[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 169 (Tuesday, September 29, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H5035-H5036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           RAISING A QUESTION OF THE PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring forth the privileged 
resolution, H. Res. 1148.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the resolution.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H. Res. 1148

       Whereas, on July 22, 2020, H.R. 7573 was brought to the 
     House floor for a vote, with the purpose of eliminating four 
     specific statues or busts from the United States Capitol 
     along with all others that include individuals who ``served 
     as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate States of 
     America or of the military forces or government of a State 
     while the State was in rebellion against the United States'' 
     yet failed to address the most ever-present historical stigma 
     in the United States Capitol; that is the source that so 
     fervently supported, condoned and fought for slavery was left 
     untouched, without whom, the evil of slavery could never have 
     continued as it did, to such extreme that it is necessary to 
     address here in order for the U.S. House of Representatives 
     to avoid degradation of historical fact and blatant hypocrisy 
     for generations to come;
       Whereas, the Democratic Party Platform of 1840, 1844, 1848, 
     1852, and 1856 states ``That Congress has no power under the 
     Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic 
     institutions of the several States, and that such States are 
     the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to 
     their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that 
     all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce 
     Congress to interfere with questions of slavery . . . are 
     calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous 
     consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable 
     tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger 
     the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to 
     be countenanced by any friend of our political 
     institutions.'';
       Whereas, the Democratic Party Platform of 1856 further 
     declares that ``new states'' to the Union should be admitted 
     ``with or without domestic slavery, as [the state] may 
     elect.'';
       Whereas, the Democratic Party Platform of 1856 also 
     resolves that ``we recognize the right of the people of all 
     the Territories . . . to form a Constitution, with or without 
     domestic slavery.'';
       Whereas, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 penalized officials 
     who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave and made them 
     liable for a fine of $1,000 (about $28,000 in present-day 
     value); law-enforcement officials everywhere were required to 
     arrest people suspected of being a runaway slave on as little 
     as a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership; the Democratic 
     Party Platform of 1860 directly, in seeking to uphold the 
     Fugitive Slave Act, states that ``the enactments of the State 
     Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive 
     Slave Law are hostile in character, subversive of the 
     Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.'';
       Whereas, the 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to 
     freed slaves, passed in 1868 with 94 percent Republican 
     support and 0 percent Democrat support in Congress; the 15th 
     Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote, passed in 
     1870 with 100 percent Republican support and 0 percent 
     Democrat support in Congress;
       Whereas, Democrats systematically suppressed African-
     Americans' right to vote, and by specific example in the 1902 
     Constitution of the State of Virginia, actually 
     disenfranchised about 90 percent of the Black men who still 
     voted at the beginning of the twentieth century and nearly 
     half of the White men, thereby suppressing Republican voters; 
     the number of eligible African-American voters were thereby 
     forcibly reduced from about 147,000 in 1901 to about 10,000 
     by 1905; that measure was supported almost exclusively by 
     Virginia Democrats;
       Whereas, Virginia's 1902 Constitution was engineered by 
     Carter Glass, future Democratic Party U.S. Representative, 
     Senator, and even Secretary of the Treasury under Democrat 
     President Woodrow Wilson, who proclaimed the goal of the 
     constitutional convention as follows: This Democrat 
     exclaimed, ``Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we 
     propose. That, exactly, is what this Convention was elected 
     for--to discriminate to the very extremity of permissible 
     action under the limits of the federal Constitution, with a 
     view to the elimination of every Negro voter who can be 
     gotten rid of legally.'';
       Whereas, in 1912, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's 
     administration began a racial segregation policy for U.S. 
     government employees and, by 1914, the Wilson 
     administration's Civil Service instituted the requirement 
     that a photograph be submitted with each employment 
     application;
       Whereas, the 1924 Democratic National Convention convened 
     in New York City at Madison Square Garden; the convention is 
     commonly known as the ``Klan-Bake'' due to the overwhelming 
     influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the Democratic Party;
       Whereas, Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
     continued Woodrow Wilson's policy of segregating White House 
     staff and maintained separate dining rooms for White and 
     Black staffers. He also continued the White House 
     Correspondents Association's ban on credentialing Black 
     journalists for White House duties until outside pressure 
     from Black publications finally forced a change in policy in 
     1944, the last year of his presidency. According to the 
     American Journal of Public Health, prior to his presidency, 
     Roosevelt not only banned Blacks from receiving treatment at 
     his polio facility in Warm Springs, Georgia, Black staff were 
     forced to live in the basement of the facility or in a 
     segregated dormitory while White staff lived in the hotel or 
     in surrounding cottages;
       Whereas, Democrat Congressman Howard Smith, former chairman 
     of the House Rules Committee introduced the ``Declaration of 
     Constitutional Principles'' in a speech on the House floor 
     where he attacked the Supreme Court's 1954 decision on Brown 
     v. Board of Education of Topeka (KS) which determined that 
     segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Smith's 
     declaration urged people to utilize all ``lawful means'' to 
     avoid the ``chaos and confusion'' which would occur if they 
     desegregated schools. History.House.Gov states that ``Under 
     Smith, the Rules Committee became a graveyard for

