[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 MEMBERS' DAY HEARING ON PROPOSED RULES CHANGES FOR THE 117TH CONGRESS

=======================================================================

                                MEETING

                                 of the

                           COMMITTEE ON RULES
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                       THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2020

                               __________




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                    Available via http://govinfo.gov
             Printed for the use of the Committee on Rules



                              ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

49-708                    WASHINGTON : 2023













                           COMMITTEE ON RULES

               JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts, Chairman

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida,          TOM COLE, Oklahoma,
  Vice Chair                           Ranking Republican
NORMA J. TORRES, California          ROB WOODALL, Georgia
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida
DORIS O. MATSUI, California

                       Don Sisson, Staff Director
                  Kelly Dixon, Minority Staff Director

                                 ------                                

             Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process

                  ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida, Chairman

JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York,         ROB WOODALL, Georgia,
  Vice Chair                           Ranking Republican
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts

                                 ------                                

          Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House

                   NORMA J. TORRES, California, Chair

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado,             DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona,
  Vice Chair                           Ranking Republican
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       ROB WOODALL, Georgia
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts

                                 ------                                

                  Subcommittee on Expedited Procedures

                     JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Chair

DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida,           MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas,
  Vice Chair                           Ranking Republican
NORMA J. TORRES, California          DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts








                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                            October 1, 2020

Opening Statements:
                                                                   Page
    Hon. James P. McGovern, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Massachusetts and Chair of the Committee on Rules.     1
    Hon. Tom Cole, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
      Oklahoma and Ranking Member of the Committee on Rules......     2
Witness Testimony:
    Hon. Steny Hoyer, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of Maryland................................................     3
    Hon. James E. Clyburn Hoyer, a Representative in Congress 
      from the State of South Carolina...........................     6
    Hon. Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress from 
      the State of Mississippi...................................     7
        Prepared Statement.......................................    10
    Hon. James R. Langvin, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Rhode Island......................................    14
    Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of California........................................    16
    Hon. Rodney Davis, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Illinois..........................................    25
        Prepared Statement.......................................    28
    Hon. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Representative in Congress 
      from the State of Florida..................................    32
    Hon. Ben Cline, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of Virginia................................................    34
    Hon. Joaquin Castro, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Texas.............................................    36
    Hon. Charlie Crist, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Florida...........................................    37
    Hon. Derek Kilmer, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Washington........................................    48
    Hon. Stephanie Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Florida...........................................    50
    Hon. Sharice Davids, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Kansas............................................    52
    Hon. Van Taylor, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of Texas...................................................    53
    Hon. Rob Woodall, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of Georgia.................................................    55
    Hon. Bradley S. Schneider, a Representative in Congress from 
      the State of Illinois......................................    77
    Hon. Ted Lieu, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
      California.................................................    78
Statements for the Record:
    Statement for the record submitted from Congresswoman Rice...    61
    Statement for the record submitted from Congressman Graves...    63
    Statement for the record submitted from Congresswoman Porter.    66
    Statement for the record submitted from Congressman Cleaver..    69
    Statement for the record submitted from Congressman 
      Gottheimer.................................................    72
Additional Material Submitted for the Record:
    Remote Voting by Proxy Regulations Pursuant to House 
      Resolution 965.............................................    75









 
 MEMBERS' DAY HEARING ON PROPOSED RULES CHANGES FOR THE 117TH CONGRESS

                              ----------                              


                       THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2020

                          House of Representatives,
                                        Committee on Rules,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:05 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. James P. McGovern [chairman of the committee] 
presiding.
    Present: Representatives McGovern, Torres, Perlmutter, 
Raskin, Scanlon, Morelle, Shalala, Cole, Woodall, and Lesko.

                       OPENING STATEMENTS

    The Chairman. The Rules Committee will come to order. This 
Members' Day hearing is an opportunity for us on the committee 
to do something radical--to listen more than we talk. This is a 
chance for us to hear from our colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle about their ideas for the next rules package. Regardless 
of who controls Congress next year, I think we can all agree 
that running this House with integrity means listening to all 
members. So that is what we are going to be doing here today.
    We took a similarly collaborative approach with the rules 
package for this Congress, and I am proud to say it led to the 
first bipartisan vote on a rules package in decades. That 
didn't just happen; it took time, a lot of conversation and a 
willingness to acknowledge that no party has a monopoly on good 
ideas.
    I am proud of what we created together, things like the 
consensus calendar to expedite consideration of ideas with 
broad bipartisan support; the diversity office, to get the 
Halls of Congress looking more like the real world; and the 
Modernization Select Committee, to advance good ideas from both 
sides that get this place functioning better. And although we 
were already holding these Member Day hearings in our 
committee, we also require that other committees hold them too, 
so that all members have a chance to be heard across the 
Congress.
    Hopefully, more good ideas now have the chance to see the 
light of day and move forward. So I couldn't ask for a better 
partner in this process than our ranking member, Tom Cole. We 
come from different parties, but we share the same dedication 
to this institution. We want it to work better not for one 
political party or the other, but for the American people, 
because that is really what this is all about. A well-
functioning House allows us to tackle the issues that can make 
a positive difference in peoples' lives. And that is why we all 
ran for Congress in the first place.
    Before I turn to our ranking member, I want to acknowledge 
that today--today is the first day on the job for the House's 
new parliamentarian, Jason Smith. Mr. Cole and I said a lot 
about him and his predecessor, Tom Wickham, on the floor last 
week. I am not going to repeat all the stuff, but suffice it to 
say, that our members spend a lot of time consulting with the 
parliamentarian's office.
    So I think we can all agree that it is fitting that he is 
starting his career as parliamentarian on a Rules Committee 
Member Day. So now I want to turn to our ranking member, Mr. 
Cole, for any comments that he would like to make. Is he not 
hearing me? So I think we have a little bit of a technical 
glitch here. We will just wait a minute while Mr. Cole gets--I 
can hear you, yeah.
    Mr. Cole. It is working?
    The Chairman. So Mr. Cole, I said a whole bunch of nice 
things about you. So I am not sure if you were plugged in when 
I said them.
    Mr. Cole. Just now?
    The Chairman. Yeah. I just said a whole bunch of nice 
things about you.
    Mr. Cole. Oh, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, this is a prehearing so 
it is not recorded in any way, so you are in the clear.
    The Chairman. No. We are in the hearing.
    Mr. Cole. Are we? Well, thank you for saying nice things 
about me.
    The Chairman. So anyway, I just said a whole bunch of nice 
things, and now I am yielded to you for any opening remarks.
    Mr. Cole. I will reciprocate. I will take your word that 
you said nice things, so I would feel obliged to say nice 
things back, but they are pretty easy to say. First of all, Mr. 
Chairman, I want to thank you for holding the hearing, quite 
sincerely. I don't think there is any more person dedicated to 
the institution than you, and, frankly, dedicated to making it 
member-friendly and having a form where we try to make this as 
responsive to each individual member as an institution as we 
can be while we discharge our functions.
    You have been a good partner in defending the powers and 
prerogatives of the institution, and, again, trying to position 
members where they can be successful as they fight to achieve 
what is in the best interest of the people who sent them here 
and the interest of the country as a whole. So I look forward 
very much to the ideas we will hear today. I have no 
preconceptions.
    I would be shocked if I agreed with every one of them, but 
I appreciate every one being offered, and I know the members 
coming to present ideas are doing it, again, in the best 
interest of the institution. So I thank you very much for 
making this forum available to our colleagues. I look forward 
to working with you to see if there are suggestions that we 
can, in a bipartisan manner, work on together to try and 
improve the functionality, the flexibility, and the 
effectiveness of the House of Representatives. And I know that 
we all want to do that, and I applaud you for your leadership.
    With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. Ranking Member Cole 
yields back. And I am grateful for his opening, and we will be 
calling up our witnesses today in panels as they log on to the 
virtual platform. So I would like to welcome our first panel to 
provide testimony on proposed rules change for the 117th 
Congress. We are delighted to have you.
    Without objection, any written materials you submit to 
[email protected] before the conclusion of this 
hearing will be entered into the record.
    So our first panel is Majority Leader Hoyer, Majority Whip 
Clyburn, Chairman Thompson, Mr. Langevin, and Ms. Eshoo. So we 
will yield to our Majority Leader Mr. Hoyer.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. STENY HOYER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

    Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am glad to 
be with you today, and I thank Mr. Cole as well. I think the 
House is advantaged by the relationship that you and Tom Cole, 
as the ranking member, have, and the fact that both of you care 
about the institution.
    And I might start my remarks with, no matter what we do in 
the rules, no matter what our rules say, if we don't have 
comity and respect for one another, the rules will not make us 
work better. They can set great guidelines for us, they can be 
the rules of conduct, they can be the rules of how we consider 
bills, but one of the things that we all need to work together 
in the next Congress is to raise the respect for one another, 
raise the consideration from one another, and I think, Mr. 
Chairman, you and the ranking member reflect that kind of 
attitude on working relationships.
    So I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's 
Members Listing Day on the rules package for the House in the 
117th Congress. As we look ahead, many are anticipating a busy 
start to next year. I certainly do. Our rules ought to 
facilitate the House's ability to move swiftly to address the 
most pressing challenges facing our country.
    Others have spoken, or will speak, I am sure, at length 
about several of the proposals for next year's rules package, 
including the importance of our pay-as-you-go rule.
    But I want to focus on the restoration of congressionally 
directed spending. Now, that is a great phrase, and you and I 
both know, the press and the public will call them earmarks, 
but congressionally directed spending with the safeguards that 
Democrats put in place in 2007 and 2009. Very, very important.
    The safeguards are discussed at the same time we discuss 
the focus on congressionally directed spending. Let me add, 
before I go further, on the Pay-As-You-Go, that we created the 
paygo waiver for emergencies like the COVID-19 crisis, where we 
have to meet a serious threat by investing in immediate 
priorities and needs.
    We now have substantial fiscal challenges, however, about 
that, and they will confront us in the years and years ahead. 
And we must work responsibly together to address them in the 
coming years. With regard to congressionally directed spending, 
after abuses in the system were brought to light, we 
implemented significant reforms, as I have referenced, that 
made it transparent and held members accountable.
    A couple of those reforms are included in the rules, and a 
number of those reforms included in the committee rules. As you 
know, we restricted it to governmental or nonprofit recipients 
and required every request to be published online for the 
American people to see and judge.
    One of those rules is in the rules of the House. We made 
the system work and kept it honest. Unfortunately, however, 
when our Republican colleagues took control of the House in 
2011, they used congressionally directed spending as a partisan 
talking point, unfortunately, and eliminated this valuable tool 
for Congress, and surrendered part of our power to the 
executive branch.
    Tom Cole just said, and I agree with him very much, that 
the powers and prerogatives of the institution need to be 
protected. I will speak just a minute about that. Restoring 
this power in Congress, I believe, is essential to restoring 
the balance of our constitutional systems of checks and 
balances. A major focus, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, if I 
am fortunate enough to be the majority leader in the next 
Congress, will be finding ways to restore that balance, that 
is, the balance between the executive and the Congress.
    And looking how Congress can better assert the powers that 
our Founders intended us to have as a coequal branch of 
government, and as the sole authority on spending taxpayer 
funds. Not the executive.
    That is why I think the restoration of the congressionally 
directed spending for projects is so important. And my belief 
is that Members of Congress elected from 435 districts around 
the country know, frankly, better than those who may be in 
Washington what their districts need, what their States need. 
And we ought to return to a time when members can make that 
decision, but obviously have that judgment reviewed by the 
other 434 Members of the Congress.
    The Founders neither intended nor envisioned an expansion 
of executive power the kind we have seen in recent years. 
Through many administrations, Democrat and Republican, however, 
we have seen that concern heightened by the actions of the 
Trump administration. This President, in my view, sees Congress 
not as a coequal partner in governing, but as an impediment to 
his authoritarian tendencies. We must approach the issue of 
congressionally directed spending within this context.
    Since the elimination of congressionally directed spending 
in 2011, decisions about funding requests for projects in 
communities across the country have been made by the executive 
branch, not by the Members of Congress, who, under the 
Constitution, are solely responsible for the spending of money.
    Members know the needs of their districts, as I said, and 
are in contact on a daily basis with local leaders and civic 
organizations. That is why I strongly support restoring safe, 
transparent, and accountable congressionally directed spending 
in the 117th Congress. And I will work towards that end with 
whomever is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
    Several of the reforms we adopted during our previous 
majority are still part of the current House rules, but others 
were adopted as committee practices, and we ought to consider 
whether codifying them in the House rules for the 117th 
Congress.
    I want to thank Chairman Kilmer of the Select Committee on 
the Modernization of Congress, and his fellow committee 
members, Mr. Chairman, for working hard on a number of 
recommendations for the next Congress, which include restoring 
congressionally directed spending. And I thank them for that.
    I believe strongly that this spending ought not to be, 
however, conditioned in any way on the involvement of entities 
outside of Congress. Now when I say ``involvement,'' let me 
explain that I mean without the necessity to have a check-off 
or an approval of a local official or State official. This is 
the Congress' judgment. However, obviously, we would involve 
all of those in communications for their advice and counsel on 
what spending may be helpful for local jurisdictions.
    I, therefore, would say that we ought not to have any 
requirement for outside approval other than the voting Members 
of the Congress. I hope you will consider this proposal 
seriously, which can help us better serve the people and 
communities that we represent.
    Again, I want to thank you, again, for holding the Listing 
Day and for the hearing the many important and positive ideas 
members are bringing to the table for next year. I would close 
as I began, however. I think all of us as leaders, as Members 
of the Congress of the United States, when we get through this 
toxic, partisan battle that we are now participating in, 
hopefully we will be able to restore the kind of comity, Mr. 
Chairman, that I experienced and you were working in the 
Congress and I was a Member of the Congress, the kind of comity 
that we not only had on the Rules Committee, but we had in the 
Congress of the United States.
    One of the finest members with whom I have served in the 
Congress over the last 40 years was Bob Michel, who is the 
minority leader. He was a partisan Republican from Peoria, 
Illinois, the middle of our country. He cared for his party and 
was his party's leader, but he cared for his country, and he 
cared for the institution and he respected and worked with in a 
positive way his fellow members. I appreciated that. I think 
other members appreciated that. And as a member for over 20 
years in the Appropriations Committee, when I came there, it 
was a very partisan committee. And Silvio Conte from your 
State, Mr. Chairman, was an extraordinarily good member. A 
passionate member, but also a very bipartisan member, and that 
is what we need. Not bipartisanship in the sense that I am 
going to change my philosophy or my Republican counterparts is 
going to change his or her philosophy, but that we both have a 
philosophy that your ideas are worth listening to as are mine, 
and we may disagree, but we can do so in a positive way and 
that furthers the work of the Congress of the United States and 
our country.
    Thank you very much for this opportunity to be with you.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. I appreciate your 
testimony.
    We are now going to go Majority Whip Clyburn.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES E. CLYBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
           CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Mr. 
Ranking Member, Ranking Member Cole, and members of the 
committee. Thank you very much for allowing me to participate 
in this Members' hearing today to discuss what may be a way to 
take back the spending authority that we have under Article I 
of the Constitution, which, in recent years, have been ceded to 
the executive branch.
    I joined this august body back in 1993. At the time, the 
appropriations process allowed members to direct funds to 
activities and communities they deemed worthy. This process 
directed a small percentage of the appropriated levels to be 
congressionally directed, thereby not adding anything to the 
cost of the spending bills. And in this process resulted in 
Federal agency employees with no knowledge of residents or 
their needs deciding on the merit of our requests.
    Even efforts to make the process fairer, such as 
competitive rank process, is inherently unfair because they 
reward skills rather than needs. I represent many rural 
communities, each with its own challenges and needs. These 
communities have limited resources and are unable to hire grant 
writers and lobbyists. What these communities do have is a 
Congressman who lives among them, interacts with them 
regularly, understands their needs, and has been elected by 
them to represent their needs.
    When I was first elected to Congress, I was told by my 
State's Secretary of Commerce that until the water problems in 
my district were solved, there was little chance of attracting 
the levels of investments needed to improve the health, 
education, and welfare of the citizens who had overwhelmingly 
elected me to serve them. I heeded his advice. I used the 
earmark process to secure funding through the United States 
Army Corps of Engineers to create and expand the Lake Marion 
Regional Water Agency.
    Now I might add, I was criticized severely by many of the 
people in this district, because that to them was wasted 
Federal dollars. Well, we move not just to establish it, but to 
expand it. And it includes a six-county rural area.
    Today, I am pleased to say that South Carolina won the 
first Volvo plant in this country because of that water system. 
And now they are creating what is to be 4,000 jobs in this 
rural area. Were it not for this water system, these jobs would 
surely have gone elsewhere.
    Twenty-five years ago, South Carolina's economy was driven 
by textiles and tobacco, and many of these communities relied 
on them. Today, South Carolina's economy is driven by 
transportation and tourism. Twenty-five years ago, South 
Carolina had no Heritage Corridors. Today, it has two. South 
Carolina had no, what we call, national parks. Today, South 
Carolina has three.
    The initial funding for the nationally acclaimed Call Me 
MISTER program, designed to recruit, educate, and train African 
American males to become schoolteachers in elementary schools. 
That program, started by Clemson University, was started with 
an earmark, and it is now a national program.
    Many of the communities of my district have been 
chronically neglected over the years. I was elected to address 
these inequities and help these communities that have been 
mired in poverty for generations, to help them get their fair 
share. And while I have spoken to a few successes, many other 
communities in my district are still struggling. They need 
clean water. They need sewage systems. They need targeted 
Federal investments.
    Mr. Chairman and members, we can put into our rules the 
safeguards needed to protect the process from abuse. We should 
prohibit a member from sponsoring a project that they or family 
members have a financial interest in. We should require 
transparency so that the public can see what the members have 
requested. I have always been proud of the spending I have 
requested for my district, and I welcome the public knowing 
about every one of them.
    As our district's elected representatives, our rules should 
empower us to request spending we need to be in the best 
interest of the people we represent. We do our constituents a 
disservice by ceding to the bureaucracy the power the 
Constitution has given us to improve the lives of our 
constituents and help them pursue their dreams and aspirations.
    I thank you for the opportunity to testify on this 
important matter.
    And I yield back any time I may have left.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. This is the Rules 
Committee. Endless time.
    I now yield to Chairman Thompson.

