[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 154 (Friday, September 19, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4482-H4486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING RESOLUTION COMPROMISE
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Kiley
of California was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
majority leader. )
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, the House has just voted to
pass a continuing resolution that is now going over to the Senate with
the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, pledging that his caucus will be
united against it, barrelling us toward a potential government shutdown
that would very much not be in the interests of anyone and would be
terrible for the country as a whole.
The minority leader in the Senate has not been abundantly clear as to
what exactly he is looking for in order to avoid this outcome. After
all, we are dealing with a so-called clean CR, which simply extends
funding levels as they have been for quite some time now. This is
really not the way things should be done, by the way, but that is where
we are, and it is the only proposal on the table for avoiding such a
shutdown.
I have a thought on how this whole terrible outcome can potentially
be avoided in a way that would satisfy Members on both sides of the
aisle and keep the government open, which is to include in the
continuing resolution language that will preserve the congressional
maps in every State in the country as they existed at the time of the
2024 election.
I have proposed legislation myself along those lines to stop this
horrible redistricting war that we see playing out across the country
that is bad for representative government and is widely opposed by
Members of the Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference in the
House.
That is my proposal to avoid a shutdown, to give the minority leader,
Chuck Schumer, in the Senate, something that he can claim he delivered
that would help members of at least the Democratic Caucus here in the
House. We simply reach a deal where we are going to say we are going to
stop this redistricting war; we are not going to be upending maps in
the middle of a decade.
This could be done easily. It could be put into the continuing
resolution that the House just sent over to the Senate. Here are the
two main virtues of this proposal.
{time} 1140
Number one, the proposal is widely supported by the American people,
66 percent to 23 percent. The American people say that we should not be
engaging in redistricting mid-decade. That is according to a recent
Noble Insights poll.
Mr. Speaker, by a 3-to-1 margin, Americans support the legislation
that I have proposed and support the idea that we should not be
throwing out congressional maps, upending districts, and dissevering
the connection between voters and their Representatives in the middle
of the decade.
Not only do the American people support this proposal, but Members of
the House on both sides of the aisle do. How do we know that? On the
Democratic side, you just had a number of Members of the House who
announced their own bill to get rid of mid-decade redistricting.
On the Republican side, I have had Members come up to me every day
saying that what I am proposing is the right thing for them, the right
thing for their districts, the right thing for their States, and the
right thing for the country.
The only thing that is stopping us from moving forward on this
commonsense proposal is the refusal on the part of the Speaker of the
House to put on the floor a piece of legislation that is widely
supported by Members of the House and by the American people.
The ball is now in the Senate's court when it comes to government
funding, and I am absolutely opposed to a government shutdown. That is
why I supported the stopgap funding measure today, even though I don't
think it should have come to this.
Now, the Senate has an opportunity to negotiate a compromise that
will keep the House open. That has to, by its very nature, be
bipartisan, given the rules of the Senate.
Mr. Speaker, I would submit that a way to do that that would be in
the interests of everyone here in this institution would be to reach an
agreement that keeps the government open; that provides us some runway
to actually pass a budget, which we should have done a long time ago;
and that will stop this chaos of upending one district after another in
State after State from cascading across the country.
Update on Proposition 50
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide an
update on Proposition 50 that is set for a vote in California,
otherwise known as Gavin Newsom's redistricting sham.
This is a proposal by the Governor to tear up the map drawn by
California's
[[Page H4483]]
independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, to abolish the
redistricting commission that was put in place by the voters, and to
impose a hyperpartisan map drawn by politicians without any input from
the public in setting the new boundaries for congressional
representation in California.
It is an attempt to override what the voters have said three separate
times in California, that redistricting should be done by an
independent commission and not to move us back to the era of partisan
gerrymandering.
As bad as this proposal is on its face, what is even worse is the
cost of simply administering this special election because we are not
supposed to be having an election right now. This is 2025, a
nonelection year.
In order to get this sham through and in order to reverse the will of
the voters, the Governor needs to produce an artifact of voter
approval. They have come up with this fraudulent ballot measure that is
designed to mislead voters and to confuse them into overturning what
they had done before.
What is more is that it is doing so in a way that relies upon not
only voter fraud by confusing people but also voter suppression by
limiting voter opportunities.
I have heard directly from the registrars of voters in my district,
saying that because they have thrown out all the rules for elections in
California and because they have condensed the timeline beyond anything
we have ever seen, they are not able to have the polling places opened
that they would like, and they are having fewer voting centers.
