Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I really enjoy serving with him on the Rules Committee because he is always so cheerful and puts such a good face on everything, and heaven knows we can use that in the world. But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, and my colleague knows it, that by taking away the funding for the healthcare act, you are killing the healthcare act. That means that people would go back to not having preexisting conditions covered. That means that women in eight States and the District of Columbia would face the fact that their insurance companies consider domestic violence to be a preexisting condition, which translates out, if you are beaten up once, maybe they will cover you. The second time, it is obviously your fault. You have that propensity. We can't go back to the rising cost of health care with so many Americans using the most expensive kind of health care in the world, the emergency room. We are told that if this were to pass, 13 million Americans would lose their health care. But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, this is not going to pass, and we know that. As a matter of fact, I find myself saying over and over again the very same things. I remember saying this is the 35th vote, this is the 40th vote. This, Mr. Speaker, is the 61st vote, using tax money and wasting time, to take health care away from people. Now, I have asked many, many times in the Rules Committee: What is this great urge to prohibit people from having access to health care? The best I can come up with is it is not particularly that they don't care about those people, but they want to do something to upset the President. There was a good deal of talk yesterday that, if we could add a few amendments on here, it would really cause him grief. It is not going to cause him any grief. If this should pass, if the Senate should pass it, which is in control of Republicans--and, you know, if you complain about not passing the bill, take it up with them--what we are going to be doing is, if it gets to the President, he is going to veto it, and you know very good and well that we don't have the votes here to override. So we are wasting time. We are just wasting time and wasting money. I don't know how many millions of dollars of tax money it has taken with these 61 bills, but then they throw in a little something else here. They say: Let's defund Planned Parenthood for 1 year. Why? I don't know. Three committees in the House of Representatives are studying Planned Parenthood, and we have got to look forward to one of those other new select committees which will go over the same thing over and over again and come up with the conclusion that Congressman Chaffetz came up with after they grilled the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, for 5 hours, that there was nothing there, that they broke no law. I don't know why the American public is not outraged over the fact that none of their business is taken care of, but over and over and over again we talk about taking health care away from people. One in five American women and a lot of men have used Planned Parenthood and do today. And then you add to that the 13 million people that will lose their health care if this should become law, 3 million of them children. Now, what should we be doing? Well, how about the Export-Import Bank. It doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime, puts money back into the Treasury. It allows small companies in the United States to be able to afford to export their goods to other countries. The loss of that bank has already received from both General Electric and Boeing words that they are going to take jobs out of the United States because we don't have it. There is no earthly reason not to have it. As I said, it doesn't cost us anything. It makes us money. It is just that for some Members of Congress they just don't like it. Now, this is the same majority that has produced no highway bill. We really are on a road to nowhere. For the first time that I have been in Congress--a highway bill was always something everybody joined. It was always bipartisan. But we have got roads and bridges crumbling. We have no high-speed rail. Airports are overcrowded. Everybody needs help. But we are working here to do something about the healthcare bill that is already working and Planned Parenthood. Now, this is the same majority that brought us the 7 legislative days away from risking the full faith and credit of the United States. What that means is that we are refusing--the majority is--to bring up a bill here to pay the debt that they have already incurred. It is the Congress that spends the money, and now they decided they don't want to pay for it. So they are putting that off. We have heard talks that tomorrow we are supposed to have a bill, but we all know--because we all hear everything that is going on--that there are only 170 votes for that bill, which won't pass it. So we may not see it. So what we are going to do today is give everybody in the House of Representatives an opportunity to protect the full faith and credit of the United States and not risk another downgrade of our credit rating. To downgrade the credit rating of the United States was something that all previous Congresses felt was an impossible thing for them to allow. But while this is all festering out there and nothing is being done about it, we are hurling toward another shutdown in mid-December. So once again we find ourselves: Let's take away that health care. Let's shut down that thing over there. But let's not deal with the issues that we have been sent here, the things that we have been elected to do. And one of those has to be to protect the full faith and credit of the United States of America, which has always been done and was a responsibility of all previous Congresses. Now, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the reconciliation bill before us will take health care away from 16 million people, 3 million children, and I might add most of them didn't have any health care at all before the ACA was passed. As I said, it would also defund Planned Parenthood and endanger the health of men and women across the country. If I haven't said it enough, again, this defunds Planned Parenthood. A scant 3 weeks ago we stood on the floor as the House majority threatened to shut down the government over the funding for Planned Parenthood. The American public gave a very resounding message to Congress: Don't do it. In fact, nearly