 STATEMENT OF THE HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. Thank you, Chairman McGovern 
and Ranking Member Cole.
    Mr. Chairman, 16 years ago the bipartisan 9/11 Commission 
recommended that Congress should create a single principle 
point of oversight and review for Homeland Security. That there 
should be one permanent standing committee for Homeland 
Security in each Chamber. At the time, the Commission 
acknowledged that their recommendation to reform congressional 
oversight was the most difficult to realize, but was among the 
most important of its recommendations.
    When the 109th Congress convened on January 4th, 2005, the 
Committee on Homeland Security became the 20th standing 
committee of the House and the first new one since 1974. At 
that time, the Committee Black letter jurisdiction statement 
reflected the reluctance of other committees to relinquish 
jurisdiction to this new committee.
    The structure of Committee of Homeland Security's 
jurisdictional statement is unlike any other authorizing 
committee. It does not include broad subject matter authority 
like, for instance, the Armed Service Committee has over common 
defense generally.
    Instead, it utilizes a novel structure where it mostly 
limits Committee on Homeland Security Black letter jurisdiction 
to six narrowly-drawn activities within DHS.
    Over the years, the inadequacy of this jurisdictional 
statement has been criticized in independent reports by a host 
of groups, including the bipartisan Policy Center, the Heritage 
Foundation, the Brookings Institution, George Washington 
University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, and the Center 
for Strategic and International Studies.
    A 2013 task force report by the Aspen Institute and 
Annenberg Foundation concluded that fragmented jurisdiction 
impedes DHS's ability to deal with three major vulnerabilities: 
the threats posed by small aircrafts and boats, cybersecurity, 
and biological weapons.
    Yet, over the past 15 years, under both the Republican and 
Democratic leadership, that statement has remained unchanged.
    It concluded that DHS should have an oversight structure 
that resembles the one governing other critical departments, 
such as defense or justice and their committees' claim in 
jurisdiction over DHS should have overlapping membership. And 
just this past August, Mr. Chairman, the Atlantic Council and 
its future of DHS project recommended reform explaining that 
more than 90 committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction 
over all or part of DHS, and that the best window of 
opportunity for this will be during the 90-day window between 
the November 3rd election and the start of the 117th Congress 
on January 4, 2021.
    Chairman McGovern, I could not agree more. There is no 
question that the moment is right for reforming CHS's 
jurisdictional statement in the 117th Congress. Next year marks 
the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a catastrophic event 
that drove the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, 
and, in turn, my committee.
    Further, 15 years have passed in which there has been more 
than enough evidence to support the conclusion that our initial 
and current jurisdictional statement is inadequate and 
undermines CHS's ability to fully execute its critical role as 
DHS's authorizer.
    Finally, we are in a moment where public trust in the 
Department is at an all-time low, given its role in the 
President's cruel immigration agenda, and, more recently, on 
the streets where protesters and calls for reform have grown 
more and more urgent.
    DHS does not need dismantling, it needs reforming. But for 
that to happen, the Committee on Homeland Security must have 
adequate legislative authority to produce and bring to the 
floor a DHS reform package.
    I have been on the committee since its earliest days, and 
am proud of the work we have been able to accomplish despite 
our jurisdictional limitations. However, the committee's 
woefully inadequate jurisdiction causes many functions of DHS, 
a wide-reaching agency with collaborative missions in many 
fields, to fall under the jurisdiction of far too many 
competing congressional committees. The resulting web of 
referrals has bogged down important legislation to shape the 
future of the Department, and to reign in bad policy decisions 
and the leadership of various administrations.
    Without effective leadership from Congress, including 
consistent reauthorization of the Department, Secretaries have 
been able to carry out wrong, ineffective, and dangerous 
policies. I am proposing, as chairs on both sides of the aisles 
have in past, that Congress reorganize the committee's 
jurisdiction to bring it in line with the goals of the 9/11 
Commission's recommendation, and give the Department a true 
authorizing committee with the authority to advance reform 
legislation, and put it on a positive path.
    I recognize the challenge it presents, and remember the 
difficulty in simply creating the committee in the first place. 
However, it is the right thing to do and believe that the time 
has come to do it.
    With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back. And thank the committee 
for the opportunity to present my position.
    [The statement of Mr. Thompson follows:]


    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Langevin.

 STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
            CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me 
okay?
    The Chairman. Yes.
    Mr. Langevin. Very good. Well, good afternoon, Chairman 
McGovern, Ranking Member Cole, and members of the committee. 
Let me begin by thanking you all for your commitment to 
listening to member feedback as you consider rules changes for 
the 117th Congress. As I am sure all of my colleagues on this 
distinguished panel may be well aware, cybersecurity has been 
an issue of great importance to me for more than a dozen years. 
And for more than a decade, I have made protecting our Nation's 
critical infrastructure from our healthcare system to our power 
grid to our elections a top priority.
    I currently serve as the chairman of the Intelligence 
Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee on the House 
Armed Services Committee, and serve as a senior member of the 
Committee on Homeland Security's Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, 
Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation. Congressman Mike 
McCaul and I also cofounded, and we still, to this day, co-
chair the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus.
    I come to you today as a representative of the Cyberspace 
Solarium Commission to share our recommendations to improve the 
Nation's cybersecurity posture. Congress created the Solarium 
Commission in the fiscal year 2019 NDAA, and I had the honor of 
being appointed to this Commission by Speaker Pelosi.
    Congress charged the Commission, which comprised 14 
members, four of whom were legislators, four Deputy Secretary 
level members of the executive branch, and six private sector 
experts with developing a strategic approach to better 
protecting the United States from cyber attacks of significant 
consequence.
    We met for a year before releasing our report on March 11 
that calls for an approach of layered cyber deterrence. In 
addition to this strategic vision, we delivered 82 
recommendations on how the government can implement it. More 
than 50 of those recommendations are directed to Congress. 
Thanks to no small part to your leadership, Chairman McGovern, 
the House has included more than 20 of these bipartisan 
recommendations in this year's NDAA, including integration of a 
national cyber director within the Executive Office of the 
President.
    So I would like to reiterate my thanks to you and your 
staff, particularly Lori Ismail, in working with us to ensure 
that these important proposals were presented to the full House 
for debate. However, one of the Commission's most critical 
legislative recommendations is directed not at the 
administration, but at Congress itself.
    Recommendation 1.2 of the Commission Report states, 
Congress, and I quote: ``Congress should create House Permanent 
Select and Senate Select Committees on cybersecurity to 
consolidate budgetary and legislative jurisdiction over 
cybersecurity issues as well as traditional oversight 
authority,'' end quote.
    So this is the proposal I put forward with my solarium 
House colleague, Congressman Gallagher, for your consideration 
today. The challenges of cybersecurity jurisdiction were on 
full display earlier this week when we considered three 
suspensions relating to grid cybersecurity.
    Chairman Thompson was absolutely correct in the concerns 
that he expressed on the floor during debate that the bills did 
not reflect the views of the interagency and could increase 
silos in protecting this critical infrastructure sector.
    Chairman Pallone was correct in his assertion that 
jurisdictionally, the bills were squarely in the remit of the 
Energy and Commerce Committee. Of course, underlying this 
debate was the fact that had Energy and Commerce included 
language to avoid the silos that the Solarium Commission warns 
against, the bill could have been referred to any number of 
additional committees.
    So I can think of no clearer example on how the committee 
structure is broken than that it incentivizes the kind of silos 
that are antithetical to the whole-of-Nation approach we need 
to combat growing cyber threats.
    So our proposal today directly counters the stovepiping by 
centralizing jurisdiction around cybersecurity matters. Among 
its many benefits, it will increase congressional cybersecurity 
policy making capacity by encouraging staff and member 
expertise; it will streamline oversight from the dozens of 
committees and subcommittees that currently claim some 
jurisdiction over cyber; and it will help Congress act with the 
speed and agility needed to have any hope of keeping up with 
the pace of technological innovation.
    Mr. Chairman, I understand that matters of committee 
jurisdiction are extremely sensitive. I recognize that this 
proposal would represent a sea change in how we handle 
cybersecurity policies. However, I believe that it is 
inevitable.
    We have seen cyber attacks like NotPetya that have felled 
national economies. We have seen our adversaries invest in 
their offensive cyber capabilities. And we remain the country 
that, because we best take advantage of the internet, we remain 
most vulnerable in cyberspace. Whether in the form of a massive 
cyber incident or a more sustained death-by-1,000-cuts 
campaign, I believe this Congress will recognize we could have 
done more, and that the current committee structure is actively 
undermining our ability to do so.
    Mr. Chairman, what I am hoping you and your esteemed 
colleagues will do with the next rules package is take a page 
out of the Solarium Commission's playbook. From the outset, we 
aimed to have the impact of the 9/11 Commission without the 
precipitating event of a national tragedy on the scale of that 
9/11 event. No small task. But as former DNI Coats had said, 
and I quote, ``The warning lights are blinking red, again,'' 
end quote.
    This organizational change will not, by itself, prevent a 
disaster, but it will position Congress to ensure the internet 
is free, open, interoperable, and secure in the decades to 
come.
    Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me say something about Chairman 
Thompson's remarks that we just heard a few minutes ago. First 
off, I wish to fully associate myself with Chairman Thompson's 
remarks. DHS is hurting, and congressional dysfunction around 
the jurisdiction is, quite frankly, part of the problem.
    Secondly, while I believe a cyber committee is inevitable, 
I appreciate that it is a big step. If the Rules Committee 
feels more comfortable consolidating jurisdiction within an 
existing committee, I believe that will significantly improve 
the situation, and I believe the Committee on Homeland Security 
is the only sensible home.
    So, again, I thank Chairman Thompson for his leadership on 
many issues and his comments earlier. Again, I associate myself 
with them. With that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you.
    I yield back and look forward to answering any questions 
you may have.
    The Chairman. Thank you. And the final person on this panel 
is Ms. Eshoo.

