[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 117 (Thursday, June 25, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2507-H2512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield to the gentlewoman 
from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), my friend.


                              JUSTICE Act

  Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert), my colleague and my classmate, for yielding time 
to me this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, at such a pivotal moment in the history of our country, 
Democrats are choosing posturing over progress. Yesterday, Senate 
Democrats blocked consideration of the JUSTICE Act, and claimed it did 
not go far enough to address their issues with regards to police 
reform.
  One of the most puzzling pieces to this story that even after Senator 
Scott offered to increase the allotment of amendments on the bill, 
Senate Democrats turned around and walked out of the room. They had the 
opportunity to work in the spirit of bipartisanship, but they ignored 
it. Are they genuinely afraid of bipartisan collaboration, or are they 
more focused on scoring political points with their own base? You be 
the judge.
  Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, we have heard dangerous 
rhetoric regarding the defunding of law enforcement, and it is 
downright concerning. The men and women of law enforcement lay down 
their lives every day in the line of duty.
  And this course of action that Democrats are championing is an 
affront to health, safety, and security of our communities. Law and 
order are fundamental tenets of a free society, but when anarchy is 
assigned a higher value than protecting the American people, the lines 
become blurred and discord will prevail.
  Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not address imprudent 
comments made on Tuesday by the Speaker of the House. She asserted that 
Republicans are trying to get away with the murder of George Floyd. Let 
her words sink in for a moment.
  Two weeks ago, Democrat leadership called passing police reform ``a 
life-or-death situation.'' But now that we have introduced legislation 
that addresses this issue, they have changed their tune entirely.
  Republicans stand at the ready to deliver this reform while Speaker 
Pelosi is looking for the next media sound bite. Her rhetoric is 
nothing short of disgraceful. Instead of sowing seeds of division and 
resorting to crafting legislation behind closed doors, it is time that 
she and our colleagues across the aisle come to the table to work 
alongside of us. Maybe it is too daunting of a task for them. Forsaking 
bipartisanship in favor of a my-way-or-the-highway approach will not 
move us closer to enacting meaningful police reform.
  Mr. Speaker, we are ready to work with our Democrat colleagues, and 
all they need to do is pull a seat up to the table and join us.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to call Virginia Foxx my 
classmate. We have been through a lot together, but nothing like what 
is currently going on in this country right now. Extraordinary.
  And we are hearing from people back home and from those who are not 
from

[[Page H2508]]

my district that have called my office--or called my wife's phone--and 
left nasty, vicious messages about our hearing. People who saw the 
subterfuge going on in the Committee on the Judiciary yesterday, they 
need to understand, back before I became a district judge in Texas, 
handling major, civil litigation and felony, criminal cases--up to and 
including death penalty cases--I tried a lot of cases, a lot of 
different courts, Federal, State. And from time to time, you would see 
judges who were not fair, and they played their partisan, silly games. 
Sometimes it was just a power thing.

