[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 130 (Monday, July 26, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H3900-H3905]
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 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is recognized until
10 p.m. as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I have been listening to my friend from
Texas, the gentleman from New York, and other speakers, my colleagues
on the other side of the aisle, and I can't help but observe the
reality of the Shelby County decision as it was offered by the United
States Supreme Court's majority authored by Chief Justice Roberts.
Now, what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle fail to
mention is the fact that the Voting Rights Act remains intact and the
Voting Rights Act remains fully in effect, and its purpose to ensure
and preserve the ability of Americans to vote remains fully the law of
the land. The core question before the Court back in 2012 or 2013--I
think it was argued in `12 and decided in `13--was whether section 5,
the specific preclearance provision, was, in fact, constitutional.
Now, the fact of the matter is when this was reauthorized back in I
think 2006, it was reauthorized based on a 50-year-old coverage
formula.
Now, my friend from Texas knows that. My colleagues on the other side
of the aisle know that it was using a 50-year-old coverage formula.
Now, people may want to just kind of sweep that aside and say that
doesn't matter, but then go back and read the Supreme Court's opinion
in 1966 on the first challenge on the Voting Rights Act and what the
Court was saying at the time, that when you set aside the fundamental
role of the States in carrying out elections, when you set aside the
10th Amendment, Madam Speaker, as the 1965 Voting Rights Act was
seeking to do, well, then there has to be a particularly strong
purpose.
What was that particularly strong purpose?
Invidious discrimination of the kind of the Jim Crow South of the
poll taxes and of massive disparities in voting rates among populations
in districts where those prohibitions existed.
Fast-forward 50 years through several iterations of the
reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, and in 2012, 2013, when this
was being debated and when the Court decided it, the Court said: Look,
sorry, you can't apply 50-year-old data to uphold and reauthorize the
Voting Rights Act.
Now, I know that, because I was a lawyer on the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and I pored over every one of those documents that came
before us and read and reviewed them sitting as a staffer on the Senate
Judiciary Committee where we knew full well what the data was showing
us and what the data looked like. But here we are right now and the
American people are only hearing that part of the story that we are
somehow unwinding the Voting Rights Act.
We have done no such thing.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ROY. Out of enormous respect for my friend from Texas, despite
the way these hours normally work, I yield briefly to the gentlewoman
from Texas.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. The gentleman is always enormously courteous, and I
will be brief.
Since I was on the committee the gentleman might have been staff, but
I know in the House, for example, we had at least 100 hearings and
15,000 pages of testimony. It was chaired at that time by Jim
Sensenbrenner, a Republican, who was meticulous in making sure we had a
record. So I am not sure where the gentleman is getting his information
from.
I will just finish by simply saying that the voter suppression laws
that we are dealing with today are all engaged responding to the big
lie that there was not a legitimate election in 2020, and my good
friend knows that President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected in
2020. So we wonder the basis of these voter suppression laws.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I will not take more of his
time.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman. Let me just
say, I think this body would do a wonder for the American people if we
could engage in this for hours, not seconds. And I think the
gentlewoman agrees that we should have this kind of debate back and
forth so the American people can see so we can flush out our
differences, because there are things we agree on, and there are things
we disagree on.
What I would respond to the gentlewoman about the point of what
occurred, poring over it as a staffer as I did, was that the Members,
including the chairman of the Judiciary Committee then, Mr.
Sensenbrenner, as well as on the Senate side--and I won't speak for the
House, because I was on the Senate side--but I was in the room with
Chairman Specter, I was in the room with all of those that were in 2006
going through all this, and I was in the room with about 15 Republicans
who were sitting over there, each of whom said that it was
unconstitutional, we can't really do this, but we dare not go down this
political road.
Okay, well, that is what that is.
Fast-forward, and for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to
bemoan ``activist Courts,'' well, welcome to the club. Welcome to the
party of being concerned about activist Courts. I would argue this is
not activism, but, fine, let's have that debate about how much power we
want to cede to the building over there across the street, because when
we are talking about activism, we can go way back on activism in terms
of our views in terms of Roe, in terms of Planned Parenthood v. Casey,
and other areas in which the Court has inserted itself into the public
domain.
But, okay, here we are. The legislature acted, and the Court said:
Whoa, whoa, you can't do that.
