Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My friend from New York is right: They did make a number of amendments in order, but not enough amendments to solve some underlying problems. One amendment they didn't make in order was an amendment to provide disaster funding to so many of our communities that have been waiting on disaster funding--not for a day, not for a week, not for a month, but, now, into the new year. If we defeat the previous question today, we can correct that injustice, and I will bring up an amendment to the rule to make this disaster funding possible. It is critically important. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) to talk about that, one of the greatest advocates for that language here in the House.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, as we have heard so often on the House floor, hopeful wishes are not enough for our constituents. We need to deliver results. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dunn), who has been working hard in that direction.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I would say to my friend from New York, we do not have any further speakers remaining, so if he would like to get this show on the road, I am prepared to close if he is. Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my friend from New York on the Rules Committee, and I really do enjoy serving with him on the Budget Committee. It is neat to be on the Budget Committee as a freshman because you are working with the biggest issues that we have in this country. We all care about healthcare and how it gets implemented, but we can't implement it if we can't pay for it, so the Budget Committee grapples with those issues. We all want our seniors to be protected. They have been paying into Medicare and Social Security their entire lives, but we know those programs are headed toward bankruptcy. We can't solve those problems except in the overarching look of a Federal budget process. It is what the law requires. We get to talk about those big ideas. We get to think those big thoughts. We get to come together to make big and, yes, Mr. Speaker, difficult decisions. President Trump, in his budget, made difficult decisions. I dare say I could go Member to Member in this Chamber and find 435 people out of 435 who would find at least one flaw in the President's budget. I bet I could. It is hard to write a budget for the United States of America, but the law requires that we do it. More importantly, even if the law didn't require that we do it, Mr. Speaker, we know that we should. We know the Constitution lays out that responsibility, the power of the purse, for the House. We have constituted an entire committee called the Budget Committee. I don't want to wow you, Mr. Speaker, with my eloquence, but do you know what the responsibility of the Budget Committee is? It only has one: write the budget. For years, there was a time when the Senate was not taking up budgets in its Budget Committee. I wondered why they didn't disband the Budget Committee because the only job the Budget Committee has is to write the budget. We know we need to do that together. We know we do, but we are not. The second bill this rule makes in order is the government takeover of the internet bill. Again, if you think the internet is broken and the benevolent hand of government can fix it, this is the bill for you. If you think the internet is not broken and perhaps government ought to stay where government is, and the freedom of the internet should continue, this is not the bill for you. We need to defeat both of these bills, and we need to defeat the rule. I do want to point out, for the Rules Committee, we were working just beyond those doors last night, Mr. Speaker, and I think the Rules Committee did the best it could with the material that it had to work with. I see the staff director of the Rules Committee sitting over there. He has a tough job. I think the chairman did the best he could. You cannot solve the problem of a flawed, partisan committee process with the inclusion of amendments in the Rules Committee. You just can't do it. But they tried as hard as they possibly could, making in order as many amendments as they could to try to satisfy as many concerns as they could. The problem is not the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker. That is not why we need to defeat the rules today. The problem is the leadership decision that has been made to bring up these two flawed products that were created in a partisan way when we could have brought to the floor two positive products created in a collaborative way. We have to make a decision in this Chamber. Either we are in the business of making a point or we are in the business of making a difference. So far, the first 4 months of this year, we have been great at making a point, but we have been struggling to make a difference. Like it or not, we have a Senate that has to pass this legislation and a President who has to sign it if we are to make it the law of the land. The two products today fail that test. Let's not waste another moment on them, Mr. Speaker, not another moment. Let's reject this rule. Let's not bring these two pieces of legislation to the floor. Let's go back to the drawing board collaboratively, as we know we can. Lock any bipartisan group of Members into a room together, Mr. Speaker, and they will craft a better solution. We have the right leaders in this Chamber for this time. We just need to free them up to lead. Defeat this rule. Defeat the previous question. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, 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.