                              {time}  2100

  But I determined, when I was a judge, nobody was going to be treated 
like that, and we didn't do that.
  There were time limits on opening statements and closing arguments, 
as there were when I was chief justice of our court of appeals. I 
enforced the times, and I made sure that both sides had those times 
followed because, to me, what applied in court applies here, one of the 
last bastions of civility in the country.
  Even when there are riots and protests going on, as long as the 
legislature and the courts are acting civilly--and that doesn't mean 
you can't yell at each other. Sometimes, debates get very, very 
emotional, and some of us get very passionate about the things we feel. 
But it should never lead to violence.
  We have those arguments. Everybody gets treated fairly. And I have to 
say, I have been unhappy with some Republican committee chairs in the 
past, but at least they treated both sides the same way.
  But we have seen in the Judiciary Committee, which has a storied 
history, with strong, freedom-loving patriots like Daniel Webster--
possibly the leading advocate against slavery of his day, and certainly 
the most articulate advocate against slavery in this country, a strong 
Christian, ethical, moral man. But we have seen such incredible 
partisanship in our committee, and I mean by that unfair enforcement of 
the rules.
  Yes, I get passionate about it because I still believe in fairness. 
You shouldn't treat people the way Republicans have been treated in the 
Judiciary Committee.
  Why is that important? Well, for one thing, it sets an example to the 
rest of the country that it is okay to just run over, ignore, threaten, 
create havoc for the people who you disagree with. That message goes 
out loud and clear: I am screwing over the other side by the rules, by 
using and flaunting my authority, and so what? If you agree with me, 
join me in abusing our discretion.
  Well, we are seeing that abuse go across the country. What are we 
seeing across the country? We have seen Democratic Governors, some of 
them, and in our biggest cities where the biggest problems are 
occurring, and Black lives that matter are being shot in record 
numbers, as they were in Chicago, and instead of using our system to 
address the problems that have arisen, we have statements like this, 
this headline from a Black Lives Matter leader: ``If this country 
doesn't give us what we want, then we will burn down this system.''
  Well, this system has had millions of Americans suffer and over a 
million die in the service of our country so that we would have the 
freedoms we do.
  One thing has been very clear to me from studying history. I really 
got into it in high school, majored in it, and never stopped studying 
it. But one thing is very clear: This country is an anomaly.
  You know, Jesus said, you remember, they are going to hate you; they 
hated me first. We were told you will suffer for Christ's sake.
  This was a country where you didn't suffer for being a Christian. 
That is an incredible little bubble in time and in space in the history 
of the world. This is an unusual country.
  As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out about the churches and the 
amazing--yes, there are other religions, and we respect that, respect 
those, as long as they are peaceful and don't want to tear down the 
system or burn down the system.
  But de Tocqueville pointed out that this country seems to have 
adopted Christian principles throughout their government. They are more 
at play in what is happening in America than anywhere else.
  That is paraphrased. I don't have his quotes, but there are many of 
them. Some of them that he was given credit for saying he didn't say. 
But he certainly observed that.
  But this little anomaly of self-government in time and space is in 
grave risk. Anybody that has studied world history understands that. 
There are people all over the country we have heard from that 
understand that.
  So when people are allowed, even without burning down the system, to 
burn down minority communities, burn down other people's property, 
destroy businesses, tear down statues that reflect history, good and 
bad, without going through the system the right way, the peaceful way, 
the way available, they are already figuratively burning down this 
system.
  You want a statue removed or you want a name changed, you do what 
they are doing in Tyler, Texas, where they have petitioned, as I 
understand it, the school board. I am not sure if they have taken 
action yet. But that is the way you do it. You go make your case.
  If you don't like what is going on, then you simply run for office 
and replace those people who are not doing what you believe is the 
right thing. That is the way it goes; that is the way it is supposed to 
go; and that is the way people who want to destroy America are not 
doing it.
  If there is an offensive statue, go get it changed, but we might want 
you to pay for replacing that with something else. Those who refuse to 
learn from history, as we know, are destined to repeat it.
  It is good to talk about people who made big mistakes in our history 
instead of doing like the Marxist leaders of the crime wave across the 
country are trying to do.
  Now, there are some who aren't Marxists, and they don't know they are 
being used by Marxists. But the things that are going on are right out 
of the Marxist playbook.
  It was seen in 1917 in and around what became the Soviet Union. It 
was seen by Chavez in Venezuela. It has been seen in many places. It 
was seen by the Chinese under Mao.
  Hitler was a monster. And his murder of and the attempted genocide of 
the Jewish people should never be forgotten. But some people are 
denying it even happened. It did happen.
  So you have two basically totalitarian socialist forms of government. 
And I know my friend, my colleague--he probably wouldn't call me his 
friend--

       as chairman of the Judiciary Committee immediately reacts 
     when you mention that the fascists were really socialists. It 
     was the National Socialist Workers Party in Germany. That is 
     what the Nazis were.

  They believed in the same kind of totalitarian socialist government 
that Soviet leaders believed in, and they created in the Soviet Union 
with their communist government and in China with their communist 
government what so many want to drive us to right now. They killed more 
people than any form of government in the history of the world.
  Now, 20 million is only the estimate of what Stalin starved to death 
in Ukraine when there was actually plenty of food, but he intentionally 
starved them to death. Mao, there was probably 40, 60 million, 
depending on whom you believe, that he killed, determined to make the 
country better.
  If you look at how many people the coronavirus has killed, which came 
from China--you can give them credit for killing millions more, I am 
sure, before this is all over. Although we do have some in the U.S. 
Government that have an interest--maybe it is pecuniary, some kind of 
interest--in defending China and condemning the United States. It kind 
of tells you where their heart is.
  This country, as Ron Maxwell said some years back, from its 
beginning, it has been about liberation. We have George Washington over 
there. People are trying to tear down his statues. When you travel the 
world, people know the good about that man more so than American 
students do anymore because the Bill Ayers of the country, the 
terrorists of their day--terrorists in another way now.
  But they realized blowing things up, sit-ins, riots were not getting 
it done, so they went into our colleges and universities, many of them, 
and began to

