Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, too often, our laws passed with the best of intentions fail to keep pace with technology, and that is what we are seeing today with the Communications Decency Act. The bill was passed in 1996 as Congress' first attempt to regulate inappropriate material online. This law prevented hosts and visitors of a website from being treated as a publisher for legal purposes. It is what allowed classified websites like eBay to flourish while being legally protected from third-party content posted on their sites. But 20 years is an eternity in the digital age, and bad actor websites have created platforms designed to facilitate illegalities like child prostitution and sex trafficking, and they use provisions in this law to shield them from any liability. One of the most notorious examples is online advertiser Backpage.com. Since 2011, more than 20 civil action lawsuits have been brought against this site for willingly facilitating sex trafficking and the prostitution of minors. However, each time a legal action was brought against Backpage, Federal law shielded them from liability. Last year, The Washington Post reported that a contractor for this site was soliciting and creating sex-related ads, despite Backpage's repeated insistence that they had no role in the content of their ads. Backpage used longstanding Federal protections under the Communications Decency Act to shield itself from all liability. In the Doe v. Backpage ruling by the first circuit, the judges held that, even if Backpage had facilitated the crime of sex trafficking, this law shielded the company from the claims that were filed by the child victims. The first circuit recently reiterated that when it threw out yet another lawsuit against Backpage. The courts weren't able to help these victims, instead, encouraging them to pursue legislative changes, and that brings us here today. H.R. 1865 finally creates a legislative solution to hold these bad actors accountable and allow the victims to seek the damages that they deserve. It creates a new offense in the Federal code for websites that facilitate this criminal activity and gives, to prosecutors, the tools they need to hold the wrongdoers accountable. The bill is a product of a lot of great work, and I want to thank Congresswoman Wagner for introducing it. The Rules Committee, last night, made in order an amendment from Congresswoman Walters that substantially strengthens the legislation and has Congresswoman Wagner's full support. Its inclusion attached the text of bipartisan Senate language to drastically improve its implementation. This is language that has the support of both the tech industry and the victims advocacy groups. Mr. Speaker, it is so nice to see Members of both parties from both sides of the Capitol come together on this. Through collaboration, we have crafted a bill that does more than just update a 20-year-old law. It fulfills our moral responsibility to protect the children that we represent. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in closing, many of my colleagues today, as well as I, discussed the need to protect America's children. This bill is a great piece of that, and I am very grateful to have it on the floor today. But there is more that we can do. It must include acting to curb the Nation's gun violence epidemic. Every day in America, 91 people are killed by a gun. Since Sandy Hook, there have been close to 1,000 mass shootings. A mass shooting is one where three or more people have lost their lives. Imagine that, thousands of them. Our Nation is still mourning the loss of 17 lives just last week when a gunman using an AR-15-style rifle opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That gun is a weapon of war and should only be in the hands of the military and never on the streets of the United States. Assault weapons were the weapon of choice not just in the Florida shooting but also in the mass shootings at the concert in Las Vegas; the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; and the elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. They were prohibited under the assault weapons ban that Congress let expire in 2004. I was here when we established that ban, and we saw a great decrease in gun deaths from that. So they should be prohibited today and not in the hands of people who simply want to kill the most people they can in the shortest time. Why would we allow an insanity like that? So I was pleased to cosponsor legislation this week to re-implement the assault weapons ban. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are inspiring the entire Nation to push Congress to do our job and to act on gun violence. I will tell you that I understand the pain that everybody feels from all of this, but we can't maintain it. We go from one to the other, as though nothing had ever happened before. But we have to also do what the NRA has forbidden us from doing, which is to have gun research at the Communicable Disease Center. That certainly should be lifted, as well. We certainly should expand and strengthen the background check system. Keeping people on the terrorist watch list and the no-fly list from being able to purchase firearms and explosives seems to me to be a no-brainer, but we won't even do that. And, yes, reinstating that weapons ban again, I think, is critically important. Perhaps the voices of those injured and grieving children can break the gun lobby's stranglehold on Congress. I hope so. The majority should heed their call because we, as Members of Congress, are in a unique position. Unlike the clergy or grief counselors or elected officials, we can actually do something to combat this violence. It certainly is, Mr. Speaker, past time that we do. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague if he has further speakers?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Espaillat), to discuss our proposal.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, President Trump tweeted over the weekend: ``Dems are no longer talking DACA.'' Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ. Democrats are still urging our colleagues yet again to act by helping us bring up the Dream Act for a vote on the House floor. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 3440, the Dream Act. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation would help hundreds of thousands of young people who are American in every way except on paper. President Trump set the official deadline for DACA to expire on March 5, so we can't afford to waste any more time, and Dreamers should not be forced to live in fear any longer. 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

