Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank Mr. Tonko for the time to discuss the troubling issue of ``fast track'' trade authority. President Obama and some of our Republican colleagues want to use this process to ensure that the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, trade deal is passed quickly and without input from Congress. Under this authority, we would have to vote on this far-reaching trade agreement that has been negotiated in secret without the ability to offer amendments or engage in meaningful debate. Considering the TPP under fast track authority is simply another symptom of this closed Congress, where we have been deprived of our authority and responsibility to protect our constituents. And if past trade deals are any indication, American workers and manufacturers need our help now more than ever before. For as long as the United States has been signing free trade agreements, we have watched helplessly as quality, middle class jobs have flowed overseas. Quite frankly, over my career, I have never seen a trade agreement that benefited the American worker or the American manufacturer. I come from a district that has been devastated by short-sighted trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, and recent agreements with Korea and Colombia. It is estimated that since NAFTA went into effect, the United States has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs. In the Rochester area alone, we have only half the manufacturing jobs that we did then. Our economy simply cannot afford another NAFTA-style, job-killing trade agreement, which is exactly what the Trans-Pacific Partnership is. I have great confidence in the American worker and American businesses to compete and succeed in the global marketplace if given a fair and level playing field. For generations, our country has shown that hard work and ingenuity are the engines of progress and economic prosperity. Innovations that shaped the 21st century economy were conceived and produced here in the United States, many in Rochester I might add. In return for allowing other countries to benefit from our hard work and innovation, America was rewarded with a strong middle class. But other countries have taken advantage of us, and we have to stand strong against them. American workers should not be forced to compete against workers in countries like Vietnam where wages are as low as 50 cents per hour. We need to level the economic playing field and stop jobs from being shipped overseas. We're not going to do that by enacting fast track and allowing more poorly conceived trade agreements like the TPP to decimate our economy. Congress cannot afford to give this administration--or any future one--the benefit of the doubt by passing fast track authority. By now, it should be clear that a closed legislative process isn't good for Congress or the American people. I firmly oppose fast track authority and I urge my colleagues to stand up for our constituents before it's too late.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The Department of Homeland Security will run out of money and shut down tonight. House Democrats, Senate Democrats, the White House, and Senate Republicans all agree on what to do to pass the bipartisan bill to fully fund the Department for the rest of the fiscal year. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives is the only one standing in the way. Our next vote on ordering the previous question will be a vote on whether to continue down that dangerous path or to govern responsibly and to put our national security ahead of partisan politics. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking member on Appropriations, to discuss how essential it is that we pass a clean full-year appropriations bill.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democrat whip.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if the gentleman from Georgia has any further speakers? I am ready to close if he does not.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman. Then I shall close, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this intraparty dysfunction, governing from crisis to crisis and self-inflicted wounds, must come to an end. Our Nation's very security is at stake, and the American people are crying out for stability, for certainty, and for responsible government. Let's give them 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'' to defeat the previous question. Vote ``no'' on the underlying rule and the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say, a negotiation took place, and that is why a bipartisan bill is passing the Senate at this very moment. I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the gentleman, my friend, Mr. Collins, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in this House, we use a manual of rules that was written by Thomas Jefferson. In 1801, when he began writing his manual of parliamentary procedures, he surely imagined a Chamber which followed the rules would be orderly, steadfast, and unwavering and that could govern our Nation in a respectable way; but under the current majority's rule, this House stands in deep contrast to that ideal. Yet again, we stand on the brink, on the edge, on the precipice of a shutdown. After 4 years of this kind of leadership of self-inflicted wounds and manufactured crises, one would think that the House majority would have learned their lesson. It is clear today that they have not. First, Republicans promised when they took control of this Chamber that they would govern prudently and fairly and openly, with regular order. We haven't seen any of that. Then last November, when