[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 107 (Tuesday, June 25, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H5091-H5099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2722, SECURING AMERICA'S FEDERAL 
 ELECTIONS ACT; WAIVING A REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH 
   RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS REPORTED FROM THE 
   COMMITTEE ON RULES; AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3351, 
   FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2020

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, 
I call up House Resolution 460 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 460

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 2722) to 
     protect elections for public office by providing financial 
     support and enhanced security for the infrastructure used to 
     carry out such elections, and for other purposes. All points 
     of order against consideration of the bill are waived. In 
     lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     recommended by the Committee on House Administration now 
     printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of a 
     substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 
     116-20, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the 
     report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this 
     resolution, shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as 
     amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order 
     against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The 
     previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, 
     as amended, and on any further amendment thereto, to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of 
     debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on House 
     Administration; and (2) one motion to recommit with or 
     without instructions.
       Sec. 2.  The requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII for a 
     two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee on 
     Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is waived 
     with respect to any resolution reported through the 
     legislative day of June 27, 2019, relating to a measure 
     making appropriations.
       Sec. 3.  At any time after adoption of this resolution the 
     Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare 
     the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on 
     the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 
     3351) making appropriations for financial services and 
     general government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
     2020, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill 
     shall be dispensed with. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be 
     confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally 
     divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on Appropriations. After general 
     debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the 
     five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as read. 
     Points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to 
     comply with clause 2 or clause 5(a) of rule XXI are waived.
       Sec. 4. (a) No amendment to the bill shall be in order 
     except those printed in part B of the report of the Committee 
     on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc 
     described in section 5 of this resolution, and pro forma 
     amendments described in section 6 of this resolution.
       (b) Each amendment printed in part B of the report of the 
     Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order 
     printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member 
     designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall 
     be debatable for the time specified in the report equally 
     divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, may 
     be withdrawn by the proponent at any time before action 
     thereon, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided 
     by section 6 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to 
     a demand for division of the question in the House or in the 
     Committee of the Whole.
       (c) All points of order against amendments printed in part 
     B of the report of the Committee on Rules or against 
     amendments en bloc described in section 5 of this resolution 
     are waived.
       Sec. 5.  It shall be in order at any time for the chair of 
     the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer 
     amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part B 
     of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this 
     resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc 
     offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, 
     shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, 
     shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by 
     section 6 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a 
     demand for division of the question in the House or in the 
     Committee of the Whole.
       Sec. 6.  During consideration of the bill for amendment, 
     the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Appropriations or their respective designees may offer up to 
     5 pro forma amendments each at any point for the purpose of 
     debate.
       Sec. 7.  At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for 
     amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the 
     House with such amendments as may have been adopted. In the 
     case of sundry amendments reported from the Committee, the 
     question of their adoption shall be put to the House en gros 
     and without division of the question. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments 
     thereto to final passage without intervening motion except 
     one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma 
(Mr. Cole), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, on Monday night, the Rules Committee met 
and reported a rule, House Resolution 460. It provides for 
consideration of H.R. 3351 under a structured rule that makes 46 
amendments in order, with 1 hour of general debate controlled by the 
chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.
  It also provides for consideration of H.R. 2722 under a closed rule 
with 1 hour of general debate provided, controlled by the chair and 
ranking minority member of the Committee on House Administration. It 
also provides same-day authority through the legislative day of 
Thursday, June 27, 2019, relating to appropriations measures.
  Madam Speaker, this underlying package of bills is proof that this 
Democratic majority is committed to getting its work done both for 
routine matters like appropriations and emergency priorities facing our 
Nation.
  Take the first measure, H.R. 3351, the Financial Services and General 
Government Appropriations Act. This builds on our efforts to fund the 
government for fiscal year 2020 in a timely way. Instead of hollowing 
out important investments like past Republican majorities have done, 
this Democratic majority is investing in our future.
  This legislation not only ensures both the executive and judicial 
branches can continue to operate for the American people, there is also 
language here to protect consumers from dangerous products and help 
small businesses thrive, especially in distressed communities.
  Most notably, Madam Speaker, this bill provides hundreds of millions 
in grants to strengthen the integrity of our election system. This is 
especially important since, if left to his own devices, I don't think 
our President would even acknowledge that there is a crisis of 
confidence in our elections following Russia's meddling in 2016, let 
alone act so it never happens again. He seems content to welcome future 
interference rather than prevent it, so it is especially important that 
this Congress takes the lead to protect our democracy.

[[Page H5092]]

  That is why we are also moving here to consider H.R. 2722, the 
Securing America's Federal Elections Act. The Mueller report made clear 
that Russia waged an all-out attack on our elections. Putin put his 
thumb on the scale for President Trump, and intelligence officials have 
made clear that he and others are trying to attack us again in the next 
election.
  I want to repeat that, Madam Speaker, in case the President happens 
to be watching. Our very democracy is under attack. No troops have been 
sent into combat. No guns have been fired, but a foreign adversary is 
turning the internet and the ballot box into battlefields with the 
integrity of the vote at stake.
  It is beyond me why this President has not acted as if this is a 
national emergency. Instead, he said the other day that he thinks he 
would take campaign dirt about an opponent from a foreign government. 
You can't make this stuff up, Madam Speaker. That is like leaving the 
front door wide open when you know there is a burglar in town. He is 
not preventing future acts, he is encouraging them.
  Before my friends on the other side chalk this up to a slip of the 
tongue, let me remind them that his own former communications director, 
Hope Hicks, testified recently that she believes he is serious about 
accepting information from a foreign source.
  This President may not be stepping up to secure our elections, but 
this Democratic majority is. This bill would enact things like verified 
paper ballots, cybersecurity upgrades, and State grants to secure 
voting systems.
  This majority passed H.R. 1 in the opening months of this Congress. 
That package includes reforms to fix our democracy. But under Leader 
McConnell, the Senate did with it what it seems to do best: nothing.
  He refused to even bring H.R. 1 up for a vote. Now, I don't know why 
Leader McConnell is ignoring the warnings from our intelligence 
officials or why he seems content with weaknesses in our election 
systems. Maybe he is unwilling to ever break from Donald Trump on 
anything, even something this important, which really is quite sad. But 
I hope this time he will try something radical for the Senate: have a 
vote. Bring this bill up so the American people can see whose side you 
are on.