The typical places that they use for voting are not able to be used
because those places have already been booked. They are not able to get
out the sort of notifications to voters that they usually do. The voter
guide is not being mailed to voters when it should, and it is going to
be a digital-only voter guide.
Think about how perverse that is. They lie to voters on the
description on the ballot as to what the initiative actually does, and
then they withhold from them the voter guide that would actually give
voters the actual text of the initiative and arguments from folks on
both sides.
In order to conduct this impromptu, unscheduled, hyper-rushed special
election, when we are not supposed to be having an election at all, in
a way that suppresses the will of voters and suppresses voter
participation, it is going to cost California voters nearly $300
million. That is right, $282 million, to be exact. That is the cost of
administering this election, the only purpose of which is to return
California to the era of political gerrymandering. That is the only
thing on the ballot.
It is $282 million in taxpayer funding at a time when California has
a massive budget deficit and when the Governor has cut funding for
foster kids in our State while saying that we don't have enough money.
Yet, he has $282 million to return us to the era of political
gerrymandering.
This comes at a time when the Governor is refusing to fund
Proposition 36, the initiative to restore appropriate consequences for
retail theft and to get drug offenders access to treatment. It was
passed by California voters overwhelmingly last year, with nearly 70
percent of the vote, over Governor Newsom's opposition. Yet, he is not
funding it. He is, again, trying to ignore and overturn the will of
voters, so much so that the Democratic mayor of San Jose called what
Newsom is doing ``a joke.''
Mr. Speaker, he doesn't have the funds to keep California safe. He
doesn't have the funds for foster kids. He is running a massive budget
deficit. He has defaulted on a $20 billion loan that he took out from
the Federal Government, forcing small businesses to pay it back
themselves through a tax increase. Yet, he has somehow found $282
million in taxpayer funds to conduct a snap special election to
hypergerrymander our State.
It is one of the most disgraceful acts, if not the most disgraceful
act, of any elected official in modern California history. You don't
have to take my word for that. This scheme has provoked widespread
bipartisan opposition.
Just today, the first chair of the California independent
redistricting commission, who is a registered Democrat, has an op-ed in
CalMatters, saying that this is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Former Governor Schwarzenegger came out a few days ago in strong
opposition to Prop 50, calling it insane. Former Governor
Schwarzenegger called Governor Newsom's scheme insane. Former Governor
Schwarzenegger said that this is ``getting rid of the democratic
principles of California.''
Mr. Schwarzenegger derided the fact that this was a map drawn by the
politicians without any input from the people.
Mr. Speaker, Governor Newsom is in the process of trying to mislead
voters not only through his ballot description but also through all
kinds of campaign ads, using $10 million of funding that just came in
from George Soros, with all of his favorite special interests in
Sacramento getting behind it, with commercials saying that this is
actually preserving independent redistricting when, literally, the
entire point of the initiative is to throw out the map created by our
independent redistricting and return power to the hands of partisan
politicians.
Mr. Speaker, it has also come out that this map has been drawn in
such a way as to provide new districts for the very politicians who
drew the map to run in. The speaker of the California State Assembly
and the president of the California Senate have been given their own
special districts to run in for Congress if this map gets adopted,
which is all the more reason why California voters have said on
multiple occasions that they don't want politicians drawing maps.
Indeed, the California Constitution, in addition to saying that an
independent commission draws the lines, specifically says that these
sorts of considerations favoring a powerful politician, favoring an
incumbent, drawing them in such a way as to give one person an edge or
to have someone's home be in this district versus that one, that none
of that is allowed under the current California Constitution. The way
that this Governor's redistricting sham has been drawn, it says that,
literally, everything else in the constitution is to be ignored.
{time} 1150
Every provision that provides for the protection for voters, that
provides for fair districts, that keeps communities together in the
process of drawing district lines that says you cannot favor
politicians or candidates in any way, that says you cannot consider
partisan outcomes, all of that is completely blown up by this
initiative.
It says partisan gerrymandering is the new law of the land in
California, the highest law of the land, notwithstanding it says
anything else that exists in our State's constitution.
Mr. Speaker, the Governor is trying to stack the deck in every way he
can against the people of California, to try to overturn their will, to
try to confuse them, to fool them, to mislead them, to suppress their
opportunity to participate so that he gets more power and they lose
power.
The task for those who care about good government, for those who care
about our democracy in California, for people of decency on all sides
of the aisle, is simply to make sure that folks understand the truth
over these next few weeks as this election is conducted.
California has the Highest Poverty Rate in the Nation
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, we have just got some alarming
news, which, unfortunately, is unsurprising, and that is that
California, once again, has the highest poverty rate of any State in
the country.