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. We saw a shutdown just over 2 weeks ago, and here we are again; I believe this is the fifth one since September. And since the Republicans control every branch of the government, we have to wonder what is going on here. I stood in this same spot after midnight in 2013 and announced that the great government of the United States was closed for business. At that point, they were closed for business for 16 days, which means all the Federal buildings and parks were closed. The vendors who had little mom-and-pop stores, newspaper kiosks, and things at Federal businesses lost all the money, a lot of it, people with lunchrooms. The estimate was $24 billion was lost to the Federal Government. As I recall that particular one, that was because Senator Cruz, a Republican from Texas, didn't like the Affordable Care Act and apparently was not in favor of giving healthcare to the American people. The first shutdown that occurred when I first came here was during the Clinton administration, when Speaker Gingrich shut down the government of the United States because he was unhappy with the plane seat in Air Force One that had been assigned to him. And 2 weeks ago, it was blamed on the Democrats, which is very strange, since the Democrats do not have the vote to shut down the House. Only the majority has those votes. And this is the first shutdown in history, as far as we can find, that the group of persons who control the House, the Senate, and the White House have given themselves a shutdown. It is a pretty sad day for us. So here we are, 3:30 a.m., 3\1/2\ hours after a government shutdown once again. We have really got to stop this. I tell you, our fellow Americans are in a state of nervous anxiety. The stock market dropped 1,000 points in a single day, twice this week. We have perplexed the entire United States of America as well as large parts of the world. And I would think that a reasonable person, looking at all this, would be understood to believe that perhaps Republicans are incapable of running the government because it is purely, purely government by nothing but crisis. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague if he has any further speakers?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 3440, the Dream Act. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation must pass before the time runs out on hundreds of thousands of young people who were promised, by a previous administration, that if they registered and paid $500, they could stay in the only country they know. Without any warning, the new President invalidated the program and their lives. The things that they were promised were taken away, and those young people, a part of our lives, are living in fear. I really hope that we can do something about that. It is past time. But I think what happened to them was most un-American. So 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 am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Michelle Lujan Grisham) to discuss our proposal.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a distinguished member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, let's acknowledge that a deal like this could have come much sooner if the majority tried bipartisanship from the very beginning. Instead, our Nation has had to go through four short-term funding fights and two government shutdowns to arrive at where we are this morning. All of that was entirely preventible. It was brought on by the majority's inability to get its work done. It was little more than a week ago that President Trump stood in this Chamber and gave his State of the Union Address. In it, he proclaimed: ``I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.'' That was Tuesday. But the following Tuesday, the President said that he would love to see a shutdown. He keeps injecting incredible confusion and uncertainty as to what he actually would be willing to sign into law. I am aware that my colleague, Mr. Sessions, did assure us that he wants to sign this bill. Mr. Speaker, it has been an awful long night, and it didn't need to be. We don't need to take up every crisis to the very brink. Since you control every lever of power in this government, you have failed the most basic responsibility: to run this government in a sensible and intelligent way. Everybody--all of us--know, whether we want to admit it or not, that this is no way to run a government and certainly not a government as important as the one we were sent here to represent. I also urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question so the House can take up the Dream Act because time is so quickly running out on those young people. It would be a blot on our conscience for the rest of our lives if we did nothing to help. Mr. Speaker, 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, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank my friend for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I can't support this continuing resolution today. The great government of the United States of America that has been called ``the last best hope of man'' cannot be funded in tranches of maybe 2 weeks to 3 weeks. This is the fifth continuing resolution that we have done since the 30th of September. That is an atrocity. I mean, I can't think of any legislative body anywhere totally unable to do its job. And as sorry as I am to say it because of my great respect and affection for my fellow Members, I don't believe that this majority is capable of governing. We are 2 days before the shutdown of the government of the United States, before it closes for business. Late last night, about 10 p.m., they finally released the details of this short-term spending bill. And we will be back here as soon as this one expires doing yet another one. We are 5 months into the fiscal year, and this is the majority's fifth continuing resolution. We are virtually in the same position today as we were on September 8, December 7, December 21, and January 18 when this Chamber passed the prior continuing resolutions. The majority isn't learning from any of this. They just keep repeating those mistakes. Like the bill before it, the proposal was written