Republicans took control of the Senate, we were promised that two Chambers under Republican rule would be better than one and that the games would be over. We surely haven't seen any of that either. The House majority is not content to double down on their vendetta against the President; they want to undermine their own party in the process. To the best of my knowledge, every President since Eisenhower-- Republican and Democrat--has set some immigration enforcement and other priorities through executive order. But the majority's contempt for this President is so strong that they are engaging in an intraparty war, while Rome is burning around them, to see who can punish him the hardest. Mr. Speaker, as we stand here debating this, the Senate is poised to send us a clean, bipartisan bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security until the end of the fiscal year. The Republican Senate, with help from Democratic Senators, is ready to do what is right for the country. But the House is so blinded by their need to discredit and disparage the President that they risk the very security of our Nation for political games. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi offered Speaker Boehner all 188 Democratic votes on a clean bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. He would have only needed to come up with 30. But the Speaker refused to take them. And if this dangerous continuing resolution were to pass, it will not be because of Democratic support. It will be pure Republican. Democrats have been shut out of the process yet again. Today's closed rule brings the tally to 13 closed rules of the 18 rules passed in the 114th Congress. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, sent a letter to congressional leaders yesterday which laid out what is at stake if his Department's funding is disrupted, either through shutdown or short-term continuing resolution. From maintaining airport security, to helping us recover from one of the hardest winters in generations, to guarding against cyber threats, to keeping the U.S. Coast Guard running and monitoring possible lone-wolf attacks on our homeland by ISIS, the House majority is threatening the safety and security of our Nation. Secretary Johnson went on to say: ``As I have noted many times, mere extension of a continuing resolution has many of the same negative impacts.'' In other words, a short-term solution simply keeps us going on this cliffhanger. It ``exacerbates the uncertainty for my workforce and puts us back in the same position, on the brink of a shutdown just days from now.'' How in the world can we run the United States like this? What must the rest of the world think of us as we flounder around here trying to inflict all the pain we can on the President of the United States? And in any case, that is more important to too many Members of this House; the prime reason for being here is to tear down the government and the President. Mr. Speaker, I include the text of the letter from Secretary Johnson to congressional leaders, dated 26 February 2015, for the Record. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC, February 26, 2015. Dear Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader McConnell, Minority Leader Reid, and Minority Leader Pelosi: Thank you for your leadership and efforts to pass a clean, full-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security. As you know, our funding expires tomorrow at midnight. I write to explain to Members of Congress the real and substantial consequences of a failure to pass a full-year appropriations bill by that deadline. As an initial matter, it must be noted that a potential shutdown of the Department comes at a particularly challenging time for homeland security. It is stunning that we must even contemplate a shutdown of the Department in the current global context. The global terrorist threat has become more decentralized and complex. Terrorist organizations are now openly calling for attacks on Western targets. Yesterday's arrests in New York City highlight the threat of independent actors in the homeland who support overseas terrorist organizations and radical ideology. We are working hard to stay one step ahead of potential threats to aviation security. Last year at this time, the spike in migrant children began to appear at our border; we are deployed to prevent this situation from recurring, and to address it aggressively if it does. The Nation is in the midst of a very cold, harsh winter, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is working with states impacted by record snowfalls. Here are just some of the consequences for homeland security if the Departments funding lapses and we shut down: First, about 170,000 employees will be required to work, but will not get paid for that work during the period of a shutdown. This includes our Coast Guard, Border Patrol agents, Secret Service agents, Transportation Security Administration officers, and others on the front lines of our homeland security. These working men and women depend on biweekly paychecks to make ends meet for themselves and their families. For them, personally, work without pay is disruptive and demoralizing. Even worse for our people are the public statements by some that make light of a shutdown, which disregards DHS employees' personal sacrifices and dedication to our Nation's security. Second, approximately 30,000 men and women of the Department must be furloughed and sent home without pay. Our financial management, human resources, procurement and contracting, and information technology teams--the institutional backbone of the Department--will be reduced by 90 percent, from