Why did they do that? Applying the 10th Amendment, applying
fundamentals of federalism, and applying the fact that States have
primacy over election laws.
That is what the Court did. If you believe in judicial review
subsequent to Marbury v. Madison, as I believe my friend from Texas,
who is now leaving the floor, does believe in, well, then that is
actually what the Court was doing. That is what they did. That is what
the opinion says. When you read the opinion, Madam Speaker, it is just
dripping with all of the things that you would expect it to be filled
with in terms of deference to what occurred in 1965, what the Supreme
Court said subsequent to that about why it was in a particularly
important time for Congress to step over the role of the States because
of the nature of the invidious discrimination in Jim Crow South and
other areas of the country.
It wasn't just the South, by the way, there were counties all over
the country.
But, Madam Speaker, when you looked at the data--and I pored over the
data--we showed places there were counties in Florida that were
covered, counties in Florida that weren't covered, and you could see
that the voting rates of Black voters, Hispanic voters, and other
voters, that vast numbers of people were turning out and showing up to
vote, those numbers were even higher in some of the covered
jurisdictions.
So you had no reason or basis to cover one county versus another in
the State of Florida, Madam Speaker.
But I would challenge all of my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle to go open up those views, go look in and look at the data, look
at the tables, and what you will find, Madam Speaker, is that there
were significant numbers of counties and States that were then at that
time covered by the Voting Rights Act that had better turnout rates and
better participation rates than those that were uncovered which left
the Court looking at the law and said: Well, hold on a second.
The whole reason that the Court upheld the law was because there was
a unique circumstance where there were mass disparities because of very
direct actions by those States.
[[Page H3901]]
I want the American people to know that because that is what is being
said right now.
{time} 2120
So suddenly, if I say: Hey, we might want voter ID.
Now, why might we want voter ID? Just to ensure that the one person
who is voting in one person, one vote is actually the vote.
I say I want voter ID. Maybe that is because I have witnessed reasons
why that is so. Somehow that is voter suppression?
That is what is so entirely frustrating is that you come forward and
you say: Hey, I think that there is a good reason for this that, in my
mind, I see very clearly as being important for the integrity of the
election.
Let's not get wrapped around in the 2016 or 2020 election cycles. I
have said a lot on the floor of the House at various times about those
matters. Let's just actually focus on voter integrity, election
integrity, and wanting to make sure that the people who vote know that
their vote is going to count fully, and that you are not going to have
someone voting with your ID.
We know for sure that there are individuals who come to the United
States and use the identification of others, of Americans. We know that
for sure. That is a fact.
We know that we end up with multiple people voting. We end up with
all sorts of different possible and potential fraudulent activity.
For example, The New York Times, in 2012: ``Yet, votes cast by mail
are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised, and more
likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth.'' That is The
New York Times, that bastion of rightwing conspiracy.
We know that the Carter-Baker Commission, Jimmy Carter, known
rightwing conspirator from Georgia, and James Baker, again, not really
known to be a rightwing activist, quote in their report, ``Absentee
ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.''
That is just data. It is just analyzing it. It is just fact.
Then, you go through other examples of known fraud.
Madam Speaker, 2016, at least 83 registered voters in San Pedro,
California, received absentee ballots at the same small two-bedroom
apartment.
In a 2018 North Carolina congressional race, a Republican operative,
L. McCrae Dowless, Jr., had allegedly requested more than 1,200
absentee ballots on voters' behalf and then collected the ballots from
voters' homes when they were mailed out. That was a Republican
operative. I am an equal opportunity presenter of the facts here of how
fraud can occur.
I can go through item after item. In 2017, an investigation of a
Dallas City Council election found 700 fraudulent mail-in ballots
signed by the same witness using a fake name.
There is other voter fraud in Texas. Since 2005, the Office of the
Attorney General successfully prosecuted 534 incidents of fraud against
155 individuals, et cetera, et cetera.
I can go through county by county. In Medina County, Texas, four
people, including an elected justice of the peace, were charged in
February with 150 counts of election fraud. The charges included ballot
harvesting and illegal voting. I can go example by example.
Now, were all of those examples I just gave enough to turn an
election? I don't know. That is the point. We would like to know
wherever that truth may lead, in whatever State and whatever county,
wherever that takes us. But those are the facts.
So, when somebody comes forward and says, ``Hey, I think we ought to
have voter ID. I think we ought to have voter ID or a way to attach an
individual to a mail-in ballot,'' suddenly that is voter suppression?