by and for the majority. Let me repeat. The Democrats had virtually no say in this. And once again, it ignores many of the priorities that we all agree need to be addressed: providing additional disaster relief after a storm season that saw historic wildfires, hurricanes, and mudslides; three rail wrecks in 2 weeks with fatalities, certainly proving to us, if we didn't know it already, that our neglect of the railroads, the bridges, the infrastructure in the United States is a mess. Saving America's endangered pensions is also a priority, and extending additional health access for our veterans certainly is not just a priority, but an obligation. What is included here is woefully inadequate. This bill pays for extending community health centers--which is very important to me, let me hasten to add--by eviscerating funding for one of the most important parts of the Affordable Care Act that helps keep people well: the Prevention Fund. This fund focuses on children's health by expanding access to lifesaving vaccines and reducing the risk of lead poisoning, among many other things. The majority is paying for opening the centers by gutting the Prevention Fund while we are experiencing the worst flu epidemic in nearly a decade. Now, I have heard a lot of talk about prioritizing the national defense. We don't take a back seat on our side to anybody who loves and respects the people who defend us, who every day--an all-volunteer military--stands on the line for us. But we also believe that this bill does not raise the Budget Control Act sequester level of spending caps for nondefense. That is a shame, and it is also the Budget Control Act. Mr. Speaker, one-third of the nondefense domestic budget that we are trying to get parity for goes to national security, part of our defense: to our veterans, to homeland security, the State Department, the Justice Department, and counterterrorism initiatives. Refusing to equally raise the defense and nondefense caps is irresponsible. Secretary of Defense General Mattis has said: No enemy is more harmful than unpredictable funding from Congress. But it isn't just defense that has had undependable funding. Not a single agency of the Federal Government knows from one week to another whether they will be funded or what they can do. We have cut down on almost everything that they can do, including travel to places that they absolutely need to be. It is pretty awful. We have had the warnings, yet here we are today with a fifth short- term continuing resolution. The majority has 238 seats in the Chamber, but it only holds 51 seats in the Senate. They have the ability to draft a partisan agenda, and routinely do. And we just saw that spectacle coming from the Intelligence Committee in the House, when a memo, governed by the majority--and one was acted on and put out for the public--but we are waiting and hoping that the one for the minority will be given the approval by the President of the United States. But for anything, including this bill, to have a chance of getting 60 votes in the Senate and becoming law, you have to involve the Democrats. They don't have enough over there. Fifty-one is not 60. This is simple math. The minority leader in the Senate has said this proposal is a nonstarter. He added that moving forward with this plan would ``jeopardize the positive discussions going on right now about the budget, immigration, disaster aid, and more.'' So we know, standing here today, that we are wasting our time. We should finally bring an end to the continuing resolutions and the failed my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing. That is the only way the majority can fulfill what Speaker Ryan pledged when he took the gavel and said: ``Only a fully functioning House can truly represent the people. And If there were ever a time for us to step up, this would be that time.'' Mr. Speaker, the American people and the world have watched for months as the greatest democracy ever devised has been defined by its dysfunction. If ever there was one, this is the time for the majority to step up. I am very much concerned, Mr. Speaker, that we are reaching the tipping point. That the dysfunction and chaos displayed not just with the actions of the stock market in the past 3 days, but our inability to really know whether or not we are going to keep the lights on has cost us dearly with respect to the rest of the world. And I need to point out as well, just a few minutes ago, the President of the United States thought that a government shutdown would be a good idea. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, President Trump said to reporters earlier today that if Congress can't reach a deal on immigration: ``I'd love to see a shutdown if we can't get this stuff taken care of. If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don't want safety . . . let's shut it down.'' We are also the people who were accused last week at the State of the Union--because we didn't show great enthusiasm for his speech--that we were treasonous. It is really pretty frightening to me, Mr. Speaker, what is going on here, and I can't avoid talking about it. I said earlier in the Rules Committee that I think we are reaching a tipping point, and I honestly do believe that. But this isn't the first time that President Trump encouraged a government shutdown, which would be devastating. The last one we had was for 16 days and took $24 billion out of this economy. This is remarkable and, I think, pretty sad. The President keeps injecting uncertainty into what already is a chaotic process from the majority. No one in this Chamber is against safety. We are asking them to take action on the bipartisan priorities that have languished while they passed tax cuts for millionaires. In 2016, during an interview with CBS This Morning, President Trump said: ``I'm the king of debt. I'm great with debt. Nobody knows the debt better than me.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, according to this article from The Washington Post from February 3: ``The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year. . . . It's the highest amount of borrowing in 6 years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the Federal Government borrowed last year.'' He is definitely the king of debt. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the article from The Washington Post titled: ``The U.S. Government is set to borrow nearly $1 trillion this year, an 84 percent jump from last year.'' [From the Washington Post, February 3, 2018.] The U.S. Government Is Set To Borrow Nearly $1 Trillion This Year, an 84 Percent Jump From Last Year (By Heather Long) It was another crazy news week, so it's understandable if you missed a small but important announcement from the Treasury Department: The federal government is on track to borrow nearly $1 trillion this fiscal year--Trump's first full year in charge of the budget. That's almost double what the government borrowed in fiscal 2017. Here are the exact figures: The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year, according to documents released Wednesday. It's the highest amount of borrowing in six years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the federal government borrowed last year. Treasury mainly attributed, the increase to the ``fiscal outlook.'' The Congressional Budget Office was more blunt. In a report this week, the CBO said tax receipts are going to be lower because of the new tax law. The uptick in borrowing is yet another complication in the heated debates in Congress over whether to spend more money on infrastructure, the military, disaster relief and other domestic programs. The deficit is already up significantly, even before Congress allots more money to any of these areas. ``We're addicted to debt,'' says Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He blames both parties for the situation. What's particularly jarring is this is the first time borrowing has jumped this much (as a share of GDP) in a non- recession time since Ronald Reagan was president, says Ernie Tedeschi, a former senior adviser to the U.S. Treasury who is now head of fiscal analysis at Evercore ISI. Under Reagan, borrowing spiked because of a buildup in the military, something Trump is advocating again. Trump didn't mention the debt--or the ongoing budget deficits--in his State of the Union address. The absence of any mention of the national debt was frustrating for Goldwein and others who warn that America has a major economic problem looming. ``It is terrible. Those deficits and the debt that keeps rising is a serious problem, not only in the long run, but right now,'' Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, a former Reagan adviser, told Bloomberg News. The White House got a taste this week of just how problematic this debt situation could get. Investors are concerned about all the additional borrowing and the likelihood of higher inflation, which is why the interest rates on U.S. government bonds hit the highest level since 2014. That, in turn, partly drove the worst weekly sell-off in the stock market in two years. The belief in Washington and on Wall Street has long been that the U.S. government could just keep issuing debt because people around the world are eager to buy up this safe-haven asset. But there may be a limit to how much the market wants, especially if inflation starts rising and investors prefer to ditch bonds for higher-returning stocks. ``Some of my Wall Street clients are starting to talk recession in 2019 because of these issues. Fiscal policy is just out of control,'' says Peter Davis, a former tax economist in Congress who now runs Davis Capital Investment Ideas. The Federal Reserve was also buying a lot of U.S. Treasury debt since the crisis, helping to beef up demand. But the Fed recently decided to stop doing that now that the economy has improved. It's another wrinkle as Treasury has to look for new buyers. Tedeschi, the former Treasury adviser to the Obama administration, calls it ``concerning, but not a crisis.'' Still, he says it's a ``big risk'' to plan on borrowing so much in the coming years. Trump's Treasury forecasts borrowing more than $1 trillion in 2019 and more than $1.1 trillion in 2020. Before taking office, Trump described himself as the ``king of debt,'' although he campaigned on reducing the national debt. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts the U.S. deficit will hit $1 trillion by 2019 and stay there for a while. The latest borrowing figure--$955 billion--released this week was determined from a survey of bond market participants, who tend to be even faster to react to the changing policy landscape and change their forecasts. Both parties claim they want to be ``fiscally responsible,'' but Goldwein says they both pass legislation that adds to the debt. Politicians argue this is the last time they'll pass a bill that makes the deficit worse, but so far, they just keep going. The latest example of largesse is the GOP tax bill. It's expected to add $1 trillion or more to the debt, according to nonpartisan analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation (and yes, that's after accounting for some increased economic growth). But even before that, Goldwein points to the 2015 extension of many tax cuts and the 2014 delays in Medicare reimbursement cuts. ``Every time you feed your addiction, you grow your addiction,'' says Goldwein. There doesn't seem to be any appetite for budgetary restraint in Washington, but the market may force Congress's hand.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, we did hear in the State of the Union that we will be asking for $1.5 trillion for infrastructure. Given the $1.5 trillion that we have already started borrowing for to give the top 1 percent a great tax cut that would be permanent, I am not sure anybody will finance that request. And, frankly, taking on that amount of debt would mean that almost everything else that we do in the country would take a back seat, or even further behind than back. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 3440, the Dream Act. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation would help hundreds of thousands of young people who are American in every way except on paper. 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. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano) to discuss our proposal.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that I would not come to the floor if I were in the majority and lecture the minority when the majority runs the House, the Senate, and the White House and accuse us of shutting down the House or not producing the votes. We don't have enough votes in the first place. That is why we are the minority. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), the distinguished ranking member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Texas an additional 1 minute.