[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 70 (Tuesday, April 21, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H3033-H3039]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CELEBRATING THE FREEDOM CAUCUS AND TIMOTHY REITZ
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Roy of
Texas was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority
leader.)
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I come here this evening as someone proud to be
a
[[Page H3034]]
part of an organization called the House Freedom Caucus.
I have people that I represent in Texas, constituents, but I also
have people throughout the entire State, people across the country who
stop me in airports, and they talk about what we do as the Freedom
Caucus.
I say: Pretty simply, we stand up for freedom. When people say: Well,
why would I want to be in the House Freedom Caucus? My answer is: Well,
why wouldn't you want to be in the House Freedom Caucus?
It is a caucus of individuals dedicated to the Constitution,
dedicated to freedom, dedicated to limiting government, all of the
principles on which most of us, at least on this side of the aisle, run
on. We happen to believe that when you come to Washington, you should
do what you say when you are campaigning, that you should do what you
say. It shouldn't be that complicated. Unfortunately, it often is.
I am proud to be in the trenches often with so many colleagues in the
Freedom Caucus who recognize the importance of standing up and fighting
for the principles and for the changes the American people sent us here
to carry out and execute.
We have had a number of really extraordinarily important issues
before this body in my time in Congress and in recent years. Right now,
we have extraordinary issues facing us.
Earlier today, when we had bills on the floor of the House, my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle were complaining and
criticizing and alleging that we are not accomplishing anything, we are
not getting anything done. Alternatively, when I talk to the people
that I represent, when I talk to Texans, and I talk to the people that
I said that stop me in airports and that thank us for doing what we do
in the House Freedom Caucus for conservatives here on the House floor,
I would say that I am very proud of the things that we have done over
the last 15 months.
I am proud that we cut taxes. I am proud that we made sure that we
put reforms in place to stop fraud and abuse. I am proud that we were
able to put reforms in Medicaid and in food stamps to eliminate welfare
for people who aren't working and for people who are illegal aliens. I
am proud of the fact that this President has stopped the flow of
illegal aliens at the border, that he has designated cartels as
terrorist organizations, that he has taken the fight to the cartels and
is going after Venezuela and trying to restore our dominance in the
Western Hemisphere. I am proud that we have people now registering and
enlisting in the United States military in record numbers because he
has restored people's belief and confidence in the United States
military. I am proud that he is standing up in defense of common sense,
of saying that we shouldn't have boys in girls' locker rooms, and that
we should be doing the things that would restore order and common sense
throughout our country.
I am proud of what we have been doing. I have to say that the House
Freedom Caucus stands at the epicenter, I think, of the great things
that we have been accomplishing. But for the Freedom Caucus 3 years
ago, in a notorious event here with respect to the Speaker and
selecting a Speaker, we demanded certain changes to this institution.
We demanded that we have better representation in the Rules Committee
and on Appropriations, and we demanded that we move solid and strong
legislation, like H.R. 2 and our border security bill that we passed 3
years ago. We demanded that we have reforms on spending and that we try
to move regular order and get bills through so we can actually get
appropriations done.
Over the course of these years, we managed to pass the strongest
border security bill in the history of this body. We managed to pass
spending bills that held spending flat for the last three cycles. For 3
fiscal years, we have been able to hold discretionary spending flat. We
managed to have serious influence in shaping what happened in the big,
beautiful bill, as it came to be known, in particular stopping the
absurdity of the green new scam subsidies. We singlehandedly stood up
and took the arrows to say: We are not going to pass this, and we are
going to demand change, and we are going to demand reform.
I can go through a list of countless things, whether it was the FISA
reforms from 2 years ago, which I am proud that we implemented because
we demanded that we actually protect Americans from warrantless
surveillance and warrantless searches. We should demand to protect
citizens when we had abuse under FISA and abuse by our intelligence
community and the FBI against the American people.
By the way, sidenote, we should do that again. We should have more
reforms. We shouldn't allow the intelligence community to roll over us.