Right.
So, suddenly, Major League Baseball walks in and says: I have an
idea. Let's pull out the All-Star Game from Atlanta, Georgia, where we
could celebrate Hank Aaron in a 50 percent Black city, and let's go
move it over to Colorado, into Denver, which is a 10 percent Black
city. And let's pat ourselves on the back for being so exceptionally in
tune with what is going on in the world. Let's move the All-Star Game
to Colorado.
Why? The laws that were put on the books in Georgia this year, that
were being voted on in Georgia, would basically make parity with what
Colorado already has on the books.
This is the kind of debate we want to be able to have. Can we just,
like, all agree? Let's get a whiteboard up and put the facts up of what
these things are, what the bills are, what these laws are, and then at
least be debating from the same sheet of music.
I may have a few more things to say. I know I have some colleagues
here. I want to be mindful of their time.
I digressed there a little bit because I was hearing my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle. But election integrity is so critically
important right now, and I have colleagues from Texas who are
completely abandoning their duty--I should say State legislature
colleagues, to be clear--who are abandoning their duty to represent
their constituents in the State of Texas in the legislature and have a
full-throated debate about S.B. 1 and H.B. 3, the current bills in the
legislative session, the special session in Texas, and have come to
D.C. They are not doing their jobs.
Look, man, I generally want to flee D.C. to go back to Texas. It is
rare that I see people saying I want to flee Texas to come to D.C.
But these Democratic members of the Texas Legislature have fled
Austin to skip out on working in the Texas legislative session and have
an open debate. They are coming to D.C. to sit down with the Vice
President to go push and promote H.R. 1 or other bills to say we need
to federalize elections instead of actually doing their job, which
brings me to my point.
I will say a few things here, and then I will recognize my
colleagues. At some point, we have to decide what it is that is
actually sacred about what we are doing here as a Nation and as a body.
Our borders, right now, are wide open. Opioids are skyrocketing.
Massive numbers cross the border. I will get into some of these details
in a minute. We do it. I have done it before.
We have the schools that are teaching so-called antiracism.
I walked through the Austin airport today and saw the book by Ibram
Kendi, the antiracism book. I can't remember the title. I saw it
sitting there in the bookstore BookPeople. I didn't see a whole lot of
conservative books in there, but I saw that book, sitting there in the
front.
On page 19 of that book, he writes: ``If racial discrimination is
defined as treating, considering, or making a distinction in favor of
or against an individual based on that person's race, then racial
discrimination is not inherently racist. The defining question is
whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If
discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist.''
Interesting definition of discrimination. Not sure that fits within
the Civil Rights Act, but I will leave that for another discussion.
But what I am saying is, we are heightening the level to which every
single aspect of our lives is taken through a political lens, every
single thing.
I am asking my staff to look at every hearing that this body has had
since the beginning of January and tell me what percentage of the
hearings has had a focus or something to do on race, on sexual
orientation, or an issue in that type of framework. I guarantee you--I
don't have to count them--that number is going to be massively high.
I will just go ahead and stipulate right now, without having done any
counting, the percentage of hearings that this body has held, the
percentage of hearings that focused on race, LGBTQ issues, sexual
orientation, those issues will be extraordinarily high as a percentage.
So, the majority believes that is where our focus should be--while we
just spent $6 trillion, while inflation is running through the roof,
while small businesses can't hire people. My colleagues on the other
side of the aisle know this because, assuredly, they have small
businesses in their district, or they go to the restaurants, or they go
to the places like I have gone to and they can't hire people because we
are paying people more not to work than to work.
We have a principal focus on race-related issues, a complete
abandonment of the responsibility of this body to secure the border of
the United States. It is wide open, opioids running amuck.
[[Page H3902]]
Cartels own it. People are pouring across it, to their detriment and
ours. Ranchers are getting overrun in Texas.
Now, today, just yesterday, or, I don't know, the last few days, the
Senate Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly to draft our
daughters. Heck, we had 8 Republicans of the 13 vote for that nonsense,
to draft our daughters.
Who are we? Genuine question: Who are we, as a people, as a country?
Where are the sacred boundaries of being able to decide how to live and
to recognize truths that man is man, that woman is woman, and that I,
as a father, do not want to have my daughter get drafted?
