[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 13, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H2711-H2714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            AND STILL I RISE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for 
the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, and still I rise because I love my 
country. And I rise tonight on the Republican side of what we call the 
aisle.
  I do so, Madam Speaker, because the issue that I will call to the 
attention of this august body is not an issue that I consider a 
Republican issue. I don't consider it a Democratic issue. I consider 
this an issue for the American people, past, present, and the future.
  This is an issue that has plagued our country almost since its 
inception. It is an issue that we have avoided with intentionality, 
avoided because of discomfort, avoided through the years. But it is an 
issue that we have to address.
  So I rise tonight, Madam Speaker, with love of country at heart on 
the Republican side of the aisle. And I rise to announce, as I have 
before, that we have to take up the question of impeachment.
  I rise, Madam Speaker, to say this and to give some explanations. 
There are many things that are being misunderstood. I trust that I can 
bring some degree of clarity to the issues that are misunderstood.
  And I know, Madam Speaker, as I rise, and understand that this will 
come to a vote in this House; I know that it will be a tough vote for 
many people. I understand. It will be a tough vote for a multiplicity 
of reasons. It will be a tough vote.
  I know what tough votes are like, so I understand. I have people in 
my community, one example, members of the clergy that I have had to 
explain some very tough votes to. I have some that have, to this day, 
not agreed with the tough votes that I have had to take.
  Tough votes. I came here to take tough votes. I came here to deal 
with tough issues, the difficult. I came to do what I believe should 
have been done long before now; but the opportunity to do it has 
presented itself since I arrived in Congress, so I take on this 
challenge. And I understand that this will be a tough vote.
  Before I get to some of the nuances of the explanation that I would 
like to give, let me just tell you who I will be voting for when I take 
this tough vote. I will be voting for the slave mother who had a baby 
ripped out of her arms, taken to the auction block.
  This is why I can relate to those mothers on the border who had their 
babies ripped out of their arms; and still, many have not been returned 
to their mothers, their fathers. I can relate because I understand the 
historical context. I will be voting for them.
  Tough vote, but I will be voting for the slave father who never got 
to see his child because the mother and the child were taken away, 
auctioned off, sent to some distant plantation; never allowed the 
opportunity to enjoy the love that a father ought to with a

[[Page H2712]]

child. That is the historical context of why I will be voting and what 
I will be voting for.
  I will also be voting for the elderly mother who was of African 
ancestry, who had to say ``yes, ma'am'' and ``yes, sir'' to the 3-year-
old children of the master. At that time it would have been called the 
boss, but it was the master; had to say ``yes, ma'am'' and ``yes, sir'' 
to the children.
  To the father, I will vote for the father who was called ``boy,'' 
demeaned in the presence of his son. I know. I saw that happen to my 
father. I know about that elderly mother. I saw it happen to her, the 
elderly black mother. I will be voting for them. They have come through 
the years to get me here. I won't forget them.
  I will be voting for the LGBTQ person who was fired for showing up at 
work and saying I married the love of my life, who happens to be the 
same sex as that person was. I am an ally of the LGBTQ community.
  I am going to vote for those persons who have been discriminated 
against.