[[Page H2509]]

teach their socialist/Marxist ideas that have never worked and have led 
to more death and suffering than any other type of government.
  But they have taught them this is the way to go. Many millennials 
have bought into that because they don't know true history. This is 
serious stuff.
  As I have talked to parliamentarians, members of parliament in 
Europe, members of government in other parts of the world, including 
Australia--and there are things about America that bug them. Some think 
we are too arrogant.
  But when it comes down to it, wise people in other countries that 
have freedom at this time, they know if the United States' freedom is 
destroyed by Marxists or anybody else, there will be no other safe 
place in the world that Americans can go to find the freedom that is at 
risk right now. If America's freedom goes down, there is no other place 
to go.
  I know Ronald Reagan said no generation that has ever lost freedom 
ever got it back in the same generation. I am telling you, if we don't 
stop the insurrection that is being allowed to occur under liberal 
mayors, liberal Governors, then we are going to lose the country. And 
Donald Trump is determined not to let that happen.
  But under our Constitution, there are some places if the mayor or the 
Governor won't request help, the President is going to have difficulty 
getting it there to protect things. That is just the way it is.

                              {time}  2115

  There are consequences to electing feckless leaders who are afraid to 
do what needs to be done to protect this greatest bastion of freedom 
that has ever existed.
  As I said earlier, this has been a history in this country of 
liberation. Slavery should never have been allowed to get started here. 
But this country, despite the liberal garbage that is out there, it was 
not founded on the basis of slavery.
  If you look at Thomas Jefferson's original words in the original 
Declaration of Independence, his first draft, he knew slavery was bad 
and destructive to this country. Perhaps it is the longest grievance 
against King George--if it is not the longest, one of the longest. He 
lays at the feet of King George of England the horrible thing that was 
going on in America, the atrocity called slavery.
  King George should never have allowed that to get started here, to be 
legal here, but it was. People in Virginia at the time were not 
supposed to free their slaves. George Washington, he knew it was wrong 
as well. In his will, he freed all the slaves upon his wife's death.
  Now, there are some things that don't make sense to some of us here 
and now because we weren't living in that day. But the thing that we 
can be absolutely certain about is that no human being--only one--has 
ever been perfect. Anything that involves humans is going to be 
imperfect.
  Again, our history has been one of setting freedom as the goal, 
recognizing that freedom is a gift of God. But like any inheritance, if 
you don't fight for it, you are not going to have it.
  Slavery, we had a revolution after the first great awakening, the 
great Christian awakening in the 1700s, followed by the Revolution, the 
pursuit of freedom and freedom of choice. The second great awakening in 
the 1800s was followed by a horrendous civil war.
  What Lincoln said, the words are inscribed on the inside of the north 
wall of the Lincoln Memorial, and you can tell he is trying to get a 
grip on this. He knows there is a God. He believes at that time in God. 
Steve Mansfield has a great book documenting Lincoln's days from his 
early 20s when he bragged about being an infidel, not believing in God, 
until the time he was elected President. He knew a guy like him could 
never have gotten elected President unless there was a God that allowed 
it to be.
  But in that second inaugural speech, I think it was about a month 
before he was assassinated, you can find it toward the middle of the 
speech, it is inscribed there. He is trying to work through how this 
horrible war could occur when there is a good and just God. He works 
through it, and he understands and quotes scripture in like three 
places in that part.
  But he says: Needs be that offenses come, but woe be to the person by 
whom the offense cometh.
  That offense he was talking about was slavery. He knew it was an 
atrocity. He wanted to end it.
  He talks about, though, both the North and South read the same Bible. 
Both pray to the same God. The prayers of both couldn't be answered. 
The prayers of neither have been fully answered. But then he goes on to 
point out that if it be God's will that every drop of blood drawn by 
the lash is going to have to be drawn by the sword, then we still have 
to say, as he said, what was said 3,000 years ago: The judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous all together.
  Mr. Speaker, I am joined by friends here on the floor. My friend, the 
chairman of the Freedom Caucus, he is a freedom lover. Mr. Speaker, I 
yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).
  Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate his 
staunch and relentless pursuit of freedom, his defense of our liberty 
and this tremendous country.
  I am going to take a few minutes and talk about some things that are 
going on in the country today that I think need to be addressed. As we 
ruminate upon these things and consider the direction of this Nation, I 
feel like I need to, quite frankly, express my gratitude to that thin 
blue line that spends so much time working, training, making sacrifices 
on our behalf, the men and women of the police agencies, local, State, 
and Federal.
  Every day that they put on that uniform, every shift that they put on 
that uniform, at any time day or night, and go out, they understand 
that they could be called upon to sacrifice the full measure of who 
they are on our behalf, and I thank them.
  In fact, I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is a police 
officer, and he expressed to me his concerns because what we are seeing 
is inexplicable, inexplicable to the rational mind. We understand 
protests. We appreciate protests. The First Amendment guarantees us 
that right. We get to stand up. We get to express our disapprobation of 
our government.
  In fact, I think back to Thomas Jefferson, and he was asked one time 
why he refused to take action against a particular individual who 
slandered him repeatedly. He said: You know what? My friends know the 
truth and believe me; my enemies will never believe me; and this 
individual can say what they want to say.
  We believe that to be true. So we understand protests. What we don't 
understand so much is when it becomes lawless rioting where you imperil 
somebody's right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. That is 
the problem that we are going through today.
  Tonight, apparently, one of the statues or monuments was to be 
dragged down tonight. They have rescheduled the spontaneous tear-down 
for tomorrow. We will see how that goes for them.
  The point is, we recognize that we have God-given freedoms. We set 
many of those forth in the Constitution of the United States, and we 
have spent 200-some-odd years trying to defend those trying to move 
toward a more perfect union.
  So I give my gratitude to the men and women of our police agencies. 
You may be wearing blue, you may be wearing green like the Border 
Patrol, but you all sacrifice for us to have our freedoms.
  I want to talk briefly now, if it is okay with my host, about the 
bill that was passed out of the House earlier this evening. I have the 
privilege of serving with the gentleman from Texas on the Judiciary 
Committee, so we got to hear the markup and the efforts to run that 
through, and we also got to offer amendments.
  I know that the good gentleman offered an amendment. I know I offered 
an amendment. They were not entertained. In fact, we were ridiculed for 
offering the amendments.
  The implication by many in that committee was that by merely offering 
an amendment to that bill, we were racist. That was the implication of 
what they said. It is unfortunate because nothing could be further from 
the truth. We were trying to get at some very important changes in that