[[Page H5036]]

     numerous civil rights initiatives in the 1950s.'';
       Whereas, in 1964, the Democratic Party led a 75-calendar-
     day filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act;
       Whereas, leading the Democrats in their opposition to civil 
     rights for African-Americans was a fellow member of the 
     Democratic Party, Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia--a 
     known recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan;
       Whereas, Democrats enacted and enforced Jim Crow laws and 
     civil codes that forced segregation and restricted freedoms 
     of Black Americans in the United States; and
       Whereas, on June 18, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 
     ordered the removal from the Capitol portraits of four 
     previous Speakers of the House who served in the Confederacy 
     saying that the portraits, ``set back our nation's work to 
     confront a combat bigotry;'' the men depicted in the 
     portraits were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, Democrat Howell 
     Cobb, Democrat James L. Orr and Democrat Charles F. Crisp: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Speaker of the House of Representatives 
     shall remove any item that names, symbolizes, or mentions any 
     political organization or party that has ever held a public 
     position that supported slavery or the Confederacy, from any 
     area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House office 
     building, and shall donate any such item or symbol to the 
     Library of Congress.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The resolution qualifies.


                            Motion to Table

  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Clyburn moves that the resolution be laid on the table.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to table.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 
965, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 223, 
nays 176, not voting 31, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 207]

                               YEAS--223

     Adams
     Aguilar
     Allred
     Amash
     Axne
     Bass
     Bera
     Beyer
     Bishop (GA)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Boyle, Brendan F.
     Brindisi
     Brown (MD)
     Brownley (CA)
     Butterfield
     Carbajal
     Cardenas
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Case
     Casten (IL)
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu, Judy
     Cicilline
     Cisneros
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Connolly
     Cooper
     Correa
     Costa
     Courtney
     Cox (CA)
     Craig
     Crist
     Crow
     Cuellar
     Cunningham
     Davids (KS)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny K.
     Dean
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Delgado
     Demings
     DeSaulnier
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle, Michael F.
     Engel
     Escobar
     Eshoo
     Espaillat
     Evans
     Finkenauer
     Fletcher
     Foster
     Frankel
     Gabbard
     Garamendi
     Garcia (IL)
     Garcia (TX)
     Golden
     Gomez
     Gonzalez (TX)
     Gottheimer
     Green, Al (TX)
     Grijalva
     Haaland
     Harder (CA)
     Hastings
     Hayes
     Heck
     Higgins (NY)
     Himes
     Hollingsworth
     Horn, Kendra S.
     Horsford
     Houlahan
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Jackson Lee
     Jayapal
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (TX)
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Khanna
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kim
     Kind
     Kinzinger
     Kirkpatrick
     Krishnamoorthi
     Kuster (NH)
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lawrence
     Lawson (FL)
     Lee (CA)
     Lee (NV)
     Levin (CA)
     Levin (MI)
     Lieu, Ted
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Luria
     Lynch
     Malinowski
     Maloney, Carolyn B.
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McAdams
     McBath
     McCollum
     McEachin
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Mfume
     Moore
     Morelle
     Moulton
     Mucarsel-Powell
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Neguse
     Norcross
     O'Halleran
     Ocasio-Cortez
     Omar
     Pallone
     Panetta
     Pappas
     Pascrell
     Payne
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Phillips
     Pingree
     Pocan
     Porter
     Pressley
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Raskin
     Rice (NY)
     Rose (NY)
     Rouda
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Sanchez
     Sarbanes
     Scanlon
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schrier
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shalala
     Sherman
     Sherrill
     Sires
     Slotkin
     Smith (WA)
     Soto
     Spanberger
     Speier
     Stanton
     Stevens
     Suozzi
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Titus
     Tlaib
     Tonko
     Torres (CA)
     Torres Small (NM)
     Trahan
     Trone
     Underwood
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson Coleman
     Welch
     Wexton
     Wild
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                               NAYS--176