  Lastly, Madam Speaker, this bill also gives us flexibility to deal 
with an emergency of a different kind--the one this President is 
creating on our southern border. President Trump's policies have led to 
children sleeping on concrete floors, dirty and hungry with no access 
to soap or even a toothbrush, sometimes left to be cared for by 
children just a few years older than they are. It is hard to believe 
that this is happening in the United States of America today.
  This House will act, and I hope the Senate does the same thing. I 
encourage all my colleagues to vote for this rule and the underlying 
legislation, so we can do our jobs and act on these important issues.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I 
want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, 
Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
  Madam Speaker, we are here today on two very different pieces of 
legislation. Last night at the Rules Committee, I noted that these 
unrelated bills have only one thing in common, and that is their place 
in the Democratic majority's partisan, going-nowhere agenda. 
Unfortunately, I believe today's rule is only going to compound that 
recurring problem of the Democrats, frankly, not even trying to work 
with Republicans to actually legislate in divided government.
  Our first bill today is H.R. 3351, the Financial Services and General 
Government Appropriations Act of 2020. This is the 10th of 12 
appropriations bills to come to the floor. As we have worked through 
these bills, I have raised several concerns that are applicable to this 
bill as well.
  Like the previous appropriations bills this Congress, H.R. 3351 is 
marked to a high allocation figure that has no basis in reality. 
Remember, the House and Senate have not agreed to an overall budget for 
fiscal year 2020, which the Congressional Budget Act mandates be done 
by April 15.

                              {time}  1230

  Without a budget agreement, the budget cap numbers contained in the 
Budget Control Act will automatically take effect, leading to an 11 
percent cut in defense spending and a 9 percent cut in nondefense 
spending.
  Instead of working with Republicans in the Senate to reach a deal 
before marking and reporting funding bills, the majority has, instead, 
gone ahead and pushed through their own partisan appropriations bills 
that are marked to fake and unrealistic numbers.
  The 12 appropriations bills the majority has proposed have several 
flaws in common. They reflect the idea that any increase in defense 
spending must be matched by an even greater increase in nondefense 
spending, which simply isn't a realistic assessment of our national 
priorities.
  What is worse, these bills actually underfund defense and homeland 
security, coming in below the numbers that the President requested in 
order to ensure our military can adequately defend our Nation.
  The FSGG bill we are considering today contains an 8 percent increase 
over fiscal year 2019, which makes little sense when we are 
simultaneously underfunding our national security.
  Like the previous bills brought by my Democratic friends, the 
Financial Services appropriations bill also contains several partisan 
provisions that must be removed before a bipartisan, bicameral 
agreement can be reached on spending.
  The majority has removed longstanding pro-life protections, such as a 
rider that prohibits the District of Columbia from using government 
funds to provide for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or 
health of the mother.
  The majority has also cut out a longstanding provision that I 
originally sponsored several years ago barring government contractors 
from being forced to disclose political campaign contributions. Since I 
originally sponsored this provision several years ago, I find it 
surprising that the majority would eliminate this provision, which 
provides important protections for government contractors and prevents 
contracts from being awarded on the basis of contributions.
  Of course, there was an opportunity to work through and fix these 
problems through the amendment process. But instead of making things 
better, the majority has chosen, once again, to leave out minority 
voices.
  I want to reiterate a point I made the last time I was on the floor 
for a rule. During the last Congress, when Republicans were in the 
majority, our record shows that we allowed more amendments sponsored 
solely by Democrats than we did amendments sponsored solely by 
Republicans.
  The current majority has a much sorrier record. As of yesterday, of 
all amendments made in order this Congress, 67 percent were sponsored 
by Democrats, 19 percent by Republicans, and 13 percent were 
bipartisan.
  Today's rule is right in line with that record. Sixty-seven percent 
of the amendments made in order are sponsored by Democrats, 24 percent 
by Republicans, and 9 percent are bipartisan.
  Madam Speaker, this record of partisanship is a far cry from what the 
majority promised at the start of this Congress. There was an 
opportunity to move forward with fulfilling the majority's promises 
with today's rule. Instead, we see few Republican amendments and many 
Democratic amendments, resulting in a final product that will fail to 
achieve the bipartisan support needed to become law.
  The second bill included in this rule is H.R. 2722, which the 
majority is promoting as a bill that provides security for elections. 
The reality is that this bill, like its partisan predecessor H.R. 1 
that passed the House earlier this Congress, amounts to nothing less 
than a complete Federal takeover of elections.
  Traditionally, elections are left to the States and local governments 
to conduct as they see fit. Localities can respond to local conditions; 
election officials can innovate; and elections can be operated in a way 
that best suits the unique needs of each community.
  H.R. 2722 turns all that on its head. The bill will force all 
elections to be conducted using paper ballots, even if the local 
officials prefer more advanced technology. It will require costly 
recounts with no apparent purpose. It

[[Page H5093]]

will impose significant and wasteful spending on taxpayers.
  Instead of affirming States as the laboratories of democracy, when it 
comes to elections, H.R. 2722 will impose a one-size-fits-all 
regulatory regime directed from Washington on communities across the 
country.
  Madam Speaker, this state of affairs could and should have been 
avoided. Instead of pushing these partisan bills this week, the 
majority could have chosen to work with Republicans to craft bipartisan 
bills to address all of these problems.
  Even if that did not come to pass, the majority at the Rules 
Committee still could have worked with the minority to make more 
minority amendments in order and give all Members the opportunity to 
fix these flawed bills on the floor. That they did not is yet another 
indication of where the majority's priorities lie: with pushing 
partisan bills to score political points and avoiding the bipartisan 
work of actually making law.
  There is still a chance to change, Madam Speaker. In order to do so, 
the majority needs to decide whether they are here to score political 
points or if they are here to make law.
  Before I conclude, I would be remiss if I did not highlight what is 
missing in today's rule. We should have been considering three bills 
today, not two. The missing bill is the supplemental appropriations 
bill providing funding for the humanitarian crisis on the southern 
border.
  Each week, this crisis grows worse. Our facilities for holding new 
arrivals, particularly children and vulnerable unaccompanied minors, 
are already at the breaking point. Simply put, we need more resources, 
and we need them today.
  To be fair to the President, he has been asking Congress to do that 
since May 1. The failure to brin forward a supplemental appropriations 
bill for this purpose is a major failure of governance by the majority.