[[Page H2510]]

bill, which would make it a viable bill, would make it work, perhaps.
  But one of the things I find most intriguing is the elimination 
completely of qualified limited immunity, and I will tell you why. We 
grant qualified limited immunity to many who work in government. We do 
that because they are asked to do a hard job, and they won't be able to 
do that job without taking some personal risks.
  But the elimination of qualified limited immunity means that not only 
will those who are criminally reckless or criminally culpable but those 
who are merely negligent or even those who follow the procedures to the 
letter who don't violate a constitutional right, who don't violate a 
law, will be exposed. Not just them, but all of their finances will be 
subject to garnishment, execution. Houses can be lost, their families 
left in ruin and desolation.
  So I posit that because when we were trying to offer amendments to 
actually provide reforms that we thought would be good and necessary, 
yet provide some protections, we were rebuffed and told that our 
attention was nonsensical. Then, on the other hand, if we would just 
grant them passage of the bill, maybe they would allow us to amend it 
later.
  Well, of course, we couldn't stop the passage of the bill. We are a 
majoritarian body. But here is what this means. If you are a police 
officer with 19 years in, you know what that means for you? That means 
you are sitting in your car when somebody needs help. Why would you get 
out and risk your family and everything you have worked for, for 19 
years, on a potential liability?
  Now, there will be those that make this sacrifice because that is the 
kind of men and women who enter the police force. But you put them at 
such a serious risk, they have to make an almost risk-reward 
calculation every time they encounter a situation that would call for 
police contact.
  So, that is what happens. There will be many younger on who will do 
the same. Others 5 years in, they will say: You know what? I am going 
to change careers. I can go somewhere else where I don't expose my 
family.
  What this ultimately means is more vacancies in the big cities. In my 
State, the big cities have hundreds of police vacancies. You won't fill 
them because you can't recruit. You can't recruit, you can't train. You 
can't train, you can't retain.
  You are going to have seriously decimated police forces, certainly, 
in the big cities. One of our colleagues, he said: Oh, the police 
should just go get E&O insurance like lawyers and doctors. Not really 
viable.
  They said, well, the department will remain liable. Well, so will the 
individual. But if you have joint and several liability and it comes 
back to the department, and you have a department with five officers in 
it, they can't afford E&O insurance, nor can they afford to take care 
of this situation.

