it begins with everybody who is in government. I wish that we could just go ahead and honor law enforcement without all of the partisan graffiti they have scrawled all over the resolution. We would show just as before, you have an overwhelming vote when you do it the right way, and we honor the people who have served us. I invite our friends to join us in honoring and standing by the men and women who defended us on January 6. One hundred fifty of them were wounded, injured, hospitalized, disfigured, and disabled. Some of them were disabled and forced out of police work because of the injuries inflicted by the mob that came here. They have given nearly $5 million to Ashley Babbitt's family, despite the fact that two different investigations showed that the police had acted reasonably and lawfully in what they did. How about millions of dollars to the families of the police officers who lost their lives as a result of that violence? Let's show for real that we are committed to law enforcement by standing by the police officers who defend us every single day. 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 thank Mr. Knott for those thoughtful remarks. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the author of the resolution.

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

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. President Washington, in the summer of 1790, penned a letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. In it, he explained the key advantage that would set our new Republic apart from all prior nations. Here in the United States, he assured the Jewish community: ``All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.'' Not liberty for some, but liberty for all. To secure equal liberty, the President explained, we would establish and maintain a government that ``gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.'' We would require ``only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.'' That commitment to reciprocal basic decency and responsibility for everyone who lives here is sewn into the fabric of the American political culture. The United States doesn't always live up to that promise, Mr. Speaker. All too often, there have been efforts to privilege some Americans over others, to create a hierarchy, to bully particular American communities because of their religion, their ethnicity, their skin color, or their national origin, for cynical and political gain. Certainly, in the Jewish community, we know what it means to be treated sometimes as a scapegoat. We see that incidents of anti- Semitism across America remain at record highs today. We see an alarming rise in physical assaults motivated by anti-Semitism, 203 last year alone. We know that three people were killed in anti-Semitic attacks last year, including two right here at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. We know from the struggles of our history that we all must work together to counter racism and anti-Semitism which form the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy. We cannot pretend that systematic hatred and discrimination leaves anybody unaffected in the country. In Congress, we have an obligation to confront bias and discrimination head-on, to foster what President Washington called ``an enlarged and liberal policy,'' one that moves our country from the intolerance of white supremacy to the tolerance and universal liberties that he described in that letter to the congregation in Newport. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution which observes ``one of the most effective ways to combat anti-Semitism and hate is through education and awareness of the contributions Jewish Americans have made to the United States through the arts, entertainment, science and technology, military, government, business, culinary traditions, and other fields.'' I thank the gentlewoman from Florida, again, for her leadership on this project. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, President Washington closed that letter to the congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, this way. He said: ``May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabits; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.'' I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for her resolution. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his thoughtful remarks, and I encourage all my colleagues to vote for this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today also in strong support of this resolution, which recognizes the sacrifices made by law enforcement officers across America every day and honors the bravery of those who have fallen in the line of duty and given the rest of us the last full measure of their devotion. These too often unsung heroes have our eternal gratitude, and we must offer our unwavering support to their families and loved ones. Mr. Speaker, 111 officers died in the line of duty last year, and 30 more have fallen already in 2026. They leave behind wives and husbands, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and partners and colleagues to remember them, and we must remember them too. This year 363 names will be added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial here in D.C., including two officers from Maryland. I would like to mention Sergeant Brenda J. Lowery of the Cecil County Sheriff's Office died suddenly on June 4, 2024, after working the night shift at the Cecil County Detention Center. Those who knew her recalled how, throughout her nearly two decades of service, she managed to make a positive impact in the lives of not only her fellow deputies, but all those whom she interacted with each day. A dedicated servant to her community and country, Sergeant Lowery, like many officers, was also a military veteran, a veteran of the United States Air Force. She never stopped serving her country and her community. Former Chief Edward E. Ivey, Jr., of the Fairmount Heights Police Department in Prince George's County has been described by colleagues as a natural leader and a pillar of his community that he served for 28 years. Chief Ivey passed away after an occupational illness on June 14, 2022. He was posthumously honored by the Chiefs of Police Association of Prince George's County with their Hall of Fame Award. America's law enforcement officers set out every single day to protect our people. They protect our neighborhoods, our loved ones, our businesses, our schools, our property, and even this building and the people who work within it when called upon to do so. We recognize that our sworn officers do not make these sacrifices alone. Every day, their families live with the knowledge that their loved one may not return home after the shift. These families, too, bear the heavy burdens of their profession, and we honor them today, as well. Today, I ask all of our colleagues to join us in honoring all the men and women who took the oath, dedicating their lives to our communities with honor, duty, and courage and who have fallen in the line of duty. We remain committed to remembering them and honoring them. They will not be forgotten. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I will close with this. The observance of National Police Week and Peace Officers Memorial Day marks a time of solemn remembrance when our Nation comes together to honor the courage, the sacrifice, and the dedication of the noble law enforcement officers and personnel all across the country and right here in Washington, D.C., and on the Capitol itself who promote our safety and our security. Let us rededicate ourselves to awareness of their service to our communities and our country. Mr. Speaker, I thank the sponsors of this resolution for upholding and honoring the spirit of this moment. I thank my friend from North Carolina for his remarks. I ask all colleagues to support H. Res. 1252, and 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 myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2853, the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act. This bipartisan legislation will address the crisis of organized interstate criminal theft schemes that are costing the retail sector and consumers tens of billions of dollars a year but are often too complex for State law enforcement and prosecutors to address on their own. In recent years, retailers have sounded the alarm about this crisis, expressing urgent concern that organized retail crime has become a significant threat both to public safety and to the viability of a retail sector already hard-hit by online commerce--threatening the viability of businesses of all sizes, from cargo brokers, shippers, big box stores, and online marketplaces to small, family-owned ma-and-pa retailers. This is a problem that Members of Congress are hearing about all the time from our constituents. When we talk about the problem, we are talking about serious criminal enterprises that operate in a coordinated manner to commit large-scale theft of merchandise for resale or to defraud retailers and convert the proceeds directly into cash or cryptocurrency. This legislation is not aimed at petty shoplifters or small, one-off episodes of theft. We are talking about a multibillion-dollar criminal industry that grows, evolves, and adapts rapidly to the latest technology, security improvements, and modified business practices. These kinds of operations are centrally coordinated, enabled by technology, and very difficult to stop by local police forces. While organized retail theft endangers the physical safety of retail workers in every sector, this kind of crime hits small businesses especially hard. Family-owned businesses simply cannot afford to replace lost inventory, increase security, make unplanned repairs, and pay the higher insurance premiums that are associated with this criminal epidemic. Small businesses do not have the funds set aside to recruit new employees to replace those who quit because they fear for their safety. Organized retail crime is centralized and sophisticated. Combating it requires a coordinated Federal law enforcement response. This legislation is a targeted, bipartisan effort to address organized, multi-State criminal networks. It is designed to improve coordination among existing partners, not to expand Federal authority beyond its current legislative scope. To be clear, let's go through exactly what CORCA does. It creates an organized retail and supply chain coordination center to help local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies across America better analyze the problem and formulate more targeted and effective solutions. The information-sharing provisions are intended to help police forces work together, along with private-sector entities, to prosecute and disrupt the large criminal enterprises that are perpetrating networks of organized retail crime. The law also authorizes prosecutors to aggregate thefts over a 12- month period to meet the $5,000 minimum threshold for Federal jurisdiction over certain crimes. It fixes some loopholes in money laundering statutes so that those using gift cards to launder the proceeds of their organized retail crime can no longer dodge money laundering charges. Finally, the bill directs DHS and DOJ to review and make recommendations to Congress for strengthening grant programs for training and technical assistance. Importantly, this legislation, which sunsets after 7 years unless it is extended, gives the Federal Government no new authorities. These new activities will take place entirely within existing legal frameworks. It leverages the strengths of local, State, and Federal law enforcement to foster a coordinated response across State lines and, indeed, international borders. In an era in which the Department of Homeland Security often seems to have lost its way completely, this bill is intended to focus its agents on a staggeringly serious problem that demands their focused attention and expertise. Some of my colleagues have raised concerns that the $5,000 threshold in this bill would trigger the involvement of the DOJ in what could be a local shoplifting case. In practice, however, longstanding DOJ policy advises Federal prosecutors to prioritize cases with much higher dollar amounts, leaving most retail theft cases to be charged by State authorities, which cannot effectively pursue cases across State lines. This policy disparity creates an enforcement gap that organized retail theft rings have learned to exploit. It is precisely this reason that gives rise to this legislation. H.R. 2853 is focused on organized criminal enterprises engaged in cargo theft, gift card fraud, and other large-scale retail theft. These are not isolated incidents or opportunistic low-level offenses. They involve structured networks that move goods and money across jurisdictions, operating with a level of coordination that makes them difficult to detect and prosecute. H.R. 2853 is a bipartisan effort to address a nationwide problem that indeed requires coordination across agencies, different levels of government, and private industry sectors. By strengthening information- sharing and aligning existing resources, this bill will help law enforcement agencies at every level of government more effectively identify, disrupt, and prosecute coordinated criminal enterprises. Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Lee), who represents the Third District of Nevada and has been such a great champion for this legislation and has educated a lot of the Congress about it, along with her colleague (Ms. Titus), who represents the First District.