over 2,000 to just 208 people. My own immediate headquarters staff will be cut by about 87 percent. Our Science and Technology team, which is intensely focused on developing non-metallic explosive detection capabilities as well as other technologies to counter threats to aviation, will be cut 94 percent, from 448 to 26 people. Our Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which is our Nation's primary research and development lead for development of advanced nuclear detection technologies and technical forensic capabilities, will also be cut 94 percent, from 121 to just 7 people. Third, contracting services across the Department, including those for critical mission support activities, will be disrupted and/or interrupted altogether. Depending upon the length of a shutdown, contract awards and major acquisitions could be impacted. In the event of a shutdown, negotiations to construct the United States Coast Guard's 8th National Security Cutter will be delayed, potentially leading to an increase in costs. Fourth, our $2.5 billion-a-year grant-making to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, to assist them in preventing, responding to or recovering from terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies, remains at a standstill (it has already stopped because the Department is currently funded by a Continuing Resolution). Of particular note, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Emergency Management Performance Grants, which contribute 50 percent of the salaries of state and local emergency management personnel, cannot be funded. Fifth, public assistance disaster recovery payments to communities affected by previous disasters will grind to a halt. Though these payments are funded with prior-year money, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's staff that processes them must be furloughed. Sixth, depending upon the length of a shutdown, DHS will no longer be able to support state and local authorities with planning, safety, and security resources for special security events such as the Boston and Chicago Marathons. Seventh, depending upon the length of a shutdown, work to complete construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas, which will replace the aging 1950s-era Plum Island facility in New York, could be disrupted. Eighth, new hires across the Department must be halted, disrupting critical missions to secure the border, protect millions of daily airline passengers, strengthen security at the White House, and deploy new ICE investigators. Routine attrition hiring would cease across the Department, seriously undermining our homeland security frontline staffing needs. Our plans to increase CBP staffing at our ports of entry by 2,000 officers, and to maintain the Transportation Security Administration's workforce of airport screeners and air marshals will be undermined. Our plans to hire additional Secret Service uniformed officers and special agents will also be disrupted. Ninth, without funding, all training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers will cease. Up to 2,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement trainees from across the country will be sent home. Finally, as I have noted many times, mere extension of a continuing resolution has many of the same negative impacts. A short-term continuing resolution exacerbates the uncertainty for my workforce and puts us back in the same position, on the brink of a shutdown just days from now. I urge Congress, as soon as possible, to pass a clean, full-year Fiscal Year 2015 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The American people are counting on us. Sincerely. Jeh Charles Johnson, Secretary.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. These are the consequences of the actions of this Chamber's majority, real and dangerous consequences: no certainty, no safety, no end in sight. I say to my colleagues in the majority: The Senate is giving you a way out of this thorny, treacherous brush that you have built up around yourselves, and I urge you and I implore you to follow the path out of that brush. It is the right thing to do for the country, and it is certainly the right thing to do for this institution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee). (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Call vote numbers 51, 52 and 53. Had I been present, I would have voted aye on Roll Call vote numbers 51, 52 and 53. personal explanation

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Call vote numbers 49 and 50. Had I been present, I would have voted aye on Roll Call vote number 49, and no on Roll Call vote number 50. Personal Explanation

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Call vote numbers 46, 47 and 48. Had I been present, I would have voted no on Roll Call vote number 46, and aye on Roll Call vote number 47 and 48. personal explanation