                              {time}  1530

  I will be voting for those who lost their lives in the Tree of Life 
synagogue, lost their lives to bigotry, hate.
  I will be voting for those who lost their lives at the church in 
Charlotte.
  I will be voting for the woman, who was a peaceful protestor, who 
lost her life in Charlottesville among the bigots, the KKK, the neo-
Nazis, the xenophobes, the homophobes. I will be voting for her.
  And here is why I will be voting for all of them: because these 
Articles of Impeachment will be about bigotry emanating from the 
Presidency--in policy, I might add, bigotry in policy. There is clear 
and convincing evidence that we have bigotry in policy. I will be 
voting for the people who are the victims.
  To those who would tell me this is not something that the Congress 
ought to entertain, here is what I would say. I would say, if the 
Congress of the United States of America could, in 1868, impeach 
President Andrew Johnson for speaking ill of Congress, this Congress 
can impeach for bigotry in policy.
  It is just a question of whether 218 people, assuming all are 
present, will vote for it. That is what it is. It is just a question of 
whether we have the will to do it. The way is before us.
  Article II, Section 4, all of the noted constitutional scholars--
maybe there is some exception; there probably is one someplace--have 
concluded that Article II, Section 4 not only allows a President to be 
impeached for criminality, a President can also be impeached for 
misdeeds.
  As a matter of fact, those who desire to edify themselves can read 
Federalist 65, read the words of Hamilton and Madison and Jay. Read 
their words. Let them communicate with you through the vista of time.
  You will find, when you read their writings, that they were prophetic 
in their thoughts, that they understood that there would be a time such 
as this, and they have given us the recipe for this time and the means 
by which we can take corrective action.
  When you read, you will find that, without question, they indicate 
that impeachment is not something that will be done without some degree 
of turmoil, that impeachment will be something that will sometimes be 
along party lines. Party lines occur when impeachment is brought before 
this august body.
  By the way, I brought impeachment twice before, so I am talking about 
something that has occurred and something that will occur again.
  So impeachment is something that was anticipated. It is something 
that is a remedy that is constitutional, and I plan to bring that 
remedy before this body so that we may take a stand.
  Dr. King was a great man and somebody I admire, and I talk about him 
quite regularly. Dr. King reminded us that the truest measure of the 
person is not where you stand in times of comfort and convenience, but 
where you stand in times of challenge and controversy. When you have 
hard votes to take, where do you stand?
  I don't believe bigotry should be a talking point, something that we 
use to get the base out at election time. We go out and we talk about, 
oh, how bad certain people are and we announce that they are racist, 
that they are bigots. I don't think it ought to be a talking point. I 
think it should be an action item.
  I am bringing the vote because it is going to be an action item for 
Congress at last. Again, it will be an action item, not just a talking 
point. I am going to put the moral imperative to vote for all of these 
people that I called to your attention and countless others above 
political expediency.
  Political expediency allows us to push this issue to the next 
generation. Political expediency has allowed us to reach this point in 
our history where bigotry is rearing its ugly head. It is no longer 
covert, but it is now overt. We have reached this point in our history. 
So I refuse to except political expediency as a remedy.
  Why not wait? Let's defeat at the polls as opposed to impeach here in 
the House.
  I don't buy into that.
  Now, there are many who would say let's wait on the Mueller report. 
The Mueller report has nothing to do with bigotry. It most likely has 
to do with criminality associated with obstruction of justice, probably 
has something to do with emoluments, could have something to do with 
collusion, which is a layperson's way of saying conspiracy. It could 
have something to do with all of these.
  But I assure each and every person who is within the sound of my 
voice by whatever means, it will have nothing to do with bigotry. So 
there is no need to wait for the Mueller report because the Mueller 
report won't address bigotry. Those who would rather impeach for some 
other thing, then wait for the Mueller report.
  By the way, I don't plan to get in the way of the Mueller report, but 
I will say this: The Framers of the Constitution never intended for the 
executive branch to investigate itself, and that is what is going on.
  The Framers of the Constitution understood the implications of having 
the executive branch investigate itself. One such implication that we 
see now is that the Mueller report may not be presented to Congress. It 
is going to the President before it gets to Congress.
  The Framers never intended for the executive to investigate itself. 
That is the responsibility of Congress. That is why I brought Articles 
of Impeachment.
  Pardon me for using a personal pronoun. My mother taught me better.
  That is why I brought Articles of Impeachment in a previous Congress 
when we had Republicans in charge.
  I am not going to be hypocritical and conclude now that Democrats are 
in charge, we don't have the same duty, responsibility, and obligation. 
I am not that kind of guy. We are going to go on record. It will be a 
hard vote, but we are going to go on record.
  Some would say: Well, how do you get the proof of the bigotry?
  Easy answer--it appears to be a tough question. Easy answer: the same 
way we got the proof that we brought to the floor of the House for 
colleagues who had resolutions that were to condemn for bigoted 
statements. Same way, we get them from news sources.

  We have plenty of empirical evidence to show us by clear and 
convincing evidence as a standard, or whatever standard the House uses, 
because there is no standard codified in the law for the House. But by 
whatever standard the House should use, there is plenty of empirical 
evidence to support bigotry in policy emanating from the Presidency, 
plenty of them: S- - - -hole countries; and then you go out, by the 
way, where people of color happen to reside, I might add, and you go 
out and develop an immigration policy that adversely impacts those 
people of color, changing the law to adversely impact them.
  Bigotry in policy? Ha. I talked about the babies at the border--
people of color, I might add--separating them. We didn't do that at 
Ellis Island. We didn't do that when 12 million people came from 
Europe, Scandinavia. We didn't do that. We didn't separate them from 
their children. We didn't have a flotilla out there to stop them. We 
didn't try to build walls to keep them out. They came.
  The people who are at the border, by the way, are exercising their 
rights under the law that we promulgated, that we, the United States of 
America,