You say, well, you can draft your son, use the power of the
government to draft your son.
We can have a debate about ending the draft. Everyone comes back and
says: Well, don't worry. There is not going to be a draft. There hasn't
been a draft in 50 years, so don't worry about it.
{time} 2130
What do you mean don't worry about it? When my daughter turns 18 in 8
years and she has to go sign a piece of paper to register, I shouldn't
be worried about my daughter getting drafted and getting sent to a
foxhole in Afghanistan or Iraq or somewhere else? What do you mean
don't worry about that?
Yet, that is precisely what this body is doing. The Senate Armed
Services Committee voted on it; the House already has that language.
Let me be perfectly clear. I will not be honoring whatever law says
it is drafting my daughter. That is the fundamental problem. The rule
of law depends on it being rooted in any basic understanding of who we
are as a people, where we come from, what our values are, and then
actually being able to get the consent of the governed in a way that
actually connects with the governed.
It doesn't just come on down from on high, from a Senate Armed
Services Committee that votes, by the way, behind closed doors, not in
public viewing. And by the way, none of them will go out and enforce
this garbage. But somebody one day will show up and hand a form to my
daughter and say, ``I am sorry, ma'am, you are going to have to
register for the draft.'' And I am going to be sitting there as a dad--
and I promise you, my wife is a little more fired up about this than I
am. My wife is going to be sitting there saying: ``Over my dead, dang
body.''
Now, this is what we do when we rip apart our society, when we forget
where those sacred boundaries are, about what the role of this
institution is, or how we are supposed to govern.
I am going to pause for a few moments. I think both of my colleagues
who are here wanting to speak to the issues that we are seeing unfold
in Cuba, maybe a few other matters of importance to them. I certainly
appreciate their time. I think they share some of the sentiments that I
am sharing.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).
Mr. BABIN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for having
the Special Order on freedom, on liberty, on constitutionalism, and our
God-given rights.
Thank you for what you have said there, Mr. Roy.
Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to highlight and amplify the
miraculous events that have happened less than 100 miles from U.S. soil
on the island of Cuba, news that, sadly, we haven't heard nearly enough
about.
After more than 60 years of oppression, injustice, and fear under a
Communist Party that enjoys opulent privileges while others struggle
just to survive, Cubans took to the streets shouting: ``Liberty'' and
``Down with communism.''
And this wasn't just in Havana and the big cities. Renewed calls for
freedom were all across small villages and towns in the Cuban
countryside.
These brave protestors, many of them young people, knew their appeals
would be met with violence. They understood that they would be putting
themselves and their families at grave risk. They knew they would be
labeled enemies of the state, enemies of the revolution, and they would
be arrested or potentially even murdered.
Today, I would like to let each of my liberty-loving Cuban brothers
and sisters out there know that we hear you. I commend your astounding
courage, your thirst for freedom, and your desire for true justice in
Cuba.
We, as Americans, have a moral responsibility to support these
protests of Cuba's cruel Communist regime.
How can we continue to be ``the shining city upon a hill,'' as
President Reagan once eloquently said, if we do not help those who are
seeking the same divine right that our ancestors fought and died for in
the Revolution, the same rights that our Heavenly Father intended for
all people?
I think it is time for the reign of dictatorship and terror to come
to an end and for freedom and for liberty to take their rightful place.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, my friend,
for his words, and I am going to yield to the gentleman from California
here in just a moment.
I would ask one question to the gentleman from Texas, and I will
repeat that question to my friend from California.
I share your enthusiasm and commitment for wanting to help the people
of Cuba who are seeking freedom and obviously have been living under
the thumb of tyranny for far too long.
I was chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz. His father is a dear
friend, and he knew all too well what life was like under that
murderous regime.
Our friend and our colleague, Alex Mooney, his wonderful mother,
similarly, at the same rough timeframe, was subjected to the horrors of
Cuba in that time in the late fifties, early sixties, and then came to
the United States.
But I would ask my friend, that as we watch these individuals from
Cuba seeking freedom--and God bless them; we need to support them--and/
or seeking to come to the United States seeking freedom, do you believe
that our country is itself upholding and adhering to the ideals that
they are seeking?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. BABIN. Madam Speaker, at this time, I cannot answer in the
affirmative. I think our country is under grave attack, our liberties,
our freedoms, our constitutional rights, the Bill of Rights, the very
reasons that Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, and all of those
Founders, like John Hancock, who started the movement that culminated
in the Revolutionary War and got us out from under the yoke of Great
Britain.