We should stand up again here on the House floor and make sure that the
American people are protected. I think there is bipartisan support for
that.
The Freedom Caucus has stood at the center of these fights and tried
to demand that we protect the American people, that we protect them
against the long arm of the government, that we try to hold taxes in
check, hold spending in check, do even an ounce of what we said we
would do when we campaigned.
I am proud to affiliate with such a great group of people. I am proud
of what we do. I have no problem taking the arrows from people in this
town that I am a part of the Freedom Caucus because I can promise you,
the American people thank me and the American people thank us. They
thank us for standing up against the inevitability in this town of Big
Government, big spending and debt, and the expansion of the tyrannical
bureaucratic state against the freedom of the American people.
I am proud to be affiliated with the Freedom Caucus. We are here
today not only to talk about that and to talk about the things we need
to do, but we are here to celebrate one of our own, one of our dear
friends, Tim Reitz, who serves currently as the House Freedom Caucus
executive director. Tim will be leaving this week to go continue to
stay in the fight and go to an organization down the street. We will
miss, Tim.
His work has been tireless in the advance of freedom. His work has
been at the center of all that we have been able to accomplish over
these last 4 years in his role as executive director, which I think now
has been just over 4 years.
He has served under at least three different chairmen of the House
Freedom Caucus, one of whom is here, and I am sure I will hand over the
mike in just a second, to my good friend, Scott Perry from
Pennsylvania.
Before that, he served as chief of staff, legislative director, and
legislative assistant to my good friend and former Member of this body,
Jody Hice, who is sitting behind me now.
We are all here to thank Tim for his service. He is a great American,
a Georgian who worked for Paul Broun, a former Member of this body as
well, before he worked for Jody Hice of Georgia. He is a graduate, I
believe, of Georgia State University, but a big fan of the Georgia
Bulldogs as well. In fact, he is so much a fan of the Georgia Bulldogs
that he owns two bulldogs, Rocco and Rockette. He is married to his
beautiful bride, Dawn-Marie, who works for the President in
administration in the Office of Management and Budget and who herself
was a staffer on Capitol Hill.
Now, as someone who served as a staffer himself, someone who worked
over in the Senate as a staffer, I can tell you how much work goes into
being an accomplished and a productive staffer.
Look, I have got a lot of staffer friends who are here in the
leadership office, the whip office, my team, but I don't know anybody
who has worked harder than Tim Reitz as a staffer, whether it was for
Jody or in an individual office, whether it was for us, the Freedom
Caucus in advance of his duties, but importantly in advance of the
cause of freedom.
For those of us who come here--and I have got to be blunt here. I
always offend people, but I might as well just stick with what works
for me--we have got a tendency in this body to come up here to be part
of a club. It is like people come here to be a part of something. It is
like, look at me, I am a Member of Congress. There are a fewer number
of people--and this includes staff, too--there are a fewer number of
people who come up here to do, to do things, to fight for things, to
take the
[[Page H3035]]
arrows in defense of something bigger than ourselves.
It is not enough to come here and just check the box. It is not
enough to just come here and pass a bill because somebody tells you we
have to. You come here, and you stand up, and you say: When the
American people elected us--and when you have staffers who are sitting
there working for us, knowing what they fought for and why they work
for us, and they stand up and say: Yeah, but we didn't come here to do
that.
Like let's take FISA. We didn't come here to rubberstamp what the
intelligence community tells us to do. One of our House Freedom Caucus
colleagues, Michael Cloud--I want to give him credit. Michael said he
is in Appropriations right now or he would be here to celebrate Tim. As
Michael said about 3 weeks ago in a Republican meeting: When does the
intelligence community ever come forward and say: Hey, we have all this
power to collect data and to do all this stuff, hey, we are going to
give it back today. Here, we are going to give you some of that power
back.
{time} 1710
Has that ever happened in the history of mankind? Has that ever
happened here? Of course not.