  All of us here, Republicans and Democrats alike, agree that we need 
to provide funding for this crisis. Time is wasting while we wait.
  Back in 2014, when President Obama asked us for $3.7 billion in 
supplemental resources for precisely the same purpose, the House acted 
to give him the resources he needed in 24 days. As of today, almost 2 
months have gone by with the majority failing to act.
  Many of my friends on the other side rightfully express concern that 
unaccompanied minors backing up at border stations is not appropriate 
nor in the best interests of the children. I couldn't agree more. The 
Border Patrol couldn't agree more.
  By failing to bring forward a supplemental appropriations bill, the 
path the majority is taking us on leads only to this outcome: hurting 
the children I know we all want to help.
  Congress has given HHS the mandate to care for unaccompanied minors. 
Congress now needs to write the check so that HHS can do what Congress 
has mandated.
  I remind my friends across the aisle that Republicans are ready and 
willing to work with them to pass a bipartisan supplemental 
appropriations package that provides needed funding for housing, for 
the Department of Defense, and especially for children who find 
themselves in an unfathomable situation at the border.
  Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I would like to say for 
the record that when it comes to this piece of legislation, the 
Financial Services appropriations bill, Democrats actually did much 
better than the Republicans did when they were in charge.
  In fact, we made more amendments in order. We made more minority 
amendments in order than the Republicans did when they were in charge. 
In fact, there is a 57 percent increase, in terms of minority 
amendments being made in order compared to what they did.
  Let me also point out for the record that my Republican friends, I 
think, tend to be a little redundant in the amendments that they offer.
  For example, I think they submitted three amendments on the wall. We 
make one amendment. Do we have to debate the wall three different 
times?
  On spending reductions, four amendments were submitted. We make two 
in order, which is probably two too many. We should have made one in 
order.
  The bottom line is, there is a habit of just offering the same old, 
same old, again and again and again. Quite frankly, the minority will 
get its opportunity to debate these issues but not over and over and 
over again.
  Let's also get to the substance here. The gentleman said these are 
two unrelated bills. Well, I disagree. The Financial Services 
appropriations bill actually funds the Election Assistance Commission, 
and the other bill we are considering, the SAFE Act, authorizes the 
Election Assistance Commission at the same amount that is in the 
appropriations bill. They are very much intertwined.
  Let me also say, I expect that, before the day is out, we will do a 
supplemental emergency bill to deal with the crisis that this President 
has created at the border.
  Let me also be clear that what we want to make sure is that, when we 
provide the funding, this cruel treatment of children at the border 
comes to an end.
  This administration's deliberate policy of separating children from 
their parents, of allowing children, almost infants, to sleep on cold 
floors, to be denied basic necessities like soap and toothpaste and 
toothbrushes, I mean, it is child abuse. It is unconscionable, so we 
want to demand that this administration stop it.
  This is the United States of America. I think the American people are 
horrified at the inhumanity that they are reading about that is 
occurring to these little children at our border.
  It is unbelievable. I never thought that we would ever be on the 
House floor talking about how children who have fled some of the worst 
conditions imaginable are being so mistreated at the border.
  So, yes, we will have a supplemental appropriations bill to deal with 
it, but we are going to demand that the cruel policies of this 
administration stop and stop now.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. 
Welch).
  Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, there is a crisis at the southern border. 
That is true. This past month, 140,000 people showed up seeking asylum: 
84,000 families, 11,000 children.
  But everything--every single thing--that the Trump administration is 
doing, led by President Trump himself, is making a very dire situation 
worse.
  First, start with the definition that our President gives for what is 
going on. It is the arrival of rapists, of criminals, of gang members, 
when every single one of us who has been on that heartbreaking trip to 
the southern border knows it is children, women, and families who are 
fleeing violence, who are fleeing gang members, and who are fleeing 
destitution and grinding poverty.
  Those are the people arriving at the border. Their crime, made 
criminal by the administration, is to seek help, to knock on America's 
door and ask for help.
  We may not be able to do all that we would like, but is it a crime 
for a person to ask for assistance?
  Second, by defining the crisis as an invasion of criminals--the Trump 
definition--the Trump policy is to treat these people worse than 
criminals, first starting with the family separation policy where 
children, literally, were yanked out of the arms of their parents.
  Many of those children still don't know where their father or their 
mother is. That is being done in your name and mine, with the full 
authority of the American Government and the widespread opposition of 
the American people.

  Then, when these people are in our custody, it is the imposition of 
cruel and brutal conditions on children and innocent people whose crime 
is to seek some assistance.
  We had a Trump attorney, in Federal court, arguing that when it came 
to fulfilling the duty that we had of holding in custody children, it 
was okay to deny them toothbrushes, soap, access to showers, and 
sanitary conditions, and to have them sleeping on cement floors in 
frigid conditions.

[[Page H5094]]

