[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 13 (Thursday, January 20, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H283-H286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LET'S HAVE A DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Roy) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleagues who have been 
down here on the floor of the House of Representatives for the most 
part of the last hour talking about the importance of defending life, 
those infamous--or famous or important words, I should say, in the 
Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness.
  Nothing can be more important than this body focusing on defending 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and my colleagues' focus 
on life, as we sit here now 49 years removed from a Supreme Court 
decision taking out of the hands of the people and putting it into the 
hands of unelected judges' decisions, about the beginning of life, when 
life begins, the important reality of a people defending life.
  What is controversial about defending life?
  It is a question for this body.

[[Page H284]]

  What is controversial about defending life when we talk about life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and when we talk about living on 
this Earth while God gives us the precious time we have here?
  What are we going to do with that time?
  Are we going to live free?
  Are we going to be able to pursue happiness?
  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: one might wonder here 
now 1 year into the current administration, the Biden administration, 
whether the average American would say that he or she is free to pursue 
happiness.
  Are we free?
  Are we free to pursue happiness when, in fact, just a few miles 
away--and, frankly, a few thousand feet--from this Chamber where we are 
right now, restaurants are being chastised and pursued by the 
Government of the District of Columbia representing this area that 
forms our Nation's Capitol because those restaurants may not believe 
that it is in their interest or the interest of the people whom they 
serve to be checking papers and to be checking so-called vaccine 
passports or vaccine passes?
  One restaurant in particular over on H Street--which was one of the 
early restaurants on H Street as it was revitalizing--has been fined, 
berated, and harassed by the Government of the District of Columbia for 
wanting its doors to be open and not wanting to harass its patrons. 
They want them to use their own free will to make a decision about what 
is in their interest. They don't want to live in a republic where you 
are forced to show papers to walk about and to engage in society, to 
freely move about and engage in commerce.
  The very heart of the kinds of ideas that the Founders meant and what 
Jefferson meant when he penned pursuit of happiness is that we not 
allow a government through tyrannical policies to interfere with our 
pursuit of happiness: our ability to go have a business, our ability to 
go out and take care of our family, our ability to move about and to 
engage in commerce, our ability to create wealth and opportunity for 
our children and our grandchildren, to be able to get healthcare, and 
to be able to be secure in our possessions, secure in our belongings, 
and secure in our own homes.
  I would ask this question: Is the United States more secure than it 
was 1 year ago?
  Is the United States stronger economically than it was 1 year ago?
  Is the United States stronger on the world stage?
  Are we safer from our enemies than we were 1 year ago?
  Is our border secure?
  Are we able to afford energy and have reliable energy to heat our 
homes, fuel our cars, provide jobs, and keep us warm in the winter and 
cool in the summer?
  Are we able to do that better more than 1 year ago?
  The answer very clearly to all of those questions is a resounding 
``no.''
  Do you think it is an accident that I just spent 2 hours in a hearing 
in the Judiciary Committee bemoaning the United States Senate for 
holding the line on the filibuster which Democrats and this President 
wanted to throw over the wall in the name of voting rights because 
nobody can oppose something called voting rights?
  They put up those words, they call it the Voting Rights Act, and they 
name it after people we serve with in the Chamber to provide maximum 
guilt if you dare stand up and say, Mr. Speaker, that the people in the 
States ought to be able to decide how to ensure that the elections of 
the people who represent them are secure; that you dare to have a voter 
ID favored by 80 percent of the American people.
  But yet let's go back to what I just said: I have to have an ID just 
to walk in and buy a hamburger in the Nation's Capitol, but I cannot 
have an ID to vote. No. No. No. That is Jim Crow 2.0 I am told by my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