[[Page H2713]]

put in place that says that they can come up and ask for asylum.
  By the way, I do not contend that all who seek asylum should be 
granted asylum. I do think that the process, the law that we put in 
place, ought to be honored. And if we don't like the law, then we 
should change the law. There is plenty of opportunity to do so. There 
has been plenty of opportunity to do so. Change the law if you don't 
like the way we have decided to deal with these issues.
  There is plenty of evidence that in the past we have accommodated 
persons who were trying to flee harm's way, bringing their children 
with them. When those persons were fleeing Castro's Cuba and traversed 
the shark-infested waters of the Gulf of Mexico--I say ``shark-
invested'' because there are so many people who are saying: Well, we 
don't want them to do this because they can be harmed along the way.
  We didn't say that about the people who were traversing the shark-
infested waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We created a policy called wet 
foot, dry foot. One foot on dry land, and you had a pathway to 
citizenship. That was the policy of the United States of America, to 
accommodate.
  I am not saying bring the world in. I am saying follow the law. It 
seems to me that is what we are all about. I believe in the law of the 
land that I live in and that I love. And I love my country.
  So I want to assure persons that we will use the same standard of 
proof that we have been using on previous occasions.
  Now, the next question: Impeachment is like voting to go to war. 
Casting a vote to impeach is comparable to casting a vote to go to war.
  I visit the VA hospital annually, Madam Speaker, and I take flags to 
every veteran in that hospital. This year, we took 600 flags, and we 
needed more.
  I would ask persons who believe that this is comparable to casting a 
vote to go to war, go to the place where you can see the price of 
freedom. Go to the place where you can see what the cost is, where you 
will see that it is not in silver and gold. Go to a VA hospital, a VA 
hospital where you will see persons who have lost an arm, lost a leg, 
no longer have vision. Many of them leave and don't return the way they 
left. Just go and see what the price of freedom is like.
  They fight for our freedom. They are willing to give their lives for 
our freedom. That is what a vote for war is all about. Many don't ever 
return. They are the liberators. They accord us our freedom by putting 
their lives on the line, and it is that freedom that we have that 
allows us to vote to impeach.
  Voting for impeachment is not a vote to go to war. You ask somebody 
who has lost a leg in those hospitals, talk to them. Oh, you may find 
one person whom you can use and try to equate that to the rest of the 
world, but I assure you, those veterans don't consider impeachment 
comparable to voting to go to war.
  I would also add this: There are those who believe that bigotry is 
something that the Senate won't take up.
  If we use that line of logic, I shouldn't have gone to law school for 
fear of failure.
  If we use that line of logic, we shouldn't have sent H.R. 1 over to 
the Senate, because it has been prognosticated that the Senate won't 
take it up in any meaningful way.

                              {time}  1545

  If we use that line of logic, there are bills that we send to the 
Senate quite regularly that we would not send because of a belief that 
the Senate won't take up these bills. So I don't buy into that logic. 
But I do believe that we should give the Senate an opportunity to do 
its job. It ought to have that opportunity.
  Remember now, this is not about Mueller, this is about bigotry 
emanating from the Presidency. This is about having the country, by and 
through its representatives, go on record in terms of where we stand in 
this time of challenge and controversy as it relates to bigotry 
emanating from the Presidency.
  Impeachment is something that we all should respect because it is 
constitutional. It is what the Constitution permits. It is also what I 
believe I have a duty to bring before the Congress. I will do so.
  I don't guarantee more than one vote, and that is my vote. There are 
people who seem to think that if they can convince me, that the people 
who voted for it previously won't be voting for it this time. That the 
people who voted for it previously, they have changed their minds, they 
are going to be against you. They are not against me. I am not against 
them. I say to them, vote your conscience. Stand where your convictions 
are now.
  But there are people who seem to think that by convincing me that I 
will be alone, that somehow this will cause me not to act. My dear 
brothers and sisters, how you have underestimated me. My dear brothers 
and sisters, I didn't come here to go along so that I could get along 
and move along. My dear brothers and sisters, you have grossly 
underestimated me.
  If I stand alone and there is but one vote cast, I assure you that 
one vote will be cast and I will stand alone. I understand that in the 
eons to come, people will look back on this time and they will query 
what was wrong with them. What was wrong with them? How could they 
tolerate an unfit person holding the highest office in the land? How 
could they tolerate it? They will want to know what was wrong with 
them.
  But I also know this. They will see that there was at least one 
person who stood on the ground of righteousness, who put the moral 
imperative above political expediency.
  And I will know also that the world will know where this country 
stands on the issue of bigotry. I didn't come here to manage bigotry. 
That is what we do. We always want to get back to bigotry as usual 
after it rears its ugly head. Let's put that head down and get back to 
bigotry as usual. Let it be covert, but not overt.
  My guess is some people have said to the President: Mr. President, 
you can do all of these things without displaying your bigotry. They 
didn't say it that way, but they probably tried to convince him. You 
don't have to be raw. Do it the way others have done it and you will be 
appreciated.
  I don't want to get back to bigotry as usual. I think we send a 
message to the world when we impeach a President for bigotry and 
policy, and that is what I am talking about: bigotry and policy. Not 
just his words--I don't think that we ought to have a bigot in office, 
but not just his words--but for what his words have been transformed 
into, what they have metamorphosed into: bigotry and policy.
  I think that we would send a positive message to the world in terms 
of where we stand, and we would also send a message to many of the 
people in this country as to how much we care about them, those who 
suffer from bigotry on a daily basis. If you take out the head bigot, 
you will send a message to the bigots along the way at the lower end of 
the ladder.
  Now, about the people who are suffering; they have elected us time 
and time again, many of them, on the belief that this time they are 
going to take up racism. This time they are going to take up 
homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and nativism. This 
time they are going to take up the issues that impact my life on a 
daily basis. Yes, it is still here. The glass ceiling exists because of 
bigotry. There is a glass ceiling. Yes, it is still here.
  There are people who have jobs of color and they have to train 
persons of a different hue to take the job that they have and become 
their supervisor. It still happens. It is still occurring in the United 
States of America. The country I love, by the way.
  You can love your country and want to see it improve. That is what 
all of these bills are about here. Everybody that is filing a bill 
wants to improve the country. That is all I want to do, too. The 
unfortunate circumstance for a good many people is I want to deal with 
an issue that we have, for too long, placed on the back burner of our 
contemporary agenda. I am going to place it on the front burner. There 
will be a vote.
  How do you know there will be a vote? Well, the rules allow it. The 
rules allow any Member of this august body to come forward with a 
privileged resolution.
  Now, if you want to change the rules, you can do so. Republicans 
didn't do it