  This is shocking. It is unnecessary. It is inhumane. In short, it is 
a policy of calculated cruelty, family separation, and affliction of 
wholesale suffering.
  It must end. We must immediately return all children to their parents 
and provide humane, sanitary, and safe conditions for those seeking 
asylum.
  We must work with El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to improve 
conditions in those countries to address humanitarian conditions.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Vermont.
  Mr. WELCH. We must not withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars in 
aid, as the President decrees.
  Mr. President, the response to this crisis must not be cruelty.
  Enforce our laws, yes. Work with Central American governments, yes. 
But treat all who seek America's help with respect and dignity.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their 
remarks to the Chair.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I want to remind my friends that it took them weeks, if not longer, 
to even acknowledge there was a crisis at the border. As a matter of 
fact, they were accusing the President of manufacturing the crisis a 
few weeks ago. Now, fortunately, they have come around to the idea that 
hundreds of thousands of people arriving over a 3-month period of time 
is a crisis.
  Secondly, I want to remind them, they have still yet to act in the 
face of the crisis. They have had the ability to pass legislation. The 
President asked for it almost 60 days ago. We still haven't seen 
anything in terms of legislation reaching this floor.
  Madam Speaker, I also want to point out that, frankly, it shouldn't 
take this long to respond. We can disagree over a lot of things. And I 
have no doubt about the sincerity of my friends when it comes to being 
concerned about the well-being of these children; none whatsoever.
  But we know that part of this crisis is created because we haven't 
given the President the emergency funds he needs to quickly move people 
out of facilities where they were never designed to be, into influx 
facilities that we are trying to stand up, literally, right now. One of 
these is going to be in my district.
  We dealt with this, by the way, in 2014. We did it with President 
Obama; supported it; gave him the funds he needed; a Republican House, 
a Democratic Senate, and the President. He got that money in 24 days. 
One of those facilities was set up in my district.
  Again, we don't like using military bases in this way; don't approve 
of it; but we understand that President Obama faced an emergency 
situation, and we gave him the tools and the resources he needed to 
deal with that. That needs to happen now.
  Frankly, what we are seeing in the House is quite a contrast to the 
Senate, which has a bill in the Appropriations Committee that was 
reported out 30-1. It is bipartisan. It is a bill the President has 
expressed a willingness to sign. We ought to be working with that 
vehicle, if my friends can't get something to the floor to deal with 
this urgent crisis now.
  Madam Speaker, I would also, if I may, like to inform the Chair that 
if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the 
rule to immediately bring up Congressman Davis' Election Security 
Assistance Act for consideration under an open rule.
  This bill provides targeted and crucially needed resources to State 
and local election administrators to help secure America's voting 
infrastructure. Unlike the majority's partisan bill that takes over all 
election operations and replaces local authority with a one-size-fits-
all mandate from Washington, the Republican alternative provides needed 
resources without stepping on the toes of State and local election 
administrators.
  It provides grants to States to update aging and at-risk election 
infrastructure; provides security clearances to election officials to 
facilitate the sharing of information about threats with frontline 
officials; increases resources available to States and local 
governments; and provides for hands-on assistance, as needed.
  Madam Speaker, we all agree that our elections need to be protected, 
and we all agree that more resources and more assets are necessary to 
accomplish that goal. But rather than pushing a complicated mandate 
from Washington that wastes taxpayer dollars and eliminates the 
tradition of State and local control over the election operations, we 
can do better by providing resources for security improvements and 
reinforcements for local officials with the minimum additional 
regulation.
  Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my 
amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately 
prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Oklahoma?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), my good friend, the author of the 
legislation in question.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge my 
colleagues to defeat the previous question so the House may consider 
election security legislation that actually has a chance at becoming 
law.
  As I explained last night during debate of H.R. 2722 at the Rules 
Committee, there is no place for partisanship when it comes to securing 
our elections.
  H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act, is simply another partisan bill by the 
majority aimed at federally mandating election standards; like 
mandating that States exclusively use paper ballots, effectively 
banning any type of direct recording electronic voting machines which 
have been proven safe and efficient.
  Madam Speaker, keep this in mind; that if this legislation passes, if 
one of our local election officials had just worked to spend hundreds 
of thousands of dollars purchasing new, digital electronic machines 
with a paper backup, those machines and that investment of their hard-
earned tax dollars would be obsolete in the year 2022, 3 years from 
now. That is not right.
  Mandating the exclusive use of paper ballots will create longer lines 
at polling places, and can be lost, destroyed, or manipulated far 
easier than electronic voting machines with a paper trail backup.
  I want to highlight the fact that there is no evidence of voting 
machines being hacked in 2016, 2018, or ever. So why are we forcing 
States to get rid of what they have deemed as safe technology?
  We should work together to safeguard technology. Safeguard technology 
not abandon it. We don't know in this institution what technology is 
going to look like when it comes to voting machines in the next five to 
10 years. Why are we requiring a certain type of ballot process that is 
only going to be processed by five companies that maybe produce it 
today? That is not what we should be doing here in Washington.
  Additionally, the SAFE Act federally mandates han recounts, which 
will result in drawn-out elections that will become unnecessarily 
expensive.

  The majority's bill also contains irresponsible funding commitments. 
The funding of elections is the primary responsibility of our States. 
Democrats are committing $1.3 billion over 10 years, with zero funding 
match requirements from States.
  Congress has a responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer 
dollars. Funds should be given based on need, not a guess of what might 
be needed a decade down the road.
  I want the record to be clear. Many of the provisions in the SAFE Act 
are inconsistent with what we have heard from experts in election 
administration. But the majority is ignoring their requests.
  As my colleagues across the aisle know, I believe there are areas on 
election security where Republicans and Democrats can find and have 
found common ground. There is a role for Congress in election security, 
which is why, me and my fellow members on the House Administration 
Committee, introduced H.R. 3412, the Election Security Assistance Act.

[[Page H5095]]