                              {time}  2130

  Departments will be decimated large and small. What does that mean? 
You are going to see increased crime, higher crime rates. That is what 
this bill that was voted out of this House today will produce, mark my 
words. And right now we are having unrest throughout the Nation.
  I tell you that I am grateful for the police from the agencies State, 
local, and Federal who are willing to stand in that breach. I call upon 
our FBI Director to make arrests, and I call upon our U.S. Attorney 
General to charge and prosecute those who have engaged in criminal 
conduct.
  The number one call I get is for a restoration of law and order. That 
is what they want. That is what my constituents want. And it doesn't 
matter the political party. That is across the board.
  So I conclude with these remarks. This country is at a crossroads. It 
could be the leftist, Marxist point of view that we allow to take over 
in this Bolshevik-type of conduct that is going on, or we can resort 
and restore the law and order and the freedoms that we have long held 
dear and make sure those freedoms apply to every citizen in our 
society.
  I have great and tremendous hope in these people. I know our 
President has that same hope, and I believe we are going to get there. 
We are going to restore this, and we will be at peace, and we will be 
prosperous again.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much my friend from 
Arizona. I was asked earlier today by someone: Everybody needs friends; 
who are your friends in Congress? And I am looking at two of my best 
friends right here. It may be sad, but that is the case, and I am 
grateful for the friendship.
  We had a press conference, the Freedom Caucus did, and I appreciate 
your leadership. I want to address my remarks to the Chair. I 
appreciate so much the leadership of the chairman of the Freedom Caucus 
in having the press conference.
  But one guy said he had a question, and Congressman Biggs called on 
him, and he ends up saying, you know, he made a case that you are not 
spending enough money here in Washington on local police. And this is 
probably the same clown that goes out and says, you know, we need to 
defund the police. We need to defund the military because that is going 
on. And the great irony, then he comes up to us and says we need you to 
spend more money because we are trying to defund the police back home. 
It is quite ironic.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Yoho). We have been through a lot together, and I 
have such great respect, and I am going to miss the gentleman from 
Florida. It may be because he was a veterinarian before he came up 
here, so he was quite used to dealing with the wrong end of a horse and 
was trained well for being in Congress.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the kind gentleman from Texas for 
yielding. And it was easier dealing with the south end than the north 
end of the horse, and the stuff that comes out was easier to wash off.
  I am sure I am like you. I get a lot of people who call me, 
especially in the last week. Here is a message a good friend of mine 
sent.
  My 85-year old mother, who is always very calm and nice, last night 
looked at me and said: You need to call your Congressman. You need to 
call him and ask him what we can do. We have to do something to stop 
these ``idiots'' for tearing down statues and burning the flag. Patty, 
his wife, jumped and said: Yeah, what can we do? I was at a loss for 
words. What can we do? Just spinning a little bit.
  My response to him was these people will be arrested. They will be 
charged, and they will have to pay the fines for damaging that 
property.
  And being a Christian, as I know you are, Louie, this, too, shall 
pass. We have to have the faith that this country will live beyond us.
  And, I have had the privilege of being chairman of the Asia Pacific 
Subcommittee last Congress, and I am the ranking member this Congress, 
which means you are the lead Republican. And we have dealt with the 
Asia Pacific theater.
  We have dealt with Hong Kong, and we all know Hong Kong is a province 
of China. There was an agreement in 1997, for 50 years Hong Kong was 
supposed to be ruled as a semiautonomous region and an independent 
judiciary. Well, 23 years into that, Xi Jinping has said, as far as he 
is concerned, that is null and void.
  So they are basically putting Chinese Communist Party rules in Hong 
Kong, and so the students are rioting--not just the students, 25 
percent of the population, from babies with their mothers and dads to 
grandparents. Twenty-five percent, 2 million people are out in the 
streets.
  Do you know why? Because they have had liberty and freedom. That is 
the only thing they have ever known. The Chinese Communist Party cannot 
tolerate liberty and freedom because it scares them.
  And so these people have a very strong need to protest, but they 
don't have the ability to protest because, if you protest over there, 
you are going to prison, you are being picked up.
  I mean, we are going to have a hearing next week, and we are hearing 
how the police picked these people up and the things that they do to 
them, and some of those people never will be heard from again.
  Yet, in our country, we are so blessed with the liberties and 
freedoms that I wonder sometimes, and I know, myself, I am guilty of 
this, sometimes I take those liberties and freedoms for granted. But I 
tell you what, at times like this, this is not a time to take these for 
granted. We need to thank every