We came here to say we are going to do something about it. Tim came
here to do something about it. Tim joined forces with the House Freedom
Caucus to say we are going do something about it.
Two years ago, we did something about it. We worked legislation
through the Judiciary Committee. We worked legislation in coordination
with the Intelligence Committee and actually got some good reforms and
a minimal 2-year reauthorization so we could come back and do it again.
Here we are and it is going to expire in another 10 days because we
extended it 2 weeks last week. We actually have an obligation now to do
the right thing, and I know Tim. He would say, look, I am going to
stick around another 10 days if we can get it right because we ought to
protect the American people.
The people who come here to effectuate change, those are the people
that you, the American people who are watching this on C-SPAN, all 12
of you, should be thanking your lucky stars that you have someone like
Tim Reitz here fighting for you as a staffer and being willing to work
as the executive director of the Freedom Caucus, which I think is one
of the most respected organizations among the American people and one
of the most reviled organizations among the swamp creatures because
they don't like having their BS called. Tim Reitz has been a faithful
member of that.
Mr. Speaker, now that I have a quorum of my colleagues here, I will
stop filibustering and turn it over to my good friend Scott Perry, who
is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus when Tim was an executive
director.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).
Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Texas for
organizing this.
Mr. Speaker, we sure appreciate our good friend Tim Reitz, and my
good friend from Texas has laid out things about the Freedom Caucus
that we have accomplished and the things that we stand for.
Everybody comes to Washington--I don't care what side of the aisle
you are on or what district you are from--you want to make a
difference. You want to make your country better. That is what I
believe, but Washington has a way of capturing everybody that comes
here that maybe has a little bit of a shaky foundation, not really sure
about how devoted to that cause they are.
The Freedom Caucus, in my experience, are the individuals that came
to save the Republic. That is what they came for and that is all they
came for. They want to do the right thing even if it is at their own
peril.
As the gentleman from Texas said, we are respected and lauded by many
people across the country like at airports or in different cities, even
in my own hometown with thanks for the things that we engage on and in
for the American people.
We are not doing it for ourselves. We are doing it for the people
that we represent. We are trying to make their lives better and save
the Republic for them and their children and grandchildren.
With that comes the ire of many of the people that live and work and
count on Washington, D.C., to keep on doing the same thing, which is
take money from all the people in the rest of the country and spend it
on the priorities of the people in Washington, D.C., instead of the
priorities of the people in the rest of the country that are paying
their taxes.
To be a member of this organization, you have to decide: Do I want to
have zero friends in Washington, D.C., right? Oftentimes it is said
that you can choose to have your friends in Washington, D.C., or you
can choose to have your friends in your district.
Well, a lot of folks don't like that decision and who can blame them.
Nobody really likes confrontation, generally speaking. I remember when
Tim came to the Freedom Caucus because he wanted to be part of that
fight. We had a lot of good candidates as I recall, but Tim stood head
and shoulders above all the rest. I found out some years later that Tim
is an Eagle Scout and his organizational skills and the way he carries
himself, his professionalism is indicative of that kind of person. I
probably should have known that kind of coming into the job.
Just like any other organization, we had our challenges. Not
everything was perfect, but Tim dug right into those problems, those
challenges that we had and made them right. Why that is important is
because the organization has to continue, but the Members of Congress
that are here, we didn't come to run an organization. We came to save
the Republic, to fight for the things that need to be fought for. It is
always easy to fight the other side, but it is hard to fight your own
side.
Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Republican. I have been since first grade,
but we don't always get it right, which is why people like me and some
of my other colleagues are here to make sure that we get it right, to
make sure that the things we do here are the same things that we told
the people at home who elected us they are the same things we told them
we were going to do.
Tim joined that effort. Of course, almost immediately upon joining
that effort, getting some things right that needed to be dealt with in
the organization, we found ourselves embroiled in this battle over the
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
It shouldn't be personal. It wasn't personal for us, but we just knew
that if we kept doing the same things the same way with the same
people, we were going to get the same outcome. We just knew that.