[[Page H2714]]

when they were in control of the House. But you can do it. Let's let 
history show that because one Democrat wanted to bring articles of 
impeachment, that a Democratic Party did what a Republican Party did 
not do. Let history reflect that. Change the rules. You have to live 
with the history. I don't. I am going to be on the right side of the 
history.
  Now, someone would say: But, Al, you will be on the wrong side of 
politics. Do you know what? The people that I know suffered, the people 
who lived and died so that I could have this opportunity, the people 
who found out what a billy club hits like, found out what a 90-pound 
German Shepherd bites like, found out what a high pressure water hose 
stings like, the people who lost loved ones to a cause so that I could 
have this opportunity, I don't know that they want me to be on the 
right side of politics. I think they want me to be on the right side of 
history. But I also believe that they want me to be on the right side 
of this moral issue of our time, and that is whether we will tolerate 
bigotry emanating from the Presidency.

  So to everyone, understand this is not going to be about obstruction 
of justice. I came to the floor and called that to the attention of the 
country. There is evidence to move forward on obstruction of justice, 
but I choose not to do so. It is not going to be about conspiracy. 
There is evidence, but I choose not to do so.
  This is going to be about bigotry, and it is going to be about where 
do you stand? The truest measure of the person is not where you stand 
in times of comfort and convenience, but where do you stand in times of 
challenge and controversy? Where do you stand when bigotry is the issue 
that you have to vote on?
  And to all of my colleagues, I want you to know I love you. It 
doesn't matter what side of the aisle you are on. I respect you. And I 
only say to you, vote your conscience. Decide what side of bigotry, 
what side of history, what side of righteousness you are going to be 
on.
  I know where I will stand. I will hold my head up high, 
notwithstanding all of the slings and arrows that are going to come 
against me. They are coming. They are going to demean me in every way. 
My mother probably wouldn't know who I am when they are done with me. I 
understand it.
  Gandhi gave us the formula. First they ignore you. These are the 
words of Gandhi. Then they laugh at you. Then after they have ignored 
you and they have had a moment of laughter and they see that you are 
not going away, then they fight you. Then they demean you. I 
understand.
  So do what you may. Say what you may. But I know, within me, that I 
am doing the right thing.
  I know that Gandhi is right. He said that after they have ignored 
you, after they have laughed and had their moment of pleasure about it, 
then they fight you, but then, Gandhi reminded us, then you win.
  I am prepared to suffer through until victory. I won't give out. To 
quote my good friend, Mr. Lewis, who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge 
on Bloody Sunday, ``I won't give up. I won't give in.'' I will do that 
which my ancestors call upon me to do. I pray to God that this House 
will vote its conscience. Vote your convictions.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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