[[Page H2511]]

servicemember currently serving, our law enforcement, first responders 
for the liberties and freedoms that we can experience every day. And 
that posterity of past generations has passed that on to us.
  And I was going to go down to the statue today, but unfortunately 
votes got in, and we didn't get out of here until almost 8:30.
  The Emancipation Statue, when you know the story of that, it is 
unconscionable that anybody would want to tear that down, regardless of 
your political beliefs.

  I want to read something, and I want to put this in perspective, and 
I want the people that are out there protesting--and absolutely, you 
have a right to protest, and what happened to George Floyd should not 
happen to any American, I don't care what the color of your skin is. 
That should not happen to anybody. But this quote that I want to read, 
I think, puts things very much in perspective.
  It says: ``The lesson taught at this point by human experience is 
simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up; and the 
man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down . . . Personal 
independence is a virtue and it is the soul out of which comes the 
sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large 
share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must 
be developed from within.'' And I am going to add, in a country that 
honors liberties and freedoms and your constitutional rights.
  That was spoken by this gentleman right here, Mr. Frederick Douglass, 
in the 1800s. Frederick Douglass, born into slavery, rose himself out 
of that, educated himself to read, went through slavery, the Civil War, 
and he said this when he was there with President Lincoln, or at the 
dedication of the Emancipation Statue.
  I think there is a lot to be learned from these people who are out 
there. And I don't want to say they are ignorant in a dumb way, but 
they are ignorant in either not recognizing their history or ignoring 
it. There is not a big difference. They should learn from the past. 
They should learn from a man who was there.
  I thank the gentleman for allowing me to be here, and I truly will 
miss you as one of the Members of Congress. God bless you.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my brother.
  Frederick Douglass, what an extraordinary story, and he was extremely 
helpful to Lincoln, prodding him on when others were encouraging 
Lincoln not to do what needed to be done. Incredible man, how he could 
go through all of the horrors that he did and yet he still had his eyes 
on freedom, not just for himself but for everybody.
  As my friend from Florida was pointing out about ignorance of 
protestors, it could be ignorance--and I am quite sure they are 
ignorant of their history because of some of the things they are 
tearing down and vandalizing, including there is a story from Mary 
Margaret Olohan, ``Rioters Vandalize World War II Memorial, D.C. 
Monuments.''
  ``Communist Emblem Spray Painted on North Carolina WWII Memorial.'' 
That is from Jake Dima.
  ``George Floyd Rioters Deface 16 Boston statues.'' And I don't think 
it is fair to say those are George Floyd rioters, because George 
Floyd's family has spoken against this kind of thing. They don't want 
George Floyd to have a legacy of violence and destruction in the wake 
of saying that is because of George Floyd. They want reforms. ``George 
Floyd Rioters Deface 16 Boston Statues, Including Memorial Honoring 
Black Civil War Regiment.''
  These people aren't about Black Lives Matter, and you can tell that 
every time you see some spoiled White bourgeois person going up to a 
Black policeman or Black policemen and women and taunting them, calling 
them every name in the book. To that person, Black lives don't matter 
or they would not be treating an African American the way we have seen 
them do it on video.
  Another article from Daily Wire: ``Rioters Destroy Statue of Union 
Colonel Who Died Fighting Slavery, Confederacy. Also Destroy The 
`Forward' Statue.''
  Washington's historic St. John's Church was damaged by rioters. Here 
is another one from the Blaze: ``Rioters Tear Down More Statues 
Including Ulysses S. Grant, Who Defeated the Confederacy and `Destroyed 
the KKK.' ''
  ``Rioters Deface Memorial Honoring Those Killed by Communist 
Regimes.''
  ``Armenian Genocide Memorial in Denver Part of Mass Vandalism at 
Colorado State Capitol--Public Radio of Armenia.''
  ``Park Volunteer Outraged Over Vandalism of Philadelphia Abolitionist 
Statue.''
  And for those who are out there rioting, ``abolitionist'' means they 
were trying to end slavery. I know that is a big word for you. But as 
this park volunteer said, he--and he is talking about abolitionist 
Matthias Baldwin. The quote was: ``He Was BLM Before There Was a 
Slogan.'' And yet as Zachary Evans writes about, they vandalized his 
statue.
  And then George Washington's statue in Baltimore is defaced. Only man 
in history to lead a revolutionary military, win the Revolution. When 
it was all over, he comes in and they even sent him a copy of a bill 
where they gave him power to make contracts and pay whatever he needed 
to pay. And the cover letter basically said, look, we are giving you 
all this extra power, but we know when you have no further need for it, 
you will give it back. Except no one in the history of the world has, 
before or since George Washington, had that kind of power and gave it 
back. And he did.
  I was in the Maldive Islands some years back with a few other Members 
of Congress. It is a beautiful little island south of India in the 
Indian Ocean, and one of their leaders sitting by me during our lunch, 
he said: We are a relatively new democracy. He said: We are always 
hearing rumors about military coups.
  For those rioters out there, a military coup is when the military 
tries to take over the government from a civilian government, and he 
said there are always those rumors.
  And then he paused and he said: We never had a George Washington to 
set the proper example.
  On the other side of the world, 180 degrees from here, this little 
island, they know how important what George Washington did, how 
important that was.