  I want to thank my colleagues on the committee, Mark Walker and Barry 
Loudermilk, for joining me in this effort, and the others who have 
cosponsored it since its introduction. This realistic legislation 
provides $380 million in Federal grants to States to update their aging 
and at-risk election infrastructure, while requiring a 25 percent match 
from States.
  If it is good for transportation projects; if it is good for DHS 
projects, DOJ projects, USDA projects, why don't we have locals and 
States have some skin in the game?
  In addition, our bill creates the first-ever Election Cyber 
Assistance Unit. It is aimed at connecting State and local election 
officials with leading election administration and cybersecurity 
experts from across the Nation.
  Our bill empowers State officials by providing security clearances to 
election officials to better facilitate the sharing of information and 
requiring the Department of Homeland Security to notify State election 
officials of cyberattacks and any foreign threats within the State. 
Keep in mind, the majority bill does not address this.
  If DHS hacked a local election official's election system, if they 
saw a hack in, let's say, central Nevada, DHS would not be able to 
notify your local election official because he or she may not have 
security clearance. The majority bill doesn't address this. Our bill 
does.
  To sum it up, our solution provides much-needed election security 
improvements and reinforcements for local election officials without 
overstepping the State's authority to maintain their elections. The 
Election Security Assistance Act, our bill, is the only proposal being 
discussed today that has a realistic chance of becoming law.
  If the previous question is defeated, it will be the first step in 
putting forth election security legislation that has a chance of 
helping States improve their security ahead of the 2020 election.
  I thank Ranking Member Cole for giving me the opportunity to speak on 
behalf of this important issue.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I always enjoy listening to my Republican colleagues debate on the 
floor. And I always love listening to the gentleman from Illinois when 
he is on the House floor.
  But I can't help but think of the fact that the Russians attacked our 
elections in 2016. The 2 years after that, the House was controlled by 
Republicans. The Senate was controlled by Republicans. Donald Trump, a 
Republican, was in the White House. They had a unified government; the 
House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
  And all of our intelligence agencies said that Russia interfered in 
our elections; they attacked our democracy; not only the Obama 
administration's intelligence officials, but the Trump administration's 
intelligence officials.
  And what did my Republican friends do in the aftermath of this attack 
on our democracy by a foreign adversary? Nothing. Nothing.
  We hear all these great ideas, but while they had a unified 
government, while they were in control of everything, they did nothing. 
In fact, I recall sitting here on the House floor and listening to 
Republican after Republican after Republican basically say that this 
was much ado about nothing; in fact, trying to deny that Russia 
attacked our elections.
  Now the evidence is so overwhelming you can't deny it anymore. But 
yet, they had this opportunity. And now they say we all want to protect 
our elections.
  Well, 2 years prior to this, I don't know where you were, but you 
weren't working trying to protect our elections. People were working, 
instead, to try to cover up for what a foreign adversary did to our 
elections.
  So here we are, coming forward with a bill that we believe will 
provide security for our elections so that people believe that the 
elections have integrity, they believe the results. And we are told 
well, we disagree with you, and we have better ideas; on and on and on.
  Bottom line is we are acting. My friends had 2 years to act. They did 
nothing.
  Our Democratic majority went through regular order on this. The 
Committee on House Administration held three hearings on election 
security. In case anyone forgot, they were on February 14, May 8, and 
May 21.
  In addition to those hearings, the Subcommittee on Elections 
conducted field hearings in six States, while the Committees on 
Oversight, Homeland Security, and the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence held hearings on the subject.
  So experts testified. People offered their viewpoints. And after all 
of that, the House Administration Committee marked up this bill last 
Friday, on June 21, and here we are on the House floor.
  So, I mean, give me a break. I get it. Some of my Republicans friends 
may be ``Johnny-come-latelies'' when it comes to the issue of election 
security. We welcome you on board, because our elections are important, 
and we need to protect them from interference from foreign adversaries 
like Russia.

  But you had 2 years of unified government in which my friends did 
nothing, nothing.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, to quote my friend, ``give me a break.'' The 
last Republican Congress appropriated roughly $300 million for election 
security, point 1.
  Point 2, we have no evidence anybody hacked any election machines, as 
my friend, Mr. Davis pointed out in 2016 or 2018. If you want to 
respond to the Russians, you probably ought to respond to what they 
did, not to what they didn't do or didn't succeed in doing.
  I would actually argue this administration did a lot more than the 
last administration. You have got a larger military today, partly 
because of what the Russians did. You have a reinvigorated NATO today. 
You have a President who actually sent lethal aid to Ukraine today.
  You want to get the Russians' attention? That is the way you get it. 
When you lay down a red line in Syria, you enforce the red line. This 
administration has been a lot tougher on Russia than the last 
administration, which, by the way, knew this was going on, did almost 
nothing to alert anybody or to stop anybody; and now, are trying to 
blame it on the person that was actually involved in the election, our 
current President, for their lapse when they were actually in power in 
the executive branch.
  So this idea that nobody wants to defend our elections is not true. 
And, frankly, I will take some offense because I have never said that 
the Russians didn't matter, or that our elections weren't serious or 
weren't threatened. I used to be a State election board secretary. I 
used to sit on the Board of Directors for the election board 
secretaries around the country, and the oldest public body that there 
is, or the oldest association of public officials there is in this 
country; very bipartisan, by the way, extraordinarily well-run. They 
don't agree with this bill.
  I would just ask every Member to call their local Secretary of State 
or election administrator, whatever they have, and go through the bill 
and say, did you want to cede this much authority to the Congress of 
the United States; or do you think you do a pretty good job of running 
your own election?

                              {time}  1300

  I know in my State, we do a very good job of running our elections, 
and that has been true under Democrats and true under Republicans. I 
think that is true around the country.
  The other thing is if you want to actually do something before the 
2020 election, then whether you like it or not, you are going to have 
to do something that is bipartisan, because this will not get through 
the Senate and this will not become law, and that makes it a rather 
pointless exercise.
  Sometimes in the legislative process, you sit down, and in Mr. Davis, 
I will tell you, you have a willing partner and a person who has a 
reputation in this body that I think is exceptionally bipartisan and 
who is working, I think, in good faith on this very problem, and you 
work through the problem.
  But if it is going to be a partisan my-way-or-the-highway approach--
remember, this is coming under a closed rule, there is not even an 
amendment made in order here--then it is not likely to get out of this 
Chamber.
  So if you are serious about trying to protect the elections, you 
would. You may not get everything you want, but

[[Page H5096]]