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I took my colleague by surprise here. We just came down from a Rules Committee meeting, and I appreciate her yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, if you didn't have the pleasure of serving with Louise on the Rules Committee, it looks kind of strange to have the Louise and Bob Slaughter Post Office. I have been here only 8 years, but I can't recall us doing that after a couple out here. Perhaps it is done regularly, but to serve with Louise--you know, the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, goes into the wee hours of the morning; 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., the Rules Committee is working, and it is truly Louise and Bob Slaughter. Since my first day on the Rules Committee back in 2011, Louise took me under her wing. Yes, I was a young conservative Republican. Yes, she was an older--we can say, I think, honestly--liberal Democrat. She began building those partnerships with the young members of the Rules Committee with each and every committee meeting that took place. I don't know if she was the first one who said it to me, but she was certainly one of them. She said: You know, Rob, of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, folks sometimes think that we are upset with each other and we are bad people. She said: I always tell folks, it is not that the people on the other side of the aisle are bad people. They are really good people. They just have some bad ideas. She would share that with me from time to time, that my ideas were amongst those bad ideas. Her picture hangs right across from my seat there today. There are so many men and women in America, Mr. Speaker, who are worthy of celebration, and it seems like we always make time to talk about those things that tear us apart, and we just don't make enough time to talk about those things that bring us together. Louise was a strident, a fighter for her beliefs, as is any man or woman in this institution, but she never missed a moment to try to bring people together instead of pushing people further apart. This is a wonderful gesture that the committee is moving forward today. I hope that all of my colleagues will find, amongst their very busy Tuesday, time to sit back and reflect that they have an opportunity to be a uniter or to be a divider. It doesn't mean you trade away one iota of who you are and what you believe. It is just how do you tell that story, and how do you go about persuading your colleagues that it is true. Louise gave us a wonderful example every single day of her decade upon decade of service in this institution, and I am honored to have sat across the aisle from her there in the Rules Committee.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my friend from California for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, when I see someone of your stature come to the chair, I think: We must be down here to debate some serious American public policy. We must be down here to change the law in ways that can only happen once in a generation when people come together to make things happen. I don't know what they told you when you came to the chair this morning, but let me be the first to tell you that is not at all why we are here today. What we are here to say today is important, that the American people have a vested interest in confidence in our democracy. That is a value shared from the furthest side of the left to the furthest side of the right. But the resolution we have here before us today is just a restatement of current law. Sometimes I think, Mr. Speaker, that we undermine faith in the democracy when we try to pretend that division exists where division does not, where we try to pretend that we are doing great things when, in fact, we are not. This is an opportunity today to speak with a voice in Congress that says the special counsel should release the report. But let me be clear, because we sometimes do more harm than good, that is going to be the headline: ``House Votes for Special Counsel to Release Report.'' That is not actually what the resolution says, and I want to guide you. If you have a copy, Mr. Speaker, you can go back through it. It is not going to be on page 1. It is not going to be on pages 2, 3, 4, or 5. The real substance of the resolution is back on the bottom of page 5, early on page 6. It says, ``to the extent permitted by law.'' As you know from your legal background, Mr. Speaker, the law does not allow the special counsel to release so many things. Grand jury testimony, for example, nowhere in the country is grand jury testimony disclosed. Those facts are gathered, but that is never disclosed. Intelligence sources and methods, that is never disclosed, nor would anybody on the other side of the aisle suggest that it should be. That is why, in the resolution drafted by the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, it says specifically that these things need not be released because it is prohibited by law. I only make that point, Mr. Speaker, because sometimes the headlines are all we read when they come through on our Twitter feed. Sometimes we believe the headline tells the whole story. I want to make it clear that there is unanimity in this Chamber that transparency is valuable in our Republic. But it is also true that this is a nation of laws. The reason the special counsel exists is because we are a nation of laws, and the substance of the special counsel's report is going to be governed by those laws. To the extent allowable by law, our Attorney General has already said he wants to make the entire thing available. I don't know how you want to characterize the resolution today, Mr. Speaker, whether you want to characterize it as an insistence of the House on how the administration should behave or just a big attaboy to our new Attorney General to say: You are doing a great job, and we are behind you 100 percent in what you have already promised the American people you were going to do. However you characterize that resolution--we heard it in the Rules Committee, as my friend from California suggested--it is coming to the floor today under a closed rule. So if anybody has any additional changes they want to make, those changes will not be permitted. This is a take-it-or-leave-it resolution from the Rules Committee today. But as a restatement of current law, it is quite clear. Again, you have to go all the way to the back of the resolution to find those 10 lines of substance. But when you get there, you will find these are already things the Attorney General has agreed to, and all Americans should be pleased about that outcome. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a senior member on the Rules Committee and a subcommittee ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my friend from Rhode Island before he leaves the floor: The bill that he introduced, was that also a House resolution or was that an H.R. to insist on the revealing?