  I actually had colleagues on the committee today walking through the 
horrors of the poll tax--the jelly bean counting and all of the 
obstructions put into place for voting in the 1950s and 1960s that the 
Voting Rights Act nobly pursued to correct--and then tried to compare 
that to voter identification.
  They tried to compare that to wanting to make sure that mail-in 
ballots aren't abused by anybody in any party, even though, by the way, 
those bastions of crazy conservatism, Jimmy Carter and James Baker, 
came out in a report over a decade ago that The New York Times quoted 
saying precisely that mail-in ballots are the area where you have the 
most fraud.
  Now, all of us want to have integrity and belief in our elections. 
But our Democratic colleagues want to use that issue to divide us, as 
President Biden literally admitted yesterday. In his 1-hour marathon 
wandering, meandering press conference, he literally said that he could 
not say whether the elections will be legitimate this fall unless--
unless--we embrace the legislation that he says must get passed and 
that we must set aside the traditions of the Senate to jam it through. 
And all of it, very clearly, is to set the stage for a lack of faith 
and belief in the elections that are coming this November.
  Again I ask: Is America stronger or weaker?
  Is it richer or poorer? More secure or less safe?
  We know the answer, and that is why my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle wish not to talk about those issues. We don't want to have 
a debate about crime on the floor.
  Do any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to come 
down to the floor right now and have a debate about crime in the United 
States?
  Do they?
  Do you think a 50 percent increase in crime in Austin, a 50 percent 
increase in crime in San Antonio, a 19-year-old woman shot in a Burger 
King in New York City, a 24-year-old student murdered walking the 
streets of Los Angeles, train robberies in 21st century America with 
litter all over the tracks in Los Angeles, is an accident?
  Or could it be that radical leftists who are funded to take over the 
district attorneys' offices in cities across America and radical city 
councils like the Austin City Council and leftists in this Chamber 
believe that letting criminals out on the streets and believe in not 
prosecuting people is going to make our country safer?
  It is empirically and obviously untrue.
  The American people see it. And I promise you, Mr. Speaker, take this 
bet: We will not have a debate on the floor of this body about crime 
while I am here this year. It will not happen. My Democratic colleagues 
would not dare have a debate about crime because they would get 
absolutely decimated.
  They sure as heck do not want to have a debate about the border.
  Do you want to talk about 2 million apprehensions?
  Do you want to talk about 1 million people released?
  Do you want to talk about dead Texans?
  Do you want to talk about fentanyl pouring into our communities, 
100,000 dead Americans, opioid poisonings of our youth, and kids taking 
Xanax and dying because cartels are flooding into our country while 
China drives them right up through Mexico?
  Not a person in this Chamber on the other side of the aisle wants to 
come to the floor and have an adult debate about why our country is 
much less secure and much more endangered at the hands of the cartels 
and of people making money trafficking in human beings and undermining 
our security and safety in the United States of America.
  I promise you, Mr. Speaker, Joe Biden and the Nancy Pelosi Democrats 
have no interest in having a debate about the border because it is an 
embarrassment and it is a travesty.
  Ranches are getting overrun, people are dying, bullets are being 
fired across at our own Border Patrol, the National Guard is having to 
fire at cars coming across the border, livestock is getting out, bodies 
are stacking up in body trailers in Brooks County, Texas, and cartels 
are making hundreds of millions of dollars on a daily basis driving 
fentanyl into our kids' communities and schools.
  No, no, no. We do not want to have a debate about the state of our 
border.
  Do we want to have a debate about the state of healthcare mandates?
  No. No. This body has no debate but embraces rules. We must wear 
masks, they say. For a year and a half we have