in divided government, you have to work together to get things done.
  That is the problem with almost every major initiative that our 
Democratic friends have brought to the floor since they have been in 
the majority.
  Sorry. The Constitution is pretty clear. The Senate gets to decide 
whether or not they are going to accept what we do over here or do 
something different. The President has a part in this process.
  We had to endure this when we first became the majority. We had a 
Republican House, we had a Democratic Senate, we had a Democratic 
President.
  I don't have any problem with my friends bringing their agenda to the 
floor. I applaud them for doing it. They ran on it. It is perfectly 
appropriate.
  A lot of times we bring that agenda to the floor knowing we can get 
it across this Chamber, but we are not going to probably get it all the 
way through the process unless we change it some.
  What we haven't seen yet is any evidence that the new majority has 
any ability to work with the current majority or the current President. 
And if that is what they want to do for 18 months, score political 
points as opposed to actually legislate something in a compromise 
manner, they are free to do that, too, but it is not going to work.
  If the aim here is to make our elections more secure, then I wouldn't 
bring a bill with a closed rule. I would work with the other side, 
knowing that their very concerns are probably going to be similar to 
the concerns expressed in the United States Senate and by the President 
of the United States.
  So, you know, that is an unsolicited piece of personal and political 
advice to my friends, but I think if they follow it, they will actually 
have some success legislatively and will actually get some things done.
  We are going to disagree about a lot of things. The American people 
will sort that out in rather short order, about 18 months, but we ought 
to try to get the things we can do today done.
  This is an area I think we could work together in if we approached it 
in a different manner.
  I would also hope we could do the same thing on the southern border, 
Madam Speaker. That is an impending emergency right now. We are going 
to run out of money right now. So let's get that at least taken care of 
while we sort out our differences in other areas.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, the gentleman was talking about appropriations that 
were approved in the last Congress.
  A lot of the ideas that we are talking about here today, including 
some of the ideas that Mr. Davis raised, are authorizations, and so 
they can't be taken care of in an appropriations bill, and that is why 
we are doing a separate bill in addition to the appropriations bill.
  The gentleman talks about the $300 million that were approved under 
the previous leadership. Well, we are asking for $600 million. We are 
doubling that because we know how serious it is.
  And just forgive us if we are a little bit concerned, because we have 
a President who continues not to acknowledge that the Russians 
interfered in our election. He continues to refer it to as a Russian 
hoax. He took Vladimir Putin's word for it rather than the word of our 
intelligence agencies.
  So when we express concern about our election process and about the 
lack of attention given to this, we are responding to what the 
President of the United States, Donald Trump, says on a weekly, if not 
daily basis.
  The fact of the matter is Russia interfered in our election. 
Everybody knows that. The only person who is in denial is at 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue. So we need to respond, and we need to respond 
appropriately.
  Madam Speaker, I say this to my friend again, that we expect, 
hopefully today, to bring up a supplemental appropriations bill to be 
able to deal with what I would call the Donald Trump-created crisis on 
the border.
  And, by the way, as we provide funding, which I believe we will do to 
deal with some of the issues on the border, let us be clear: there is 
absolutely no excuse at all for how this administration has allowed 
children to be treated in such an inhumane fashion under our custody, 
children being denied soap, children being denied toothpaste or 
toothbrushes, children so young and separated from any adult who are 
being cared for by children only a couple of years older.
  I mean, everybody should be horrified by that. There is no excuse, 
none at all, for that to be happening.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Raskin).
  Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the chairman, Mr. 
McGovern, for his extraordinary leadership on H.R. 2722, the Securing 
America's Federal Elections Act, the SAFE Act.

  Madam Speaker, we were attacked as a country in 2016. We were not 
attacked as Democrats or Republicans or Independents. Our Nation was 
attacked.
  Special Counsel Mueller found that Russia conducted a sweeping and 
systematic campaign to subvert and undermine the U.S. election on 
behalf of one party and one candidate as opposed to another party or 
another candidate, but you know what, that should make no difference to 
us today. It could have been the reverse.
  I would hope that all of us would be standing together as Americans 
to reject foreign interference in our elections.
  What did the Russians do? Well, they conducted cyber surveillance and 
espionage and sabotage at the Democratic National Committee, at the 
Democratic National Campaign Committee, and at Hillary Clinton's 
headquarters. They injected racial and ethnic propaganda and poison 
into our body politic through Facebook, through Twitter, through social 
media, and then they directly entered into the websites of 30 different 
State boards of election across the country, with varying degrees of 
success, according to how well prepared the different election boards 
were.
  Now, in response to all of this, what do we get from the President of 
the United States, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces? What we 
get is denunciation of what he calls the Russian hoax. He rejects the 
evidence offered to him by his own intelligence agencies and leaders. 
He rejects all of the evidence compiled by Special Counsel Robert 
Mueller. He rejects the conclusion that there was a sweeping and 
systematic effort to undermine our election.
  H.R. 2722 says we need to protect our election in 2020. It is 
precious. Our democracy is precious to us, so we will promote accuracy, 
integrity, and security through voter-verified permanent paper ballots, 
and provide grants to the States to carry out the security improvements 
that we need. It will establish cybersecurity requirements for voting 
systems and require testing of the existing hardware and software to 
make sure there is not malware in there, to make sure that it is not 
being manipulated, and it will implement risk-limiting audits to ensure 
the accuracy of vote tallies in an efficient manner.
  Madam Speaker, we have a philosophical difference with our friends. 
It is not just that the President denied the existence of the attack, 
but the Republican-controlled Senate did nothing, they offered us no 
plan. They controlled the House and the Senate in the last Congress. 
They did nothing. They offered us no plan for securing our elections 
against foreign attack in 2020, which is why we have come forward with 
an attempt to prevent the attack in 2020.
  Now, we have a philosophical difference with them, because when we 
say that America needs to act, they say federalism, let every State 
work it out on their own.
  I heard one of my colleagues say they are doing a great job at the 
local level running the elections. But we are not talking about running 
the elections, we are talking about protecting the security of our 
elections against a foreign attack.
  It is like we are saying we need to defend the country, and they say, 
well, we have got great local police forces all across the America. The 
police forces may be great, but we still need a national defense.
  The election boards might be doing a good job in some places, maybe 
less so in others, running the local elections,

[[Page H5097]]