                              {time}  2145

  It was wrong to have slaves. Slavery was wrong.
  Thank God for William Wilberforce, for people like John Quincy Adams 
and Daniel Webster that fought so hard to bring an end to slavery.
  But it tells you these people, they are not about freedom. They are 
about Marxist, Leninist, the most murderous form of government in the 
entire history of the world.
  I am joined by a friend, and I sure don't want to hurt him 
politically, but I just love this brother, and he happens to represent 
an area in southern Texas, and that is Mr. Chip Roy, one of the most 
principled people I have ever met.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Texas and for those 
kind remarks. I appreciate how much he has dedicated to spending time 
on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is what we should 
be doing as Members of this body. He does it and he does it often, and 
then he includes others in it.
  I just wish we had more. I just wish we had debate. I wish we had 
amendments. But we don't.
  And we shouldn't kid ourselves. For whoever watches this C-SPAN clip 
or whoever is watching it right now, the fact of the matter is, this 
institution known as Congress is badly broken. We don't have vigorous 
debate, neither in this body nor on the other side of this Capitol in 
the United States Senate.
  The Senate, where I worked as a staffer for a number of years, I can 
remember having bills where we would have 30, 40, 50, 60 amendments, 
and debate back and forth, and offer them and vote on them, and at the 
end of that, then decide whether we support that legislation or not. We 
don't do that anymore.
  We get a bill, like today, brought to the floor of the House of 
Representatives by the majority, and we are told that is the vote.
  The same thing in the Senate. We have a bill that is brought to the 
floor

[[Page H2512]]

of the Senate, and the author of the bill, Senator Scott, offers 20 
amendments to the other side, including a manager's package, and it is 
rejected out of hand, no debate, no discussion on amendments.
  And the American people are sitting at home going, What is going on? 
Why won't this institution--its Congress--do anything?
  Right now, we have three, maybe four Members of the United States 
Congress in this room.
  Tomorrow, we will have a couple of votes, and then we will fly home. 
And what will we have accomplished this week while our Nation is 
struggling with statues being toppled, people being killed, and here we 
sit?
  What is everybody in this body doing right now? Are they out having 
dinner? Are they out having a drink? Are they home asleep?
  But right now, just this last weekend, we had 104 shootings in 
Chicago, 14 were killed, several teenagers. A 3-year-old boy was killed 
this weekend.
  There is a 325 percent increase year over year of shootings in New 
York City. We had a gentleman who was washing his car's tire, had 
somebody come up right behind him and shoot him in the head on the 
streets of New York City.
  We have gone a long ways away from the kind of law and order, rule of 
law that is married to liberty that has made this country great for so 
long.
  It is incumbent upon this body and this institution to do our job. It 
is incumbent upon us to stand up for the rule of law so that liberty 
can prosper, so that we secure the blessings of liberty as the 
Constitution outlines as our responsibility.
  I have no idea what it is like to be a Black American and I will 
never know what it is like to be a Black American. I can only imagine. 
I can only talk to people.
  I do know what it is like to be a law enforcement person, because my 
grandfather was the chief of police of a small west Texas town. I 
worked as an assistant United States Attorney. I worked in law 
enforcement in the U.S. Attorney's Office.
  Of the 76 million interactions that we have between law enforcement 
and citizens in this country every year--or at least last year there 
were 76 million--there is a study of about 100,000 interactions that 
said 99 percent of those didn't result in taking anybody into custody; 
and of that remaining 1 percent, 98 percent of those resulted in no 
force that resulted in any kind of injury or anything significant. 
Well, of that 76 million, that leaves you about 15,000.
  Now, you dive into that, and there are some egregious wrongs. And we 
and everybody in this body want to deal with those wrongs, but today we 
didn't debate any of those serious issues about what we can do.
  We had a bill brought to the floor that literally wipes clean 
qualified immunity for our law enforcement officers, just gets rid of 
it. So after 50-something years of operating under this, this bill 
would just, boom, get rid of it without so much as a real debate.
  Why didn't we offer an amendment, for example, that would have 
returned to the 2009 standard before the court changed it to say, You 
know what? Maybe we should adjudicate every constitutional claim 
alongside a claim of qualified immunity. Because the court just made 
that up in 2009.
  Because you know what about qualified immunity? It is all made up by 
courts, because this body doesn't do its job, this body doesn't speak, 
because this body doesn't ever sit down and do our job and offer 
amendments and debate and vote. The legislature should speak on these 
issues.
  Why didn't we talk about no-knock warrants? Why didn't we offer an 
amendment?
  We can debate, vote on it, vote it up or down, and then move on. This 
is what this body is supposed to do. It is what is so frustrating.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I don't want anybody listening to think 
when the gentleman asks why didn't we offer amendments that we had the 
opportunity to do that. The majority determined there would be no 
amendments allowed.