   STATEMENT OF THE HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Chairman McGovern and Ranking Member 
Cole, the two of you, I think, are a source of pride to all the 
Members in the House by the way you work together. And all of 
the members of the committee, I appreciate being able to offer 
my suggestions for updating the House rules for the 117th 
Congress.
    Specifically, I urge you to consider four changes: The 
first is to expand multi-factor authentication requirements. 
The second is to establish a working group to combat 
surveillance of congressional communications. The third is to 
ensure all House documents are machine-readable. And the fourth 
is to make permanent electronic submission of legislative 
materials.
    I certainly appreciate the hard work of the House staff to 
protect our cybersecurity, but I think we have more work to do. 
As just one example of where we are, you might notice that the 
ID cards that our staff wear have a chip except it is not an 
actual chip. It is an image of a chip, and this measure is 
called security feeder.
    So I urge the committee, first of all, to require multi-
factor authentication for all access to the House network. 
Executive branch employees have IDs with real chips, which they 
insert into their laptops for multi-factor authentication. We 
currently require multi-factor authentication for remote 
access, but our requirements are actually incomplete. I would 
be happy to share vulnerabilities with the committee privately 
so as not to publicize them.
    Secondly, I urge the committee to establish a working group 
to study and to combat potential surveillance of congressional 
communications. On August 28th, I wrote to the Director of 
National Intelligence, the DNI, and the NSA Director expressing 
my concerns regarding recent allegations that Edward Snowden 
surveilled communications of Congress while he was an NSA 
contractor.
    I asked how often the intelligence community has surveilled 
Congress, or whether it has technical safeguards to prohibit 
such surveillance. And most frankly, the responses to my letter 
really ignored answering the questions. We have all received 
letters like that, so I think you know exactly what I am 
talking about.
    But sadly, this isn't the first time that the IC has 
surveilled Congress.
    In the 1970s, the CIA maintained files on 75 Members of 
Congress. So we know that our Constitution established three 
coequal branches of government with a separation of powers, one 
branch being able to spy on another is totally unacceptable. 
Now, press reports also indicate that Washington is littered 
with sting rays. These are devices used to intercept cellular 
communications, and while DHS confirms the problem, it is not 
clear who is operating the devices.
    Third, I urge the committee to require all legislative 
material to be posted in a machine-readable format. Today, the 
bills are posted to Congress.gov in a machine-readable format, 
but the materials for mark-ups are posted online as PDFs, and 
sometimes they aren't even searchable PDFs. And why does this 
matter?
    If we receive amendments in the nature of a substitute 24 
hours before marking up lengthy bills, we can't compare the 
amendments to original bills without manually reading the 
documents line by line. It is the 21st century, so we need to 
do something about this. With machine-readable formats, 
members, their staff, and the public can easily analyze 
amendments.
    And finally, I ask that the committee make permanent 
procedures for submitting legislative materials to the Clerk 
electronically. On April 16th, the Clerk announced procedures 
for secure process to introduce legislation, add cosponsors to 
bills, and insert statements to the Congressional Record 
electronically. This decision remains essential for the safety 
of members and staff. And my observation is the process is 
working quite well.
    So making this change permanent makes our operations more 
efficient. An electronic time stamp also means we have a paper 
trail as to when items were filed.
    So, again, I want to thank the committee for considering my 
recommendations. I welcome any questions that the committee 
might have for me moving forward.
    And I yield back.
    The Chairman. Well, thank you very much. I want to thank 
all of you for your testimony. There are, I think, some really 
important ideas here. I want to associate myself with the 
suggestions of the majority leader. I do think congressionally 
directed spending is something we should try to get back to, 
not just because we know our districts better I think than the 
executive branch, but also, because I think if the past is any 
indication, when people have skin in the game, when people know 
that passing certain bills will actually make a difference in 
their districts, we tend to get more bipartisan support.
    So I look forward to this discussion continuing, and again, 
Majority Whip Clyburn who is also in favor of this, was very 
direct and persuasive about the value of that. Chairman 
Thompson and Mr. Langevin, I appreciate your recommendations, 
and we will work with you.
    I think the issue, when you talk about committee 
jurisdiction, is always a little bit delicate because sometimes 
when you want to expand your jurisdiction, it means somebody 
else is diminishing theirs. And even though this makes sense, 
it is not always easy to get everybody reading off the same 
sheet of music, but we will--in the coming weeks, our staff 
will work with your staffs to just to see where we can begin 
these conversations to see whether we get a consensus amongst 
committees that may be impacted by a consolidation on Homeland 
Security that maybe we can come to some sort of accommodation.
    Ms. Eshoo, I think all of your suggestions are--but we will 
work with you. Some of these, I think, are rules changes, some 
of them may not necessarily be rules changes, but maybe helps 
the administration or something. But we will work with you to 
try to make sure they are all, to the extent possible, adopted. 
So I appreciate your testimony very, very much. Mr. Cole.
    Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 
begin in joining you in thanking all the members of the panel. 
This may be the most distinguished panel that has appeared 
before the Rules Committee. These are really substantive and 
significant members from leadership through every person on 
this panel. So I thought all the suggestions were well-thought 
through.
    Let me make a couple of remarks as well. I am going to 
broadly agree with the majority leader about congressionally 
directed spending. As an appropriator, I don't think he will 
find that a shock. I will slightly disagree that I think it is 
any worse in terms of the loss of power with this President as 
opposed to any previous President.
    This, to me, is a primarily institutional question. I 
always point out our former President, President Obama, I think 
requested the most earmarks of anybody in Congress when he was 
a United States Senator, but as soon as he became President, 
decided they were inappropriate and was happy to be rid of 
them. I think any President would be that way, but--and let me 
emphasize, I speak only for myself. I don't speak for my 
conference. I certainly don't speak for my leadership, but my 
opinion is we lost an important tool.
    I think the majority leader's exactly right. We lost an 
important tool. Whip Clyburn made this point, too, to both help 
our constituents who they send us here and many of them are not 
in a position to get paid lobbyists. They rely on their member 
to look after their interest. That is part of the job, I think.
    And I agree with, again, both the majority leader and 
majority whip that who both made the point face, cards have to 
be appropriate.
    There is no question there has been abuses here in the 
past. We have members that went to prison for abusing this 
system. So the idea of publishing, making them accountable, not 
being able to airdrop congressionally directed spending 
projects into conference bills, all those things make a lot of 
sense to me.
    And the idea of moving away from profit-making institutions 
make a lot of sense. Although I will add this: Just as Majority 
Whip Clyburn pointed out a really important program that, you 
know, encourages African-American males to go into teaching 
began with a single congressionally directed spending project. 
That is true of one of our most important weapons systems, the 
predator drone, which actually the Pentagon resisted, and this 
was a case where Congress actually had a much better idea than 
the bureaucracy, and our former colleague, Jerry Lewis, had a 
lot to do with making sure that particular weapons platform is 
available for our use. It has been very valuable. 
Controversial, I will grant you, but unquestionably valuable.
    So, again, this idea of shipping power over to the 
executive branch, I think, is a mistake. I think it is a failed 
experiment. I had these discussions frequently with our former 
colleague, former United States Senator, my late friend, Tom 
Coburn, who was famous in opposing earmarks, liked to call them 
the great gateway drug to spending, but I actually made the 
point in one of our discussions. Look, when we actually had 
earmarks, we actually balanced the budget. We have gotten rid 
of them. How close have we come to a balanced budget since 
then?
    I am not suggesting that earmarks or congressionally 
directed spending result in a balanced budget. I am just saying 
there is not any relationship between the two. That has become 
a way to demagogue things, and it has cost us a tool and it has 
cost us power. So I very much agree with that.
    Very much interested in Chairman Thompson's point about 
Homeland Security. Hal Rogers, as many of you know, is one of 
my great friends, and he has wrestled with the appropriations 
side of this issue. I think those are really important 
suggestions. They are difficult, I will grant you.
    I see this same sort of thing, Mr. Chairman, probably 
should submit an idea to the Rules Committee, but I will give 
you a perfect example of this happening within the 
Appropriations Committee itself.
    We have the Indian Healthcare Service funded in the 
Interior Approps Subcommittee, because it mostly deals with 
Indian issues. That seems like it makes sense, but it really 
ought to be in the Labor, Health, and Human Services, because 
it is part of Health and Human Services. It is the only part of 
that agency that is not controlled and has two practical 
consequences. The first is that Indian Health is always 
underfunded. It is the largest item in the interior budget, 
which is only about $32 billion. You move it over to an agency 
that has $190 billion, or a committee within its purview, you 
have a much better chance of getting that to where it needs to 
be.
    Second thing, and this is a separate problem, but I have 
actually presented it to the Budget Committee, under both 
Republicans and Democrats, it is the only healthcare agency, 
number 1, that we don't use mandatory funding in except just 
third-party payment. So it is really subject to the limitations 
of the appropriations process, and that needs to be looked at.
    Number 2, because it is an appropriated item, for instance, 
when we had sequester, and we held Medicare and Medicaid except 
for very small part of provider payments exempt from cuts, 
Indian Healthcare was cut, and it was already the most 
underfunded part of the--and I don't think that was deliberate, 
by the way, on anybody's part. We just treat it differently.
    So there is some real merit to these suggestions in terms 
of looking at redistributing authority, because they have real 
life consequences. This isn't just a power game on Capitol 
Hill. Where you happen to be placed in the appropriations 
budget, since each one of those subcommittees has a different 
top line, really determines what your prospects are. As I have 
told my friends in Indian country on many occasions, you will 
never get IHS funded appropriately as long as it is stuck in 
Interior because there is too many responsibilities within that 
agency, and too little money. And that is actually an area 
where the two parties have worked very, very well together for 
over a decade now trying to do the best they could under that 
limited section.
    So, again, I know I have droned on, but just thought I 
would take the occasion to put my particular favorite in front 
of people that might be able to actually help me down the line 
as we work through this.
    But I want to thank each and every member for their 
testimony. I thought this was exceptionally thoughtful, good 
suggestions. A lot of areas here, Mr. Majority Leader, where 
you and I agree, and where I hope we can work in a bipartisan 
manner because, again, as the chairman pointed out, this is 
about institutional appropriate power, and constitutionally 
derived power. This isn't about trying to score political 
points against anybody, and I very much appreciate the spirit 
in which these suggestions were offered.
    I think they all have considerable merit and look forward 
to working with my colleagues to try and implement as many of 
them as possible.
    Yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Perlmutter, any questions or comments?
    Mr. Perlmutter. Yes. Just a couple. Thank you. And I am 
like 100 percent with Mr. Cole on this, both on the directed 
spending. Also, I do think, Mr. Cole, you want to present some 
kind of a rule change as to that Indian Health because it has 
come up on a number of occasions. So I think you brought it up 
here, and we ought to formalize it a little more.
    I remember we had two colleagues, one of them became my 
Senator, Mark Udall, who was opposed to earmarks, and Jeff 
Flake, was very much. And he would go down to the mic and he 
would make his statements. And they were wrong then, and I told 
them so. And I think it really has hurt our institution. A lot 
of us took pride, and I know almost everybody took pride in the 
ability to provide an irrigation project, you know, help 
channel some kind of a difficult ravine, or help with a 
laboratory at a local college. And, actually, you can take 
ownership of that. So as a personal matter as well as a 
community matter, it is very beneficial.
    So Mr. Clyburn, you are absolutely right. Because I felt 
personally like I was more effective and more connected to my 
district with the ability to do some of those things for a Boys 
and Girls Club or something like that.
    I am with Mr. Thompson. I served on Homeland Security many 
moons ago with Mr. Thompson and Mr. Langevin. I don't know if 
they remember that, but we had similar problems back then as to 
not being able to really do all the things that are required of 
that committee because we kept bumping into jurisdictional 
issues. And so, I would be supportive of you two gentlemen and 
your request.
    And to Jim Langevin, that would affect Financial Services 
because we have a cybersecurity component to that when it comes 
to the financial sector and the hacking potentially, and the 
disruption of the financial sector. So, we should all get 
together and do that. And then, Anna Eshoo seemed to be 
specific and easy to do.
    So I just appreciate the testimony, but particularly on the 
directed funding. I think we did ourselves a disservice by 
doing away with that.
    And I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Woodall.
    Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We always are able to 
make time to do those things that are in our wheelhouse, 
community jurisdictions, congressionally directed spending. I 
liked Ms. Eshoo's concerns. We are so resistant to increased 
security measures in this place, whether it is showing your ID 
when you pass the congressional entry points instead of 
expecting people to recognize you, or whether it is two-factor 
identification when you are logged into your computer. By the 
time we all come together on Ms. Eshoo's concerns, it is going 
to be too late because something awful will have happened.
    We have to exert, in the name of protecting the 
institution, some disciplined inconvenience ourselves in ways 
that Ms. Eshoo has taken the time and, in fact, made a career 
of understanding and highlighting for those of us who do not 
understand them, and, again, will not until it is too late.
    So, I just want to particularly thank her for that and it 
is not in our wheelhouse. We are uncomfortable going down this 
road sometimes, and it is easy to put it on the back burner 
until it is too late. And I hope we will take her advice and 
her very pointed solutions to heart, and make sure that we 
benefit from those.
    With that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Morelle.
    Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. I 
liked all the remarks of my colleagues in thanking such a 
distinguished panel. I do want to note, parenthetically, I find 
it hard to imagine anyone who served on a standing committee 
with Ed Perlmutter would have forgotten that experience. So I 
won't ask for any show of hands, but I find that hard to 
believe.
    But I just wanted to note--I was thinking back as Mr. 
Leader and Mr. Whip were making their comments. I think about 
the Clinical Translational Science Building at the University 
of Rochester, or the Historic Eastman Theater where my dear 
friend, Louise Slaughter's memorial service was at the U of R, 
or the Center for Immigrating Manufacturing Studies, or the 
Sustainability Institute at RIT, MAGIC Spells Studios at RIT, 
which was for students in the nationally ranked gaming, film 
and animation schools, a hospital's dialysis.
    Those are all things that I was able to actually get funded 
when I was a member of the New York State legislature and what 
we called member items, which is effectively the same--
different terms, same thing that relates to directed spending.
    I don't think there is any question that you could meet 
both objectives of ensuring transparency and accountability and 
yet allow members who know their districts, know their 
communities the very best to make decisions on priority 
projects in their regions.
    I thought Mr. Clyburn's discussion of what he had been able 
to do in South Carolina was so right on the money, because each 
of us, each community has challenges, but each are different 
than every other community. And so, I would be a strong 
supporter of doing that. And as I said, I don't think it is 
mutually exclusive that we have transparency and 
accountability, as well as congressionally directed spending. 
And, frankly, I think it is so inherent in Article I 
responsibilities of the Congress and the power of the purse. So 
I would agree with my very eloquent colleagues who have spoken 
before and thank the panelists.
    I did have, if it is okay, I will admit to not having very 
much of a knowledge base on jurisdictions, and I suspect I 
appreciate very much the chairman's acknowledgement of the 
sensitivity of jurisdictions. But if I could just ask Chairman 
Thompson, can you just give me sort of an example of how you 
and your colleagues on the committee feel constrained in ways 
that would help give me some clarity around what it is exactly 
that you are asking to do without divulging too much, but 
perhaps you could just give me some instance of an example?
    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. Well, thank you very much.
    I will give you a good example, is one of the challenges we 
have now is natural disasters. FEMA is one of those 22 agencies 
that is in Homeland. But before FEMA can move any resources 
pertaining to a hurricane, flood, wildfire, tornado, or 
anything like that, the Stafford Act has to be engaged that 
gives FEMA the authority to go out and perform its mission.
    Mr. Morelle. May I interrupt you? Do you mean the FEMA 
staff itself or other staff?
    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. The Stafford Act, which is----
    Mr. Morelle. Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry.
    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. Right. Which is the trigger 
that provides the resources.
    Well, the Stafford Act is in another committee. It is not 
in Homeland. So FEMA is sitting here with all the resources 
marshalled to address the natural disaster, but they are in 
neutral because they don't have the authority to go and help 
American citizens. And sometimes our experience has been those 
authorities are sometimes days, if not weeks, before they are 
engaged. But if that authority was within Homeland, FEMA could 
do its job day one. And so it is those kinds of things.
    The other thing, give you a good example, is with ICE, 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Well, if you have a 
problem in your district with ICE, that jurisdiction is in 
another committee because it is considered interior 
enforcement. But guess what? ICE is in Homeland because part of 
their mission is border security.
    So I get the call from many of my colleagues saying, ``We 
have this issue with ICE in our district,'' and then when I try 
to explain jurisdiction, the first thing they said, ``But 
aren't they in Homeland?'' ``You are correct.''
    So what I am trying to do is we need to get the authorities 
and jurisdictions to match. And I am done after this.
    Armed Services. Anything pertaining to the military goes to 
Armed Services. That is it. Agriculture. Anything that goes on 
related to agriculture is in Agriculture. And I am trying to 
get--not trying to--you know, I am just trying to connect the 
mission with the authority and responsibility.
    Mr. Morelle. Those are very good examples, and I appreciate 
that.
    So I do note that--again, my background is in the State 
legislature and we have sort of pretty discrete jurisdictions 
for the various committees, although at one point I chaired the 
insurance committee. I had a colleague who chaired the health 
committee. And so health insurance ended up being, depending on 
which section of law, could be in the insurance committee, 
could be in the health committee. So I am familiar.
    And I guess there is no perfect way to divide that up. I 
even note here in the House, healthcare could be, if it is 
ERISA, it would come under Ed and Labor. It comes under Energy 
and Commerce. If it involves tax provisions, Ways and Means.
    Is the situation you face more acute than some of the 
jurisdictional challenges that would face us on some of the 
issues like healthcare, et cetera? Do you think it is unique 
and more of a bright line?
    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. Oh, absolutely. And it is a 
matter of function. You want the agencies to work. So much of 
what we do is predicated on being able to respond in a timely 
manner. And so that response is limited simply because the 
agency that you are located in does not have the authority to 
execute on that issue.
    And so I will give you another example. I am done after 
this. Family separation, that we had a big issue separating 
families from others. Well, that authority is not a Homeland 
authority, per se, it is vested in another committee, but the 
agency that created the problem is in Homeland.
    And so we are just trying to, to the best that we can, tie 
the authorities and functions with the agencies and nothing 
more than that.
    Mr. Morelle. I see.
    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. And if the committee would 
like, I can provide you with several other examples of what we 
are talking about, just so we can serve the American people in 
a timely manner.
    Mr. Morelle. Well, I will say--and I apologize for the 
extended questioning. Thank you, this has really been very 
helpful.
    And I apologize, Mr. Chair.
    I assume that some of this came out of the fact that, as 
you mentioned, 9/11 really gave rise to the Department of 
Homeland Security. As a New Yorker, I am particularly grateful 
for that. So I assume some of this is the developing of an 
agency and a committee that follows it. So you are sort of 
getting shoehorned into existing law and existing wires that 
pre-existed 9/11 and the committee.
    But I think you make a compelling case, and I really 
appreciate it. I can't imagine the frustration of having to 
have agencies that are under the jurisdiction of my committee 
or that you have oversight for, but you can't really affect or 
you can't connect with on the issues that colleagues are and 
the American public is talking about. So I really appreciate 
very much your leadership and your comments here.
    The last thing I would say is, I agree with my other 
colleagues. Ms. Eshoo, I think you make compelling arguments on 
the issues of electronic submission and cybersecurity.
    Oh, and I am sorry, just to go back for 1 second, I 
apologize. The notion of creating a select committee would, if 
we were able to address the Homeland Security Committee issues 
in the way that you, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Thompson, have 
suggested, would you then simply create potentially a 
subcommittee on cybersecurity? Is there no conflict between 
what you are recommending and what Mr. Langevin was 
recommending?
    Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. No, absolutely. We created 
CISA, which is a cyber entity that has responsibility across 
the Federal agency platform. And so what we are saying is, keep 
the mission of Federal agency cybersecurity within that agency. 
The minute you pull it out, we would start creating the same 
problem we had before we created Homeland, which is the siloing 
of information that ended up with 9/11.
    And so we are trying to avoid that by creating a system 
where everyone is here talking to each other and not everybody 
trying to come with a turf issue.
    The other thing I can say is, all the recommendations of 
the 9/11 Commission report spoke to that issue, and the only 
one we have not completely fulfilled is this notion of 
jurisdiction for the Homeland Security Committee.
    Mr. Morelle. Fair again.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you. I apologize for the length of my 
questioning, but I really appreciate all the panelists and the 
opportunity to speak. I yield back.
    The Chairman. All right.
    Mrs. Lesko.
    Mrs. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No questions.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Ms. Shalala.
    Okay. Did I miss anybody who is----
    Ms. Shalala. No, I am fine. I have just got a couple of 
things.
    First of all, I agree with directed spending, and I 
absolutely agree with Representative Eshoo's recommendations.
    And for Mr. Cole, Mr. Cole, I would love to see the Indian 
Health Service in Labor-HHS. I struggled trying to get 
resources for the Indian Health Service, as well as the Food 
and Drug Administration, which was stuck in Agriculture because 
they just were not high priorities for those committees. Even 
when I went and personally testified, it was just very 
difficult to get proper resources. So I would even think about 
the Bureau of Indian Education being moved to Education just to 
get some attention to these really important agencies.
    Frankly, the only reason the Indian Health Service, during 
my years at HHS, and the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, 
ever got significant resources was because I was Ted Stevens' 
doubles partner, and he helped me get resources for those two 
agencies, because it was hard to get the attention of those 
committees. So I just think that thinking through the right 
alignment is just the right thing to do.
    Mr. Cole. Will the gentlelady yield for a question or 
comment?
    Ms. Shalala. Yes.
    Mr. Cole. Well, number one, thank you for your focus on 
this in your time in the executive and your continued focus on 
it.
    But to your point, this is actually an area, I will tell 
you, where I would compliment both Democrats and Republicans on 
Indian Health in the Interior Subcommittee of Approps for over 
a decade. They have really actually exceeded consistently what 
Republican and Democratic administrations have suggested. There 
is just not enough money there. It is just a matter of what 
their total pot is.
    Ms. Shalala. Well, exactly.
    Mr. Cole. And the second area that I should have mentioned 
earlier and that your opinion on would be really valued, a 
number of years ago we made the decision, I think it was a 
smart decision, to forward-fund veterans' health so it is never 
at risk if we are in some sort of political spat up here. We 
haven't done that with Indian healthcare, and we ought to do 
the same thing, particularly if we are going to keep it within 
the discretionary budget.
    You know, that, again, is something we just simply ought to 
do, so that if there is a squabble up here, all of a sudden 
there is not a dramatic decline in the availability of 
healthcare on some remote Indian reservation where people there 
have done absolutely nothing wrong, we just haven't gotten our 
job done up here.
    So, anyway, I put that. But, again, thanks for your work 
and your commitment. You have such a distinguished record, and 
it is much appreciated.
    Ms. Shalala. Thank you.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back?
    Okay. So are there no other questions of this panel? Then I 
want to thank this panel, and you are all now dismissed. Thank 
you.
    Calling up our next panel, Mr. Davis, Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz, Mr. Cline, Mr. Castro, and Mr. Crist.
    Thank you for providing testimony today.
    Any written materials that you have you can submit to 
[email protected] before the conclusion of this 
hearing, and without objection, it will be entered into the 
record.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis.

    STATEMENT OF THE HON. RODNEY DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry about 
that. I wanted to make sure I was unmuted.
    I appreciate being here. Chairman McGovern, Ranking Member 
Cole, good afternoon, and to the rest of the committee. Thanks 
again for allowing me to testify today.
    The 116th Congress has been full of surprises, and although 
there have been endless challenges, the silver lining is our 
ability to learn from them, to adapt, and to make our 
institution work better for the American people.
    I am here this afternoon to highlight three buckets of 
changes that the House could adopt to not only strengthen our 
operations, but pave the path for continued improvement.
    The first set of changes is a clarification----
    The Chairman. Mr. Davis, excuse me, could you put your 
video on?
    Mr. Davis of Illinois. I thought I had it on, sir. I 
apologize.
    The Chairman. There you go, you are on now. Yeah. You were 
in stereo and now in technicolor. Okay, great.
    Mr. Davis of Illinois. You don't want me to reread the rest 
of it, do you? I will start at the same point.
    I do want to say the first set of changes that I am asking 
for is a clarification of current House rules regarding the use 
of proxy voting. During this committee's hearing on H. Res. 
965, I warned that proxy voting would likely be abused by 
members if authorized. I was assured that controls would be in 
place, and it was being implemented in order to assure member--
in order to ensure member, family, and staff safety.
    However, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, today, 4 
months later, the trends are emerging that signal abuse of this 
option. As infection rates stabilize and in many States fall, 
proxy voting is being used in increased numbers by up to 20 
percent of all members, and often inconsistently, with members 
picking and choosing when they want to be in D.C.
    We are also seeing increased use of proxy voting on 
Fridays, a sign that members are using it to take a long 
weekend back home.
    These practices show us that the use of proxy voting is no 
longer being utilized in the spirit in which it was 
implemented--safety--but rather in the spirit of convenience.
    Americans deserve better. They deserve their members to 
show up to work, and I would encourage the next Congress' rules 
package include additional guardrails if the proxy voting 
remains at all.
    The second bucket is an acknowledgement of the work of the 
Select Committee on Modernization of Congress, in which I and 
my peers passed our final report of nearly a hundred 
recommendations last week unanimously. These recommendations 
emphasize the need for the House to increase transparency, 
streamline operations, and improve accessibility so that all 
our constituents can engage in the work that we do.
    Rules changes to require our legislative documents be 
publicly shared in a machine-readable format and for all 
committee votes to be recorded and compiled into a publicly 
accessible database are concrete, realistic improvements.
    Similarly, making permanent some of the technological 
advancements we have made in facing the pandemic, such as 
continuing the Clerk's use of the e-Hopper and allowing the 
electronic sponsorship and cosponsorship of bills, not only 
saves our staff time, but saves the taxpayers money.
    I would recommend we also expand electronic signatures for 
discharge petitions.
    Lastly, modernizing our institution to be accessible by 
those with disabilities is a duty and priority in which we are 
behind. We have dedicated considerable resources to making our 
campus physically accessible, but need to put the same emphasis 
on accessibility for those that interact from afar.
    There are many changes we need to make. Two at the top of 
the list are ensuring that all congressional websites are 
accessible to the disabled and that all video products of the 
House have closed captioning.
    I encourage you and your team to read the Select 
Committee's final list of recommendations for more details on 
each of these proposed rules changes and dozens more.
    The final bucket I encourage this committee to consider 
when crafting the rules for the 117th Congress is the need for 
continued modernization. As a previous staffer and now a member 
who has had the honor to serve on both the Committee on House 
Administration and this Select Committee on Modernization, I 
see opportunities before us to better this institution and to 
do it in a bipartisan manner.
    The efforts of the Select Committee need to continue. I 
know there are different ideas on what form that should take, 
and I am open to the various options, including authorizing 
another Select Committee, creating a subcommittee of House 
Administration, or a less formal structure. The most important 
thing is that we continue the momentum that has been created.
    Again, thank you, Chairman McGovern and Ranking Member 
Cole, for holding this hearing. A rules package not only guides 
us, it can push us all to be better. I applaud this committee 
for soliciting input from all members and look forward to 
continuing to work together. And at this time, I will yield 
back.
    [The statement of Mr. Davis of Illinois follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. And let me just assure 
you that we do take the recommendations of the Committee on 
Modernization seriously. We created the committee and we 
extended the life of the committee because we thought that the 
work was important. So we will look at those things.
    Some of the recommendations would require rules changes. 
Some of them we don't need rules changes to do. We need to get 
various other committees to act on them. But I assure you we 
take it very seriously.
    I am now happy to yield to Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