Of course, we also knew that picking on your own team is frowned on
by other Members of your team. Even though many of them wanted to see
things change, they didn't want to go through the problems and the
challenges of meeting that head-on.
Tim was right there in the dark hours of that whole thing. He had
faith in us, and our Members had faith in him. He kept the notes. He
kept us on track. This is what was said. This is what was going to be
done. This is what was agreed upon. This is still hanging out there.
Tim, in his own right, became respected in this body among other staff
members and other leaders as a person that they could count on for his
work who knew the issues, who knew the process, and wasn't going to
take a bunch of crap that, quite honestly, gets shoveled around here
where they just expect you to take it because that is the way it has
always been done.
This organization and our successes are due in great part to Tim
Reitz, which is why we are here because we want to honor him on his
departure. We wish him well.
This is not easy. This takes a toll on you personally,
professionally, and it is a sacrifice every single day. The long
nights, the time away from home, the extended heartache and trouble,
the ire, unfortunately, sometimes of the people around you.
They will be happy that it got done, but they won't like what they
had to go through to get there. Somebody has to do that hard work.
Somebody has to be willing to stand up and say, we are not going to
keep doing the same old tired things, especially during the challenge
for selecting a Speaker round
[[Page H3036]]
after round after round in the public. Everybody was watching. Somebody
had to make sure that we maintained the direction and the course, the
little details along the way. That person was Tim.
Since that time through the many, many battles all for the right
reasons, all for the right things, there has been one person who has
been at the epicenter of that unsung, behind the scenes, making sure
that the details were recorded, making sure that we stayed on track,
making sure that what was possible could be achieved, and that was our
friend and our colleague Tim Reitz.
While we are celebrating him and his future because this place has a
way of grinding you down and using you up. We are also very sad for the
loss of someone that is so skillful, so professional, so respected, and
achieves results. That cannot be found just anywhere.
We made the right selection then. He remains the right selection now.
We are honored to have had him working side by side, shoulder to
shoulder with us in these endeavors.
We wish him well. We know he is not out of the fight, but he is going
to change his battle position a little bit. We are here to say Godspeed
Tim Reitz. God bless you.
Mr. Speaker, I do have to say this, too, while Jody Hice is sitting
here. We stole him from Jody. He was working for Jody and we stole him
for a greater cause. Jody, of course, part of that cause, as well so he
was gracious about it.
It is painful when you lose somebody as competent as Tim. The
accolades all around and the well wishes all around. It has been my
honor and privilege to serve with you, sir.
{time} 1720
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, who ably,
as I said, served as the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. He knows
all too well the service that Tim provided to not just the House
Freedom Caucus, not just the House of Representatives, but to this
great country, in service, obviously, alongside our colleague, Jody
Hice.
As my friend from Pennsylvania said, we are growing the movement.
That is what is happening here, and Tim is going to be part of the
movement in a different position, just as our friend Mr. Hice is from
another position. God has a place for us at a certain time, and that
place has been here with the House Freedom Caucus these last 4 years.
Now, it is going to be somewhere else, and we are going to miss him.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Burlison),
so that he can share a few of his thoughts.
Mr. BURLISON. Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to honor my good
friend Tim.
William F. Buckley, Jr., once said that a conservative is someone who
``stands athwart history, yelling `stop,' at a time when no one is
inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge
it.''
Tim has been the executive director during my entire time here in the
Freedom Caucus. His hard work and dedication have left a lasting mark
on this body.
Just think about the changes to the rules that occurred just 3\1/2\
short years ago, those rules that every Member of this Congress
benefits from today. It was an effort that was monumental, but
shepherded and strategized by Tim, to give back power, which is
normally inclined to consolidate to one or a small group. For once in
recent history, we have seen an effort to actually disseminate power
from leadership back to the individual Members. We couldn't have done
it without the work and strategy that Tim provided during those
difficult times.