  I know my friend from Texas and I were talking earlier today about, 
you know, we could have voted for a bill that included some things that 
were in the Democrats' bill, but they would not allow any amendments.
  The qualified immunity, where law enforcement officers were going to 
get sued, every arrest they ever make, most likely they were going to 
end up spending more time in civil court than they were in enforcing 
the law, we needed to work those things out. But there were no 
amendments made, because the majority said, We don't need your input. 
This was figuratively what they said: We don't need your input. We 
don't want your input. We can pass it by ourselves.
  They stopped Tim Scott's bill. He was open to having amendments. They 
didn't want to make amendments down there.
  They want a symbol. And there is nothing that symbolizes that aspect 
that they want a symbol and not a real fix more than their adding the 
watered down Emmett Till bill into this law enforcement bill, which is 
an embarrassment to say that 10 years for being involved in a lynching 
would be the maximum punishment.
    Bobby Rush has been working on this for years, and he put a life 
sentence maximum in. I think it ought to be the death penalty, but 
okay, Democrats are in the majority, so I was willing to drop out the 
death penalty.
  They didn't want that. They wanted a symbol, not anything effective.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Texas.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is exactly right with respect to 
who is calling the shots and how we are operating. And we did want to 
offer amendments, and we would.
  I think, in all honesty, it is a bipartisan problem in both the 
Senate and the House that we need to figure out how to get back to any 
kind of regular order so that we can actually debate and amend.
  So I will just close with this, because the gentleman has been kind, 
and he has reserved the time. I will say that as we look at our country 
right now, that we need a good dose of hard work by the people that 
have been elected to represent it. And we are not doing that. It is 
just plain and simple. We are not doing our job here to represent the 
American people, to come here, debate, vote.
  We are not doing our job right now to stand up for America and to 
defend its institutions and to defend the rule of law and to defend law 
enforcement while figuring out how to hold people accountable to make 
sure that liberty and justice is protected.
  We are not doing our job to protect churches, we are not doing our 
job to protect our monuments, and we are not doing our job to push back 
on mob rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving me the time to join 
him. And may we all work together to preserve this great republic and 
secure the blessings of liberty.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for being here tonight.
  I know he was asking rhetorical questions. And for those involved in 
the riots, let me explain: ``rhetorical'' means it is not looking for 
an answer back.
  When he said we weren't making amendments or we didn't do this or 
that, we weren't doing our job, I know for a fact that that was 
rhetorical, because the gentleman represents San Antonio and so much of 
south Texas doing everything he can to make a difference.
  We can work together if we are allowed and if the rules don't 
continue to be abused the way they have been.
  We do need good, trustworthy law enforcement. I think Bill Barr is 
doing everything he can, but we need a different FBI director. I don't 
think we are going to get much help there as long as Christopher Wray 
is there. He is too interested in trying to say the FBI is all well 
now, when it is not.
  But nonetheless, I hope we can work together. The country is 
suffering because we are not allowed to participate.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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