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that we have heard what is in this bill, but this bill was taken out of the used-bill freezer last night at 9 o'clock, against all the rules, and put on the floor today. We really don't know what is in this bill. I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, down the hall in the old House Chamber stands Clio, Muse of History. Perched atop the room, she is riding the Chariot of Time. She has watched silently over the proceedings of this House since 1807. And in the folio that rests in the crook of her arm, she records every move, large and small, for the benefit of all generations, past, present, and future. What she is recording today is, I am certain, a disappointment. The proceedings playing out before us today show a blatant, overt disrespect for the time-honored rules of this House, first written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801. The bill that was supposed to come to the floor today, a bill that would have stripped women of their right to constitutionally protected medical care, was so odious and destructive that some of the women of the Republican Conference rebelled against it. It was based on unsound and fictitious science and caused such a meltdown in the Republican Conference that the House majority pulled it from the floor for fear that it wouldn't pass. But something had to be done because visitors were coming to town for the 42nd anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. On this day, there are floods of visitors here in the Nation's Capital to fight against that ruling, to protest that decision, and to raise their clarion call against a woman's right to choose. In this current Congress, this bill was not brought to us under regular order--as not many are. It had no committee action. It had no hearings, no markup, no witnesses testified in favor or against it, and it came out of the Rules Committee and to the floor today under a closed rule. One of the ever-ready alternatives came to us late last night, and it is even worse than the one it replaced. It seems that the majority has an endless supply of bills attacking women's health. Can't pass this one? Grab another. Can't pass that one? Just take the next one. Their insistence on attacking women's health seemingly knows no bounds. Because this bill has not seen any committee action in the current Congress, no one has been able to read it or to weigh in on it or amend it, and some of us would like a clarification on the sordid history of this bill. In the earliest version of this bill, which was in the 112th Congress, there was a phrase that lit a firestorm across the Nation. It was ``forcible rape.'' The bill was, indeed, the one that would have required women to prove that their rape was ``forcible'' so it could be categorized as ``legitimate.'' Has nothing been learned here? The next iteration of the bill, in the 113th Congress, included a provision--and listen to this, America--that would have required the IRS to audit women who had had abortions to ensure that the pregnancy that they terminated had been the result of rape or incest. This extreme legislation, which is a dust-covered holdover from the last Congress, was originally sponsored by a man, originated from a subcommittee composed of 13 men, and was passed out of the Judiciary Committee with the votes of 21 Republican men. Remember those pictures, America, all of those men sitting there deciding what women's health would be about? It is a perfect illustration of a problem we have had for a long time, that men in blue suits and red ties determine what women can and should do when it comes to their own health or bodies. This bill is absolutely a solution in search of a problem. As Ms. Foxx pointed out, all this is taken care of. There is no tax money for abortions. The bill in its current form would permanently prohibit low- income women, civil servants, District of Columbia residents, and military women from accessing a full range of reproductive services by codifying the Hyde amendment, which unfortunately already requires no taxpayer funds be spent on abortions except in very limited services. It has been this way for decades. Congress should be repealing these unfair and discriminatory bans, not doubling down on them. Are these provisions still in the current bill text before us? We have had no chance to check, and it has been awhile since we have seen this bill. This display is a messaging opportunity and another attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. This bill not only threatens women who buy their insurance on public exchanges with Federal tax credits but also threatens women who use their own private money to pay for their health insurance on the exchanges. Experts tell us this would jeopardize the availability of abortion coverage for all women, no matter where they buy their insurance. When the House considered this bill in the previous Congress, it was attempt number 49. Today, it is attempt number 55. That is right, ladies and gentlemen, 55 votes the majority has held in this Chamber to take health care away from their own constituents. The House majority has wasted nearly $80 million of taxpayer money to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Infrastructure money, anyone? Time and again, we see the House majority turn their backs on the people they represent and force an extreme agenda, one filled with poison pills that would take our country backward, backward to a time when women died from back-alley abortions; backward to a time of women in desperate circumstances seeking illegal procedures performed by strangers with dirty hands in unspeakable conditions; backward to a time when medical choices were not the choice of the woman, but of the public; backward to a time when women who ``got themselves into trouble'' by getting pregnant could not work and could not go to school. These choices are personal. They are not public. A woman's actions regarding her own reproductive health should include anyone she deems appropriate, not politicians in Washington or State capitals scoring political points off her health care. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say there is no scientific evidence at all. As a matter of fact, gynecologists have all written to us--and we have their statements--that there is no way of fetal pain at 20 weeks. I yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.