I will say this: I think what we are seeing today is, quite frankly,
a startling, unbelievable change of events that I never thought that I
would see in my entire lifetime, the assault on our God-given rights
that we are seeing today.
What Mr. Roy just said about drafting our daughters and what he just
mentioned and listening to our friends across the aisle over there
talking about the unfairness and the racism that is incumbent and
inherently in our election processes, their solution would be an
absolute violation of the U.S. Constitution.
I think it goes without saying that if you have to show an I.D. to
get into the White House or to get a loan or to do anything, really, of
any kind of nature as far as that is concerned, that we have to have
the ability to ask for a photo I.D. to ascertain whether you are,
indeed, that person that you are actually professing to be when you
come in and cast that vote.
So we hear a lot of talk. But I will tell you, it is just talk. When
you talk about freedom and liberties, we have to follow the
Constitution and God's law. That is what it has to be.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas. I will yield to
my friend in California in a moment.
I couldn't agree more with respect to the current situation we find
ourselves and our country in. A country where we are now talking about
vaccine passports, where we are talking about diving into the private
affairs of American citizens in the alleged name of health and welfare
of the people, we are forgetting that fundamental, core liberty of
being free from government coercion.
When you go look at the Constitution and when we talk about the
President of the United States talking about going door to door--and I
know it
[[Page H3903]]
might have been a rhetorical statement, but you never really know. But
when the Constitution contemplates going door to door, it does so only
in a couple of contexts: the Census, and then protecting individuals
against it, by, in the Third Amendment, preventing the quartering of
troops in the homes of American people; by preventing, through the
Fourth Amendment, unreasonable search and seizure.
That is what was on the minds of the Founders. That was why the
Constitution was structured the way it was structured. It wasn't to
empower government in the name of something supposedly greater, in the
``common good.'' How many hundreds of millions of people in this world
have been slaughtered in the name of the common good? How many?
{time} 2140
Let's ask the people of Cuba. Let's ask the people of Cuba, seeking
freedom, seeking to either come to the United States or have the kind
of freedom that they believe exists in the United States, and have that
in Cuba, whether we should be empowering government, supposedly in the
name of the good or the common good of the people.
Our Constitution exists to protect and preserve liberty. That is what
it exists for. That is what this country was founded upon; a belief in
the Almighty and a belief in liberty. And we are tearing that apart by
the thread. Every single day we are tearing that apart by the thread.
Even as people today right now want to have a business, be able to
employ people. They can't, because they are told by some bright-eyed
leftist: Don't worry, just pay them more money. Without any concept of
what that does to a bottom line. Without any concept what that does to
an income statement, being able to actually raise money, risk capital,
put their name on the line, borrow, and then hire people to engage in
the business of their dream.
Maybe they inherited it from their family, their parents, their
great-grandparents. What do we do? We just say: Don't worry about it,
pay them $15 an hour. Like there is some magic fairy dust that tells
people what the wage ought to be.
We destroy businesses in the name of being nice to people. You know
what it does? It limits the numbers of jobs, drives up the prices of
goods, causes people not to have jobs, causes people not to be able to
get the job, and then be able to afford whatever it is they want to
buy. All because somebody said, Oh, gee, I have got a magic number, $15
an hour.
Why not $20? Why not $50? I mean, if we are going to be all generous,
hell, just make it $1,000 an hour. Oh, no, Chip, that is just crazy
talk.
Child tax credits, why stop at $300? Modern monetary theory, just
spend whatever you want to. Why not make it $30,000? Man, then
everybody would be doing great.
My colleagues don't ever want to actually sit down and actually put
pen to paper and figure out what in the heck can we actually afford as
a country and what are we doing to the dignity of work? What are we
doing to the American family? And what are we doing to freedom and the
ability of the individual to prosper according to his or her hard work
and according to what he or she wants to accomplish in their faith and
what they want to put in, the toil they want to put in their life?
We are ripping that apart. We are ripping it apart in the name of
compassion. Just like we are ripping apart the lives of migrants in the
name of compassion, who are getting absolutely decimated by cartels. We
do it and we say: Oh, look at us, how nice we are; when the little 7-
year-old girl is sold into the sex trafficking trade because we put
them in the hands of violent cartels along the border of Texas.