Despite the fact that we have some of the world's leading companies
and all of the inherited advantages that we have as a State, we
continue to lead the Nation in poverty with 7 million people, 17.7
percent of our residents, not able to cover their basic needs.
What is perhaps even more alarming is that just since 2021, child
poverty in California has doubled. Child poverty in California, the
number of kids living below the poverty line, has doubled in California
just in the last 4 years.
That, sadly, is the price of failed leadership as our State's
supermajority and Governor continue to impose policies that raise the
cost of living while lowering economic opportunity.
[[Page H4484]]
Those two factors combine to produce poverty in California unlike
exists anywhere else in the United States. In addition to ranking
number one in poverty, California also ranks number one in
homelessness, number one in unemployment, and number one in wage
stagnation.
It is no secret why. The State continues to impose regulations that
raise the cost of doing business in the State, that raise the cost of
housing, that raise the cost of water, that raise the cost of
electricity, that raise the cost of just about every other good that a
person needs.
The State continues to impose the highest taxes in the country,
including the highest taxes on gas with new regulations now coming into
place that one study estimated is going to raise the price of gasoline
in California to $8 a gallon by the end of next year.
Mr. Speaker, I am doing everything that I can here to counteract the
failed corrupt policies that we see coming out of Sacramento. We have
had some successes.
For example, I recently introduced, and we passed, a resolution to
overturn California's ban on gas-powered cars, which means that
Californians will continue to be able to drive the car of their choice,
not one chosen for them by the government. It will save Californians
significant amounts when it comes to the cost of their vehicle.
We are also working on legislation, and have, indeed, secured funding
to increase our State's water supply and to expand our domestic energy
production in order to lower the price of gas and electricity in our
State.
There is only so much we can do at the Federal level when our State's
politicians continue to fail the people of California. I am continuing
to urge leaders in Sacramento to work on commonsense legislation, to
lower the cost of living in our State, and to end the attacks on
workers that have given us the Nation's highest unemployment.
We have so much potential in California. We are the greatest State in
the country in so many ways, and if we simply had halfway decent
policies in Sacramento, we would not have these outrageously tragic
outcomes of having the highest poverty of any State in the country.
Cutting Off Funding for the California High-Speed Rail Disaster
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, we have recently succeeded here
in cutting off funding for the California High-Speed Rail disaster,
which is, in my view, the worst public infrastructure failure in U.S.
history.
I introduced a bill at the beginning of this Congress saying that we
should cut off all funding for the high-speed rail and following an
investigation with Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, we have
succeeded in doing just that.
Yet, the Governor of California has, rather than seeing the writing
on the wall and winding this failed project down, has now said he is
going to spend $20 billion more to keep it on life support and has even
accused me of lying, saying: ``Representative Kiley continues to lie
about California High-Speed Rail.''
Mr. Speaker, I am more than willing to be proven wrong. I am happy to
be proven wrong. If the Governor and his team would like to take me for
a trip on the high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles that
was supposed to be built 5 years ago, I will happily retract my
criticism. I am ready to hop onboard when I fly home to California
today.
If the train is there, I will acknowledge my mistake and admit the
accusation that has been leveled against me, but I don't think that is
going to happen because no such train exists.
In fact, not only do we not have a train from San Francisco to L.A.
that was supposed to be finished 5 years ago, we don't have any
stations. We do not have any track at all that has been laid, not a
single passenger has ridden anything, and now the latest word is that
even the initial segment from Bakersfield to Merced--that is not L.A.
to San Francisco for those who are less familiar with California
geography. It is not a particularly populated area--that is even going
to miss its 2033 deadline.
The latest ambitious plan that is put forward is that maybe by 2045,
we will have a line from Palmdale to Gilroy, which would require taking
three separate transit lines, a total of 6 hours, to get from L.A. to
San Francisco, which you could do today on any airline in about an
hour.
Mr. Speaker, if I am lying, apparently a lot of other people are
lying, too. The New York Times, I suppose, is lying when it reported in
an expose x this project is not on track to be completed even this
century.
Where do we go from here? In my view, in cutting off Federal funding,
we have limited what opportunities the Governor has to cause further
damage to our State. He has come out and said that we are going to
spend another $20 billion, but that is over the next 20 years.
This is nothing more than an attempt to save face because the
Governor knows that I am not lying. The Governor knows this project is
an embarrassing disaster, and he also knows that he is out of office in
about a year.