but we still need to protect all of our elections against the foreign 
attack that was described in detail by Special Counsel Mueller.
  There is a constitutional basis and imperative for doing this. I 
direct my friends to Article IV of the Constitution, the Republican 
Guarantee Clause, which my good friend from Illinois suggested may have 
been the Republican Party guarantee clause. I know he was kidding when 
he said it. It is not the Republican Party guarantee clause; it is a 
guarantee of a republican form of government.
  ``The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a 
republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against 
invasion''.
  That is a constitutional command that we must protect every State in 
the union's republican form of government.
  Well, what is a republican form of government? A republican form of 
government is a representative form of government where the voters vote 
for their leaders. It is republican only if the will of the people is 
properly expressed through an election, we get the will through an 
election, and it has integrity and accuracy and safety. That is what 
this bill is about.
  Madam Speaker, I urge everybody to support H.R. 2722.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
make a quick point, and then I want to move to my friend from Illinois.
  Madam Speaker, I don't argue about constitutional power, but I argue 
about process.
  Look, I seriously doubt my friends have spent very much time talking 
to election board secretaries and election administration officials 
around the country. Had they done so, they would have heard, I am sure, 
uniformly that they don't want a one-size-fits-all made system from 
Washington, D.C. They don't want to throw away equipment that they 
think is better than what we are offering them or that they have 
already invested millions of dollars in.
  They are happy to work with us. They are happy to inform us and 
testify. That is not what is happening here.
  This is the idea: all wisdom is in this Chamber, evidently, because 
it is not going to get through the Senate, it is not going to get 
signed by the President. We haven't talked to the people that actually 
are the front-line people in defending us in this process, and that is 
the folks at the State and the local level.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Rodney Davis).
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I am always glad to be 
here with my good friend from the House Administration Committee, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin). And he was right in committee 
during the markup of this bill that was posted late last week, and we 
marked it up earlier this week after the rules notice was already 
posted. It just shows you how rushed this process is.
  The gentleman erroneously, and I know, because I had made a quick 
joke about it afterwards, mentioned we ought to have a mandated 
republican government or something like that. I said, ``You know what? 
That is one mandate I can be for in our State and local authorities,'' 
but I knew what he was talking about.
  He knows what he is talking about when it comes to what we all have 
the same interest in doing, and that is protecting our election 
security.
  My colleague mentioned about standing together. Well, we were trying 
to stand together, Madam Speaker. We were working in a bipartisan way 
to put together a bipartisan election security bill, and the Democrat 
majority walked away. They forced this vote.
  These are areas that we can come together and find common ground.
  I have been asked, what did the Republicans do when we were in the 
majority? Well, we not only did $300 million in election security 
upgrades and cybersecurity protections, we did $380 million. And what 
was great was we were working over the last 2 years with DHS officials 
and our local election officials to ensure that 2018 did not suffer the 
same consequences as 2016. And it worked, even in an extensively high 
midterm turnout.
  Then they said, well, what else did you do over the 2 years? Well, 
you know what we did? We waited for the $35-million Mueller report to 
come out and tell us what else we could do.
  Now we are here today. We are here today to ensure that we put 
together an election security bill, not one that the Democrats want, 
not one that is going to be a top-down approach. It is not what our 
local secretaries of state want, it is not what our local election 
officials want, and they are on the ground. Let's listen to them, but 
let's make sure that we don't take away our ability to address 
cybersecurity concerns.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. It has been mentioned that the Russians 
used social media to strike at our election process in this country. 
That is true. This bill does nothing to address that problem. The 
majority's bill does absolutely nothing to address this problem. That 
is something that we still need to take care of in Congress.
  Let's not confuse the issue, and let's not listen to the 30,000-foot 
rhetoric that somehow one party over the other is more defensive or 
wants to be more offensive against nefarious actors. We are all 
Americans. We are all elected to serve this great country and this 
great institution.
  None of us, Republicans or Democrats, want anyone to attack this 
country, let alone attack our election process, but the answer to 
making sure that our elections are safe are in our bill, the previous 
question.
  We are the ones who ensure that DHS can talk to local election 
officials. Their bill does not do that.
  We are the ones that make sure that we create a cybersecurity unit 
and the ability to address ongoing threats. Their bill does not do 
that.
  That is why I would urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. 
Let's come back to the table. Let's get something done.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman trying to articulate the 
best he can all that the Republicans did on this issue when they were 
in the majority, but I will be very honest with him: I am unimpressed, 
and so are the American people.
  The bottom line is my friends had unified government, Republican 
control of the House, Senate, and the White House for 2 years, and 
basically they did nothing.
  The President, the leader of their party, routinely and continues to 
do so today, refers to Russian interference in our election as a 
Russian hoax. The leader of our country says that it is a hoax.
  So I understand why there was inaction for the previous 2 years, but 
that ends because Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people of all 
political persuasions deserve to have an election system that has some 
integrity.
  I look forward to passing this bill, and I am urging the Senate to do 
the same.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, could I inquire, I am prepared to close 
whenever my friend is. If he has additional speakers, I will just 
reserve.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by just submitting for the 
Record the views of the National Disability Rights Network, which 
actually came out against this legislation because they believe it will 
make it more difficult for people with physical impairments to actually 
get to the polls and vote. I know that is not the intention of my 
friend on the other side, but that is the effect of one-size-fits-all 
voting.

[[Page H5098]]