seven in ten Americans oppose a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding, according to a Quinnipiac poll. With this 61st vote to dismantle the ACA--and make no mistake about it. It doesn't say in there we are going to kill this thing. We are just going to take the money away from it. And if you are smart enough to be a Member of Congress of the United States, you know that, if you take the money away from it, you have killed that bill. We all understand that. But as the majority continues to beat their head up against the brick wall of health care, the American people get the headache. This budget reconciliation bill before us does two things. One, it takes health care away from, as I said, 16 million Americans. Two, it attacks women's health by defunding Planned Parenthood. I believe that governing this body is a serious job with serious consequences. The brinkmanship that this majority continues to display is dangerous to our economy and unsettling to our Nation. The last time the majority shut down the government over the debt limit, it took $24 billion out of this economy. The consequences of this kind of brinkmanship are real. They are not imagined. We have been through it once. Why in the world would we self- inflict that wound on ourselves again? We should not be pushed to the edge over and over again. We should be planning what we need to do, follow regular order. My dear colleague Mr. Woodall talked about how wonderfully well Democrats and Republicans work together. I don't know where that is. I know that the chair of the Benghazi Committee kept talking about he had 7 members. There are actually 12 on there. But it just demonstrated again that the 5 Democrats on there did not signify with them. We need to focus on the urgent needs of the Nation, not manufactured crises that we are insisting on creating. To address the real issues, we have got a plan to allow us to pay the bills that this Congress has incurred and to protect the full faith and credit of the United States. We always call for this on rules. We do something called the previous question, which everybody sort of glides over. This today, what we are doing--when the previous question on this rule vote is called, I hope that every Member who wants to do something about the debt limit and the full faith and credit of the United States will vote ``no'' so that our side can bring this up and give everybody an opportunity to go home for a weekend without worrying about whether this is going away. By the time we get back here next week, there will be even fewer legislative days to deal with it. But our troops, national security, the whole Federal Government, and most of the people in the United States are very much concerned with what will happen if it shuts down. Let's relieve us of that burden and vote today to deal with the debt limit. I invite all Members to vote for the Democrats' clean, simple bill. It doesn't do anything about taking away regulations from the government, nothing. It simply deals with the most important matter at hand at this point, and that is the full faith and credit of the United States. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the budget reconciliation bill avoids the real problems before us, including the debt limit, the Export-Import Bank, a highway bill, a looming shutdown, and more. Instead of addressing the urgent needs of the Nation, the bill doubles down on attacking women's health and marks the 61st time that the House majority has voted to repeal, to defund, or to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Speaker, let's try to salvage something from the money we have spent on this hour here at a time that we have literally wasted again, for the 61st time. Let's salvage something from it by voting ``no'' on the previous question. We can actually accomplish something then. If the previous question is defeated, we will be able to vote to take care of the issue of debt limit, the full faith and credit of the United States of America. A simple vote ``no'' allows us to bring that up, vote for that, go home this weekend not having to be chewing everybody's nails and then everybody in the country wonders what in heck is going to be going on here. Why don't we for a change here on this day, on this Thursday, do something positive, do something that needs doing, do something we know sooner or later we will do. Do it today on a clean bill, no additions of any kind, just to do it. It is an opportunity that I certainly hope people will take advantage of. I urge them to do that. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' so that we can vote ``yes'' on a vote to deal with the debt limit issue and a ``no'' vote on the rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the gentlewoman yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, this is a debate I seem to have had before. I was here for the NAFTA debate. Congressional districts throughout this country, including my own of Rochester, New York, will find it very difficult to survive another trade deal that sends our jobs overseas to countries that ignore human rights violations and undermine our laws in public health here at home. During my time in Congress, I have never seen a trade agreement that the United States participated in that benefited either the American manufacturer or the American worker, and everything I know about Trans- Pacific Partnership suggests it will be more of the same. Despite a bipartisan push by 158 Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives, the trade deal announced this week will do nothing to address the largest trade barrier our manufacturers face, which is currency manipulation. As with past trade deals, a side agreement in the TPP related to currency manipulation is window dressing that is unlikely to be enforced at all, as most of the NAFTA side agreements were not, and will do little to stem the flow of American jobs overseas. As with past trade deals, this will force American manufacturers to compete with foreign companies that receive unfair advantages from their governments. For this reason, Ford Motor Company has come out in opposition to this trade agreement. The TPP has been negotiated under a cloud of secrecy--by the way, they all are--by multinational conglomerates, and we know from the United States, the financial services industry and the pharmaceutical companies--both have only one priority, their bottom line--were very important in those negotiations. Now that an agreement has been reached, the