Tim is the kind of guy who you don't always see, but his impact is
felt with every victory that we have had. Behind the scenes, he has
been instrumental in advancing our mission to fight for freedom and to
serve the American people.
Mr. Speaker, there are few people who come to Congress, who enter
this crazy circus, and give up and sacrifice so many other
opportunities because they are driven to actually save this country.
Tim is one of those. The members of the Freedom Caucus are those.
It is a group, a band of brothers and sisters, that I am extremely
proud to be a part of. They are people who pray. When everyone else in
this town is going out to fancy dinners on fly-in nights, having steak
or lobster or whatever, this is a group of men and women who sit and
eat Chick-fil-A in a boardroom with a whiteboard and strategize about
how we can continue to make this country better and how we can stop the
steady decay of this great Nation.
Whether it is having negotiations at 3 o'clock in the morning or
strategy sessions on weekends ahead of critical votes, Tim has always
been there, putting in the hours, fighting in the arena with us to save
this Nation, but not taking the spotlight.
Tim, your tireless work and your unwavering dedication have made you
an invaluable part of this team and a game changer in the Halls of
Congress. You will be deeply missed on this team, no doubt. Yet, you
will continue to fight for conservative principles, I am certain.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Missouri, and his quote
of William F. Buckley about standing athwart history yelling ``stop''
is one of the, I think, seminal moments of the modern conservative
movement that Buckley launched and that Ronald Reagan then carried
forward. People don't realize that that was literally the first
edition, the first version, of the National Review.
It was a seminal moment of the conservative movement, and I think it
encapsulates very well what we try to do in the House Freedom Caucus in
standing athwart the institutional largesse of this town, this body,
Congress, and the swamp in general, and yell ``stop'' and say
``enough.''
We came here to do something different. We came up here not to rack
up debt. We came here to change things, to stand up for the people, to
stand up for freedom, and to stand up for limited government.
Tim has been at the center of that, and so has my good friend Josh
Brecheen from the great State of Oklahoma. I know we have to move
through, and we have several other colleagues. He has what he is going
to say, a little extemporaneous point. My good friend worked for
Senator Tom Coburn, another great advocate and someone who served in
this Chamber, served in the United States Senate, and understood that
point of yelling ``stop'' and standing athwart history.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Brecheen).
Mr. BRECHEEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Roy for yielding.
Tim Reitz has led our little merry band behind the scenes for 4
years, the Freedom Caucus. Most people do not realize that when you
have the type of intellect that Tim has, the type of principle that Tim
has, that is a rare commodity because in Washington, D.C., just typical
of anyplace in our culture, you are going to utilize that brain trust
that you have been handed to make the most money when you have workable
years. Tim could have gone a number of different places, but he chose
to be an oak.
For those who would wonder why I would say that, it is because an oak
tree, if you ever look at an oak tree, you have to realize that, once
upon a time, it was just a crazy little nut that decided to stand its
ground.
Thanks for standing your ground. Thanks for being someone who
actually knows what the enumerated powers of the Constitution are and
someone who didn't take what you could have, the treats of the moment
that all of us are offered. Instead of holding out the dream of
tomorrow, which is for our country, you can take the treats of the
moment, you can get a better job, you could go work on K Street, but
you knew in your conscience that your conscience was calling out to put
your Nation and your principles first and to go back to look at the
wisdom of our Founders and try to move the needle, to give this grand
experiment of liberty another breath to gulp in, in the hope that this
thing would endure long past us.
I am so grateful to Eric Burlison, who recited all the rule changes.
Eric and I weren't even sworn in to Congress and were fighting.
Eli Crane, I see him sitting over here. We weren't even sworn in to
Congress, and you were signing us up for a fight. We weren't even true
Members of Congress when that standoff was happening and you tried to
get rule
[[Page H3037]]
changes. You were the brain trust. Making sure that all the knowledge
of how we could move us back to a more transparent, open process to
empower the regular Member, you helped us do that.