Once we have a new Governor and we have, in statute, the commitment
to not provide any more Federal funding, which has kept the project on
life support, it is my prediction that this disaster will be wound down
and that our transportation dollars can go where they are actually
needed to fixing our failing roads and providing for California's real
transportation needs.
{time} 1200
Success Academy's Top Scores
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, we have just received the
latest report on the performance of students across this country when
it comes to math and reading and civics, and the results are absolutely
alarming.
We have seen now 12th grade math scores reach the lowest score ever
reported, with 45 percent of students not even showing basic skills,
the highest portion of students ever to fall below basic proficiency.
Nearly half of the Nation's students can't even apply single-step
percentages to solve real-world problems. Less than a quarter, only 22
percent, of 12th graders scored at or above proficient in math, down 2
points from 2019.
The low scores are seen in these core subjects, and they are even
below scores almost two decades earlier. The data shows that this trend
has continued and was started even before COVID-19.
In 2024, only a third of 12th graders were considered academically
ready for entry-level college math work, down 4 percent since 2019. We
see similar results in reading. Over 32 percent, the largest percentage
ever, scored below proficient in reading. When we look at both math and
reading, we are seeing the worst performance ever for students across
this country.
I have been raising alarms about this trend for some time now. As the
chair of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and
Secondary Education, we have been looking at how we can reverse this
trajectory, which has been continuing for far too long in this country.
The truth is, we don't have to look far because there are some places
in America that are defying this alarming trend, that are applying
basic principles of propelling student achievement in order to perform
in a diametrically different way than schools elsewhere in the country.
To take one example, which we highlighted in a hearing earlier this
year, you can look at Success Academy, which is a network of nearly 60
charter schools in New York. I have here just one measure of their
extraordinary success.
As background, it should be understood that the demographics of
Success Academy are largely students from underserved communities with,
in fact, 76 percent coming from economically disadvantaged homes.
When you look at this chart, you can see the number of students who
passed one or more AP exam of the roughly 1,500 high school students
that Success Academy has. This is their network of schools, nearly 60
charter schools, but 1,500 high school students. Mr. Speaker, 100
percent of their students passed at least one AP exam.
These other bars are different States. You see 24 percent for Rhode
Island, 24 percent for Vermont, 27 percent for Virginia, and 26 percent
in Colorado. Even of the States that do pretty well, in the high 20s,
California, which does not do so well, scored 28 percent, and
Massachusetts, the State with the highest score, scored 33 percent.
Success Academy had 100 percent.
[[Page H4485]]
In fact, every Success Academy high school graduate has been accepted
to a 4-year college, with many admitted to highly selective
institutions. Overall, we have seen students at Success Academy last
year led the entire State in math scores, with 49 percent of Black and
55 percent of Hispanic students earning 4s, which is the highest level
on the State exam.
By contrast, New York City's district schools, compared to that, 8
percent of Black and Hispanic students earned 4s. Mr. Speaker, 49
percent and 55 percent versus 8 percent is an astounding difference at
a network of schools where the vast majority of students are below the
poverty line. As a matter of fact, if Success Academy were its own
district, it would be the single highest ranking school district in the
State of New York.
I had the opportunity to visit one of their schools just last week,
and I was truly inspired by what I saw. The students were engaged in
every classroom I visited. They were enthusiastic about learning, eager
to participate, and attentive. I didn't see one student's eyes wander
or one disruption. The teachers were, likewise, truly passionate about
the work that they were doing.
The students are held to very high expectations and taught math and
reading in a rigorous way, in an evidence-based way. They are taught
things like focus, by learning chess starting in kindergarten, and they
have created a culture within each of their schools of high
expectations that is felt in every classroom and by every student.
It is no wonder that parents in New York are clamoring to get their
kids into these schools. I had the chance to meet a number of these
parents as well while I was there. The last time, for the last year,
for the 3,200 spots that were available, there were 16,000 families
that applied. The law for charter schools is that you do a lottery, so
16,000 families applied for 3,200 lottery spots.
If you won the lottery, then your child gets the chance to go to the
highest performing network of schools in the State of New York, a
network where 100 percent of students are accepted to 4-year
universities, where 100 percent of high school students pass at least
one AP exam, and where over six times more students achieve the highest
level of proficiency as similarly situated students in district schools
in New York City.
You would think that politicians in Albany or, for that matter, in
Sacramento--because our State has similar success stories when it comes
to high-performing charter school networks--would be doing everything
possible to expand these opportunities, but it is just the contrary. In
New York, they have actually capped the number of charter schools that
can be started, and in California, Governor Newsom and the
supermajority have conducted a years-long war against charter schools,
making it harder for them to start up and easier for them to be shut
down.