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been excoriated--even fined--if you don't wear a mask the floor of the 
House of Representatives--masks which are very clearly proven--fabric 
masks--to have no real discernible benefit over the last year and a 
half of the mandates that say you must wear a face covering.
  They said: Well, are we going to mandate N95s?
  Are we going to have to wear N95s on the floor?
  Do they want to talk about the negative effects in the study that 
wearing N95s for a prolonged period of time, what that does for 
people's health and well-being, breathing carbon dioxide, minimizing 
your cognitive ability if you wear N95s for a long time?
  Some people might joke: Would it make any difference on the floor of 
the House if you minimized the cognitive ability of the Members of the 
House? You could argue that it may not make any difference whatsoever. 
I am looking in the mirror myself.
  We do not want to have a debate on the floor of the House on 
anything, by the way, much less the reality of what has been happening 
with respect to this virus and our response to it; and what Anthony 
Fauci engaged in with respect to the reality of the truth of funding 
gain-of-function research knowing full well the dangers, working to 
cover that up and hide from the American people how this virus came 
about; not wanting to pursue the truth on that, not wanting to pursue 
the truth or conduct studies on natural immunity.
  We have study after study after study coming out right now. I could 
pull out on my phone and pull up study after study now finally 
demonstrating and showing how natural immunity is more powerful than 
vaccinations, and people don't want to be able to have that honest 
conversation.

                              {time}  1400

  An adult leadership would have done like the Nation of Japan saying: 
We believe that vaccines are effective for a large group of people. We 
believe that there are some risks. You are adults. We won't mandate. 
You decide.
  We can't do that in the supposed land of the free? We sit up here and 
we stare at that American flag and we talk about the Senate being the 
greatest deliberative body. They don't really debate. This being the 
people's House, the people's Chamber, when was the last time the 
Speaker heard a robust debate on the floor of the House with multiple 
Members?
  When was the last time we offered an amendment on the floor of the 
House in open debate that wasn't predetermined by all of the Rules 
Committee overlords who govern our lives? Democrat and Republican, I do 
want to say.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been 6 years since we have had an amendment 
offered on the floor of the House in open debate. Do you want to know 
why we can't do anything in this Chamber? Because we don't ever debate. 
We don't ever actually have a discussion, throw things out there and 
then vote. Maybe, just maybe, we come to some bipartisan agreement.
  I am happy to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. 
Dean Phillips and I worked on the PPP Flexibility Act. Abigail 
Spanberger and I have introduced legislation called the TRUST Act to 
deal with stock trading believing that might help improve people's 
faith and confidence in this body. I have introduced numerous bills and 
passed numerous bills with my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle. That is not what this is about.
  It is about a broken body refusing to actually debate, refusing to 
actually engage, refusing to offer amendments. Both sides do it. That 
needs to end.
  The last point that I will make on that point, if you want this body 
to function again, you have to stop spending money we don't have. If 
you keep writing blank checks, how on Earth is there a check against 
the wisdom of the policy? You just keep writing a check to keep doing 
the same thing or to do something different. You can't run a business 
that way. You can't run a home that way. You can't run a church that 
way. You can't run a legitimate school that way. But no, no, we just 