                                               National Disability


                                               Rights Network,

                                                    June 25, 2019.
     Hon. Zoe Lofgren,
     Chairwoman, House Administration Committee, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Rodney Davis,
     Ranking Member, House Administration Committee, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Chairwoman Lofgren and Ranking Member Davis: The 
     National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) writes today to 
     express our concerns with the impact of H.R. 2722, the 
     Securing America's Federal Election (SAFE) Act, on voters 
     with disabilities. While improvements have been made to the 
     legislation as it has moved through the legislative process, 
     we continue to remain concerned that, taken as a whole, the 
     bill will negatively impact voters with disabilities.
       NDRN is the voluntary membership association for Protection 
     and Advocacy
       (P&A) and Client Assistance Program
       (CAP) agencies. The P&A and CAP agencies are a nationwide 
     network of congressionally mandated, cross disability 
     organizations operating in every state in the United States, 
     the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. 
     Territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, 
     and the US Virgin Islands). There is also a P&A and CAP 
     affiliated with the Native American Consortium which includes 
     the Hopi, Navajo, and San Juan Southern Paiute Nations 
     located in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.
       The P&A/CAP Network has the authority to provide legally 
     based advocacy services and legal representation to all 
     people with disabilities. P&As and CAPs pursue legal, 
     administrative, and other appropriate remedies under all 
     applicable federal and state laws to protect and advocate for 
     the rights of people with disabilities. Through the 
     Protection and Advocacy for Voter Access (PAVA) program, P&As 
     provide advocacy to voters with disabilities on all facets of 
     the election system. Collectively, the P&A/CAP Network is the 
     largest provider of legally based advocacy services to people 
     with disabilities in the United States.
       Following a contentious presidential election and 
     investigation into foreign interference with the electoral 
     process, the national public discourse on American democracy 
     has understandably turned to voting security. NDRN believes 
     that action to protect the security of our votes is necessary 
     to ensure the health of our electoral system. However, the 
     need to create accurate and secure elections must be balanced 
     with protecting access to the vote for all eligible 
     Americans. Voting systems that rely on an electorate capable 
     of independently marking and verifying a paper ballot have 
     become a preferred solution to protecting vote security. 
     Understandably, if all voters are able to mark their ballots 
     privately and independently, and visually verify that the 
     completed paper ballot is correct, elections officials could 
     routinely audit election results that are verified to have 
     captured voter intent. Yet, the ability to privately and 
     independently mark, and visually verify, and then cast a 
     paper ballot is simply not an option for all voters.
       We have three concerns with the latest version of the SAFE 
     Act. First, by mandating that only voters with disabilities 
     can use ballot marking devices (BMDs) you are segregating 
     voters with disabilities away from the entire pool of voters 
     by making them the only group of people that use a particular 
     type of voting machine. Federally mandated segregation is 
     problematic alone. Additionally, this increases the 
     likelihood that poll workers will not be properly trained on 
     the machine, the machine not working, and if the one machine 
     breaks, there will be no alternative option. It will also 
     saddle poll workers with determining who is ``disabled 
     enough'' to use the BMD, a decision for which they have no 
     qualifications or legal right.
       Second, by not requiring that the ballot marked with a BMD 
     be identical to the hand marked ballot, you are removing the 
     right of the voter with a disability to cast a private 
     ballot. It is possible that some smaller precincts may only 
     have one person with a disability that votes, making it 
     extremely easy to identify how the person voted. But even 
     where there might be tens or hundreds of people with 
     disabilities voting, elections personnel should not be able 
     to look at the ballots and know how people with disabilities 
     voted.
       Third, assuming BMDs fully solved the accessibility issues 
     around marking a ballot (which they do not for all voters 
     with a disability) the so called solution continues to ignore 
     the accessibility issues around verification and the casting 
     of the ballot, two necessary steps in the voting process. 
     While some may argue that the BMDs address accessibility, 
     there is nothing that addresses the ability of a person with 
     a disability to independently and privately verify and 
     ultimately cast their ballot. BMDs are not the accessibility 
     panacea that makes federally mandated paper based voting work 
     for people with disabilities.
       Security of our elections is an issue that is crucial to 
     the health of our democracy and must not be taken lightly. 
     Likewise, a private and independent vote is the law of the 
     land, and an electoral system that knowingly denies the right 
     to vote to any of its eligible citizens to appease others is 
     simply not a democracy. NDRN firmly believes that all 
     Americans, including people with disabilities, want secure, 
     accurate, and fair elections, but not at the expense of the 
     right to vote for people with disabilities. The SAFE Act is 
     an important first step in this national discourse, but the 
     concerns expressed above must be addressed before this 
     legislation can become the law of the land.
       Thank you for your work on this important topic, and should 
     you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact 
     Eric Buehlmann, Deputy Executive Director for Public Policy.
           Sincerely,
                                                      Curt Decker,
                                               Executive Director.

  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, my friend is not impressed, and that is a 
fair statement, and I don't question my friend ever, but I am not 
impressed with legislation that can't become law because it is futile. 
We come down here with a lot of sound and fury, but we don't get 
anything done.
  Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to this rule. This rule 
will make in order for consideration two bills: H.R. 3351 and H.R. 
2722.
  The first is a partisan appropriations bill that is marked to an 
unrealistic number that does not reflect agreement with Republicans or 
the Senate and that includes partisan policy riders that must come out 
before this bill can become law.
  Not to be outdone, H.R. 2722 is even more partisan, throwing out the 
traditional ability of States and localities to manage their own 
election procedures and, instead, imposing a one-size-fits-all 
regulatory regime direct from Washington, D.C. like H.R. 1 before it, 
this bill was produced without Republican input and, instead, reflects 
only the partisan motivations of the current majority.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous 
question, ``no'' on the rule, and ``no'' on the underlying measures.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, I urge, obviously, support for this rule and the 
underlying bills that will be debated.
  As we are sitting here debating, we just got some news that Acting 
Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Agency John Sanders has 
submitted his resignation. I guess the public pressure is so great that 
it is untenable for him to continue in that position, and I am sure the 
President will replace him with somebody else.
  The problem is the President keeps on replacing individuals with 
people who continue to enforce policies that are cruel, policies that 
separate children from their parents at the border, and policies that 
treat children worse than animals in our custody, but I thought it 
would be interesting for my colleagues to note this breaking news.
  Madam Speaker, it is true that we have an ambitious agenda before us 
this week, and we believe in doing our job and holding the 
administration accountable. We aren't going to leave the threat of 
another shutdown for another day. Maybe that is what my Republican 
friends did when they were in charge, but that is how we ended up in 
one shutdown after another.
  And, yes, we wish we had an agreement on the caps, but it is not for 
lack of trying. We have been trying to negotiate with the Senate since 
we took control of the House of Representatives. We have been trying to 
negotiate with the President since we took control of the House of 
Representatives. But every time we sit down with the President, he has 
a temper tantrum or he behaves in an erratic way and leaves the room. 
We can't wait, so we are going to lead, and hopefully they will follow.
  And we are not going to ignore the threats posed by Russia and others 
to our elections. The President wants to cozy up to Putin instead of 
defending this Nation, but this majority doesn't believe in 
prioritizing the egos of dictators. We believe in accountability and 
restoring the integrity of the vote.
  My friend says, well, this isn't going anywhere. Well, look, we are 
happy to negotiate with Republicans in the Senate, but where is their 
bill? Basically, the Republicans in the Senate are following the lead 
of the Republicans in the House and the previous Congress in doing 
nothing.
  We don't believe in doing nothing. We think our elections are 
important, that they are worth defending, so we are acting. These are 
serious matters, Madam Speaker, and this is why we

[[Page H5099]]

were sent here, and this is what we intend to tackle.
  I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question. I 
urge them to vote ``yes'' on the rule and the underlying legislation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  The text of the material previously referred to by Mr. Cole is as 
follows:

                   Amendment to House Resolution 460

       At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       Sec. 8. That immediately upon adoption of this resolution, 
     the House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House 
     on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 
     3412) to protect the administration of Federal elections 
     against cybersecurity threats. The first reading of the bill 
     shall be dispensed with. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be 
     confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally 
     divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on House Administration. After 
     general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment 
     under the five-minute rule. All points of order against 
     provisions in the bill are waived. When the committee rises 
     and reports the bill back to the House with a recommendation 
     that the bill do pass, the previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to 
     final passage without intervening motion except one motion to 
     recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of 
     the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution 
     on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House 
     shall, immediately after the third daily order of business 
     under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the 
     Whole for further consideration of the bill.
       Sec. 9. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of H.R. 3412.

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and 
I move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________