Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I appreciate your yielding. I appreciate your giving us your assurance, but I do recall that Mr. McGovern and I, both in our turns, asked last night for assurance that the bill that we were looking at was the bill we were going to vote on, and all we got was doublespeak. So, while I appreciate your giving me your assurance, I think I'll give it back to you.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin). (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I'd be happy to tell you. We expect four. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Small Business.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentlelady another minute.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that it has been said here before that the bill that mysteriously appeared last night had passed the House in a bipartisan way. Let me point out it was bipartisan opposition. No Democrat voted for it and 16 Republicans voted ``no.'' I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Peters).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I can't say it enough, today's legislation is a step backwards in the effort to find a fiscal cliff compromise. Plan B, Plan C, neither one of them are serious proposals but a gimmick designed to get headlines. By using the Halls of Congress to play political games, the majority is making it harder to find a commonsense and bipartisan solution to the impending fiscal cliff. The time for these games is over. It's time that the majority comes to the table with a serious proposal that reflects the wishes of the American people. Nobody wants to see the taxes raised on 25 million working families. As I said earlier, they seem to be called upon to pay the price for the fiscal irresponsibility of the financial district. The American people don't want to see hundreds of thousands lose access to nutritional programs, and I sure can tell you that they don't want to see Wall Street reforms repealed and the historic health care law dismantled, but all these things would happen if this bill before us became law. I strongly urge my colleagues to reject the gimmick proposal before us today and return to the serious work of balancing our budget while protecting the poor and the working class. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to this rule to make in order an amendment which will allow the House to have a chance to vote on the bill passed by the Senate to extend the middle class tax cuts to all persons making less than $250,000, which has been introduced in the House as H.R. 15. Also, the amendment would prevent the House from adjourning until we have averted the fiscal cliff and the President has signed legislation to prevent tax increases on the middle class. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and vote ``no'' on the rule and certainly on the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

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 rise today to mourn those who were killed in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday, and begin the urgent work of stopping tragedies like this from ever happening again. Let us be clear--there can be no better tribute to the innocent children and educators who were killed in Newtown than to finally address the out-of-control gun violence that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. In answering the call, Congress must look to enact a comprehensive and commonsense reform to our nation's gun laws, and renew our commitment to a mental health system that has been neglected for far too long. We can begin by taking the most dangerous and deadly weapons off our streets. That means we must do more than simply reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. We must strengthen that law by including language that retroactively applies to weapons already in possession, so that law enforcement can finally remove all assault weapons from our communities. These weapons serve no purpose other than to kill human beings. Our colleague, Senator Joe Manchin, today said the following: ``I just came with my family from deer hunting. I've never had more than three shells in a clip. Sometimes you don't get more than one shot anyway. It's time to get beyond rhetoric, it's time to sit down and move in a responsible way.'' He continued to say that limiting the size of a gun magazine to even 10 bullets should be on the table when it comes to reforming our laws and ending gun violence. I couldn't agree more, and believe that no weapon that is designed with the primary intent to kill people should be out on our streets. This also means that this Congress must look at the types of bullets that are sold today. The perpetrator who murdered more than 20 innocent children took their lives with bullets that were designed to break up inside a victims body and inflict the maximum amount of damage to internal organs, bones and tissue. There is no legal activity in our country that requires the use of such deadly bullets. They should be included under any renewal of an Assault Weapons Ban. In addition to removing the most deadly weapons from our streets, we must also close the so-called ``fire sale loophole'' and ``gun show loophole''--two products of a powerful gun lobby that must be brought to heel. Because of these loopholes, more than 40 percent of all guns sold in the United States are sold without the buyer undergoing a federal background check. We require anyone who wishes to drive a car to prove that they can safely operate a vehicle, yet when it comes to buying a gun, almost half all buyers do not have to prove they will safely operate such deadly weapons. In a country of 315 million people, there are almost 280 million guns owned. Of those 280 million guns, almost 112 million of them will have been purchased without a background check. Were they purchased by law-abiding citizens or by troubled individuals who may endanger lives? Because of irresponsible legal loopholes, we simply do not know. No more. It is time that we require anyone in the United States wishing to purchase a gun to pass a federal background check. I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 263, the ``Fire Sale Loophole Closing Act'' and H.R. 1781, the ``Fix Gun Checks Act'', and urge the Leadership of this Congress to bring both bills to the floor for a vote. Finally, our work is not complete unless we improve our nation's mental health system. For years, experts have known how to improve our mental health care system, but a lack of political will has led to its continual decay. Such failure has a very real impact on the health and well being of thousands of our fellow citizens everyday. Instead of accessing the care they need, they are often left on their own to deal with illnesses that they have little power to control. Place these troubled individuals in the vicinity of a deadly weapon, instead of the care of a mental health care provider, and tragedy can result. If we are to succeed in our efforts to prevent more gun violence tragedies then an improved mental health care system is part of the solution. I believe we must respond by drastically improving our community- based mental health services--including mobile crisis services, assertive community treatment, peer supports and supportive housing. These important mental health programs are in short supply all across our nation, which means that thousands of our friends and neighbors who desperately need help are stranded with nowhere to turn. While no legislation can undo the terror that was done in Newtown, Connecticut, our nation has a moral obligation to act with the utmost urgency to reduce gun violence and save innocent lives. It is long past time to get to work, and I am ready to begin that work today.