To all of our friends--to Chip's point, maybe it is just 12 on C-SPAN
who are actually watching, but for any of our colleagues who are
watching, going, ``Oh, the Freedom Caucus,'' you have to love us. We
are kind of like the weight room, right? You have to realize that
through the weight that you hate, resistance builds strength.
This little group, when you know that you benefit because of the
strength of this group, you have to know it is great staffers like Tim
Reitz who helped to create the backbone.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Oklahoma for his
remarks.
I am now going to turn to the gentleman from Louisiana. I know he
shares our sentiment about our friend from Georgia, Tim Reitz.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).
Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Texas for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I am so honored just to stand in this august body in
support of my friend and brother, Tim Reitz. It is bittersweet because
we are going to miss him. We are going to miss him within the heart of
the Freedom Caucus. His counsel, his wisdom, his humor, his guidance,
and his skill set are rarely matched, I think, in the history of this
body.
Tim became senior counsel and staffer at the Freedom Caucus at a time
years ago when the Freedom Caucus was struggling to become the relevant
and powerful faction within this body that we knew it could be.
Yet, history required a man named Tim Reitz to be the deep rudder of
our intentions at the Freedom Caucus, which was to steer this body that
we love, for this Nation that we would shed our last life's blood for,
to steer it deeper into the conservative spectrum and principles that
made our country great, that drive us each day. We rise from bended
knee and ask our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to help us to be worthy
of service to we the people.
{time} 1730
Yet, we struggle to understand the details of how to make that
happen. Tim Reitz has informed our caucus in such a manner that I don't
believe it would be possible, Mr. Speaker, for us to stand before you
as members of the Freedom Caucus and unwaveringly know that we are one
of the most powerful factions within this body standing upon
conservative principles. Tim helped make that happen.
I am just going to say that sometimes we have contentious and complex
meetings. Mr. Speaker, Tim was the guy, especially for a regular man
like me, that I could call after a meeting or send him a text and say:
``Tim, when you get a minute, will you call me and let me know what the
hell just happened?'' He would do that at any time of the night or on
the weekend. He would say: ``Yes, sir, Mr. Higgins. This is what just
happened.''
We are going to miss you, brother, but you are going to a great spot,
right around the corner. We are certainly well aligned, and God bless
you in your endeavors. We have been honored to serve with you, sir.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana, a
gentleman who knows law enforcement and the United States military.
I would note that, in the House Freedom Caucus, as a Representative
of the House, we have a diverse group of individuals, numerous men who
have worn the uniform, including my friend from Pennsylvania, Scott
Perry, who spoke earlier, and, notably, the gentleman I am about to
yield to who served faithfully in service to this country and put his
life on the line in defense of freedom. He knows why we are here.
I echo what my friend from Louisiana was just talking about and why I
tell people that as proud as I am to be in the United States House of
Representatives representing the district in Texas, the 21st
Congressional District that I represent and 750,000 Texans, I am proud
to be serving in this body. It is an honor. It is the honor of a
lifetime. I am even prouder to associate with the men and women of the
House Freedom Caucus who lay it on the line every day, in the political
sense, in trying to fight for the things we said we would do and to
mean it, and to take the arrows and to wear the scars of trying to
actually move this body, to move this country so that we can save it
for our kids and grandkids.
I say that on purpose here because Tim has been at the center of
that. I know that this man, my dear friend from Arizona, a great
patriot, Eli Crane, shares the sentiment of what I just tried to share
rather ineloquently.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Crane).
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Roy for yielding.
I usually don't like speaking on the floor very much. It is not one
of my favorite things to do, but I will tell you right now, this was
something I wasn't going to miss.
Tim Reitz has been a friend to me in many ways. He has been a mentor
and counselor to me. As a matter of fact, I called him this morning
because I missed a meeting last night, and Tim gave me a recap and
helped explain to me what went on last night.