keep writing checks to fund the expansion of government, to fund the 
creation of programs no matter who is in power.
  Over the last year, we have seen what that causes when it is then 
left in the hands of an administration that literally does not care 
about the rule of law.
  To be very clear, this administration is ignoring the rule of law, 
ignoring their oath, ignoring their duty to enforce the laws of the 
United States, ignoring their duty to secure the border, ignoring their 
duty to stand up in defense of the men and women in blue, to follow the 
laws around the United States, ignoring their oath to stand up and 
defend the United States against our foreign enemies; hold the line 
against Russia; push back on Russia; sanction them; hold the line on 
Nord Stream 2; stand alongside Ukraine; push back on China; stop 
appeasing them.
  Don't leave $85 billion sitting there in the hands of terrorists when 
we walk away and abandon our duty and leave those men and women in the 
field, and then have 13 dead marines to show for it.
  That is the legacy of the first year of this administration. But will 
President Biden, when he strolls to that podium on March 1 for his so-
called State of the Union, and we are all spread out, and all wearing 
masks, and doing whatever the heck we are going to do--not actually 
doing the people's business--will he address any of those issues?
  Will he talk about border security? Will he talk about how we are 
weaker around the world? Will he talk about the crime on the streets of 
Los Angeles, New York, Austin, San Antonio, and Chicago?
  Will he talk about the businesses getting crippled by mask mandates 
and health mandates?
  Will he talk about the children who are now having mental health 
issues, the people who are sick; the diseases that weren't dealt with, 
all to push a vaccine mandate that goes contrary to the pursuit of 
happiness and our right as Americans to live free?
  Will he talk about any of those things? Will he talk about the fact 
that the United States of America is sitting on one of the world's 
largest reservoirs of energy and, yet, we are wondering even in Texas 
whether you can have the lights on because we built no nuclear power 
plants.
  We slowed down our production of clean burning natural gas, all 
chasing unicorn energy policies of wind and solar as if they can 
possibly, possibly power the world at the level that is needed for the 
proper amount of human flourishing while 3 billion people around this 
planet do not have access to abundant energy and power.
  Will the President of the United States come down here and talk about 
that or will he get up there and just talk about: Well, we are going to 
be net zero in our carbon production by 2035, or 2050, or make up some 
totally arbitrary number without regard at all to what that does to the 
price of energy and the availability and abundance of energy.
  All of this has real-life consequences for Americans. People die. 
Houses get cold. People can't get access to energy. They can't afford 
energy. They lose jobs. You have stagnation and then you have the 
brilliance of this administration and the brilliance of those in the 
media starting to talk about energy and food price control because, of 
course, that is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will 
resort to.
  They will sit there and bemoan markets when they don't let the 
markets work. Healthcare markets never work. We haven't had a 
healthcare market in decades. It is an absolute lie; and I am looking 
at you Big Healthcare. I am looking at you Big Pharma. I am looking at 
you hospitals. I am looking at you Big Insurance. You made out like 
bandits after ObamaCare. You minted money. And probably three-quarters 
of the people in this Chamber fattened their wallets and 
their portfolios riding the back of all of that Big Healthcare 
enrichment, all at the expense of poor Americans around this country 
trying to get access to a doctor without having to call some bureaucrat 
in the government, the VA, or an insurance company, or however it may 
be, but it sure as heck isn't their doctor.