negotiators will no longer be able to keep the contents of the bad trade deal hidden from the public. As you know, Mr. Speaker, were any of us to look at the trade bill that they did make available over here, we were not able to take a pencil or paper with us. We had to have somebody with security clearance go with us--our own staff could not go--and we could not speak about it. That is some strange idea, I think, of democracy. I have been in conversations with parliamentarians from Australia and from Canada who have had the very same problem. As a matter of fact, in Australia, if any of the parliamentarians wanted to see the trade bill, they had to sign a paper they would not discuss it for 4 years. For three of the greatest economies and democracies in this trade agreement--the United States, Canada, and Australia--to allow their parliamentarians to be put into that kind of restraint is one of the most egregious parts of these trade agreements. Now that we will be able, since it has been signed, to look at it, negotiators are going to have a lot of explaining to do. Because as Americans learn more in the coming weeks and months about how this agreement will impact their day-to-day lives with things like unsafe food imports--we are pretty certain about that because we already turned around a great number, tons of seafood coming in; 98 percent of the seafood that we eat is imported, and about 2 to 3 percent of it is inspected--the momentum of a bad trade deal will continue to grow. Let me tell you why we, the Canadians, the Australians, the European Union, and the United Nations are upset about this. There is a thing called the investor-state dispute settlement, and it is onerous. It gives to three corporate lawyers the right to settle disputes. Any investor-state in this agreement can bring a case against any of the other countries in the agreement if they think that a law or a practice in that country affects their bottom line. We know that everybody is worried about that here because one committee of the House, just in talking about it, did away with country-of-origin labeling. So, as I have pointed out, both the United Nations and the European Union have done papers on the fact that this is a very bad way to run anything, to let three corporate lawyers make that decision; but we are going to be stuck with that, unfortunately, unless we can kill the bill. What is even more abhorrent is that some of our trading partners, Malaysia--Malaysia has the worst human rights record on the face of the Earth. We know that. The State Department has always given them a very low grade. They have slave labor. We know that they do sex trafficking, and they just recently took the Prime Minister off on some kind of charges. There is no reason in the world that we would include them in a trade agreement. Then there is also Brunei, which practices sharia law. These two countries, under the investor-state dispute settlement, can make sure that our laws do not interfere with their making a profit. We are better people than that, Mr. Speaker. We are going to be looking at this very closely. It is really not a trade deal. In my view, it is a race to the bottom.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House and offer the resolution previously noticed.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, creating a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood is a journey with no end, a solution in search of a problem. Congressman Chaffetz, who is chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held a hearing 2 weeks ago that lasted over 5 hours and relentlessly badgered the president of Planned Parenthood, the only witness. Cecile Richards comported herself so well. But despite that, we are going to do this again. Mr. Chaffetz was asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer after the hearing, ``Is there any evidence, in your opinion, that Planned Parenthood has broken any law?'' Mr. Chaffetz responded, ``No, I'm not suggesting they broke the law.'' So if they haven't broken the law, what are we doing here? Why do we investigate over and over? There are three committees in the House right now investigating Planned Parenthood. We have spent the day trying to get our colleagues to stop putting on these select committees, which do not comply with the way things have always been to be fair to both sides of the committee and let Democrats have the same kind of benefit of information as they have. This one, though, I think is even worse because it gives subpoena power to the head of what is basically a subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee that is unilateral. We have never seen that before. So why do we spend time and funds and resources investigating an organization that we know has done nothing wrong? Because we are dealing with a majority obsessed with taking constitutionally protected health care away from women, many of whom, I may add, are poor. If you add that to the 54, 55 votes to do away with a healthcare bill called ObamaCare, apparently, the major obsession of the majority is to take health care away from people. That is a little hard to comprehend, since we all represent about 750,000 constituents who I don't think would be happy about that. So every time we attack Planned Parenthood, remember that you are attacking one in five American women who have used Planned Parenthood. Whether it is a select committee or intentionally misleading data, this majority will use any tactic necessary. In fact, the tactics Mr. Chaffetz used a week ago were resoundingly discredited. His hearing materials--one chart in particular--was so misleading that the press called it words that I am not allowed to say on the floor of the House. Is that what we expect from this select committee? Let me say, for one, it is certainly what I expect. A flippant disregard for truth goes against what we have come here to Congress to do. We came to govern, uphold the Constitution of the United States, and to do our best domestically. We are not doing our best domestically. We have no budget. As a friend of mine said today, this is a majority that can't build bridges, roads, or highways, but can sure build select committees. This House majority decides to spend the time, money, and resources of the taxpayers attempting to cut funding for the same idea that has not happened for 39 years. Remember, this has not happened for 39 years. Since the appearance of the Hyde amendment, not a single Federal dollar has been spent on abortion, except in very, very rare cases to save the life of the mother. That is right. Contrary to what the majority would have the American public believe, Planned Parenthood spends zero Federal dollars on abortions today. That is what the majority select committee will investigate. For 39 years, that law has never been broken. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as well as the Select Benghazi Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume because I have some important information that I got recently that I want to bring to my colleagues' critical attention. The chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, has in his possession right now a computer hard drive that contains videos produced by David Daleiden, the head of the group that tried to entrap Planned Parenthood. Those videos are official committee records, but Chairman Chaffetz is refusing to give the Democratic Members a copy of those videos. On September 22, Chairman Chaffetz issued a subpoena to Mr. Daleiden, who is the Executive Director of the Center for Medical Progress. The subpoena demanded that Mr. Daleiden provide all of his unedited video footage. We believe that the videos will show how Mr. Daleiden deceptively edited his videotapes to distort the truth, but those tapes are being hidden away. It appears that the Republicans do not want the Democrats to be able to see these videos. Chairman Chaffetz's subpoena explicitly required that a copy of the videos be provided to both the Republicans and Democrats. Specifically, paragraph 18 of the subpoena's schedule instructions stated, ``Two sets of documents shall be delivered, one set to the Majority Staff, and one set to the Minority Staff.'' On Friday, September 25, 2015, Mr. Daleiden delivered those videos to the committee, but provided them only to the Republicans. He did not provide a copy to Democrats, a direct violation of the subpoena. Chairman Chaffetz and his staff members then refused to open the package until today, two weeks later, and now the chairman's staff is refusing to allow Democrat Members to have a copy of the videos that are only in his possession. So I have a couple of questions I need to ask here. On what authority are the Republicans refusing to provide the Democrat Members of the body a copy of the videos? And we know that Republicans actually have no authority to do that. By the chairman's own subpoena, Democrats are entitled to a copy. That is explicit in his subpoena. Another question that we must ask of our colleagues is: Last night at the Rules Committee, Representative Marsha Blackburn said the intent of establishing a select committee is ``to bring all the work under one panel.'' Now, we know that Energy and Commerce has a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, according to one of the members. What we need to know is: Will Chairman Chaffetz be permitted to continue his investigation of Planned Parenthood if the select committee is in existence? And how will that bring all the work under one panel if he is allowed to continue his own investigation if the Energy and Commerce Committee are allowed to bring theirs? I would like to know if the chairman would assure Members of this body that he plans to immediately provide a copy of these videos to Democrats, as required by his own subpoena, so that all Members of the committee have equal access. And I also need to know whether the chairman will be required under this resolution to immediately provide the videos to the new select panel today. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Budget.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman another 1 minute.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I will insert into the Record a copy of a letter to Speaker John Boehner from Mr. Van Hollen, Ms. Rosa DeLauro, and myself on this issue. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, October 5, 2015. Hon. John Boehner, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Mr. Speaker: We are very concerned about the hearing that House Republicans conducted in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee involving Planned Parenthood on September 29, 2015. Notwithstanding the absence of any wrongdoing, its President, Ms. Cecile Richards was cross-examined and accosted with personal questions and accusations for 4\1/2\ hours while constantly being interrupted. This hearing was not ``oversight'' it was a witch hunt against her personally and an ideological attack on a critical provider of women's health care. It became apparent that the Republicans' intentions were not to investigate Planned Parenthood's receipt of federal dollars when shortly after her opening remarks Ms. Richards was questioned about her compensation which had no relevance to the hearing. Never before has a witness had her salary attacked, not even when the Committee has questioned the CEOs of companies that have actually been found guilty of breaking Federal law. We sincerely believe that the Committee should extend an apology to Ms. Richards and refrain from such ideologically based personal attacks of its witnesses in the future particularly because there was no basis to the allegations from the outset. In fact, Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who conducted the hearing, admitted that he had identified no evidence that Planned Parenthood has violated any laws during a recent appearance on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. On October 1st, the Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact News Service awarded Chairman Chaffetz, a rating of ``Pants on Fire'' for springing a highly misleading chart on Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards during her testimony at the recent hearing. The chart falsely suggested that Planned Parenthood performs more abortions than cancer screenings and prevention services. PolitiFact found that Chaffetz's chart ``suggests a conclusion that's flat wrong.'' It cited numerous experts who concluded that his chart is ``a damn lie,'' ``ethically wrong,'' ``purposeful deception,'' ``scandalous,'' ``propagandized,'' ``an egregious example of using a chart to mislead,'' and ``absolutely misleading, and intentionally so.'' Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood are clearly political and greatly misguided. The majority of Americans recognize that Planned Parenthood is an organization that plays a vital role in providing health care to women across the country. One in five women will use Planned Parenthood for primary and preventative care in their lifetime, and in 103 counties with Planned Parenthood centers, Planned Parenthood is the sole provider of these services. Republicans would eliminate the ability for those women across the country to get basic preventative care that over a lifetime can be life-saving. After a two month investigation, conducted by three different House Committees, considering tens of thousands of pages of documents and multiple hearings, there is no evidence to substantiate Republican claims of illegal activity by Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has been the victim of an entrapment scheme conducted over three years in which an opposing political organization actively lied and used deceptive tactics against Planned Parenthood's employees. Clearly Planned Parenthood, and its President, was the subject of a hostile hearing in the absence of evidence of any wrongdoing. We sincerely hope that you direct the Chairs of House Committees to refrain from conducting this type of hearing in the future and to abandon any thoughts of establishing a Subcommittee to pursue these allegations that the Chairman of the Oversight Committee admitted have not been substantiated. Sincerely, Chris Van Hollen, Member of Congress. Rosa DeLauro, Member of Congress. Louise Slaughter, Member of Congress.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say what any woman in this room could say: your doctor determines whether you need to go to a radiologist to get a mammogram. None of us get that in our doctor's office, unless it is a most unusual place, and I know you gentlemen wouldn't know that. I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), an Energy and Commerce Committee member.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is left on both sides.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to give notice of my intention to raise a question of the privileges of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows: Whereas the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, took the lives of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty; Whereas the events leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were rightfully and thoroughly examined to honor the memory of the victims and to improve the safety of the men and women serving our country overseas; Whereas the independent Accountability Review Board convened by the U.S. State Department investigated the events in Benghazi and found no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing; Whereas five committees in the U.S. House of Representatives investigated the events in Benghazi and found no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing; Whereas four committees in the U.S. Senate investigated the events in Benghazi and found no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing; Whereas in each fiscal year, more than $4 billion is appropriated to run the Congress, with untold amounts of this taxpayer money expended by nine Congressional committees to investigate the events in Benghazi, none of which produced any evidence of deliberate wrongdoing; Whereas after the exhaustive, thorough, and costly investigations by nine Congressional committees and the independent Accountability Review Board found no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing, Republican leaders in the House insisted on using taxpayer dollars to fund a new, duplicative ``Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi,'' (hereafter the Select Committee) to re-examine the matter; Whereas this taxpayer-funded committee was given broad powers to pursue its investigations, including an unlimited, taxpayer-funded budget and granting the Chairman the legal authority to subpoena documents and compel testimony without any debate or a vote; Whereas the ongoing Republican-led investigation into the events in Benghazi is now one of the longest running and least productive investigations in Congressional history; Whereas a widely-quoted statement made on September 29th, 2015 by Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Leader of the House of Representatives, has called into question the integrity of the proceedings of the Select Committee and the House of Representatives as a whole; Whereas this statement by Representative McCarthy demonstrates that the Select Committee established by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives was created to influence public opinion of a presidential candidate; Whereas the Select Committee has been in existence for 17 months but has held only three hearings; Whereas the Select Committee abandoned its plans to obtain public testimony from Defense Department and Intelligence Community leaders; Whereas the Select Committee excluded Democratic Members from interviews of witnesses who provided exculpatory information related to its investigation; Whereas information obtained by the Select Committee has been selectively and inaccurately leaked to influence the electoral standing of a candidate for public office; Whereas such actions represent an abuse of power that demonstrates the partisan nature of the Select Committee; Whereas the Select Committee has spent more than $4.5 million in taxpayer funds to date to advance its partisan efforts; Whereas this amount does not include the costs of the independent Accountability Review Board; the hearings and reports by nine Congressional committees; the time, money, and resources consumed by Federal agencies to comply with Select Committee requests; or the opportunity cost of not spending this money elsewhere, such as improving security for our diplomatic officers abroad; Whereas it is an outrage that more than $4.5 million in taxpayer funds have been used by Republicans in the House of Representatives, not to run the government, but to interfere inappropriately with an election for president of the United States; Whereas the use of taxpayer dollars by the House of Representatives for campaign purposes is a violation of the Rules of the House and Federal law; Resolved, That: (1) this misuse of the official resources of the House of Representatives for political purposes undermines the integrity of the proceedings of the House and brings discredit to the House; (2) the integrity of the proceedings of the House can be fully restored only by the dissolution of the Select Committee; and (3) the Select Committee shall be dismantled and is hereby directed to make public within thirty days transcripts of all unclassified interviews and depositions it has conducted.