Does anybody care about the numbers? Does anybody look at what is
actually happening down at the border? I know, there he goes again,
there goes that crazy Chip Roy talking about the border again. Talk to
my constituents. Talk to the people of Texas, who are getting
absolutely crushed.
The numbers are astounding. We are not just talking about people and
the problems that we are having with ranchers, and we are talking about
the sex and human trafficking trade.
Right here we see the encounters by month. We have never seen
anything like this. When Jeh Johnson headed up the Department of
Homeland Security under President Obama, he said a thousand a month was
a crisis. I was just looking at the numbers. We had a few thousand in a
day just last week in the McAllen sector. We had 20,000 a week. We had
a few thousand in a day in the Laredo sector, a few thousand a day in
the McAllen sector.
We have had, I think--this is from memory--70 Border Patrol agents
get COVID in the last month. We had 20 in Laredo.
All of this is happening in real time. All while the administration
talks about unwinding title 42 and not worrying about what is happening
at our southern border while telling us and preaching to us about
vaccine passports. Oh, no, you better go mask up again.
Fentanyl. Right down here, fentanyl, 2021 versus 2020 fentanyl
numbers. We are bringing in a thousand pounds of fentanyl in a month. A
thousand pounds of fentanyl in a month. That is enough to kill millions
of people. But that is happening right now. Nobody seems to care on the
other side of the aisle. They say: Oh, don't worry, it is just
fentanyl. No problem to see here.
Would you say that to my constituent who died with a valium laced
with fentanyl recently? This is happening across the country. We are
now at 92,000 or so opioid deaths in this country. I will come back to
that in a minute, because I want to yield to my friend from California.
But that is what we are facing.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr.
LaMalfa).
Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I appreciate both my colleagues from
Texas and the spirited debate here.
You know, I hadn't intended to talk about the draft there, but Mr.
Roy was bringing that up very vigorously. I have to agree 100 percent
that our volunteer military has worked pretty well for us for
approximately, I think, 40 years.
What is it that would have anybody even institute the idea of draft
for men or women, incredibly, at this point? Is it because our numbers
are down? Is it because we are not getting the people in or is it
somehow some kind of equity?
I am not sure what the mind set is, but if you want to inspire people
to be part of our military, why don't you make it inspiring instead of
a bastion of political correctness and the woke racism conversations
happening everywhere else where even a member of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff is bringing it up and bringing this literature out that is
supposed to make people feel bad about serving as brothers in arms in
the military, you know, because of their race.
If you want to inspire people, don't make them feel bad about
joining. Therefore, you don't even have to talk about draft, because
you could get folks who want an opportunity, whether it is their
dedication to completely serving their country or they see some
opportunities there with the education that can be offered through the
program with the military. Whatever the combination is, you inspire
people to be part of it, just as if you are selling a product anywhere
else in the free market in this country.
Why in the world would we do this political correctness, this
continued race conversation that is driving people away? I don't
understand.
Mr. ROY. Would the gentleman yield for just one second?
Mr. LaMALFA. Sure.
Mr. ROY. Would it surprise the gentleman to learn that I share his
concern about the state of the United States military, given the
politically correct nature of the current leadership?
I just met with a bunch of parents of the individuals that I have
nominated to go to the academies, and these parents are beside
themselves. They are saying, please, can you stop this? It is going to
endanger my kids who are going to go serve their country at the
academies because they hear the facts. They see that the U.S. Special
Forces hired their first chief diversity officer; that the Department
of Defense just hired a chief diversity officer; that a Space Force
guardian was fired for saying the ``diversity, inclusion, and equity
industry and the trainings we're receiving in the military via that
industry are rooted in critical race theory which is rooted in
Marxism.''
[[Page H3904]]
This isn't just embarrassing and un-American. It is making us weak.
Our diplomats are apologizing to the Chinese Communist Party for racism
when Beijing is running concentration camps. This is the reality of
what we are doing to our military, where we are running ads talking
about LGBTQ issues instead of actually just recruiting warriors to go
defend the United States of America. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. LaMALFA. It is a pretty clear defined mission what our military
is supposed to be doing in protecting our shores. We have certainly
strayed very far from that. As I mentioned, it is not inspiring the
best, the brightest, the toughest to come in.