  We don't have health freedom in this country. We have mandated Big 
Healthcare, Big Government, Big Insurance, bureaucracy. And everybody 
knows it. Everybody knows it because you all had to deal with it. You 
have

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had to call somebody. You had to call some kid sitting in Omaha in some 
phone bank telling you which doctor you can go to 2,000 miles away. 
That is the truth, and we all know it. We sit in here, we roll in here 
and we say: Let's spend more money and create a government program. 
Let's spend more money we don't have.
  Not one person in this body will come down here and truly debate any 
of these truths when you are $30 trillion in debt; when you are funding 
the very FBI going after parents for daring to stand up and defend 
their children in a school board meeting; when you are funding the 
Department of Homeland Security that is literally lying to the American 
people saying our border is secure while hundreds of thousands of 
people come across.
  You want to know what happened in that synagogue? Because we don't 
have a dang clue who is coming to the United States, and this 
administration doesn't care. They don't care. They don't care what list 
they are on. They don't care whether they pose a danger to the United 
States of America. They don't care at all who is coming into this 
country. And they sure as heck don't care what is happening to the 
people of Texas, Arizona, or, frankly, everybody around this country 
who is having to bear the cost, who is having to bear the burden of 
what wide-open borders means to the United States of America.
  Complain about Mayorkas? We should impeach him for failing to 
faithfully execute the laws of the United States of America, 
endangering Americans in the process, ignoring the laws of the United 
States. And that is what is happening. That is what is happening.
  America is poorer, sicker, and less safe a year into the Biden 
administration, and that is the truth. Our enemies know it. That is why 
Russia is going after Ukraine. That is why China is rattling on a daily 
basis. That is why Russia, China, and Iran are talking about joint 
exercises. That is why the cartels are emboldened. That is why there 
are people marching through Mexico from all over the world coming to 
our southern border. That is why there are people on the streets 
breaking into businesses, assaulting people on the streets and killing 
them, raping them. It is happening every single day in the United 
States of America with reckless abandon while Democrats in district 
attorney's offices, Democrats in the House of Representatives, 
Democrats in this administration do nothing about it and do not care 
that the American people are left holding the bag.
  Then they want to talk about taking away our Second Amendment rights 
and our ability to defend ourselves. Well, that crap ain't going to 
happen because we are going to defend ourselves in the land of the 
free. We are going to stand up and defend our communities and defend 
our families. We are going to stand up in defense of the Constitution 
and limited government and freedom to be able to protect our families 
and protect our States when this administration is letting this country 
burn.
  It dares to do an hour-long press conference, lecturing the people 
for wanting to make sure their elections are secure, for daring to say 
that we should have voter identification when that same administration 
is ordering vaccine mandates that are causing healthcare workers to 
lose their jobs; causing healthcare workers in long-term health 
facilities to be unable to carry out their jobs.
  And then there is the talk about, oh, the burden on hospitals. Well, 
you just caused 20 percent of nurses to have to leave because you were 
mandating they take a jab for something that is a year old that Pfizer 
is making billions of dollars on. Then we won't even have a hearing 
about why on Earth we are having this virus in the first place, because 
of what Anthony Fauci knew and what NIH was up to and what China was up 
to.
  We won't have a hearing about natural immunity. We won't have a 
hearing about the dangers and levels of dangers of the vaccines, what 
they may be. Again, my polio-stricken father who is 79 has been 
vaccinated. I refuse to say whether I have been vaccinated. I think it 
is a principle for Americans that they shouldn't have to say.
  My point is, there are people for whom the vaccine makes sense. There 
are people for whom the vaccine does not make sense. Mandating a jab in 
a 5-year-old is irresponsible and it is dangerous. We should have that 
conversation instead of blindly walking around preaching what other 
people should stick in their dang arm.
  But that is what we do in the people's House. I am sitting here in an 
empty Chamber--with the Speaker, respectfully--and that is it. They are 
all jet-fumed out, leaving town. Oh, we shut down earlier. Let's get 
out of here. Or they are out at some fundraiser or something.
  Let's have a debate on these issues. Let's seek the truth. I don't 
know all of the truth on all of those issues. I don't know the specific 
risks. I have read a lot about what is going on with the vaccines, 
positive and negative. But it is becoming very, very clear that it 
doesn't do squat to stop the spread. So you are left basically saying: 
Well, it is better for you so that you don't die in the hospital.
  Well, let's look at the data on that. But why don't we just present 
the information and let the American people decide? Japan's vaccine 
rate is a lot higher than ours and ours has mandates. All they did was 
say: We think it is good. There are some risks. You decide. We can't do 
that in America?
  We can't just go down to the border and say: You know what, it is 
better for migrants, better for Texans and all Americans, bad for 
cartels, bad for China, if we secure our border. That is the truth. 
Talk to the migrants getting abused. Talk to the people in south Texas. 
Go to Laredo and Webb County. Sit down with the Brown people in Laredo 
who will say: We are pretty ticked off with this administration about 
how they are handling the border.

  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle might be up for a rude 
awakening pretty soon about their expectations of what voters are 
voting for them and what voters are not because there are a lot of 
people in this country that are sick and tired of the elite in this 
town, immersed in the swamp, promoting Big Healthcare, promoting Big 
Tech, promoting Big Government, minimizing the rights and the abilities 
of Americans to live their lives the way they see fit.
  That is our calling as we head to 2026, our 250th birthday of the 
United States of America, which comes up in 4-and-a-half years. Will we 
be able to say that we live in the land of the free? Will we be able to 
say that we are pursuing happiness; that we are the country of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
  We will only be able to do that if we stand up and secure our 
Nation's sovereignty, defend our streets, protect our families, stand 
up to enemies around the world, and limit this body to the job that it 
was given in the Constitution: limit our spending to the dollars that 
we have and responsibly lead this country and represent the people so 
that this country can, in fact, be great in our agreements and our 
disagreements in a Federalist Republic where we are able to live free.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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