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote Nos. 627 and 628. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote Nos. 627 and 628.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do want to thank my true and good friend, Mr. Sessions, for yielding this time; and I want to congratulate him on his ascension to the chair of the Rules Committee. I look forward to working with him. I think, though, what we want to do this morning perhaps is debate the health care bill one more time. It's not enough that this House in the last term debated it 32 times at least to try to repeal all or part of it, and we know that not a single person on the other side voted for that bill. But as it gets more and more popular in the United States, I think sooner or later they'll wish that they had. There is one comment I need to make before I get to the business at hand, and that is the notion that it was rammed through in the middle of the night. The health care bill went through the entire committee process. There are pieces in there that Republican members of committees put in. Although they may not want to admit it, they're there. In addition, the Democratic Caucus, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, went over that bill line by line three times. I remember it well. But let me get to the business at hand because, Mr. Speaker, I haven't seen an honest day's work from Congress here in quite a while. Earlier this year, the Columbia Broadcasting System News reported that it costs $24 million a week to run the House of Representatives. But for the last month, the majority has spent the money on shuttling us back and forth to Washington and then asking us to sit here and twiddle our thumbs. No more. It's time to get down to brass tacks and give the American people a return on their multimillion dollar investment. We need to start right here and right now by passing the tax cut for the middle class. We could do it tomorrow. All we have to do is take up the Senate bill. It's right there. In addition to that, we ought to really take up the Violence Against Women Act from the Senate, not the House bill. The House bill did not include numbers of women in America under this act: Native American women, gay women, and immigrant women. We couldn't tolerate that. So let's take the Senate bill and pass it. That bill has reduced domestic violence 67 percent. We need to reduce it 100 percent, but we cannot do without that. It's terribly important. The farm bill is important, but we'll get to more of that. I cannot say enough that we absolutely need--and I think so many people this morning on 1-minutes made the point clear. I know that numbers of Republicans want to do it in a bipartisan way. What we can do is what we've already agreed on, and that is that the middle class should not have a tax increase, but that the richer people in this country should be paying their fair share. There is simply no reason for this delay. Once those tax cuts are passed, then we can move on to the countless other issues that I've already mentioned that demand our attention. We can extend unemployment insurance. It's set to entire on January 1 and will affect millions and certainly affect our economy. We can give support to millions of Americans struggling to recover from Hurricane Sandy. We can begin an open debate, as I said, on the Violence Against Women Act. Historians have said that this term of Congress these last 2 years has been the least productive in American history. That is not anything to be proud of, but the majority seems to be intent on keeping that title. They spent 2 years taking vote after vote to repeal health care and even more time to make sure that the $4 billion subsidy to the big oil companies stays intact. It's shameless, and we need to do more than that. The people who sent us here deserve more than that. We should not be crying out in the wilderness to work. We have been sent here to work, and we need to get down to it in the final hours of this Congress. We have always had the threat of a working Christmas. If we have to do it to get things done, I'm certainly willing to do that. But the majority should help solve the Nation's most pressing issues. That's why we're here. Do not actively choose--as that's what's going on--to leave the work unfinished. As we sit and wait for the negotiations on the fiscal cliff, there is always other legislation that is ready, that could be done now, could help our markets, could relieve the minds of employer, could give security to the middle class and people below that; and we certainly ought to be doing it. All we're doing now with today's rule is giving the majority the freedom to spend the rest of this month and the rest of this year on minor, noncontroversial legislation. I refuse to give this blank check to a majority that has yet to show any interest in completing outstanding work. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing today's rule so that we can try to get back to work. This Wednesday should be the day we start doing our job to provide real solutions to those we represent who have real problems. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to our leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Will the gentleman yield?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank you, Mr. Sessions, because I know you, and I know that you understand that I've already talked about this. That bill that passed this House excluded a large number of women. Basically, what this House said with that vote was to go ahead and beat them up, that we don't want them covered. After the election, after what everybody has been through, after what the American public thinks about what a large number of our cohorts believe here, surely to goodness, you would not recommend that that bill become the law of the land. The simple thing we're asking for is to take up the Senate bill, which covers everybody in domestic violence.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the assistant Democrat leader. (Mr. CLYBURN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'll gladly yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), the vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield myself 2 seconds to say it is not a government takeover of health care. It will be performed by private insurance companies. I am delighted to yield 2 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

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