     Allen
     Amodei
     Armstrong
     Arrington
     Babin
     Bacon
     Baird
     Balderson
     Banks
     Barr
     Bergman
     Biggs
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (NC)
     Bishop (UT)
     Brady
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Buchanan
     Buck
     Bucshon
     Budd
     Burchett
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Carter (GA)
     Carter (TX)
     Chabot
     Cheney
     Cline
     Cloud
     Cole
     Comer
     Conaway
     Cook
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Curtis
     Davidson (OH)
     Davis, Rodney
     Emmer
     Estes
     Ferguson
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Flores
     Fortenberry
     Foxx (NC)
     Fulcher
     Gaetz
     Gallagher
     Garcia (CA)
     Gianforte
     Gibbs
     Gohmert
     Gonzalez (OH)
     Gooden
     Gosar
     Granger
     Graves (LA)
     Graves (MO)
     Green (TN)
     Griffith
     Grothman
     Guest
     Guthrie
     Hagedorn
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hern, Kevin
     Herrera Beutler
     Hice (GA)
     Higgins (LA)
     Hill (AR)
     Hudson
     Huizenga
     Hurd (TX)
     Jacobs
     Johnson (LA)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson (SD)
     Joyce (OH)
     Joyce (PA)
     Katko
     Keller
     Kelly (MS)
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kustoff (TN)
     LaHood
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Latta
     Lesko
     Long
     Loudermilk
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Marshall
     Massie
     Mast
     McCarthy
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKinley
     Meuser
     Miller
     Moolenaar
     Mooney (WV)
     Murphy (NC)
     Newhouse
     Norman
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Palmer
     Pence
     Perry
     Posey
     Reed
     Reschenthaler
     Rice (SC)
     Riggleman
     Roby
     Rodgers (WA)
     Roe, David P.
     Rogers (AL)
     Rose, John W.
     Rouzer
     Roy
     Rutherford
     Scalise
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Shimkus
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Stauber
     Stefanik
     Steil
     Steube
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Taylor
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiffany
     Timmons
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Van Drew
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walker
     Walorski
     Waltz
     Watkins
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westerman
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoho
     Young
     Zeldin

                             NOT VOTING--31

     Abraham
     Aderholt
     Barragan
     Beatty
     Blunt Rochester
     Bost
     Bustos
     Calvert
     Cohen
     Collins (GA)
     DeGette
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Fudge
     Gallego
     Graves (GA)
     Holding
     Jordan
     Lamb
     Marchant
     Mitchell
     Mullin
     Richmond
     Rogers (KY)
     Rooney (FL)
     Ryan
     Smucker
     Spano
     Wright

                              {time}  1925

  Messrs. GROTHMAN, LATTA, BISHOP of North Carolina, and LONG changed 
their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Ms. SPANBERGER and Mr. GREEN of Texas changed their vote from ``nay'' 
to ``yea.''
  So the motion to table was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.


   Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 965, 116th Congress

     Butterfield (Kildee)
     Chu, Judy (Takano)
     DeSaulnier (Matsui)
     Frankel (Clark (MA))
     Garamendi (Sherman)
     Grijalva (Garcia (IL))
     Hastings (Wasserman Schultz)
     Hayes (Courtney)
     Huffman (Kildee)
     Jackson Lee (Cuellar)
     Johnson (TX) (Jeffries)
     Kaptur (Dingell)
     Kennedy (Kuster (NH))
     Kind (Beyer)
     Kirkpatrick (Stanton)
     Langevin (Lynch)
     Lawson (FL) (Evans)
     Lieu, Ted (Beyer)
     Lipinski (Cooper)
     Lofgren (Jeffries)
     Lowenthal (Beyer)
     Lowey (Tonko)
     McEachin (Wexton)
     Meng (Clark (MA))
     Moore (Beyer)
     Mucarsel-Powell (Wasserman Schultz)
     Napolitano (Correa)
     Payne (Wasserman Schultz)
     Pingree (Clark (MA))
     Pocan (Raskin)
     Pressley (Garcia (IL))
     Roybal-Allard (Aguilar)
     Rush (Underwood)
     Serrano (Jeffries)
     Thompson (CA) (Kildee)
     Thompson (MS) (Bishop (GA))
     Titus (Connolly)
     Watson Coleman (Pallone)
     Wilson (FL) (Adams)

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