Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will amend the rule to provide for consideration of H. Res. 1023, a resolution by Mr. Steube. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), the ranking member and one of the great advocates on our side of the aisle.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I would say to my friend from Florida, I don't believe we have any further speakers coming to the floor, so I will reserve the balance of my time and wait to close.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, while I don't always agree with what my friend from Maryland has to say, I do agree with my friend from Florida about his scholarly expertise. We don't talk about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments enough down here on the floor of the House. I suspect this will be the only time in the second quarter that we mention the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and I am grateful to my friend for his words. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), who serves on the Rules Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close if there are no further speakers remaining.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes. Madam Speaker, I told you at the beginning all of the things that this rule did not include. It did not include partnership at the committee level or any Republican input whatsoever. It did not include any partnership in the Rules Committee, or any Republican amendments made in order. We have got as many bills as I have ever seen jammed into a single rule, and, again, not done in any way that creates any consensus, that provides any opportunity for being able to move a bill to the Senate and on to the President's desk. That is disappointing, because as I have heard from colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the American people want action on all of these issues, and we are not going to be able to provide that in this way. That is what is not in here. But, Madam Speaker, it is particularly important to me that we find you in the chair today, as my friend from Florida recognized. What this might be is one of those moments we look back on as when something got started. You don't ever know how things get started. You know how they finish, but it is sometimes hard to understand how they got started. I am absolutely certain that the bill we have before us today isn't going to the President's desk on police reform, I absolutely am, as are my Democratic colleagues. One of my friends on the Judiciary Committee, Sheila Jackson Lee, was quoted in the Hill today saying: Ultimately there will probably be a conference, but I don't want to take any issue with Democrats saying, You know we have the stronger bill. Of course, that is true. Folks have the opportunity to start the process where they want to start the process. The House majority whip, James Clyburn, went on to state further: A cleaner road to compromise would have been to have the Senate negotiators smooth out the wrinkles between Senator Scott's bill and the one championed by Democrats Corey Booker and Kamala Harris. It could very well have been that they could have come to some kind of a compromise that will fly in the House. Why worry about going to conference between the two bodies if you can work it out together. Well, of course that is true. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn) has been a successful legislator on this floor for decades. You work it out together, you find that consensus, you find that compromise. It is not lost on me that my Democratic friends in the House have come today to say, ``Please accept this police reform bill, even though you have gotten no Republican amendments whatsoever.'' My friend from Florida asked us not to make the perfect the enemy of the good in that way. I understand those words. But my friend from South Carolina, Tim Scott, offered the very same proposal to Senate Democrats. In fact, he offered them 20 amendments to his bill, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate said, ``No, that is not good enough. We are going to walk away.'' Well, 20 amendments aren't good enough. Certainly, no amendments aren't good enough. It frustrates me, because we all know we want to move forward. My friend from Florida recognized yesterday, Madam Speaker, that he is the oldest member of the Rules Committee. I won't name names here-- 83--but he is the eldest member of the Rules Committee. I think I am the youngest member of the Rules Committee. I don't believe the gentleman from Florida has spent one second thinking about what this bill will mean to him in his life. I think he has spent all this time thinking about what the bill that you have championed is going to mean to that child born in a Washington area hospital today and what will it mean to him or her in their life. I was born 2 years after Martin Luther King was murdered. His work and his impact on the country I was the beneficiary of, but I was not around during that. I know that is where folks' hearts and minds are focused. While I am certain this bill is not starting the way I would have wanted it to start, I am hopeful that I am going to look back one day and say, Karen Bass and Alcee Hastings and I were on the floor of the House on that very first day that legislation was moving across the House floor that made this difference in the country that 330 million Americans want to see made. I don't have to like the way that it starts. I like even less that it hasn't started already. All the comments you will hear today from our side of the aisle are based not on an opposition to our goals, but a great hope that we will get to our goals faster. Madam Speaker, I urge defeat of the previous question and defeat of the rule, for an opportunity for partnership, and I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to insert the text of the amendment I would have offered had the House rejected the previous question on House Resolution 1017, along with extraneous material, into the Congressional Record immediately prior to the vote on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 1017.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, my chairman is exactly right. We just came out of the Rules Committee just about an hour ago, and we did report this rule that does make in order a motion from the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary to concur in the Senate amendments. The Senate amendments do take a small step forward in making the underlying language better than it used to be, but we had an opportunity in the Rules Committee to consider other amendments. We had an amendment by Mr. Gosar, for example, that asked for additional certifications from the Attorney General. We had a bipartisan amendment from Mr. Davidson and Ms. Lofgren that would have gone even further in protecting civil liberties. I regret the rule we have today makes neither of those in order. It comes as no surprise to any of us that we have some very successful House work product that we could have added here, and we made the decision to accede to the Senate language. As I mentioned, just over an hour ago, Dr. Burgess, who sits on the Rules Committee, and I were there. Madam Speaker, with the chairman's indulgence, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for any statement he may have.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask my chairman, when he was referencing Republicans who just want to slow this place down and don't want to get any work done, if he would except me and my colleague from Virginia from that characterization? Because I certainly know that it doesn't apply, and I would like to know that my chairman knows that it doesn't apply as well. When the chairman just stated that the reason that Republicans are opposed to proxy voting has nothing to do with----