I have had some of these conversations with the parents and some of
the people already in the military here. A young man just the other
day, during the 4th of July, of all things, I said, ``What do you think
of what is going on?'' This young man is very, very gravely concerned,
because by far there are a lot of great, great young people there. They
are standing up for their flag, for their country, and they are
wondering what is going on with their leadership.
Indeed, if we want to be at the point of the type of readiness that
is even more acute than ever right now in this world with China, China
is just waiting. China is probably over there laughing at us right now
with what is going on with this administration and the priorities for
our military. Russia is poised to continue to do more aggression in
their zones over there. And let alone an unstable place like Iran and
even North Korea. What is it they can do or be capable of doing? Now
with this pullout in Afghanistan, what are we unleashing there?
We have got to return to a commonsense approach that goes back to
what the true military role and duty and mission is, and we are
drifting far from it.
{time} 2150
What I wanted to pick up on, too, as far as when we were talking
about our border, immigration, in general, and this recent topic of
with Cuba.
What do we learn from 60-plus years of oppression under Castro and
those who followed? Maybe everything wasn't beautiful under Batista
back in 1959 or what have you, but they certainly, when they had that
revolution then, I don't think the regular, normal, good people of Cuba
bargained for what they have had at all for the last 60 years.
The way this administration is handling it is almost basically
ignoring it. Look at the people in Cuba who are holding our flag, not
unlike in Hong Kong. It is very interesting. The question the gentleman
posed to my colleague, maybe he wants to pose it again here, but when
we are going in the direction of where Cuba is, where the Communist
Chinese Party is going, we are holding up pictures of Che Guevara. Even
in this Chamber we hear the type of sympathy towards the Castro era. It
is unbelievable to me how this has been allowed to happen.
Well, part of it, I guess, is the American public isn't paying enough
attention. You need to demand more or demand better of who you are
electing and compare this, contrast it with what hasn't worked around
the world under communism for many decades.
So with Cuba, you have a situation where this administration is
ignoring those who are seeking asylum from a Communist regime for years
and years. We have a lot of good Cuban people who have come to this
country years ago--they even trickle in now--colleagues that Mr. Roy
had mentioned here that some were in this Chamber of Cuban descent.
They love this country and see the opportunity here. That is why they
cobble together these boats and rafts. I would like to say they are
made basically made out of milk cartons. They coming toward us.
We don't see these people complaining about this country and its flag
and desecrating its flag cobbling together milk carton rafts and going
toward Cuba for their amazing healthcare system and their amazing
education system that we hear people on other side of the aisle
claiming to be the way to go. So what is it?
What is asylum? When we are granting it to people coming up illegally
from Central America, they are not seeking the true definition of
asylum, they are seeking economic opportunity. Do I blame them? No.
They live in bad conditions down there, but they also see this giant
green light at our border saying: Come on across. Even though the laws
on the books say ``no'' and we have people hired to patrol the border.
Instead, they are being focused more and directed more to be a welcome
wagon at the border. What are we doing?
Asylum is defined: ``The protection granted by a nation to someone
who has left their native country as a political refugee.''
The people who have been trying to and some successfully escaping
Cuba for 60 years are the perfect definition of that. Those are the
ones we should be looking at, and this administration should be looking
at finding a way to help them.
Those in Central America who are coming here for jobs, we have
legislation to work in that direction to have a legal workforce come
here, or those who are already here illegally, find a way to get to
legal status under our rules, under our laws.
But, no, this administration is leaving our border wide open, as was
mentioned. The fentanyl, thousands of pounds, how far would that go?
And where is it landing? The stuff we do catch is significant, but the
stuff that we are not catching up with at the border, where is it
going? Where is it being stockpiled? When is that going to come out?
That is extremely dangerous. Extremely.
I like to think that these freedom fighters, whether it is Hong Kong
or other places who are using our flag as a symbol of freedom and hope,
and the one they want to emulate and get to, whether it is in their
country or maybe even come here, and we are going in the other
direction. It is unbelievable to me when we can't even have our
Olympians respect our flag; we can't have our soccer team; when we
can't have basically the singing of the National Anthem or the
recitation of our flag salute in our schools.
One of the young men I talk about, now in the military, I am really
proud of that young man. I don't have authorization to say his name.