If you really want to know how valuable and important Tim Reitz is to
the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative movement, for saving and
protecting this country, all you have to do is look around. It is about
5:30 p.m. right now. We are done for the day, most of us. We don't have
to be here, but I counted eight Members of Congress who came to speak
on behalf of Tim Reitz. You don't see that very often. You are probably
never going to see eight Members of Congress coming to speak when a
valuable staffer like Tim Reitz is moving on.
Tim, I hope that is not lost on you, brother. There are a lot of
places we could be right now, but all of us are down here because of
what you mean to this group and what you mean to the country.
I am a little bummed that you are moving on. I know you are not going
to be far. I think the role that you are taking is going to be
instrumental for the country. I am just grateful that men like Tim,
with all of his wisdom, his knowledge, his intelligence--like my friend
from Oklahoma said, he could be off making money somewhere. He could be
doing some amazing things. Instead, he has been in the trenches with
us, fighting for this country, fighting for our families, fighting for
our communities, and fighting to preserve what has made this country so
great in the first place.
Thank you, brother. We are going to miss you. We are proud of you,
and it is an honor to speak on your behalf.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Arizona (Mr.
Crane). I thank him for his service to this Nation in the military. I
thank him for his service here in Congress, as I do all of my
colleagues here.
As I get ready to recognize my friend from North Carolina, I would
like to note that, as my friend from Oklahoma (Mr. Brecheen) said
earlier, the House Freedom Caucus opens all of our meetings and tries
to close all of our meetings in prayer. People don't realize that when
we had the big debate over the Speaker 3 years ago, and it was heavily
a good number of the Freedom Caucus who were a part of that debate, we
met or spoke on the phone I would say literally every day, or all but a
couple, from election day in November all the way through early January
and through the resolution of that debate.
Every single one of those meetings and every single one of those
calls we opened in prayer and closed in prayer, with the humility of
knowing that we don't always know the right thing to do. We try to
follow God. We try to follow the Constitution. We try to follow our
hearts and to honor the constituents who sent us here in making tough
decisions. Nobody has all the right answers. Through our prayer and
deliberation at our weekly engagement, our brotherhood and sisterhood
and camaraderie and faith in each other, and the support of people like
Tim Reitz, we try to come to a conclusion to try to shape this body and
to shape this country.
That is what we are called to do. We are not called to come here to
punch the clock. We are not called to come here to just do the same old
thing because the same old thing has resulted in $39 trillion in debt.
The same old thing has resulted in expansive government at the expense
of liberty.
[[Page H3038]]
Tim knows that. That is why he has sacrificed. That is why he has
been here, working in the trenches, as has my good friend from North
Carolina, Mark Harris. I know he feels the same way about Tim. I know
he feels the same way about prayer. I know he feels the same way about
this brotherhood and sisterhood that is the House Freedom Caucus.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Harris).
Mr. HARRIS of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, today, we pause to recognize a man whose work has made
an incredible difference in the fight to preserve the values that made
this Nation great, Tim Reitz.
Tim has served the House Freedom Caucus with conviction, discipline,
and a clear sense of purpose. In a town where it is awfully easy to
lose sight of first principles, he has remained grounded in them. He
understood that our responsibility is not to expand government, but to
restrain it, not to chase headlines, but to deliver results for the
American people.
Behind the scenes, where much of the real work gets done in this
city, Tim brought steady leadership and sound judgment. He helped
advance policies that defend our Constitution, protect taxpayer
dollars, and uphold the freedoms entrusted to us by our Founders.
More than that, Tim has served with integrity. Tim has built trust.
Tim has earned respect. He reminded all of us that public service is,
at its core, about serving something greater than ourselves.
I say to you this evening, Tim, that we are grateful for your
dedication to the House Freedom Caucus and to the cause of liberty.
Your work has left a mark, and the principles you championed will
continue to guide us forward. May God bless you in the next chapter,
and may God continue to bless these United States of America.
{time} 1740
Mr. ROY. I thank my friend from North Carolina (Mr. Harris) for his
remarks, and I thank my colleagues who have come down to the floor to
speak.