I think it is important for us to reflect on these two sets of data.
On the one hand, the Nation's report card shows that our Nation is in
big trouble because of the continuing decline and failure of our public
education system, but on the other hand we have inspiring stories like
that of Success Academy where you have nearly 60 schools that are
achieving extraordinary things for kids coming largely from
underprivileged backgrounds.
The urgent question that we need to ask is how do we make every
school in America look more like Success Academy or more like the KIPP
network of schools or more like any number of successful charter
networks, and, for that matter, those traditional public schools that
are doing a good job, as well.
We have been highlighting in our subcommittee why it is that we have
this vast divergence in outcomes. While education is largely the domain
of State and local jurisdictions, we will continue to use whatever
tools we have to encourage the adoption of best practices and to work
toward accountability for those who are failing our students year after
year.
Dog Successfully Votes in California
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to highlight some
curious news out of my State in California. It has just been revealed
that a dog successfully voted in a recent election in California.
The dog received a ballot in the mail and successfully cast that
ballot and, indeed, even after the dog died, continued to receive a
ballot in the mail.
The owner has now been charged by the Orange County District
Attorney's Office for illegally registering her dog to vote, but she
probably would have gotten away with it if she hadn't posted a photo of
her dog on social media wearing an ``I voted'' sticker.
The individual here has been charged with a number of felonies: for
perjury, for procuring or offering a false or forged document, two
felony counts of casting a ballot while not entitled to vote, one
felony count of registering a nonexistent person to vote.
Just to be clear, dogs are not actually allowed to vote in
California, and yet in this case, the animal did. The question we have
to ask, Mr. Speaker, is how in the world do we have so few safeguards
on our electoral process in California that such a thing could ever
happen.
{time} 1210
I have proposed commonsense solutions to this problem, requiring
voter ID and passing the SAVE Act here in Congress to require proof of
citizenship when registering to vote.
While this is, obviously, a crazy example, a lot of people in our
State lack trust in the integrity of our electoral process, especially
when laws are passed year after year in the legislature, where now
ballots are automatically sent to every registered voter. Those ballots
continue to go out, often when the voter has left the State or when the
voter is no longer with us; where there is no proof of ID in order to
register to vote, or actually to vote; when registration is done
automatically when one gets their driver's license; and where, in
recent years, ballot harvesting laws have been passed where you don't
even have to submit your ballot yourself, but someone can come to your
door and grab it for you.
I think it is past time that we have reforms to our electoral process
in California and, frankly, nationwide, as well.
I have discussed my opposition to partisan gerrymandering. In
addition to stopping this redistricting war going on right now, I
believe that by the time we have the next round of scheduled
redistricting, we need to end gerrymandering once and for all in this
country. I think perhaps there is a bargain that can be struck to have
legislation that will protect the fairness of elections across America
by instituting universal voter ID while ending gerrymandering once and
for all. I believe that will restore fairness in American elections,
and our democracy will be much better off for it.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Moore).
Honoring the life of Officer Gabriel Stainback
Mr. MOORE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the
life of Officer Gabriel Stainback, a young man taken far too soon in a
senseless tragedy.
Officer Stainback had just begun his career in law enforcement, sworn
in last December to the Cornelius Police Department in North Carolina.
He had a bright future ahead of him. He was recently married. He and
his wife, Teonna, were out on a bike ride together when he was struck
and killed by a vehicle.
No family should ever have to endure that kind of loss. This was a
young man who put his heart into his community. He was a State champion
athlete, a college graduate, a pilot, and, above all, someone who loved
his faith and his family, as well as his community.
Mr. Speaker, I extend my deepest condolences to his wife, his
parents, and fellow officers. Officer Stainback represented the very
best of us, and we will not forget him.
Honoring the life of Officer William ``Bill'' Broadway
Mr. MOORE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the
life of Officer William ``Bill'' Broadway, of the Huntersville Police
Department, who recently lost his battle with cancer.
In 2016, he joined the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and
later returned to serve closer to his home in Huntersville. His
colleagues remember him for his professionalism,
[[Page H4486]]
but more so for the compassion and the courage that he brought to the
job every single day.
Bill faced his cancer diagnosis with the same strength that he showed
throughout his life. Even in his final days, his faith remained strong
and his love for his family was unwavering.
Officer Broadway leaves behind a legacy of service and sacrifice that
will never be forgotten.
Mr. Speaker, I extend my deepest condolences to his wife, Sarah; his
son, Declan; and the entire Broadway family.
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my
time.
____________________