       STATEMENT OF THE HON. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, A 
      REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 
Member Cole, and appreciate the opportunity to present my 
proposals before the House Rules Committee to my colleagues. 
This really is a fantastic opportunity at the beginning and 
onset of the 117th Congress for us to really continue to make 
the entire process that we go through each and every day more 
transparent and more inclusive.
    In 2011, Congress chose to surrender a great deal of its 
power of the purse to the executive branch. And I associate 
myself with the remarks of Leader Hoyer, Whip Clyburn, Mr. 
Cole, and many others who have testified this afternoon that it 
is past time that we take back the power that we surrendered.
    Banning congressionally directed spending and giving that 
power to the executive branch has made the appropriations 
process less accountable and more arduous. It has contributed 
to a lack of comity, and too many members feel too little 
direct impact in their districts and are consequently not able 
to be as involved in the process.
    I believe the ban on congressionally directed spending is 
one of the factors that contributes to breakdowns in the 
process and delays that end with frantic year-end negotiations 
and government shutdowns.
    And prominent leaders on both sides of the aisle, in and 
outside of Congress, have realized this. They recognize that 
the Constitution granted Congress the power of making important 
decisions about spending. John Hudak of the Brookings 
Institution astutely recognized that, quote, ``The removal of 
congressional earmarking does not make earmarking go away. It 
simply transfers that power and that practice from the 
legislative branch to the executive branch.''
    It does not make sense for Congress to surrender control 
over Federal funding to unelected bureaucrats in the 
administration--and I mean any administration. Members of 
Congress are in the best position to know the needs of our 
district and the needs of our constituents.
    The ban does not exist in law or in House rules, as you 
know, but only in practice, and it can be easily changed next 
Congress if there is only the political will to do so.
    But we need to do this, as many of my colleagues have 
testified, the right way. We need to add additional 
requirements that will ensure transparency and good governance 
while prohibiting wasteful spending, and that will require 
changing the rules. So I offer the following proposals to start 
us off on the responsible pathway towards restoring our 
constitutional authority.
    One, prohibit congressionally directed spending for for-
profit entities.
    Two, post congressionally directed spending on the 
committee's website, in the Congressional Record, in bill 
reports, and on members' personal websites.
    Three, establish an online, searchable congressionally 
directed spending database that is publicly accessible and 
media friendly.
    Four, direct the Government Accountability Office to submit 
an annual audit that examines the public benefits of enacted 
congressionally directed spending and the efficacy of the 
proposed transparency and accountability measures.
    Six, direct inspectors general to regularly review a sample 
of congressionally directed spending for waste, fraud, and 
abuse.
    Seven, require that all restrictions on congressionally 
directed spending be enshrined in House rules and that any new 
disclosure requirements will apply to all legislation at all 
times, as has been discussed by other members this afternoon.
    Currently, many legislative vehicles are left out of the 
requirements, including floor and self-executing amendments, 
amendments between Chambers, and legislation considered under 
suspension of the rules.
    With a robust congressionally directed spending platform, 
Congress could reassert its authority in a clean and 
transparent manner while allowing members to better represent 
and secure targeted resources for our districts.
    Restoring congressionally directed spending won't fix 
everything wrong with the appropriations process, but it can go 
a long way towards ameliorating the difficulty we experience in 
negotiations over funding the government.
    Second, Mr. Chairman, I also want to mention my support for 
restoring the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. The 9/11 
Commission report included several recommendations aimed at 
increasing oversight of appropriations for the intelligence 
community.
    That responsibility is really only handled by the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee right now, and that is why the 
House established the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel in 
the 110th Congress. I was proud to be a member of that panel.
    Unfortunately, the panel was abolished in the 112th 
Congress. We should consider bringing it back. Revisions to the 
process and structure of the committee could be made to update 
the panel's approach and ensure that it is able to conduct a 
vital oversight role. The panel studies the budget requests and 
provides advice and feedback to the Defense Appropriations 
Subcommittee to help prepare the classified annex.
    Now more than ever we need additional accountability over 
the black budget. With an administration that continues to 
abuse its outlay authorities and defy the congressional intent 
of appropriations bills, making sure that we have this 
important layer of accountability and oversight in the black 
portion of the budget of appropriations is absolutely 
essential.
    And this panel would be useful no matter which 
administration is in power. It is important that Congress 
assert our authority over the intelligence budget and ensure 
that responsible funding decisions are made, and made 
thoroughly, with a lot of eyeballs.
    And it is just so important for us to make sure that in 
terms of protecting our national security, which numerous 
members coming before the committee today have raised as being 
an ever-increasing threat, having an Oversight Committee, once 
again, that would be specifically focused on the oversight of 
the administration's budget requests and the intelligence 
spending that we do for our entire Nation would be a critical 
oversight component that would allow us to make sure that we 
can continue to improve our national security.
    Thank you for the opportunity to present my suggestions, 
and I yield.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Cline.

 STATEMENT OF THE HON. BEN CLINE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cole. 
I really appreciate you holding today's hearing to listen to 
concerns and proposals from your colleagues regarding the rules 
of the House. Hearings like this are critical to the effective 
function of Congress, and I sincerely appreciate this 
opportunity to testify on practices that can improve the 
legislative operations of this body.
    Many of the House rules that are in place provide the 
necessary transparency and accountability in the legislative 
process, but, unfortunately, these rules are often worked 
around or waived when it matters most. I am here today just to 
highlight practices already established that I believe we 
should be exercising to increase transparency and 
accountability. Accordingly, by following these well-thought-
out rules, we can rein in the crippling dysfunction that has 
plagued the legislative process.
    The 72-hour rule was established so that Members of 
Congress and the public have time to read and review 
legislation before having members vote on it. Unfortunately, 
this rule can be waived in the Rules Committee or can be worked 
around by amending an existing bill, typically by an amendment 
in the nature of a substitute.
    Sadly, these occurrences are frequently used on 
appropriations and larger authorization measures. For example, 
last week the text of the continuing resolution was introduced 
less than an hour before members had an opportunity to vote on 
it. This flies in the face of responsible governance.
    Measures like these should not be passed under suspension 
of the rules. Managing it in that manner takes away any 
feasible transparency to the voters of where their member 
stands on specific spending measures.
    The abandonment of adhering to the spirit of the 72-hour 
rule has been happening well before this Congress. Admittedly, 
both sides of the aisle have utilized this tactic while in the 
majority. That is why I have introduced a House resolution with 
one of my fellow freshman Democrats to tighten this rule's 
instances where a bill is stripped of its text and replaced by 
new language to skirt the 72-hour rule.
    It is not just a matter of transparency that members should 
have time to read bills they will be voting on, it is a matter 
of respect, respect that all members have a right to read the 
legislation, not just those who are in leadership drafting it.
    In addition to the ability to read bills before voting on 
them, members should be given the opportunity to offer 
amendments on bills that they were not able to help draft.
    Way, way back in the day I was a staffer here on the Hill, 
and in the 1990s we considered more appropriations in larger 
authorization bills under open rules, or modified open rules, 
and this allowed members who did not have an opportunity to 
amend bills when they were in committee an opportunity to do so 
on the floor before having to vote on it.
    There have been no open rules on the House floor during 
this Congress, and the last time an open rule, or revised open 
rule, was reported out of the Rules Committee was in the 114th 
Congress.
    Many members sincerely do want to participate in the 
legislative process. We genuinely believe we have serious 
amendments to improve legislation. I have 16 years in the State 
legislature working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
to improve legislation throughout the process, and my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle should have the chance to 
improve legislation here in the Congress.
    The last area for improvement that I would like to 
recommend today is the importance of individual bill 
consideration when it comes to appropriations measures. And 
while it is not specific to this committee, this committee does 
have great sway and influence, and I would urge you to help 
encourage regular order when it comes to appropriations bills.
    Each of the Appropriation subcommittees work hard to 
produce a bill, and members should be afforded the opportunity 
to vote on and offer amendments to individual appropriations 
bills.
    As was said earlier by my colleagues, Article I, section 7 
of the U.S. Constitution establishes that revenue bills shall 
originate in the House. This is one of the most important and 
serious responsibilities that the House has.
    When these bills are passed as massive packages or funding 
is pushed through as a continuing resolution, that impacts 
members' ability to thoughtfully consider legislation. The 
American people should expect more fiscal responsibility and 
focus from Congress instead of relegating those duties by 
passing expansive appropriations packages.
    Congressional leaders need to return to a regular order 
appropriations process, and the Rules Committee should 
encourage leaders to produce appropriations measures that are 
reported to the floor as their individual bills instead of as 
packages.
    These are all issues that can easily be fixed by using the 
existing processes and respecting the rules that are 
established. These changes are within our power as members to 
make and would establish a baseline of respect that all members 
deserve in this Chamber. It also extends that same respect to 
the voters who elected each of us to thoughtfully represent 
them here in the House of Representatives.
    Thank you for the work that you do, and I look forward to 
working with the Rules Committee to bring about more 
transparency and accountability in the legislative process.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Castro.

   STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOAQUIN CASTRO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
                CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Mr. Castro. Thank you to Chairman McGovern and Ranking 
Member Cole for holding this important hearing.
    Today I am here to discuss a proposed change to the rules 
package for the next Congress that would institutionalize the 
Tri-Caucus Witness Diversity Initiative.
    As you all know, the Tri-Caucus is composed of the 
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Congressional 
Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Black Caucus.
    This year, the Tri-Caucus launched this important 
initiative to track the diversity of the expert witnesses who 
testify before House committees. Our announcement included 
support from Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Whip 
Clyburn, the Women's Caucus, Congresswoman Sharice Davids, co-
chair of the LGBTQ+ Caucus, and from Congresswoman Deb Haaland, 
co-chair of the Native American Caucus.
    While a witness diversity initiative has never existed as 
part of the core functions of the House, two parliamentary 
bodies in the United Kingdom are already leading this work in 
Westminster and in Scotland. Our Tri-Caucus Initiative has in 
large part been modeled after their work to track the gender 
diversity of their witnesses.
    And while this is the first initiative of its kind here, 
research on this topic as it pertains to gender does exist. For 
example, an American University report published earlier this 
year shows that during the 2017 hearings on tax reform, less 
than 19 percent of the witnesses who testified were women.
    As you know, the 116th Congress is the most diverse 
Congress in our Nation's history. Yet too often our witnesses 
do not reflect the Nation's diversity. Unfortunately, for many 
years, many communities have often been underrepresented, 
including Latinos, African-Americans, Asian, women, and LGBTQ 
folks.
    In this moment of national reckoning on racism in America 
and as a global pandemic disproportionately harms communities 
of color, now is the time for change and for our rules to 
reflect our values.
    As Congress continues to draft legislation to support our 
country's fight against COVID-19, it is critical that Members 
of Congress hear from diverse witnesses in that process. The 
institutionalization of this important initiative will make 
clear to the American people the House's commitment to 
diversity and transparency in Congress.
    With each Congress, we should aim to reform and improve on 
the ways in which we serve the American people. I believe this 
proposal is an important step toward a more just, a fairer, and 
a more inclusive Congress.
    And with that, I yield back my time.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    The last on this panel, Mr. Crist.

   STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLIE CRIST, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    Mr. Crist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me all 
right?
    The Chairman. Yes.
    Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
would like to thank you and Ranking Member Cole, along with all 
the members of the Rules Committee. You all work so very hard, 
and the entire House are grateful to you.
    Earlier this summer, Americans from big cities and small 
towns across our country took to the streets to peacefully 
protest racial injustice in the largest demonstrations in 
American history.
    Between income inequality, wealth inequality, educational 
achievement gaps, criminal justice inequality, discrimination 
in lending and appraisals, voter suppression, maternal health 
disparities, and armed White supremacists proudly marching 
through American streets, the American people said, ``Enough.''
    Americans of all shapes, sizes and colors said, quote, 
``Black lives matter,'' and committed to fight racism. We 
committed to dismantle systems of racism that hold Black 
Americans back instead of just going about business as usual.
    Being on autopilot while the American experience continues 
to fail our Black citizens is no longer going to cut it. It is 
on all of us to do whatever we can to truly deliver equal 
opportunity and equal justice under the law.
    We, as legislators, should be aware of and intentional 
about the racial impact of the policies we make. That is why I 
am proposing a small, but potentially significant change to the 
rule of the House for the 117th Congress.
    Just as committee reports are required by House rules to 
include items like a Congressional Budget Office score for 
budgetary impact, we should also ask for a score on racial 
impact of legislation the House is considering.
    Awareness will be important tool for fighting racism, 
however insidious or accidental in our policies. This 
information will help members who want to tackle racial gaps, 
and it will help members who, at the very least, don't want to 
make things worse.
    The Congressional Budget Office already has this capability 
and already provides this analysis upon request. I ask that we 
work together, the party of Lincoln and the party of Obama, to 
say that although we may fall short sometimes, we as the House 
are committed to try. A racial impact score won't end 
injustice, but it will be a good start.
    I thank you for your consideration and welcome any 
questions about my proposal. And briefly, before I yield back, 
Mr. Chairman, I want to associate myself with my good friend 
and fellow Floridian, Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, for her 
amendment to raise the threshold for motions to recommit.
    Thank you again so much, and I yield the balance of my 
time, sir.
    The Chairman. Thank you all very much for your testimony, 
and I have no questions.
    I do just want to point out for the record, though, Mr. 
Davis, that you mentioned that infection rates have been 
stabilized. The latest news reports show that infection rates, 
in fact, are going up. So we are not out of the woods with 
regard to this terrible virus, I am sad to say, in large part 
because we have not had a national strategy to manage it 
appropriately. But in any event----
    Mr. Davis of Illinois. Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. Yes.
    Mr. Davis of Illinois. Mr. Chair, I agree there are pockets 
where we are seeing increases. I was referring to overall in 
the last 4 months there are many areas that are going down.
    But I would urge this committee also, I agree with you, we 
haven't prepared the House either. I think we need a 
comprehensive plan to be able to get the House back to work and 
be able to begin implementing some of the same measures that 
have helped stabilize other parts of the country.
    The Chairman. And I think we should do what we can to 
better protect this Chamber. But I also don't believe the 
answer is to make it more challenging for members to 
participate during a pandemic.
    In fact, my counterargument would be that I think it is 
really sad that the minority has decided to enforce against its 
own members a demand that they not participate in proxy voting, 
which has basically disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of 
voters.
    I mean, you have members, depending on what week it is, a 
considerable amount of Republicans that don't show up, but they 
can't vote because, with the exception of one, your leadership 
says they can't.
    So let's figure out how we go forward. I hope that this is 
not an issue in a few months, but that all depends on how the 
Nation handles this.
    I now yield to Mr. Cole for any questions he may have.
    Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Just on that last point, I do want to say I do agree very 
much with what Mr. Davis said. There are legitimate cases where 
people can't be here, I respect that, and while I didn't agree 
with the methods we adopted, we adopted them, and that was done 
by a straight majority vote. That is fair enough.
    I am concerned a lot of members are abusing them. A lot of 
members just simply are not----
    The Chairman. Would the gentleman yield to me for 1 second?
    Mr. Cole. I would certainly yield to my friend.
    The Chairman. Let me just say that if members are abusing 
this, if members are using this just based on convenience, that 
is certainly not what I had intended, and I think that that is 
wrong. And I certainly, every chance I get, reinforce that 
message. This is not about convenience. It is about necessity. 
And if it changes----
    Mr. Cole. Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman [continuing]. Then that is unfortunate.
    Mr. Cole. Well, please don't think that I question you at 
all, because I don't.
    The Chairman. Oh, I know.
    Mr. Cole. And I know you take it seriously, I know that. I 
just think it is worth thinking about what we can do on that 
score, because it seems like a legitimate problem to me.
    But I want to get back, number one, thank the panel. A lot 
of really great suggestions here. A couple I don't agree with, 
but broadly I do.
    And so I have both a couple of comments for specific 
members and a question. Particularly I want to go first to my 
good friend, my fellow appropriator, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, who 
I had the pleasure when I first got on Approps of being on her 
subcommittee that she chaired on Leg Branch, and then later 
have her as my ranking member when I was fortunate enough to 
chair that committee, and there is just not a better 
appropriator. There is nobody more thoughtful from an 
institutional standpoint.
    So, number one, I want to associate myself with the very 
thoughtful comments she had about congressionally directed 
spending and the safeguards and the ability to evaluate the 
effectiveness. I think if they are ever coming back, those kind 
of tools are actually indispensable in providing the public 
with some confidence that these things are being used, as they 
are 95 percent of the time or more, in an appropriate and 
productive way.
    What I do want to also ask my friend, she talked about 
bringing back the Select Committee on Intelligence, and I have 
said on Defense Appropriations we do a lot of great work there. 
But, again, I take my friend's suggestion very seriously.
    Can you tell me why we did away with that? What was the 
rationale for not continuing that Select Committee?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So when it was done away with, it 
was done away with by the new Republican majority. So I am not 
sure what their motivation was, and so I can't speak for 
Speaker Boehner at the time. I think it was Speaker Boehner 
that did away with it.
    Mr. Cole. Yeah.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But it was in place and working 
effectively, so that we had--and if you recall, the Select 
Committee was a subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, 
but it was a special select subcommittee that combined intel 
authorizers and appropriators from across the Appropriations 
Committee, and it was a combined pair of more scrutinizing 
eyes.
    We held hearings and reviewed the budget, the budget 
requests. We would go more deeply and specifically into the 
black portion of the budget than the Defense Appropriations 
Committee is really able to do, because, I mean, the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee has such a huge responsibility 
being 50 percent of the discretionary funding.
    My understanding why it wasn't brought back was that it had 
some cumbersome elements of it, that perhaps it wasn't 
functioning in the most efficient way.
    So my proposal isn't specific to replicate it and bring it 
back exactly the way it was, but that there does need to be a 
Select Intelligence Subcommittee Panel recreated, perhaps new 
and improved, so that we can make sure that there are either 
combined authorizers and appropriator eyeballs together, or 
maybe just appropriators, so that we can really have more 
attention paid than, frankly, the defense appropriators are 
really able to----
    Mr. Cole. No, I think there is considerable merit to what 
you are talking about. Speaking as a defense appropriator, you 
are exactly right, it is a vast budget, and honestly, most of 
the intel hearings we have--of course they are classified, so I 
am not getting into detail--but the reality is what we are 
doing is consuming intelligence, we are being given 
intelligence, but we are not overseeing the intelligence that 
we are being given and asking the tough kind of questions.
    So, again, nobody admires and loves Speaker Boehner more 
than me. He wasn't exactly the Appropriations Committee's 
biggest fan in Congress. And it doesn't surprise me that we are 
talking about congressionally directed spending and this 
particular item now that he is gone. And, again, I say that 
with great affection and respect for my friend, the former 
Speaker.
    But this is a good idea, I think, and I would really like 
to think about this, associate myself with you, because, again, 
just speaking as a defense appropriator, you are exactly right. 
We are just not able to get into the detail of this vast budget 
any way you can when you are dealing with Interior and $30 
billion. It is a function of the dollars, and I don't think you 
could probably have too many eyes on this particular area, and 
I say that with no disrespect to any administration. Frankly, I 
think the bureaucracy needs to be watched as much as 
administrations do as well. So it is a good idea.
    Let me move now, if I could, to my friend, Mr. Cline, and 
just tell you, as an appropriator, I couldn't agree more, and I 
bet every appropriator would want each bill to come 
individually. That is the way we treat them in the 
Appropriations Committee itself. We have unlimited amendments 
in the Appropriations Committee. Obviously, any member, either 
side of the aisle, got a good idea, can offer those amendments. 
I long for the day when we did that in the full House.
    I will tell you, there are two problems, and they are 
bipartisan in nature. The first one is the absolute explosion 
of the number of people that decide they want to add amendments 
to the appropriations bill. And so it gets down, from a 
management question, how much time do you want to spend on 
appropriations? How much floor time do you want to give us?
    We are happy to take it. But I don't know, when you--we 
have 100, 200, 300, 400 amendments, that is a problem. And how 
you have discipline that--it is actually a problem for this 
committee, too, the Rules Committee, but it is an enormous 
problem before we took it, just from the management.
    The second thing I will tell you--and I will also tell you 
both sides are equally guilty--the number of ``got you'' 
amendments have multiplied extraordinarily in my time here, 
and, frankly, the fear of voting on those amendments by 
members.
    When the Republican majority came back in, one of the 
things it actually did do was restore open rules on 
appropriations bills. But we actually got to a point, I 
remember it was on a--very well--it was on a Confederate flag 
issue, of all things, over national monuments, and it blew 
apart a bill. And members were then afraid.
    I mean, when I originally got here, you would literally, if 
you were a Republican, you would vote on the amendments however 
you wanted, but you would always vote for the final Republican 
bill. It was just kind of assumed because it was considered to 
be better. Democrats were the same way when they were in the 
majority.
    But if you have got any thoughts about, number one, how to 
control the number of amendments.
    And number two, again, we have lots of Republicans, I will 
just be honest with you, that won't vote for Republican 
appropriations bills, because they don't want to vote for 
anything other than defense and veterans. And if you have that, 
you can't move the bill, because you can't expect Democrats to 
do the work that a Republican majority is supposed to do.
    This is a real problem inside our party. And, again, I have 
no problem with people voting against bills if they exceed what 
the budget cap has done. I have never seen Republicans do that. 
I mean, we write the budget, we write the bills within our 
budget.
    So there has got to be, again, some way of dealing with the 
sheer number of amendments. And, again, I am all for them. I 
like individual bills, and I like open rules. So I agree with 
you.
    But have you got any suggestions for how we avoid ``got 
you'' amendments and how we say, ``Okay, after you have had a 
crack at your amendment, we do have to govern the country''? 
That means the Defense Department needs to be funded. That 
means Health and Human Services needs to be funded. You can't 
only vote for the things you like. You have responsibility to 
govern here. You can't expect the other party to do it when you 
are in the majority. That is a problem.
    So, anyway, that is a lot of rambling thought. You are one 
of our brightest members. I am very interested in what you have 
to say.
    Mr. Cline. Well, I appreciate the question, the opportunity 
to respond.
    The Appropriations Committee does a great job. And I think 
the answer is to get skin in the game on the parts of the 
various members regarding the bills, to get broader support, 
and getting them to vote for amendments definitely gets their 
skin in the game.
    I would say, in 16 years in the State legislature, when we 
had amendments that went on and on, on the floor, we had to sit 
through them all.
    So I would say, if you just asked for people to submit 
amendments by a date certain and then offer them on the floor 
in the order received and the ones--and you have to sit through 
all the amendments before you get to offer yours, then you will 
have a lot of people giving up on their amendments.
    Mr. Cole. That is actually a very clever idea. I am not 
sure I want to subject myself to it, being a responsible 
member. There are a lot of members that offer pretty frivolous 
amendments, and they are not confined to either side. But an 
interesting thought.
    Anyway, again, appreciate the testimony, appreciate all the 
testimony.
    Yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you. And when you were just having that 
give-and-take with Mr. Cline, I was thinking of the time that 
Jeff Flake offered several hundred--500 amendments, all on an 
appropriations bill, all reducing the amount by, like, a small 
amount.
    Mr. Cline. Mr. Chairman, that is when you penalize him by 
putting him on Appropriations.
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Mr. Cole. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Mr. Cole. Can I respond to that? They tried that. It didn't 
work. They even booted Labor-H out of the subcommittee because 
we had two members that wouldn't vote to move a bill out of 
subcommittee that cut the top line by 14 percent because it 
wasn't enough.
    So, yeah, please just send us real appropriators, Democrat 
or Republican alike, not people that you think will learn 
there, what people that want to be there, like my friend Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz. And I am sure you would be a great 
appropriator if you chose to be.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Let me see what I do.
    Mr. Perlmutter.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
    And just on that last subject, Mr. Cline, I remember on the 
Rules Committee we were doing appropriations by an open rule. 
Our chair at the time was a guy named Dave Obey, and he had 
been going for 24 hours straight because so many amendments had 
been offered. And he finally--I don't know if, Mr. McGovern, if 
you remember this----
    The Chairman. I do.
    Mr. Perlmutter. But he always had about five pencils in his 
pocket, and he had broken them all, he was so mad. And he came 
to us, and he said, ``I quit, unless you guys go back up and 
limit this appropriation bill.'' He said, ``I will do a hundred 
amendments, that is it.'' And we had to leave the floor and go 
back and change the rule, because he felt like he had been----
    Mr. Cline. It is like break that filibuster. Make them sit, 
make them sleep there.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Well, he felt like he was being punished, 
and he didn't deserve to be punished.
    Mr. Cline. Right.
    Mr. Perlmutter. And he said it and we agreed.
    So there has been some real abuse of this. And so I would 
like to change--I want you to know that. And that is why there 
has been limitation, and Mr. Cole has recognized it, we have 
recognized it. You may have some points as to a limiting 
factor, you got to have your amendments in so many days in 
advance, you have got to sit there through all of them. And 
that may make it a better approach and people feel that they 
are more involved. But I can tell you, there has been real 
abuse on that process and I hear you.
    Mr. Cline. And I appreciate that. And I have combined 
talking about the two issues in my testimony. But the open 
rules apply to nonappropriations bills as well, and I think a 
more open process would put more skin in the game on the part 
of members and get them supporting the bills on final passage.
    We have Jefferson's rules in Virginia, where if you 
contribute to the product, you are bound to vote for the 
product.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Well, and that is another issue here 
because you could get an amendment and still vote against the 
bill, and that has been something else that we watch closely. 
But I hear you, and I recognize what you are suggesting.
    I did want to respond to the Chairman and Mr. Davis and Mr. 
Cole, and then sort of in advance to my friend, Mr. Morelle, 
because I am a little bit in disagreement with all of you on 
the proxy voting piece of this thing.
    The way the rule was written--and I have it in front of 
me--is that proxies are only available during a covered period. 
And a covered period is defined very specifically as a period 
where there has been a pandemic declared and the Sergeant at 
Arms and the House Physician have to advise the Speaker, who 
then says this period is--this covered period will now last for 
45 days.
    So you are in a very restrictive time to be able to use a 
proxy. So this isn't a proxy that we would have when it is 
sunny and warm and everybody is healthy and there is no 
pandemic.
    Now, we may want to actually offer proxies or some virtual 
voting, but that is not the system that we created, and it is 
very restrictive. And there isn't, Mr. Davis--and I know Mr. 
Morelle had the same concerns--but there isn't a call for a 
doctor's note to be able to say, ``I get to do proxy voting.'' 
That is not what is required. What is required is a declaration 
of a pandemic, which, in my opinion, is far more restrictive.
    So I just wanted to say that. But I do believe, and I would 
say to the chair and to Mr. Cole, we really do have to look 
closely again at what we did, sort of in an emergency measure, 
with respect to proxies, with respect to virtual voting, and 
with respect to that whole Rule 25, which is the rule on the 
continuity of government in the event of a catastrophe and how 
we continue the legislature in place.
    So I will leave it at that. Obviously, I am for the 
congressionally directed spending. But I do think our committee 
has to take a good look at, I guess it is Rule 20, it is when 
we have a quorum, but it is really the catastrophe of an attack 
or a pandemic.
    So with that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Woodall.
    Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In true Rules 
Committee fashion, we have outlasted many of our witnesses.
    I think that Mr. Castro's testimony on diversity during 
testimony, which I think is incredibly important but probably 
more so now that I am in the minority than when I was in the 
majority, but as we talk about faith and trust in institutions, 
the majority has the privilege of setting the agenda. But when 
we have these panels that include five majority witnesses and 
one minority witness, it does appear that we are preparing for 
a press release more than we are preparing for shedding light 
on difficult and partnered subjects.
    So I would not only like to see the metrics that Mr. Castro 
has been focused on, but also that diversity of ideas as we 
enter eras where I hope we will have fewer Republican ideas 
versus Democratic ideas and just more good ideas versus bad 
ideas. I think there is an opportunity for that.
    I wanted to find out from Mr. Cline, you know, the first 
open rule I got to be a part of was in 2011. We took up the 
entire appropriations package at once, the entire omnibus 
appropriations bill. We went from Tuesday to Saturday morning, 
so 5 days, 24 hours a day, and considered every amendment that 
any member had to offer on anything in the entire 12 
appropriations bill package. Exhausted, as you suggested, 
ultimately won the day.
    But we will now have more amendments offered under a 
structured rule, from the Rules Committee, than were offered 
under an open rule in the late 1980s. So there is a habit that 
has been formed, both as Mr. Cole suggested, that members are 
offering frivolous amendments that are designed to take down 
bills instead of build up bills, and leads to a reluctance to 
vote on tough amendments because we don't have any experience 
voting on tough amendments. The leadership sorts all those out 
ahead of time so that members can be more comfortable on the 
floor.
    But secondarily, we have lost those relationships with our 
committees. As a young freshman member, I don't need to offer 
my amendment on the floor of the House. I need to take it to 
the chairman 2 weeks before the committee bill gets marked up 
so that I can get it included in the base text so that it will 
survive conference down the road.
    As you have struggled with these issues, have you seen any 
steps to get members back in a good habit? Because I fear if we 
flipped the switch tomorrow and made things the way you and I 
would like for them to be, we would encounter the exact same 
uncomfortable situations that have brought leaders on both 
sides of the aisle to shut the process down.
    Mr. Cline. Well, I appreciate the question. And you all, 
with respect, have been here a lot longer than I have.
    From my experience there at the State level, for example, 
there is a lot more contact between the chairman and the 
ranking member as bills are constructed. So maybe the ranking 
member does go to his members on his committee and say, ``The 
chairman has asked for input. Here is your opportunity for 
input.'' Not on the floor. Members may ultimately refuse to 
acknowledge that. But if earlier input is solicited from both 
sides and they feel invested in the product as it comes out of 
committee, the less likely you get these efforts to gum up the 
process just for the sake of gumming up the process.
    There may be a legitimate issue as a bill goes to the 
floor. But as a freshman, I feel like my opportunity to weigh 
in is at committee, especially on issues of jurisdiction, which 
I serve on, not floor to a bill where I didn't see it come 
through committee and I don't have any--you know, maybe I have 
a good idea, but I should have weighed in at the committee 
level to make that point.
    Mr. Woodall. Yeah. I was a big fan of open rules when I 
arrived here, and having watched that broken process continue I 
now see the wisdom of providing some structure, even if it is 
giving the, as we have done many times, giving the chairman and 
the ranking member on the floor the ability to consider 30 
extraneous measures of their choice, providing some form of 
parameters.
    But the excuse I always here is we don't have enough floor 
time. And as you and I both know, we start sometimes fairly 
late and end sometimes fairly early. I believe we can make time 
on the floor. We might not have enough pencils for David Obey 
on the floor because the chairman and the ranking member do 
bear the brunt of that workload when it happens.
    I think we would be derelict not to try to move back in 
that direction. I don't think there is any member of this 
Chamber who believes shutting your colleagues down leads to a 
better work product than including their colleagues in it. And 
so I appreciate those suggestions.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just say, if you had 
one open rule on any--it doesn't have to be an approps bill--
each year, you kind of learn the lessons, and the freshmen get 
to learn the lessons over again of why you don't necessarily 
have open rules on every bill and why structured rules have 
benefits.
    The Chairman. I appreciate that, but I think the problem we 
have is deeper than just an open rule versus a nonopen rule. We 
do have a problem, and I think it is fair to say that there are 
Members on both sides who look at their role very differently. 
And so, another problem, quite frankly, with appropriations 
bills is, we do everything perfectly here, but if you do not 
have a product in the Senate, you are back to, well, we don't 
want to be here making these big omnibus bills, because 
otherwise, there is no way to move forward. And so, I don't 
know how we resolve that problem in the short-term, but----
    Mr. Cline. I share that frustration.
    The Chairman. So anyway, thank you.
    I now yield to--I don't know if Mr. Morelle has any 
questions.
    Mr. Morelle. Just a couple of questions or, maybe just 
thoughts. I, first of all, don't feel that I know enough about 
the appropriations process, or even, frankly, lawmaking yet 
here. I am trying to unlearn everything I learned in New York 
for decades, but I do think the problems in any legislature 
have been well-articulated, which is the balance between trying 
to allow as much as participation and many good ideas from 
Members, but also, to your point, Mr. Chair, you actually have 
to enact laws, you have to pass bills, and you have only got so 
much time here to do it and we have got some big issues.
    So I would be delighted to with all my colleagues and Mr. 
Cline in trying to figure out how to balance better perhaps 
those interests and end up with hopefully better product. I 
wasn't going to mention, but since Mr. Perlmutter uttered my 
name, I would say this, as it relates to proxies. I think two 
conditions ought to be met.
    Mr. Perlmutter rightly points out that when we created the 
rule around this pandemic, one condition had to be met, and 
that is, you essentially had this national emergency, which we 
recognized would make it very difficult for Members to be here 
physically in Washington voting, but we did not want to 
disenfranchise them or, more importantly, their constituents.
    But I actually think if we were to pursue either a 
temporary or permanent rule in the 117th Congress, that two 
conditions ought to be met: The first is, that the national 
emergency, that declares there to be a covered period, has to 
be met, and that would be the same individuals who need to 
confer to declare a national emergency that we did in the 116th 
rules, even if it is not COVID-19, if it is a future disaster 
of some kind, but I also think a second condition, and that is 
the failure to appear to vote in person and to use the proxy 
ought to be, by virtue of your inability to be here because of 
the national emergency. And I think my concern, which I 
expressed, I think, when we were first talking about this, and 
when we implemented the rule, which I voted for, but some 
concern that we could be down a slippery slope. And I don't 
think simply meeting the first test is enough. I think, you 
know, I could have said, for instance, Gee, I don't want to 
fly. It is an hour flight from Rochester, but the drive is 6\1/
2\ hours each way. Yet since the beginning of March, I have 
driven virtually every week with one exception. So I spend 13 
hours in a car to come down and back.
    That is, in my mind, an inconvenience. I suppose I could 
say, well, it is a covered period, I don't want to spend 13 
hours in a car to come down and vote for a few days and go 
back. But to me, that is an inconvenience. There is not a 
reason because of the covered emergency which would prohibit 
me, or prevent me from being here. And I think that ought to be 
the second condition or test that needs to be met when we----
    The Chairman. Will the gentleman yield to me one second?
    Mr. Morelle. Yes, of course, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Right now, I mean, if you want to vote by 
proxy, you have to sign a letter that says that you cannot 
physically be here due to the pandemic. Now, I mean that is the 
requirement. We have that requirement.
    Mr. Morelle. But I don't think it is in the rule. And, 
frankly, I am not sure--well, you know, I would always defer to 
the chair.
    The Chairman. The deal is, we are trusting Members to abide 
by the regulations that we have put out there. And so the point 
is well-taken, and if there are people who are doing this 
simply out of convenience, that is not appropriate.
    Mr. Morelle. Right.
    The Chairman. And, again, I think that is something that we 
need to think about. Thank you.
    Mr. Morelle. And I would simply just say tightening it up 
perhaps, or putting it in the actual rule. And, by the way, I 
think, by and large, this has been used very effectively, and I 
think people have been very, very good about observing not only 
the letter, but the spirit of the rule, and hope that would 
continue and maybe some small adjustment to help ensure that 
would make our friends on the other side of the aisle more 
comfortable.
    And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Thank you, sir.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Ms. Shalala.
    Ms. Shalala. No questions. Thank you.
    I have enjoyed the discussion.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Did I miss anybody?
    Mr. Perlmutter. Mr. Chair, I did have one question for Mr. 
Crist. Could I ask that question?
    The Chairman. You may.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Mr. Crist, I am trying to figure out in the 
racial and ethnic impact score. What is it--is there something 
like that that exists today not so much in the Congress, but 
maybe Florida does something like that, or someplace--I don't 
know--I am trying to figure out what it looks like.
    You are muted, Charlie.
    You are still muted. We can't hear you.
    Mr. Crist. There we go. Yeah. I understand that it does 
exist in the Congress presently, if requested, and this would 
make it more of a mandatory thing so that, you know, any 
legislation that we would put forward, it would give us an idea 
about whether or not the legislation is going to be 
disadvantageous, if you will, to a minority or not.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. All right. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Crist. Thank you for the question.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. No other questions? This 
panel is dismissed.
    Thank you very much.
    We go to our next panel, which is Mr. Kilmer, Mrs. Murphy, 
Ms. Davids, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Woodall. And we will begin with 
Mr. Kilmer.
    And let me just say before I yield to Mr. Kilmer, I want to 
thank Chairman Kilmer and Vice Chair Graves, in particular. I 
want to take a moment to congratulate both of you on an 
incredibly successful Congress. Under your leadership, the 
Select Committee on Modernization did important work on 
analyzing how Congress could work more effectively and 
efficiently on behalf of the American people, identifying 
specific recommendations somewhere, I think, near 100, I 
believe, to do just that. A feat unto itself. Your staff must 
be exhausted.
    Mr. Chairman, you and Vice Chair Graves went even further 
and pushed the committee's recommendations into results. As all 
of our colleagues will recall, the Select Committee ushered in 
two critical resolutions with the help of the House 
Administration Committee. While we may not have known at the 
time, the Select committee's recommendations to improve House 
technology systems, enhance and unify telework practices, and 
just generally push the House into the 21st century, helped 
pave the way for key technology changes that were critical to 
ensuring that the House could work, and do it safely in the 
wake of this terrible pandemic. And you did it all while having 
to endure ``Nickelback,'' whatever that is, and Woodall, who we 
all know so well. But we will have more time for this in the 
coming weeks. To Mr. Woodall and Mr. Graves, thank you both for 
your service for your Nation.
    I know Chairman Kilmer and Ms. Scanlon, our Rules 
colleague, and the rest of the Modernization Committee, I hope 
that you are all proud of the work that you have done. And I 
think it has had a lasting impact, and we thank the hard-
working staff of the Modernization Committee. I think you have 
improved this institution, and so, I am grateful for your 
leadership.
    Anyway, I just wanted to say it because, I think, a lot of 
people may not appreciate the extent of your work and how hard 
you worked, and the fact that this is the way this place should 
work where Democrats and Republicans come together and try to, 
you know, do things for the good of the institution.
    So let me thank you, and I will now yield to Mr. Kilmer.