Mr. WOODALL. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman. Madam Speaker, if the constitutional arguments are so clear, we should be able to get this out of the district court in very short order, presumptively with the decision that my chairman would like. Madam Speaker, I want to ask my friend from Virginia again--what I have seen from Mr. Griffith, Madam Speaker, is someone who has fought on behalf of the institution, not on behalf of Republicans, not on behalf of Democrats. Without throwing my friend under the bus, he has been in the minority of my conference as often as he has been in the majority, fighting to do the right thing because he thought we were on the wrong path. And he was saying: You know what? You may think this is politically expedient today, but you are going to regret this. And the decisions we make aren't about politics, they are about people. They are about the institution. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I thank the Speaker for her words. We do come to a place where we sometimes are satisfied. In this case we had a bipartisan group that was continuing to work to do even more of those good things that the gentlewoman laid out. They had an amendment that they had drafted together in a bipartisan way. That amendment was not made in order on this floor. I agree with the gentlewoman, we should never be satisfied. In this case, we have decided to be satisfied with the Senate language instead of trying to improve it with the House work product, and I deeply regret that. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy.)

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

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my chairman, knows the great respect that I have for him--in fact, the great affection that I have for him. Madam Speaker, I can tell him with complete sincerity that I have no interest in rewriting history, but I do have an interest in rewriting the future. And as we stand here today, my support for the underlying legislation does not wane because of a Presidential tweet; my belief that the legislation will be signed into law wanes because of a Presidential tweet. Madam Speaker, whether you are on the side that says this bill is doing too much or whether you are on the side that says this bill is doing too little, if you are on the side that says we can do better together, then going down a path that the President's team has said would result in a veto advantages none of us. Madam Speaker, it is painful. This is my last year in this institution, and I love this institution not because of the history that is in these walls, not because of the ancient tomes that I see here on Mr. Griffith's desk, but because of the people who sacrifice themselves and their families on behalf of something that is bigger than themselves. This idea that it is the United States of America that you and I have the privilege of playing a small leadership role in, that is universal. To be here on the floor of the House today, again, accentuating our divisions on a bill that is going nowhere, is worthless to me. Madam Speaker, I love being on the House floor with my friend, the chairman, when he is full thunder on behalf of his ideas and his principles and I have to take the other side. That kind of debate, those kinds of differences of opinions among people who respect one another but simply come at things from a different perspective, that is exactly what this House was intended to produce. Madam Speaker, to be here on the floor today, when my friend from Massachusetts is having to carry a rule for a bill that he opposes and wants to defeat, I am down here telling you that we had a great bipartisan solution, but we are not going to be able to talk about it on the House floor. So, I have a bill that I support the underlying vision of but know it is going to go absolutely nowhere, and we are just going to back folks into their political corners. That is not what our constituents expect from us, and it is not, I would argue, what we have come to expect from ourselves. It, sadly, is what the political theater advocates have come to expect from us. Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to a new rule to suspend the proxy voting until the D.C. Federal district court reviews a lawsuit and determines an outcome. Madam Speaker, thinking about things that are within the walls of this institution, all the stories these walls tell, they will never tell a story of a single Member of Congress ever casting a vote from outside of this room where we are standing. Never has it happened. I would argue the Constitution flatly prohibits it. I cannot understand how one can read the Constitution differently. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record the text of my amendment, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I reference the tomes that sit on the gentleman from Virginia's desk. At this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend and, actually, Madam Speaker, as you know, someone who has worked in a bipartisan way, a surprising bipartisan way--never fails to surprise Members on both sides of the aisle--to protect this institution and all that it means to the American people. There are many folks in this institution, Madam Speaker, I don't mind disagreeing with; and, in fact, the fact that we are on other sides humbly leads me to believe I am even more right than I thought that I was. When I find myself disagreeing with the gentleman from Virginia, I find myself having to go back and reflect on exactly why that is we have come down on different sides. And those individuals in this Chamber who provide us with that counsel, Madam Speaker, you know that we hold in such high regard. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank you for that admonition, Madam Chair. Madam Speaker, there is only one person on our side of the aisle who can clear up all of that confusion in 1 minute. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), our leader.