Mr. WOODALL. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Rhode Island introducing the bill. And I think that is an important distinction, Mr. Speaker, and that is what you have heard, largely. You heard it in the Rules Committee; you have heard it down here on the floor, that: Listen, there are lots of things that we could be doing here, and if we wanted to pass a law that insisted that the entire report was released--those parts that are prohibited from being released under current law and those parts that are intended to be released under current law--we could do that. That is just not what we are doing. What we are doing is saying: Hey, do you know what current law is? Follow current law. Follow current law. We, the House of Representatives, have thought about it, and in our deliberative wisdom, we are prepared to announce that we believe current law should be followed--Signed, U.S. House of Representatives. There are those who would have you believe this is something more than that. It is not. There is nothing wrong with what we are doing today except that it is not a particularly valuable use of time. When I opened, Mr. Speaker, you were not in the chair, but I mentioned that I think we do great damage to trust in our Republic when we seek division instead of highlighting our unity. To suggest that we are down here doing something to protect our Republic from its inevitable demise is just ridiculous. No such thing is happening here on the floor today. All that is happening on the floor today is saying that we, the duly-elected Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, believe U.S. law should be followed. Mr. Speaker, I agree, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am looking for something to disagree with my friend from Vermont about. I don't disagree with him about anything at all. I thought that was a very thoughtful presentation. The only thing I would point out is the reason that he doesn't know what is in the Mueller report and the American people don't know what is in the Mueller report, is because as of today, there is no Mueller report. That is the only reason we don't know what is in it. It hasn't been released yet. I don't mean released to the public. I mean, Mueller hasn't written it and handed it to the Attorney General yet, and so we don't know. When that happens, let me tell you what the Attorney General has said, Mr. Speaker. The Attorney General has committed to being transparent with Congress and the public consistent with the rules and the law. I don't think we would ask anything different of him. The Attorney General has committed to providing as much information as he can consistent with current regulations. I don't think we would ask anything different of him than that, and, certainly, this resolution does not ask anything different of him other than that. He says that his objective and goal is to get as much information as he can to the public. That is exactly what this resolution asks for; exactly what he has already committed to. And he says, ``I feel like I'm in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences. I can be truly independent.'' Well, that doesn't just mean truly independent from pressure put on him from the White House. It also means truly independent from statements of opinion sent to him by the U.S. House. He is going to do the right thing, as allowed by the law and resolutions. If he doesn't, this House can act and try to push a different outcome. Just understand that that is not what this resolution does today. It is simply a statement of fact. To my friend from California, there are those Members of Congress that sometimes they speak and you just want to get out your sharp stick, Mr. Speaker, and poke them a little bit harder. They don't calm you down. They rile you up. My friend from California is one of those folks whose thoughtful words always recenter me and remind me what we have together. He is right about the hyperbole, and I don't want to mischaracterize this resolution. It does do one thing that is not available in current law today, and that is, that it makes the official position of the United States House known. I have always presumed that the Attorney General would follow the law. This resolution says we expect the Attorney General to follow the law. It is not that it does nothing. It is just that it does something so very little, perhaps our time would be better spent elsewhere, but I support the underlying premise. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I tell my friend, I do not have any speakers remaining at this point, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I hope folks pay attention to some of those things that have brought folks together today, and I hope folks pay attention to some of those things that haven't brought us together today. We have talked about whether there has been overstatement and hyperbole, whether it comes from that end of Pennsylvania Avenue or this end of Pennsylvania Avenue. None of us are advantaged by that. It breeds more distrust in the American public, and breeds more distrust in this institution. We have talked about who is to blame within the administration. Of course, there is news today of Paul Manafort's sentence, not for anything related to the election, but for things related to his private business practices. There will be efforts to conflate those two investigations. Those are two different investigations, and I think the American people are disadvantaged if they are led to believe that those sentences are related to the election of the President of the United States. But what you have heard is a lot of unanimity, as you would expect, that we are a Nation of laws and the rule of law should be followed, and transparency should be our touchstone, and