    STATEMENT OF THE HON. DEREK KILMER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

    Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Chairman McGovern, and thank you for 
your kind words. And thank you, Ranking Member Cole.
    I appreciate you hosting the Members' Day hearing, and 
appreciate the opportunity to share with you some ideas for 
improving the House rules for the 117th Congress.
    Two years ago in testimony before this committee, I 
proposed as part of the House rules for the 116th Congress, a 
committee to consider measures to improve the operation of 
Congress, and as an independent and coequal branch of 
government. And under your leadership, the Select Committee on 
the Modernization of Congress was created as part of the rules 
package for the 116th.
    As chair of the Select Committee, I am here to say thank 
you for your guidance and support over the past 2 years. I am 
very grateful to you and to your staff. And with that help, the 
Select Committee unanimously passed 97 bipartisan 
recommendations to make Congress work better for the American 
people.
    And I am proud of what we achieved and I am grateful for 
the opportunity to lead the effort, along with Vice Chair Tom 
Graves and in partnership with Mr. Woodall and Ms. Scanlon from 
your committee, who served very ably.
    I am also going to share with you some of the bipartisan 
recommendations the Select Committee recently passed that would 
improve the way the House functions.
    The Select Committee spent a lot of time focusing on ways 
to reclaim Congress' Article I powers, and made a number of 
strong recommendations in that space. And the first proposal I 
would like to highlight will help restore Congress' Article I 
power of the purse. We recommended, on a bipartisan basis, a 
community-focused grant program to reduce dysfunction in the 
annual budgeting process, and restore Congress' unique 
constitutional authority to appropriate Federal dollars to 
support projects that have the broad support of local 
communities across the United States.
    This competitive grant program calls for transparency and 
accountability and supports meaningful and transformative 
investments in the communities we represent. Taxpayer dollars 
will be spent more efficiently and transparently on local 
projects with guardrails against abuse.
    And the Select Committee believes that this program could 
help end the era of government shutdowns, and I urge the 
committee to include it as part of the 117th Congress' rules 
package.
    In addition to the community-focused grant program, I would 
like to share a couple of ideas designed to strengthen 
Congress' Article I powers. The first has to do with 
encouraging the Article I principle of debate and deliberation. 
The Select Committee recommended establishing a pilot for 
weekly Oxford-style policy debates on the House floor.
    Debate exposes us to perspectives that are different from 
our own, and requires us to really think through our positions 
in order to build the best arguments we can. It requires the 
ability to listen, as well as speak, and that is incredibly 
important. My Select Committee colleague, Emanuel Cleaver, 
constantly reminded us that how we treat each other matters, 
and these Oxford-style debates could showcase passionate but 
civil exchanges about the issues of the day, and we should 
encourage more of that.
    Along the same lines, the Select Committee recommended that 
committees experiment with alternative hearing formats to 
encourage more bipartisan discussion. Committees should try 
questioning witnesses in ways that encourage discourse rather 
than grandstanding. We also recommended that more committees 
follow the Select Committee's lead, and experiment with mixed 
seating arrangements, where Democrats and Republicans sit side 
by side rather than on opposite sides of the dais.
    These simple experiments encourage dialogue and civility 
and ultimately strengthen Congress. Including these ideas in 
the next House rules package would help Congress restore 
Article I capacity. Another way to build capacity is to build 
efficiency into the congressional schedule.
    Between committee work, floor work, running a personal 
office, and constituent work in the district, the demand for 
time is constant, so the Select Committee tried to find ways to 
reduce frustrating conflicts. We focused on committee work and 
recommended that the House establish specific committee-only 
meeting times when Congress is in session.
    We also recommended that the House establish specific days 
or weeks where committee work takes priority. Creating a common 
committee calendar portal to help with scheduling could also 
reduce conflicts. These ideas will make Congress work more 
efficiently and productively on behalf of the American people.
    Finally, I would like to thank you for your continued 
attention to a number of operational issues the Select 
Committee has recommended. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we 
recommended that the House update its procedures to allow 
Members to electronically add or remove their names as bill 
cosponsors. We are happy to see this now in effect and think it 
should be permanently authorized. Same goes for our 
recommendations to expand the use of digital signatures, and 
make permanent the option to electronically submit committee 
reports.
    We should adopt procedures that make Congress more 
efficient, rather than reserve them for emergencies. The COVID-
19 pandemic has forced us to take a hard look at continuity 
issues, and think about how we can better prepare for the 
unexpected. The Select Committee recommends that committees 
establish bipartisan telework policies, and update systems to 
encourage in-person electronic voting and other modern 
technologies.
    Cybersecurity, telework, and emergency preparedness 
training should also be given to all Members of Congress. By 
taking these steps, we can ensure that Congress is fully 
prepared in the event of another crisis. Continuity of 
government plans should be built into our procedures and happen 
as a matter of course.
    From day one, the Select Committee's guiding principal has 
been to make Congress work better so that we can better serve 
the American people. That simple but profound goal has guided 
all of our work, some of which I have shared with you today.
    Vice Chair Graves and I believe the bipartisan ideas that 
we proposed to improve the House rules can help build capacity, 
and ultimately strengthen Congress, and we hope they will be 
implemented.
    For that matter, our committee generally agreed that the 
work to modernize and improve the People's House should be an 
ongoing effort, not done once every 20 or 30 years or so. And 
so, I would encourage this committee to consider how, if at 
all, to ensure that the work of improvement continues going 
forward.
    On behalf of the Select Committee, I appreciate your 
consideration. I am happy to provide additional information to 
support your work and thank you, again, for your leadership, 
partnership, and for the opportunity to speak before the 
committee today.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mrs. Murphy.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    Mrs. Murphy of Florida. Chairman McGovern, Ranking Member 
Cole, and the members of the committee, thank you so much for 
this opportunity to testify about my views on the rules that 
will govern the operation of this Chamber in the next Congress.
    So, my first set of recommendations involve fiscal 
discipline and transparency. First, I respectfully request that 
we retain the paygo rule in Rule XXI, clause 10 of the current 
House rules. This rule was also in effect for the 110th and 
111th Congresses' when Democrats were in the majority. In 
general, it prohibits the consideration of direct spending or 
revenue legislation that is projected to increase the deficit 
over two discrete time periods. Second, I would recommend that 
we strengthen the transparency around this rule.
    If the Rules Committee reports a special rule providing for 
a consideration of a bill, the accompanying committee report 
should be required to include a specific statement indicating 
whether the special rule waives the paygo rule, in particular, 
as opposed to a vague statement waiving all points of order 
against the bill. This can be accomplished by amending Rule 
XIII, Clause 3, and my office is preparing draft language, and 
will share it with your staff.
    Third, I would like to work with the committee on crafting 
a carefully calibrated amendment to the House rules that would, 
except in exigent circumstances, prohibit the House from 
considering a bill unless CBO and JCT have prepared and 
published a cost estimate of that bill.
    I seek these three changes for a simple reason. You know, 
contrary to wishful thinking in some corners, deficits and debt 
do matter. They matter to our economy, they matter to our 
security, and to our children and grandchildren's future. And I 
recognize that deficit spending to combat the health and 
economic consequences of COVID-19 is necessary, and I support 
that spending.
    But Congress will need to bring spending and revenues into 
better balance once the pandemic is behind us. And we shouldn't 
keep digging ourselves into a deeper fiscal hole. And if we do, 
we better be upfront with the American people about it.
    My second set of recommendations involves the motion to 
recommit provided for in Rule XIX. Unlike some of my 
colleagues, I do not believe we should eliminate the MTR, which 
I view as an important tool for the minority party in an 
otherwise majoritarian institution.
    At the same time, I recognize that the MTR is frequently 
used by the minority party to engage in, you know, cynical 
politics and campaigning on the House floor, rather than as a 
part of a genuine effort to improve a bill.
    The text of the MTR does not undergo committee review, or 
otherwise get vetted through regular order, and so it is often 
poorly written and confusing, and Members rarely have the 
sufficient time to review the language and to determine what it 
actually does as opposed to what the minority party claims it 
does. And I think this is a recipe for bad legislating.
    So for those reasons, I believe we should retain the MTR, 
but require two-thirds support for the MTR to pass rather than 
the current requirement of majority support. This would put the 
MTR on the same plane as a suspension bill.
    Finally, I recommend that we continue to find new ways to 
foster bipartisanship in the House by facilitating floor 
consideration of bills that have a critical mass of bipartisan 
cosponsors. At the urging of myself and other Members, the 
House established the consensus calendar in Rule XV, Clause 7 
of the current rules, and I am deeply grateful to you and your 
staff for helping make that happen.
    In the coming weeks, my office will propose specific ways 
to strengthen the consensus calendar, and to otherwise promote 
bipartisan cooperation during these otherwise highly partisan 
times. I think the American people want their representatives 
to work across party lines, and House rules should reward 
lawmakers who conduct themselves in that spirit.
    With that, thank you, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    I should just point out for the record, though, that in the 
current Rules Committee reports, we don't just say ``waive all 
points of order.'' We actually, in the section on explanation 
of waivers, if we waive paygo, it specifically says in our 
report that we waived clause 10 of Rule XXI, which is the paygo 
provision.
    So the Rules Committee report is pretty explicit about 
waiving paygo or not waiving paygo for that matter. So it is 
there. But in any event, thank you. I now turn to Ms. Davids.

   STATEMENT OF THE HON. SHARICE DAVIDS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KANSAS

    Ms. Davids. Thank you. And thank you, Chairman McGovern and 
Ranking Member Cole for holding this hearing and allowing us 
the opportunity to comment on proposed House rule changes for 
the 117th Congress.
    So, my recommendation for rule change is pretty 
straightforward. I propose that the director of the 
Congressional Budget Office be invited to provide an address or 
report to Congress on the fiscal state of the Nation each year. 
And, you know, while right now we are in a crisis which 
necessitates spending to keep our economy going, our Federal 
budget is on an unsustainable trajectory. And I believe this is 
the sort of report that could provide a common baseline for my 
colleagues and I to work from using the same data and operating 
under the same budgetary assumptions year to year.
    You know, as this body formulates budgets and votes on 
appropriations packages each year, it would be helpful to have 
the general input and objective position--have that general 
input of an objective position so that we can set goals based 
on facts. And I also think this sort of annual report could 
help remind our colleagues of the very real effects of 
congressional spending and, perhaps, facilitate a conversation 
on how we could direct Federal resources in a responsible way.
    And, of course, we should be adhering to the existing House 
rules, the Pay-As-You-Go, which we were just talking about, or 
hearing about, rule which requires Congress to pay for 
legislation we are proposing and voting on--you know, budgeting 
is about priorities, and deciding what is important and what 
price we are willing to pay for it, and that principle is at 
the fundamental core of paygo, which is why I support its 
inclusion and its continued inclusion in the House rules for 
this Congress and the next Congress.
    We have seen the disastrous consequences of fiscal 
irresponsibility with deficit financed tax cuts for the wealthy 
and out-of-control budgets, and it is worth noting, and we have 
already heard this, but I will reiterate, that we are going 
through a pandemic right now, and this--the spending that we 
are doing and the relief that people need is very real and 
necessary, and this is the kind of crisis where paygo rules 
might need to be waived. This is a good example of that.
    When we are in a crisis, we need to make sure that the 
people of this country are being cared for, and it is also 
times like these that we see a real demonstration of the 
necessity for greater fiscal responsibility in normal times, in 
times that are good. And so, we are setting ourselves up to go 
through times like this.
    So I would encourage the adoption of this rule change, and 
any other changes that would help promote the adherence to 
fiscal responsibility as we aim to use our taxpayer resources 
in the most effective way possible.
    And with that, I will yield back. Thank you for having me.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Can you hear me?
    The Chairman. Yes. Yes.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. VAN TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                    FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Mr. Taylor. Great. Okay. Well, it is great to be with you, 
and the ranking member and all the members of the Rules 
Committee. And I just want to say that I am a big believer in 
rules and process, and the process that we have, I think, is 
really important. And so one statistic that kind of strikes me 
is in the 100th Congress--this is when I was in high school--in 
1987/1988, 8 percent of all bills that were filed actually 
became law. And now, in this Congress, we are at about 1 
percent. And that is because we are filing about 50 percent 
more bills, but we are passing many fewer bills. So the 
percentage of success is dropped, as well as the number of 
bills that are being filed has gone up.
    And so, I am concerned that the ability for Members to--
when I say ``play small ball'' to do small, commonsense piece 
of legislation, and get those all the way through the 
President's desk have been impaired.
    So I am going to offer three solutions, and I have talked 
to some of the Rules Committee staff about this, and this has 
been a discussion within the problem-solver caucus. The first 
one is to build on the 290 rule that was successfully 
implemented in the last Congress. And that is to have 290--to 
apply that same rule to Senate bills.
    So most legislative chambers in this country, even though 
they are State legislators, have a provision that allows House 
Members to support Senate bills, Senate bills to support House 
bills. And so that--so you would have to create that mechanism 
in order to do 290 for Senate bills, but allow Members not only 
to advocate for a bill and to take credit for it, but also for 
Members to then, in turn, be able to take that--get behind a 
Senate bill, and then actually compel it to get on the floor 
and get on the consensus calendar, and really expand what I 
think has been a big success.
    And your staff has been very complimentary of the problem 
solver's success in getting the 290 rule into effect and seeing 
it work.
    A second thing I wanted to talk about is what I call four-
fifths/two-thirds. And that is, again, allowing bills that are 
modest in intent, and then are singular in focus to be able to 
come to the floor of the U.S. House.
    And so, if a bill gets four fifths of the committee members 
to sign on to the bill, so 80 percent of the committee members. 
So in the Armed Services Committee, there is 60 members. So you 
are getting 50 members, you would then, in turn, be able to 
actually bring that bill to the floor of the U.S. House, and 
then it would basically be a suspension bill. You would have to 
get two-thirds vote. I put it on the consensus calendar, and we 
could have discussions about some of the details about--but, 
again, you are trying to allow a bill that is--and you would 
have to get four fifths of the committee of jurisdiction.
    And there are some bills that are big and complicated that 
get referred to many, many committees of jurisdiction. And I 
think we would probably have to have some mechanism to allow 
committee chairs, if they wanted to, to waive it. Or if they 
didn't want to, say no, I want four fifths of my committee, 
then they would have that power.
    And then finally, the third idea is trying to make sure 
that bills, again, that are commonsense, where they have passed 
the House and the Senate actually, go to the President's desk. 
If you believe that most Congresses, there are half a dozen 
bills that pass the House, pass the Senate, they are companion 
legislation, but actually don't get to the President's desk.
    So what about a half a dozen State legislators have done is 
they have a rule process called ``over ineligible'' where they 
will take the--this is a very difficult one to explain. It is 
very simple in practice.
    But basically, if you have a Senate bill that comes over, 
it is in the House, the House companion has passed committee 
and it is now on the floor. The House author of the House bill 
can say, you know what? I am going to take my bill, set it on 
the table. I am going to pull the Senate bill, which is here, 
it has passed. It is in this Chamber. It is down at the well. I 
am going to pull that up and so now we are going to vote on the 
Senate bill. It is a way to expedite the Senate bill.
    Some State legislators actually have it automatic. So 
wherever--when the Senate bill comes over to the House, it is 
automatically moved to whatever point in the process it was in. 
So, again, this doesn't take any--no one loses any power per se 
and, one of the ideas that I have is to protect the House 
Member, the author of the bill, to say, you know what? I want 
to use the Senate bill and move this on so it goes on to the 
President's desk. And, again, there is a small number of bills 
every Congress--one other thing this will do is it will 
actually encourage Members to do more to work on companion 
legislation so that, in turn, it will improve the probability.
    I have actually talked to a member of the Senate about 
having a similar bill, an over ineligible rule, over on the 
Senate side. Say, Hey, we are doing this to help expedite your 
bills, you should do this to expedite our bills. And I have 
gotten a favorable response from Republicans and Democrats that 
I have spoken to about all of these rules as I have discussed 
it with my colleagues in the problem solver caucus.
    And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Woodall.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROB WOODALL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA

    Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know ours is not 
supposed to be based solely on competition, our business, but I 
just think it is worth pointing out that while serving under 
your leadership here on the Rules Committee, I have voted 100 
percent of the time against Ms. Scanlon, and her against me. 
While serving under Chairman Kilmer's leadership on the Select 
Committee, Ms. Scanlon and I voted 100 percent of the time 
together. And so, I don't know if there is anything that Mr. 
Kilmer has to add that he wasn't comfortable sharing in open 
session about how you might bring people together here on the 
Rules Committee as he has been bringing people together on the 
Joint Select Committee, but I did want to put that out there 
and, tell him how much I appreciated his leadership.
    I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, I think we were 
disadvantaged by not having Ms. Davids and Mrs. Murphy on our 
committee. I support both of their ideas, and they sounded very 
similar to some of the ideas that you and I and the committee 
had worked on throughout the year.
    Mr. Chairman, my amendment is to some of the good work that 
you did at the very beginning of this Congress, by requiring 
that bills be reported out of committee before they are 
considered here in the Rules Committee. And I would go one step 
further, add a section 3 to--paragraph 3 to the Section 103(i) 
that was passed in H. Res 6. It said it shall not be in order 
to consider a rule or order that waives the application of 
paragraph 1 after the bill or joint resolution has been 
referred to committee for 15 legislative days.
    The point of this change, Mr. Chairman, is to say that we 
have found reasons and there are always reasons to waive the 
rules, including brand-new rules that were done with the best 
of intentions as this one that you promulgated. If a bill has 
been sitting in committee for 15 days, clearly there is not an 
emergency that requires that it move forward without a hearing.
    If it has just been sitting in committee and no one has 
been acting on it, surely it doesn't need to be rushed to the 
floor with no input from the committee whatsoever. I recognize 
that no matter who is in the majority, we have emergency 
measures and, in fact, the rule, as it exists today, makes an 
exception for emergency-designated legislation, but this would 
further the building of trust in the committee process that you 
began by saying we are not going to use this process to short-
circuit a committee process; we are only going to use it to 
expedite things that are simply coming so quickly, they haven't 
had an opportunity to be dropped in committee and the chairman 
hasn't had an opportunity to have the hearing or the markup.
    Making the point that the reason we don't follow your rule 
isn't because we don't want to, it is because we haven't had an 
opportunity to. If the opportunity is presented, then we need 
to be able to say yes to that opportunity as your rule was 
designed to achieve.
    It requires that the point of order under this paragraph 
be--the question of consideration shall be debatable for 10 
minutes, and the member initiating the point of order and an 
opponent to have that time, but shall otherwise be decided 
without intervening motion, except for one that the House 
adjourn.
    And, again, this is not intended to disadvantage the 
majority, which is in charge of running this institution. It is 
only intended to complement the effort that the Rules Committee 
chairman made at the beginning of this Congress.
    With that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. I think that is the last person on this 
panel, Mr. Woodall. So let me just say, I appreciate your 
words, Mr. Woodall, with regard to the McGovern rule. Let me 
just say before that, there was no such rule. There was nothing 
in place. And I said when we were doing this that we would try 
to do as well as we can, but it wouldn't be perfect, because 
there would be times when it would be difficult to do that.
    I think we were much better at it last year than this year, 
but this year, to be fair, we are in the middle of a pandemic, 
and there is a lot of things that aren't normal, right. So--and 
we will continue to try to do better.
    I really do believe, in principal, that it is a mistake to 
short-circuit the committee process, but I think we have been 
making a concerted effort, and a fairly effective effort in 
trying to comply with that. And, again, in my perfect world, 
that is the way this place should run. I mean, there should be 
hearings and a markup in committee before it comes to the Rules 
Committee, and then we can bring a bill to the floor. So I will 
try to do better.
    Anyway, having said that, I think there are some really 
good ideas that have been presented here today, and we will 
obviously be working with the members who are here today and 
their staffs to try to figure out how we can move forward on 
some of these. And, again, we might have to do some tweaks here 
and there, but I really appreciate your time.
    Let me yield to Mr. Cole. Oh. I am sorry. Let me yield to 
Mr. Woodall for any questions. Maybe you might want to question 
yourself.
    Mr. Woodall. I do, Mr. Chairman. I have been conflicted 
about several things. I am hoping we are going to be able to 
sort those out together right here. The only other thing I 
wanted to mention, Mr. Chairman, is whether or not there is a 
process related to attaching unrelated legislation to a message 
between the Chambers without bipartisan concurrence. That is 
something you and I have talked about in Rules Committee on 
many occasions, and I have tried to work out some language, but 
it does have to be incredibly nuanced to protect the ability of 
the majority leader to continue to operate the floor while 
still protecting minority rights.
    I appreciated Ms. Davids--I believe it was Ms. Davids--
mentioning the motion to recommit in the nature of the--was it 
you, Mrs. Murphy? The motion to recommit as being that one 
opportunity that the minority has, as you recall, from the 
media articles when the majority leader decided he was going to 
start attaching unrelated legislation as messages between the 
Chambers. Folks celebrated that as being this wonderful new 
procedural tool that has been crafted to prevent the minority 
from getting in the way of--with their messaging motions to 
recommit.
    Again, I recognize the need to attach legislation, and I 
recognize the need for the desire for the expedited process 
between the Chambers. I certainly wouldn't want to craft 
something that was so restrictive, the majority could not 
assert its agenda. But I do think, because there has been so 
much consternation about that process throughout the year, 
whether it is celebrating on one side or bemoaning on the 
other, that it is worth looking at. These habits that we get 
into, not passing appropriations bills individually, not having 
open rules, not sending things through committee.
    Again, you took major steps at the beginning of this 
Congress to try to get us out of some of those bad habits that 
we had spent a couple of decades getting into, and I put 
messages between the Chambers in that category. And I 
appreciate you recognizing me.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. Mrs. Torres, any questions?
    Mrs. Torres. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Mr. Perlmutter.
    Mr. Perlmutter. I have a couple. To the Modernization 
Committee members, the question I had, and we have seen it in a 
number of different proposals that we have had is how to 
streamline and modernize the calendar, and be more efficient in 
our travel, and more efficient in our workdays, if you will. I 
am curious what you all concluded. In our kind of summary of 
what you proposed, it is pretty general. We have got some more 
specific proposals, but generally, what did your committee come 
up with?
    Mr. Kilmer. Maybe I will take first crack at that, and then 
if either of your Rules Committee colleagues who served on the 
Select Committee want to weigh in as well, I welcome that.
    So we focused primarily on principles rather than on 
proposing a specific calendar. And one of the principles that 
we proposed was that there should be more days in session than 
travel days. I think last calendar year we had 65 full days and 
65 travel days in session. And, you know, again, if the notion 
is, how do we have Congress work best for the American people, 
I would argue we need to increase time legislating. And so, 
reducing the amount of time in transit is important.
    The other thing we looked at, though, was the productivity 
of the time that we have, and the bipartisan policy center did, 
I think, a very strong report looking at the conflicts that 
exist between committees. They looked at one day, and found on 
just one morning, 131 members of the House had a conflict 
between two or more committees.
    And so, the concern, of course, is, you know, if--and I 
don't raise that as an individual member who feels like I need 
a clone to attend all my committee meetings, but rather, as 
someone who thinks that important learning and work is intended 
to happen in committees. And that work is challenged when folks 
aren't there, and that can negatively impact the ability of 
Congress to deliver.
    And so, we made recommendations in that space as well to 
create--to encourage blocked scheduling when committees meet, 
to create a common committee calendar portal, so the committees 
can have visibility into other committee activities and 
potential conflicts for their members, you know.
    Over COVID, you have actually seen the House do committee-
only weeks, and I think that has been very positively received 
by members where you have days that are committee activity only 
without floor activity. So we recommended continuing that, as 
well just to try to drive as much productivity as possible.
    The other thing, and I will mention quickly, and it may not 
seem like a big deal, but related to the calendar, we also said 
that the Congressional Calendar should accommodate a bipartisan 
member retreat, because actually having Democrats and 
Republicans engage one another to try to advance an agenda and 
to try to enhance civility was something that the 12 members of 
our committees all felt were important efforts.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
    And for Mrs. Murphy, a question. You might be--the two-
thirds proposal on MTR, kind of your logic behind that, please.
    Mrs. Murphy of Florida. Sure. So, MTRs are often presented 
at the very last minute on the floor with very little time 
available for members to consider what the MTR is actually 
saying. And I have to say, having had to do that all Congress--
those MTRs are so poorly written sometimes, it is hard to read 
it and figure out exactly what the MTR is trying to do, bumping 
it up against the legislation that it is--the law that it is 
trying to change.
    So, one, MTRs are written a bit hazardly. They are 
introduced with very little time for members to review and 
understand the impacts. And then, finally, if you are going to 
make a change to a bill that has already come through the 
entire process and had, you know, consideration debates, and 
you are going to throw something on at the last minute, it 
really shouldn't be passed and be a part of that bill, 
successfully be a part of that bill, unless it meets a higher 
threshold, I think.
    And we just picked the threshold that a suspension bills do 
that. With the suspension bill, that is the level would say, 
Okay, this is harmless enough, enough people would agree with 
this that we should make this last--this change. And I just 
think, you know, when you allow a bill to be added with just 
simple majority, when it has gone through this very short and 
sloppy process, it makes--it ends up making for bad 
legislation.
    We have a process for a reason. I don't want to take away 
minority rights at all, and I think--I don't want to eliminate 
an MTR, but I think if an MTR is going to have the impact of 
law, then it should pass a higher threshold than a simple 
majority.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
    And the last question for you, Mr. Taylor. So, you know, 
there is a desire, and I think we all share the same desire to 
see legislation move through both Chambers and get to the 
executive and signed, and I don't care whether it is a 
Democratic Senate or a Republican Senate, we have all--I 
remember my first 4 years here, we had a Democratic Senate, but 
we would send stuff and it would kind of get all boxed up over 
there.
    And how do you think in the proposals you are suggesting--I 
mean, I don't want it to just be a one-way street that we pass 
everything that the Senate sends to us, but everything we send 
to them gets bottled up. So how do you think this helps that?
    Mr. Taylor. Well, again, I think we are in a position to 
start going to the Senators and saying, Look, we are doing a 
290 rule for your bills, you should do something like that for 
our bills. We are doing an over ineligible rule for your bills 
to expedite your bills. To improve the probability of your 
companion legislation passing, you should do a similar--I have 
already had that conversation, saying, Look, I am going to 
offer this in the House. This is a commonsense thing, nobody's 
cut out, everybody gets their say. The committee chair, the 
Speaker gets their say, the author gets their say, but I think 
we--one of the divides as I described it to my constituents--
partisan divide. What they don't see is the camel divide.
    There is a lack of interaction between the two legislative 
Chambers that is striking to me. Actually, before I got here, I 
read the House rules and the Senate rules, because I wanted to 
see who had floor privileges. Could I go on the Senate floor? 
Could the House Senators come on the House floor? And I 
actually got in an argument with two members that had worked 
here for several Congress' who insisted to me that Senators 
couldn't be on the House floor unless they were former House 
Members. And under no circumstances could House Members go on 
the Senate floor. No, no. You are wrong. Senate rule 27, we can 
go on their floor. But even if that is technically true, 
culturally it is not true. We have a lack of interaction 
between the Chambers.
    What is the chance of both over ineligible and 290 is it 
encourages Senators to come and work their bills, to come to 
the House floor and say, Hey, I really want your signature 
because I am at 270 signatures. If you sign on, I can finally 
get the 290 and get this thing on the President's desk.
    And also, it encourages companion legislation. Over 
ineligible encourages companion legislation. One of the 
advantages of companion legislation--I was a State legislator 
in Texas--one of the advantages is that sometimes you, in your 
Chamber, can't figure out where the problem is, but the 
companion legislator figures out where the problem is, and they 
send you--I found out where the problem is, and they wouldn't 
tell you because of these reasons. But I found out what the 
problem is, and so I put this amendment on and now it is good. 
So here we go. You are ready to go.
    So I think you have to begin with a step of faith, and just 
start working on their stuff, and let's just say--I will say 
this, for every 10 bills that are sent from the House to the 
Senate, the Senate sends one back. We are a far more effective 
legislative body from a volume point of view than they are. 
There could be no debate about that. I believe that that is 
because our consent calendar is basically a 95 percent consent 
calendar. Their consent calendar is unanimous. And having an 
incredibly high bar makes it very difficult for them to play 
small ball, to do smaller things. Until they drop that from 
unanimous to 90 percent, or 80 percent, or some other more 
reasonable number, we will continue to have bills get blocked 
because somebody wants a better cubby hole over in the Capitol, 
and that has happened.
    Mr. Perlmutter. All right. Thank you very much.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Morelle.
    Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, frankly, just want to 
thank each of the members. I think their suggestions, while I 
may not also agree with each of them, I think they are very 
thoughtful, and appreciate their participation. I also want to, 
if I can, at the risk of signaling out Mr. Kilmer and the 
members of Modernization Committee, there is a lot to take in 
on the list that I have in front of me, but obviously, some of 
the changes that would allow us to have an electronic system 
for many of the things that right now have to be done in the 
physical world, I would embrace. I think they make a whole lot 
of sense.
    The other thing that I would just say, just as a general 
observation of what Mr. Kilmer talked about, is the ability for 
members in committees to really take advantage of witnesses who 
are in front of the committees and engage in a little more 
thoughtful dialogue, instead of what at times to me appears to 
be making speeches as to--one of the things that I particularly 
appreciate about this committee is the ability to have more 
back and forth, and to really ask questions, and that is why I 
value these opportunities. And whenever a rule is before the 
House or before the committee, so I appreciate his 
thoughtfulness on that.
    As well with that, I will yield back, Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. Ms. Scanlon.
    Ms. Scanlon. I am going to pass. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Ms. Shalala.
    Ms. Shalala. No, I will pass. Very thoughtful.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. Did I miss anybody who wanted to ask a 
question?
    Okay. I think we are all set. I want to thank the panels 
for being here. You are now dismissed. And now we are going to 
be calling--our next panel will be Mr. Schneider and Mr. Lieu. 
And as they are getting ready to testify, I want to ask 
unanimous consent to insert into the record testimony from Miss 
Kathleen Rice, Garret Graves, Katie Porter, Emanuel Cleaver, 
Josh Gottheimer.
    [The statements of Miss Rice, Mr. Graves, Ms. Porter, Mr. 
Cleaver, and Mr. Gottheimer follow:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    The Chairman. I also ask unanimous consent to insert into 
the record the regulations to accompany H. Res. 965.
    [The information follows:]


    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. And I will now turn this over to Mr. 
Schneider.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, A REPRESENTATIVE 
             IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Mr. Schneider. Thank you. I very much appreciate the 
opportunity to speak with you. I want to thank Chairman 
McGovern, Ranking Member Cole, and members of the committee, 
for hosting today's hearing to solicit ideas for members on 
Rules for our next the 117th Congress. I would like to discuss 
my views on the motion to recommit as outlined in Rule XIX.
    As a majoritarian institution, the MTR represents one of 
the last opportunities in the House for those in the minority 
to influence legislation being considered on the floor. In 
principal, I support the MTR as a procedure that keeps debate 
alive and retains minority rights within the House. In 
practice, however, minority party, both Democrats and 
Republicans, use the MTR as a partisan cudgel, or just as 
often, an attempt to artificially create a wedge issue.
    Using the MTR as a wedge along partisan fault lines is 
certainly the prerogative of the minority party. And, again, 
both Democrats and Republicans have used MTR toward that end 
over the decades. But what has been different this Congress and 
what I find not just reprehensible but, in fact, dangerous is 
the Republican use of American Jews, Jewish heritage, and the 
long-fought battle against the scourge of anti-Semitism to 
divide us.
    The great seal of the United States bears the motto, E 
Pluribus unum. Out of many, one. It reflects the national ethos 
that has long given strength to our Nation. It should be a 
principle that unites us. So it is concerning when any group of 
Americans is used as a prop to sow division. Using American 
Jews, who have long faced bigotry and very real threats of 
violence, is something altogether different.
    The Alt-Right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 
2017, and subsequent attacks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and 
Poway, California, are examples that dominate the news, but 
they are just the tip of the iceberg.
    According to the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, anti-
Semitic incidents increased by 12 percent in the United States 
in 2019, and marked the highest number in ADL's four decades of 
recordkeeping.
    I have no doubt that all my colleagues, on both sides of 
the aisle, oppose bigotry and hatred in any form, including 
anti-Semitism. And so no party should ever assert that there is 
anything but unanimous opposition within the House against 
anti-Semitism. To do otherwise raises the risk of empowering 
those who traffic in hate and who would like nothing more than 
to believe that they have allies within the U.S. Congress who 
support their anti-Semitic views.
    I want to repeat myself. The MTR provides a venue for 
debate on worthy issues of divergent opinions. But when action 
on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives dehumanizes 
any group, in this case, American Jews facing anti-Semitism, it 
diminishes the institution and does a disservice to our Nation.
    The cynical ploy of weaponizing anti-Semitism for political 
gain is as offensive as it is dangerous. Again, MTR should be a 
tool to insert healthy debate within the legislative process, 
and parties may choose to use it to push their agenda, or put 
the majority party on the record.
    My minority party should not, however, cynically use any of 
our citizens or group of citizens as a wedge or a pawn. We 
don't know who will be in the majority in the next Congress. I 
believe, therefore, that we can now take this opportunity to 
prohibit the use of MTRs next Congress until there is a 
bipartisan agreement that, while we can and often shouldn't 
vote controversial issues on policy disagreements, we must 
never use the MTR to subvert our common goal of condemning 
anti-Semitism.
    I support the MTR as a way to retain the minority's voice 
in the legislative process, but I refuse to condone how it has 
been used by Republicans this Congress to infer Democrats, or 
any Member of this body, are not sufficiently opposed to anti-
Semitism. I also support proposals to require a high bar for 
passage of an MTR, such as requiring two-thirds the vote for 
passage, similar to suspension bills.
    When we are legislating on the fly, as is the case with 
MTRs, it is important that we get the details right.
    Thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak on how 
MTR has been used in this Congress.
    And with that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Lieu.