His first name is Grayson. What a great kid. He is going to be a real
doer in our military. He fought to just have his flag salute done at
his high school. It hadn't been done in 40 years, and he had to
overcome a bureaucracy that said: Oh, we don't know. It might offend
somebody. Oh, we haven't asked all of the teachers. We haven't asked
all of the school board.
This young man took it upon himself to petition his fellow students
to get this done. And I said: If they don't get it done, I will be
right there with you at 8:30 in the morning. We will do it right in the
front of the school. Well, they got it done. And I am so proud of him
and what he is going to do. But there are many, many Americans like
that all over this world, serving across the world, living here in this
country that believe in that as well and take that pledge.
Spontaneously, at the baseball game, if they are not going to do the
National Anthem, they spontaneously start it themselves. It is pretty
amazing. At the NHL hockey playoff game in New York, those Islander
fans stood up and joined in with one that was going on, and the singer,
she actually stood down so she could feel that moment. Pretty amazing.
This still exists in the hearts and minds of most Americans in this
country.
We will not allow ourselves to be beaten down by political
correctness, critical race theory, and all of these other things that
aren't really who we are or what is in the hearts of the vast majority
of the people of this country.
When we are talking about our border, it is a sieve, which is a giant
problem. It wasn't a problem nearly as much under President Trump, who
was trying to solve the issue, but also work with those countries and
help solve the issue within. Instead, it was just open season on all of
us, on our taxpayers, our schools, our healthcare system, and even all
of the COVID business that has been manipulated to a degree that
Americans really need to question how much longer they are going to
have their freedoms, as was mentioned by Mr. Roy: vaccine passports
being forced upon us.
In California, they are talking about you can't work in the State as
a State
[[Page H3905]]
employee unless you get the vaccine, or perhaps you can get off the
hook by getting a test every single week.
Where are our liberties? If you are not concerned about our liberties
and our basic freedom, you better wake up right now because you don't
get them back once they have been taken. It is much more difficult to
get them back than what our Founders had laid down and all of those
buried in Arlington--as I drove by in town today--fought to preserve.
We have a job as Americans. I wear this tie and suit. I leave my farm
every week to be a part of it, too, because we can't just sit still
anymore. We all have to be part of this.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for his
words, and I appreciate the passion and the commitment to what the
gentleman just shared with not just me and with my friend from Texas,
but with the American people.
I ask the Speaker how much time I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 3 minutes
remaining.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues for coming down
and joining me. I would only add this: As we sit here and we hear so
much negativity about what is going on, the virus, for example, and
vaccines, we hear nothing from my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, but everybody is stonewalling and so forth. We have administered
188 million individuals with the vaccine in this country; 340 or so
million doses. About 57 percent of the total population, about 80
percent of those over 65 have had two shots, 90 percent have had one
shot.
We are well above the vast majority of the world in terms of total
numbers. As a percentage, we are a little bit behind, because we are a
large country. When you look at what we have actually accomplished--
remember, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who last year
were saying: This vaccine stuff, that is all fool's gold.
We know that is true. We know that is what our Vice President said,
and a lot of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle said: Don't
touch the vaccine. That is crazy stuff. Well, now, all of a sudden it
is like: You better go get the vaccine. Run and get the vaccine. You
have to get the vaccine. Get the vaccine.
Okay, I am telling my dad, a polio survivor, 78-years old: Go get the
vaccine, dad. But what if you have natural immunity? Should you go get
the vaccine? What if you are a kid? Should you go get the vaccine?
Those are questions, and they are reasonable questions.
This government, in its infinite wisdom, shut down businesses, shut
down schools, mandated masks, created all sorts of mental health
issues, prohibited people from going to get cancer screenings and take
care of themselves and their families, forced elderly couples who have
been married for 40 or 50 years not to be able to say good-bye when one
of them was passing away, all in the name of the government taking care
of us.
In the infinite wisdom of the government I should just go run down
and say: Oh, sure, let me run down and get the vaccine when how much
money has been given to the pharmaceutical companies? How many billions
of dollars are they getting, and how much do they get for the boosters?
By the way, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were going
after the profitability of the pharmaceutical companies at an oversight
hearing that I was in last year, 2 years ago.
The bottom line here is: This country is a great country filled with
great people, doing great things, every single day, and when this body
and this government gets out of the way of the American people, they
continue to do great things. The greatness and the future of our
country lies with them and with the people.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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