the American People, the boss of each and every one of us, whether we work on that end of Pennsylvania Avenue or this end of Pennsylvania Avenue, have a right to know what their tax dollars have paid for and what their government is up to. I find that very encouraging that we have that sense of agreement here today, Mr. Speaker. What is noticeably absent in this resolution is the dramatic overreach that I think has characterized most of the work we have done so far in 2019. Things that could have been partnership issues have been pushed further and further out to the edge of the political continuum that they became partisan issues. This resolution does not make those mistakes of the past, and to my friend from California's point, these things are done incrementally. Trust is built incrementally; relationships grow incrementally; and success happens incrementally. It is my great hope, Mr. Speaker, that those things that unite us, transparency, rule of law, trust in and of the American people will begin today to flourish in ways, perhaps, those common themes have not thus far. And both parties play a role in that disappointing outcome. But success has to begin on one day, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps success begins today. I serve on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. There is no such thing as a Republican road or a Democratic bridge. There is no such thing as sitting in traffic on a Democratic highway or missing your child's soccer game because of malfunctions on a Republican road. We are all in this together. I do not plan to offer a previous question today, Mr. Speaker, because this isn't one of those issues that dramatically divides us. My friend suggested in the Rules Committee we passed this out in, I think, our first voice vote of the year out of the Rules Committee, and I intend to do exactly that today. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from California for yielding the time and leading the debate today, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Georgia for yielding me the time. It is tough to get up and speak after the Federalist Papers have been referenced because they do go to the core of who we are. So does election integrity. I look around, and I see my friends from the other side of the aisle, along with friends on my side of the aisle, and election integrity is a shared value. So you would think that the solution to election integrity challenges would be a shared solution. But if I go to my friends on the Republican side of the House Administration Committee, the only one of the 10 committees this bill was referred to that marked it up, I will find that not one Republican was consulted on the drafting of this language. Mr. Chairman, you have heard my colleagues talk about the wholesale changes to election law--State election law--across this country. You would think, Mr. Chairman, that we would have talked to all 50 secretaries of state. That wouldn't be true. Maybe you would think we would have consulted with 25 secretaries of state. It wouldn't be true. What would be true is, in the one committee that had the one markup on this bill, we consulted with one State election official. Mr. Chairman, this is an opportunity for us to do something together. We can either take advantage of that opportunity or we can poison the well. How in the world can we promise the American people election integrity when one side is writing the rules? It should be instructive to us all the way this bill has come to the floor, and it is yet another, Mr. Chairman, in a string of missed opportunities that we have had. I will give you just one example. I made a motion last night in the Rules Committee to only bring this bill to the floor as it was marked up in committee. We have talked about a bill that is going to guarantee voter transparency. We don't even have legislative transparency on this bill. We couldn't get the bill brought to the floor from the one of the 10 committees that marked it up. We had manager's amendments added. We had the bill not as reported. I offered another amendment last night. If it is so important that we legislate for the first time in American history that tax returns be released by elected officials--this bill includes let's release them at the Presidential level and let's release them at the Vice Presidential level--I offered an amendment to the rule to allow a vote on whether or not they should be considered at your level, Mr. Chairman. That amendment was denied on a partisan line. Let's not make this a partisan issue; it is an American issue.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want you to know it flatters both me and the gentlewoman from California that you have made it your habit to be down here during Rules Committee time. It is good to know that you respect what we do upstairs as much as the members of the committee do. I always enjoy coming down for the Rules Committee debate, because it is the only debate on all of Capitol Hill where the Reading Clerk reads every single word of the bill that we are about to consider. Ordinarily, we waive that, but the rules don't let you waive it. You have to read the rule so folks will understand what is happening today. I happened to time the Reading Clerk today. I didn't put him up to anything special. He read as he always does. It took him 1 minute and 6 seconds to read the resolution that is before us. I heard my friend from California talk about the important constitutional questions that are here before us today. I heard my friend from California equate our President to discredited despots around the globe and how we must stand up to prevent that behavior here in America. I heard my colleagues who took to the floor this morning for 1 minutes be sanctioned by the Chair and advised to cease engaging in arguments of personality and attacks against our President. One minute and 6 seconds it took to read the resolution before us today, Mr. Speaker, and that is 1 minute and 6 seconds longer than this resolution has been considered in total in every committee throughout this Capitol. I want to say that again. You heard my colleague talk about how critically important this resolution of disapproval is as it relates to our constitutional powers. You heard it described as a power grab equivalent to those of discredited despots. And we haven't talked about it at all in this Chamber. In committees, not one witness has testified. One minute and 6 seconds is how much we have invested in these nationally important matters. I listened, Mr. Speaker, as you cautioned Member after Member to cease engaging in personal attacks on the President during their 1 minutes this morning. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that that is exactly what we are doing here today. If you want to have a debate about Article I and Article II powers and how we ought to retrieve the power that has slid down Pennsylvania Avenue through administration after administration after administration, I am not just your willing partner, I am your enthusiastic partner and passionate advocate. But that is not the bill we have before us today. It is not the debate we are going to have today. This is another in a long string of measures that have been brought to the floor of this House that could have been brought in a bipartisan way. I don't mean one Republican; I don't mean two Republicans; I mean the majority of Democrats and the majority of Republicans standing together to speak with one voice on behalf of the American people. But time and time again, we are missing that opportunity. This isn't a constitutional issue today, Mr. Speaker, though you would not know that, because we have not had any witnesses testify. This is a legislative issue before us today. There is, in fact, a National Emergencies Act that allows the President to do extraordinary things if he or she decides there is a national emergency. That is not unconstitutional. Congress passed the National Emergencies Act; the President signed the National Emergencies Act. Perhaps the Supreme Court one day will decide that was an unconstitutional delegation of power by the Congress, but the Congress delegated that power in the National Emergencies Act. The way we talk about this issue, Mr. Speaker, you would think this is the first time you and I have seen this in the few years we have been in Congress. Of course, you and I know that is nonsense. There are 31 other national emergency declarations in effect today-- 31 other national emergency declarations. National emergency declarations from the Obama administration are still active today. If we are so concerned about Article I and Article II power grabs, perhaps these emergency declarations that have been on the books since the last administration, Congress should deal with those affirmatively here on the floor. There are national emergency declarations still in effect from the Bush administration. There are national emergencies still in effect from the Clinton administration. Mr. Speaker, there are national emergencies still in effect from the Carter administration. This House has made not a single effort to draw back that power from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Those are legitimate questions. Those are important questions. Those are things that bring us together as the people's representatives in this House, not bills designed just to poke a stick at a President who has real passion and real conviction about issues of real importance. Do you know what is in this resolution today, Mr. Speaker, what is in this disapproval resolution today, that will make a difference on the border in terms of ending human trafficking? Not one thing. Do you know what is in this resolution today that, if we come together to pass, will make a difference in terms of drug trafficking on the border? Not one thing. What about if we come together to pass this resolution today for the very serious issue of weapons trafficking across our border? Do you know what we will do today to fix that? Not one thing. Victims of sexual assault as they are being trafficked into this country, do you know what we are going to do to fix that today? Not one thing. Do you know how many Dreamers are going to have their hopes realized today with a pathway to permanency here in the United States of America? Not one. Man, we are good at bringing issues that are designed to poke each other in the eye. We are so good at bringing issues designed to try to embarrass one and boost another. But I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, we are not so great with actually solving real problems. For the first time in my congressional career just last Congress, Mr. Speaker, we brought a bill to the floor that would have provided permanency for our Dreamers and that would have provided solutions on our border for human trafficking, for weapons trafficking, and for drug trafficking. You know how many Democratic votes we got on that bill, Mr. Speaker? Not one. Now, to be fair, it wasn't one bill; it was two bills. Folks said, hey, if this one is not the right one, let's bring another one. Maybe this is going to bring people together. Do you know how many votes we got on the second bill, Mr. Speaker, from the other side of the aisle? Not one. The only bills that have come to the floor to provide a pathway for Dreamers in my 8 years in Congress, and we got not one vote from the other side the aisle. Is that because the other side of the aisle doesn't believe in those solutions? No, that is not why. It is because the other side of the aisle, in its wisdom, deemed that to be a resolution not designed to support the Dreamers, but designed to divide. I disagree with that conclusion, but that is the conclusion that was made. Thus, the only opportunity in a decade we have had to support Dreamers, not one Democrat stood up and said yes. I call that a failed opportunity, and I am not interested in figuring out who is to blame for that failed opportunity. This is a failed opportunity today, too, Mr. Speaker. Sadly, it is another in a series of failed opportunities here in 2019. I believe my colleagues are going to see through the divisiveness of this resolution, through the charade of constitutionalism right down to the very core of partisanism that underlies this resolution. But just remember, 1 minute and 6 seconds, Mr. Speaker. Before I took to the microphone today, 1 minute and 6 seconds from the Reading Clerk is all the time this new Congress has dedicated to an issue that you are going to hear from my colleagues again and again is one of critical national importance, international importance, constitutional importance. How can those things be true? Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Brooks).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. 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 the text of H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. 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.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, if we pass the resolution, as my friends on the other side of the aisle have presented it, we will save not one single life. If we defeat the previous question and move on to H.R. 962, we will, in fact, save lives. Mr. Speaker, to speak to that issue, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), my friend and a great leader in our conference.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), an appropriator and ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed), a member of the class of 2010.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, you just heard an impassioned plea from my friends on the other side of the aisle about the important constitutional questions that are before us today, about how the President's emergency declaration violated those sacred constitutional principles. Candidly, I don't know if my colleagues are right or not because we have not had one legal expert come to talk about the National Emergencies Act. Most of us were not in Congress when it passed several decades ago, but it is a delegation of authority from Congress to the executive. You just heard my friend from New York come to the well and say, listen, we have been working in a bipartisan way to offer a bill to rein in those authorities. I think that is important work. I think that is work that we ought to all be able to agree on. We should be doing that work first. I told you earlier, Mr. Speaker, the sum total of all of the time this institution has spent working on these important constitutional questions is the 1 minute and 6 seconds our Reading Clerk Josef spent reading us the resolution today. We will vote on this rule today. We will vote on the underlying disapproval today, having never had the committees of jurisdiction hold even a single hearing. Now, lest you think there is just no time in the calendar, this resolution is referred to the Transportation Committee on which I sit. In fact, I had to leave a Transportation Committee hearing in order to come up here to do the rule today. We are working on the Green New Deal in the Transportation Committee today. We are working on electric vehicles and how to reduce carbon emissions across the country. Now, I am not saying that is not important work, but I have not heard one of my colleagues talk about the dearth of electric vehicles and how that is threatening the future of our land. I have heard my colleagues talk about this important constitutional question that this disapproval brings before us, and, yet, there was not one hearing on it. Now, lest you think, Mr. Speaker, that if we deal with this today, we won't deal with it again. No. We are going to have some hearings on this resolution. When? Later in the week after it passes. Now, I don't know if that is a pattern that we are going to get into. I hope that it is not. Having had no hearings and no witnesses testify on this issue, we are going to have an Appropriation Subcommittee hearing later this week to talk about exactly these issues, where the money is coming from, what the impact of that is, and whether or not it is wise. We are going to have a hearing later this week in the Judiciary Committee talking about the National Emergencies Act, and whether or not it permits this kind of activity, and what kind of changes ought to be made. This resolution will have already been considered. This vote will have already been taken, but we will eventually get around to having thoughtful conversation about this. Mr. Speaker, I close where I began. There is more that unites us as Americans than divides us. And even in politics, there is more that unites this institution than divides us. Making sure that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue only is exercising those authorities delegated to it by either the Constitution or this Congress, is a shared value. But if you listen to the debate here on the floor, from the Speaker's chair, you had to caution our colleagues against engaging in attacks of personality against the President. We heard debate, not of thoughtful constitutional principles, but of hateful administration policies. Mr. Speaker, I will tell my friends, I don't believe those words, those actions, or those efforts are going to bring us one bit closer to the shared values that we have in this institution. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the rule today and vote against the previous question so that we can bring up a bill that will save lives. This bill will save not one life; will prevent not one drug trafficker from coming into the country; will protect not one migrant family. It will do nothing, Mr. Speaker, to solve real problems that face this country. If we defeat the previous question, we can at least take a commonsense step toward doing exactly that. Vote ``no'' on this rule, vote ``no'' on the previous question, and let's commit ourselves to finding a way to come together. If you believe there is more that divides us than unites us, these first 45 days of this session have been just perfect for you. But if you believe, as I do, that we can do better, let today be the end of the partisan attacks. Let today be the end of bringing bills to the floor designed to make a point instead of make a difference, and let's make tomorrow better. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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