 STATEMENT OF THE HON. TED LIEU, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                  FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Chairman McGovern and Ranking Member 
Cole for holding this Members Day and for all the members of 
the committee for your time.
    I am going to talk about two subjects. The first is my 
proposal on inherent contempt, and the second is about the MTR.
    Inherent contempt is a power that the House of 
Representatives already has. The Supreme Court has repeatedly 
upheld this power, Congress has repeatedly used it in the past. 
My proposal simply puts in procedures in the House rules to let 
us execute this power.
    Specifically, inherent contempt gives us the ability to 
enforce congressional subpoenas. And in my proposal, it does 
that through the imposition of a fine for witnesses who do not 
comply with congressional subpoenas. And this is not a partisan 
issue. We have seen Congress, over time, cede way too much of 
our power to the administrative and executive agencies, and to 
the executive branch, both Democratic/Republican 
administrations have thumbed their noses at congressional 
oversight, although I have to say the Trump administration has 
done it way more than other administrations.
    And what this rule change does is it [inaudible] witnesses 
in this process. So, for example, it creates a process for 
dialogue between the witness and the committee. It puts in 
procedures for the witness to lodge objections. It puts in 
procedures for the administration to lodge privileged 
objections. [Inaudible] the witness to negotiate, but at some 
point, it allows the committee to then forward a resolution to 
the House floor where the chairman of the committee will 
present and then members can ask questions. And at some point, 
it allows the House to vote on imposition of a fine. And if 
that passes by a majority vote, then the witness will, in fact, 
be fined in the first increment of up to $25,000.
    But, again, before that can be imposed, it puts in another 
20-day delay for negotiations to continue.
    So there are numerous due process protections for 
witnesses, for the administration, but at the end of the day, 
if the administration or a private witness is going to simply 
not comply with the congressional subpoena, then the full House 
can impose a fine of up to $25,000 in first increment. And if 
it continues, then we can impose a fine of up to $100,000 at 
the end of the day.
    So that is my proposal. And it is, again, also not partisan 
in a sense that I fully believe Joe Biden's going to win in 
November, and I think many of you do as well. This would apply 
to the Biden administration. And so, I would seek favorable 
consideration of this proposal. And then, I would like to talk 
about the motion to recommit. First of all, it is just a stupid 
way to govern.
    What does this process do? It literally hides language from 
the Members of Congress and then the language is dropped in and 
gives us about 15 minutes to cast a vote. That is not really 
governing. That is called a game. That is what makes the 
American people hate us, that we play these games. And it was 
wrong when we did it to you. It was wrong when the Democrats 
were in the minority and we did this to the Republicans. It is 
wrong that you do this to us. This is not to, actually, 
substantively influence legislation; this is simply to play 
games on the taxpayers' dime. That is what makes it so 
offensive.
    And I also reject the notion that somehow, this is ability 
for the minority party to speak. It is not. The minority party 
has numerous ways to influence legislation. You get to 
participate in committees. You get to introduce amendments in 
committees. And then when the bill leaves the committee, you 
get to introduce amendments in the Rules Committee. If, in 
fact, there is a problem with a bill that is about to be voted 
on the floor, then what happens is, the whole purpose of when a 
person of your committee--you are on the Rules Committee is 
allow amendments to that bill. And then the minority party gets 
to speak about the bill on the House floor. The minority party 
can go to the press. There is so many ways to influence 
legislation.
    The MTR is not designed to do that, and in practice, it 
doesn't even do that. None of the MTR proposals are real or 
actual substantive changes; they are just designed to be 
``gotcha'' moments for the Members of Congress. And, again, 
this is a procedure where literally the language is hidden from 
the vast majority of Members of Congress, and then we are asked 
to vote on it.
    We just have to get rid of motion to recommit, stop playing 
these games on taxpayers' dime. It doesn't make any sense to 
continue any form of motion to recommit. We should not be 
playing these games. We should be trying to actually make 
substantive legislation and not do an end round around the 
Rules Committee.
    With that, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony.
    Look, I appreciate your work. Just on the inherent contempt 
issue, I have been frustrated as well at the lack of 
cooperation with subpoenas that have been issued by committees 
here in the House.
    But if we imposed a fine, I mean, I don't know what that 
fine would be, but to compel some of the people who don't want 
to comply with subpoenas in this administration it would have 
to be very, very high, because all these people are 
multimillionaires and billionaires, and you just wonder whether 
they would just rather pay the fine.
    And then, on the other hand, you have to consider if you 
had a different Congress and they were trying to compel a 
government worker to come and testify, but that government 
worker may be told by his or her adviser not to come, and here 
is somebody on a government worker's salary, whether or not 
they would be bankrupted if it were abused.
    And I am just trying to figure out, I think we need to do 
something, because we can't--what has been going on, with lack 
of compliance and lack of respect for Congress, is 
unacceptable. I just want to make sure that we have thought 
this out and that we are doing this in the way that it is most 
compelling. And I don't know if you have any response to that.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you for those questions.
    You are absolutely right that if someone is super wealthy 
then this isn't going to work. That is also a function of our 
capitalistic system. People who are super wealthy, for example, 
get tax breaks that none of us on this committee get.
    And so, yes, that is a problem. I am not sure we can fix 
that. And people who are super wealthy do get certain 
advantages.
    However, the vast majority of people subjected to 
congressional subpoenas are not like Wilbur Ross. They are not, 
in fact, super wealthy. So I think this would have a deterrent 
effect.
    There is room in this proposal to allow the head of the 
agency to be fined. We can do it so that we go after the head 
of an agency if, in fact, they are the ones that are ordering a 
subordinate to not come. So that is a modification that can 
definitely be made.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Woodall.
    Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will start where 
you left off with Mr. Lieu.
    I think it is absolutely critical that we are able to 
compel the executive branch to comply with congressional 
subpoenas. I think our challenge has been the partisanship here 
in our Chamber.
    It was obvious to you that the Trump administration was 
practicing this obstruction more than any other. I came to town 
in 2011, so my first vote along these lines was our criminal 
contempt resolution against Attorney General Holder, which 
passed the House, was referred to the Justice Department, and 
then the Attorney General decided he was not going to pursue 
the criminal contempt resolution against himself.
    It passed in a largely partisan way. I think we had 17 
Democrats vote with us. But the problem was not that we were 
not able to issue the subpoena or pass the contempt resolution. 
It is that the enforcement, which ought to be zeroing out 
somebody's budget, making sure the head of the agency doesn't 
get their pet project funded, all of these things that we ought 
to be doing together we end up being divided on, and I fear 
collecting those fines would be yet another one of those 
things.
    Given that you have spent some time thinking about this and 
constructive ways to solve it, did you come across something 
that would lead to us passing more of these subpoenas and 
contempt resolutions in a partnership fashion than in the 
fairly partisan fashion that we have seen?
    Mr. Lieu. So thank you, Representative Woodall, for your 
question.
    You are absolutely right, and I noted in my opening 
statement both Democratic and Republican administrations have 
thumbed their noses at Congress. So to me this is not a 
partisan issue. It is simply taking back--it is not even taking 
back our power. We already have this power. The Supreme Court 
has, in fact, upheld it, and Congress has used it in the past.
    I am just putting in procedures to allow us to execute it 
if we want to. We still don't have to execute this power next 
term, but at least there is an option to do that. And right now 
it just seems sort of silly for us to have no ability to 
execute that option even though we have the power to do so.
    And it is my hope that we could get more subpoenas issued 
on a bipartisan basis. I think that would, in fact, be better 
for the institution.
    Mr. Woodall. You may recall Republicans grappled with this 
when we were in control and went down the line of creating 
procedures to zero out an individual government employee's 
salary if we didn't like the way they were treating Congress, 
and to Mr. McGovern's point, creates an incredibly punishing 
tool to just your average government worker, who had no idea 
they were getting ready to get dragged into a congressional 
fight.
    But I do hope that we can solve that because I believe that 
we are both, irrespective of who leads the Congress, 
irrespective of who leads the White House, we are all 
disadvantaged as Americans when Congress becomes feckless in 
its attempts to do oversight over the executive branch.
    Let me go now to the motion to recommit. You know, they 
taught me in freshman orientation 10 years ago that that was 
just a procedural motion, it had no policy aspect to it 
whatsoever, and so just vote no. And so I recognize that that 
is not the sign of something that is valuable legislation. That 
is the sign of something that you would think could go by the 
wayside.
    But in our very new era of having almost all closed rules 
all the time, right, not a single open rule in Paul Ryan's 
administration, not a single open rule now in Speaker Pelosi's 
operation, there is no opportunity sometimes for the minority 
to have input on the House floor.
    If we had open rules the challenges would be very much the 
same as the ones you pointed to, Mr. Lieu. Those amendments are 
offered, dropped right there on the floor, can be written on 
the back of a cocktail napkin, no opportunity for legislative 
drafting and perfection. Folks don't have time to consult with 
their staff. And under the 5-minute rule, 10 minutes later you 
could be asked to vote on a very consequential amendment that 
had not been seen before.
    So last-minute legislative language used to be a hallmark 
of this institution. Wasn't used to disrupt the institution. It 
was just common as a function of the legislative process.
    I remember once on our prescription drug bill last year the 
majority saw, in its wisdom, the ability to offer the minority 
an amendment in the nature of a substitute. And in exchange the 
minority said, then we are not going to press for our motion to 
recommit. We traded away what you and I would both agree was 
not a particularly effective legislative tool, and in exchange 
we got a very substantive conversation about how we wanted to 
reform prescription drugs in the country. I support that.
    I am particularly concerned about Mr. Schneider's concerns, 
because I raised the very same issues in the Rules Committee 
last night, Mr. Schneider. We were talking about a bill that 
was--a resolution that was intended to speak out against 
horrific treatment that has been alleged of noncitizens in the 
country after they have been detained by Federal forces.
    And the resolution, I believed, was designed to divide us 
on something that we should have been speaking in one voice to 
condemn, that there is no benefit in America of having it 
appear that someone condones inhumane treatment by Federal 
authorities against noncitizens.
    So is it clear to you that there is a difference, the 
occasional majority bills that are brought to the floor for a 
vote that are designed apparently to divide us, as opposed to 
unite us, versus the motion to recommit, which I would 
absolutely concede is often designed as something that makes it 
appear that we are divided when, in fact, we may not be so?
    Mr. Schneider. No. Thank you. I appreciate the question.
    The distinction I would draw here is, it is never good to 
divide us. But that is part of the politics and part of the 
process here. It is using a group as a pawn, as the wedge to 
create that division, to try to create a false impression of 
antagonism to a group or an individual that doesn't actually 
exist, that I think becomes so dangerous.
    And my concern specifically with respect to the use of 
American Jews and the issue of anti-Semitism in our country, 
which, as noted with the ADL numbers, is on the rise in the 
country as it is around the world, we are empowering groups 
that are trafficking in anti-Semitism, and we are diminishing 
groups that are being used as the wedge.
    Mr. Woodall. I think back on some of those motions to 
recommit that I am sure you are referring to. I would often say 
we were talking about protecting this group or that, groups 
that rightfully need protection, and the motion to recommit 
said, yes, those things are important. But someone needs to 
speak out against anti-Semitism, and they are not. Someone 
needs to speak out against anti-Israel sentiment, and they are 
not. Someone needs to do these things, and so we are going to 
do this. We can't move legislation to the floor on our own, and 
so we are going to put it in, in this context.
    In our last panel we heard members on both sides of the 
aisle talk about the need to protect the motion to recommit. I 
do hope that we can find a way to make it more valuable as a 
legislative tool.
    But I could not agree with you more that the politics of 
division that we play have dangerous consequences in many ways. 
Again, I believe not being able to speak with one voice on 
behalf of noncitizens in U.S. custody is dangerous because it 
suggests that something is acceptable when it, in fact, is not, 
and that is certainly true as it relates to anti-Semitism.
    And so I would be happy to work with you in a Republican 
majority, as we are sure to see in January. I want you to know, 
I will be just as willing to partner with you as I am in a 
Democratic majority today.
    Mr. Schneider. I appreciate that. In all our interactions 
we have always had good comity, and I think it is that comity 
that allows us to put forth policies that advance the interests 
of the Nation.
    There will be arguments, and there will be divisions of 
opinion, but we should never use individuals or groups of 
individuals as a pawn in advancing that cause.
    Mr. Woodall. I will just share with you, I don't believe 
our conversations in the Modernization Committee are privileged 
any longer. We tried not to out one another while those 
conversations were going on. But we grappled with the motion to 
recommit because folks did have such strong feelings about it.
    And while it was not--while reforming it was in our final 
recommendations, I thought one of the more fruitful places was, 
how can we encourage the minority to surrender that motion in 
favor of getting a more substantive legislative alternative 
path?
    Let's not use--let's not eliminate the motion to recommit 
to silence the minority. Let's change the motion to recommit to 
empower legislative discussion and just give the minority one 
opportunity to take it where they would like to take it. And so 
your counsel is well taken.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mrs. Torres.
    Mrs. Torres. No questions or comments. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Perlmutter.
    Mr. Perlmutter. I have a couple comments, and I would like 
to start where Rob and Brad just left off.
    I had not opposed MTRs before as a general principle, but 
the MTR from a week ago on anti-Semitism really bothered me in 
a whole range of ways. And, obviously, as a member of the Rules 
Committee, we say, oh, it is procedural, you know, and I sort 
of went down that path and I voted against it. And then it 
passed.
    And then we vote on the bill, as amended by the MTR, and 
every single Republican voted against the bill, with that 
amendment.
    And we had Mr. Cline on just a few minutes ago, and he 
talked about the Virginia rule, where if you amend something, 
then you vote for the bill. Well, that doesn't seem to be 
commonplace around this place.
    After that vote I was making some calls, and a guy answers, 
he says, ``Why did you vote--why are you anti-Semitic?'' He 
didn't say it quite like that. ``Why did you vote against the 
anti-Semitism amendment, Ed? I don't understand.''
    I said, ``It was procedural.'' I said, ``But then I voted 
for the bill, so it was part of the bill.'' And I said, ``All 
those guys who presented the amendment, it was just a phony-
baloney stunt because they all voted against the bill.''
    And it did create precisely what Brad is concerned about, 
that I could say all the Republicans were anti-Semitic and he 
could say he was worried that any Democrat who voted against 
the amendment was anti-Semitic. And it just really went right 
to--right here for me. I mean, that is a core value thing for 
me.
    And so I have to admit, I am attracted to Mr. Lieu's 
proposition here on MTRs, that what is the value of them. You 
know, is this really something important that it is the last 
word for the minority? Is that really something? Or is it a 
gotcha thing? And we certainly did it. You know, we would do 
MTRs.
    So I have some reservation about these things that I didn't 
have until about last week. And so I just--I want to raise 
that.
    And I guess my other comment to Mr. Lieu on the inherent 
contempt is the enforcement component that Mr. Woodall raised, 
that what are we going to do, add to the Capitol Police, are we 
going to get fines, are we going to sell somebody's house on 
the courthouse steps? I mean, I just don't understand how we 
have the--I don't understand what you would put into place to 
actually enforce something in some substantial way.
    So I guess I am just presenting that to you, Mr. Lieu, 
because I do have some skepticism about this.
    Mr. Lieu. Could I answer that?
    Mr. Perlmutter. Sure.
    Mr. Lieu. All right. So right now, in fact, our 
congressional subpoenas can be enforced, as Mr. Woodall pointed 
out when they went after Attorney General Holder. Towards the 
end, that was enforced. It just took many years, Because the 
way we enforce it, we have to litigate it through the courts--
meaning the district court, the appellate court, and the U.S. 
Supreme Court. So it literally takes years to enforce a 
congressional subpoena.
    Now, the difference with this proposal is, let's say you 
assess a hundred thousand dollar fine ultimately on a witness, 
and, yes, it will be litigated through the courts. But at the 
end of the day, if the witness is wrong on the issue and the 
courts find that, yes, we have the ability to enforce this 
subpoena as lawfully ordered, that witness will be on the hook 
for a hundred thousand dollars.
    So it flips the burden, where the witness now knows if they 
ignore the congressional subpoena they could, in fact, be on 
the hook for a lot of money at the end of the day.
    Take the Don McGahn case, for example. We have been 
litigating that issue through the district court, through the 
appellate court, it hasn't gone up to the Supreme Court yet. At 
some point there will be a decision. And let's say we in 
Congress win. Well, what happens? Don McGahn then comes in and 
he testifies.
    But if there was also a threat that he might think, ``Oh, I 
might also be on the hook for a hundred thousand dollars,'' I 
don't know if he actually would ignore the congressional 
subpoena.
    So that is the difference. It puts this burden on the 
administration that if they lose, they could be on the hook.
    Mr. Perlmutter. So I guess I would just follow up, and then 
I would yield back.
    So let's say we get a hundred thousand dollars. So that in 
your scenario the court said, yes, it is a hundred thousand 
dollar fine, and then we have got to go collect through the 
courts. That is what I was saying, auction it on the courthouse 
steps? I mean, do you think we are going to do that?
    Mr. Lieu. Right. It would be the same way that the courts 
right now impose fines on people who ignore court orders. And, 
yes, there would be at some point a collection would occur.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. Thanks. I appreciate that. I just 
have a little--I am not sure that we have the staying power to 
do that. But I hear you.
    And I yield back to the chair.
    The Chairman. Ms. Scanlon.
    Ms. Scanlon. [Inaudible.] Thank you.
    The Chairman. Mr. Morelle.
    Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add my 
thanks to Mr. Schneider and Mr. Lieu for their thoughtful 
comments and for the opportunity to have them in front of us. I 
will yield back.
    The Chairman. Ms. Shalala.
    Ms. Shalala. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    And I think Mr. Raskin may have some--see if Mr. Raskin----
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Yes? Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just--I wanted to 
say a word about Mr. Lieu's proposal, which I think is----
    The Chairman. And put your video on, please.
    Mr. Raskin. Sorry. Okay. Can you hear me now, Mr. Chairman?
    The Chairman. I can hear you, but we can't see you. We need 
your video.
    Mr. Raskin. Oh, okay. I thought it was on. Okay.
    The Chairman. There you go.
    Mr. Raskin. Here we go. I just wanted to say a word on 
behalf of Mr. Lieu's proposal.
    At a certain point earlier in this Congress I looked at the 
Supreme Court precedent governing contempt of Congress, going 
back to Anderson v. Dunn. And this really goes back to the 
beginning of the Congress, and the Supreme Court has been very 
clear from the beginning that Congress has the same 
institutional authority to impose sanctions for disobedience of 
its orders that a court has.
    And as a body equal in stature and powers to the Supreme 
Court, we have the authority to enforce our orders. And if we 
don't have that, then the lawmaking function is fatally 
compromised because it is inherent in lawmaking that we have 
the power to obtain the information that we need.
    And James Madison was very clear about this when he said 
that those who mean to be their own governors must arm 
themselves with the power that knowledge gives. And so what 
does it mean for us to have the power to legislate over all of 
these subjects, over war and foreign policy and commerce and 
bankruptcy and piracy and banking and you name it, if we can't 
get the information that we need?
    So the lawmaking power implies the power to go out and 
collect information, the power of subpoena, the power to have 
people come and testify before us. And if we get an executive 
branch, if we get a President of whatever political party or 
persuasion who decides to thumb his nose at Congress or give 
the finger to Congress, that is a crisis in our form of 
government.
    And so we need to have the full panoply of powers to 
enforce our own orders. And, obviously, that is something that 
goes way beyond any particular party or any particular 
President.
    But we are the preeminent branch of government, the reason 
we are in Article I, and we come first, like the First 
Amendment and all of its rights comes first. And the reason why 
the Congress has the power to impeach the President and the 
President doesn't have the power to impeach us is because we 
are the lawmaking power and the representatives of the people.
    So with all that, I just want to say, I am in very strong 
support of what Mr. Lieu is doing, and I think that we have got 
to move a process forward that allows us to make the inherent 
contempt power not just latent within our arsenal but something 
that is explicit and right there so people understand it.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    Does any other member of the committee wish to ask a 
question?
    Seeing none, I want to thank our witnesses for their 
testimony. You are now excused.
    Are there any other members who wish to testify on proposed 
rules changes for the 117th Congress?
    Last chance.
    Seeing none, this closes our Members' Day hearing. So 
without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Thank you, 
everybody.
    [Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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