We have got a little time remaining in this Special Order, and I am
going to do what I want to do, which is filibuster a little bit in case
any of our colleagues are trying to get here from other parts of the
campus.
I will note that we had other colleagues that wanted to come, one of
those, my friend Keith Self from Texas who replied back to the thread
that he was down reading the Bible at the Museum of the Bible. And I
said: Well, where are your priorities, Mr. Self? And I joke only
because we can say that as a group because of how much this group
reveres the Word of God and tries to honor the Word of God. My friend
from Georgia, Tim Reitz, does so as well.
I would note that there are other Members who are stuck working hard
in the Appropriations Committee. I think our chairman, Andy Harris,
is in the Appropriations Committee as we speak. Michael Cloud wanted
to come down here, and he is stuck in the Appropriations Committee. I
would say that it is arguably in part because of Mr. Reitz' great work
that we have got those guys on the Appropriations Committee in the
first place so that they were able to be otherwise occupied. It is not
a committee that was often known for Freedom Caucus members
participating.
I will say a couple things here before we break loose just to see if
a few other people can get to the floor. I will focus on policy for a
minute and then bring it back to Tim, which is this: None of us came
here, nobody in this body came here campaigning on spending more money
that we don't have, nobody; but yet we do. I am proud that the Freedom
Caucus has stood up to say enough, and as a result, for 3 straight
years, discretionary spending has been flat. That is a big deal. That
is a big deal.
Nobody came to Congress saying they wanted to expand the power of the
Federal Government to engage in warrantless surveillance of the
American people and spy on them. That was happening. Mr. Speaker, 2
years ago we made massive reforms as a direct result of the work of the
people in the House Freedom Caucus and Tim Reitz. Now the people are
safer and more secure. By the way, we should build upon that.
Nobody ever runs on saying that we should have open borders allowing
anybody in the world to come into the United States.
Nobody runs on saying we should allow criminals to stay in the United
States, and yet, often we adopt the very policies that allow those
things and encourage those things to occur, but not the House Freedom
Caucus and not Tim Reitz.
We stood up and we said: Enough. We need to change things. We need to
fight for policies that will secure the border, and we laid the
groundwork for many of the things the President is doing. We sent a
loud message to the American people that we believed in that when we
passed H.R. 2 because we worked hard as a body to develop past that,
and that is no small thing.
One of my other staffer friends was reduced to tears on this very
floor sitting right here because she has spent 20 years of her life
fighting to try to secure the border of the United States knowing how
bad it was, and finally, finally, we had advanced legislation that
would accomplish the task.
We couldn't have done that or held spending flat or fought to stop
spying on the American people without the work of Tim Reitz. We
couldn't have fought for any of the reforms that we got in the One Big
Beautiful Bill Act. We couldn't have stood on the wall, four of us in
this body, my friend Mr. Kean, my friend Mr. Clyde, myself, and my
friend Mr. Norman from South Carolina. We couldn't have stood up and
repealed green new scam subsidies destroying our grid and undermining
the security of the American people but for the work of Tim Reitz
working through the weekend alongside us making sure that we got that
done.
Now I have million-dollar ads being run against me by some Marxist in
California. Thanks, Tim.
Look, fighting is hard for the reasons that my colleagues have talked
about. Tim has done it, and he has done it knowing that the scorn of
the town, the scorn of the swamp would be directed towards him. He has
done it as a staffer, not as somebody who stands up--and I don't know
if you call this the limelight or not, I don't know what this is, but
not like those of us who are Members who run and carry the election
certificates. He has done it, as my friend from Louisiana said, behind
the scenes as counselor, as a staffer--and by the way, Tim is
emblematic of a number of staff that I am not going to name here
because I will leave people out. But there are people on this very
floor and in this body right now that we rely upon who are great
patriots and serve their country every single day.
We often give a shout-out to staff, but there are some who rise to
the top, and Tim is one of those. He is one of those who gets it, who
understands it, understands what is at stake, he who stood up when it
mattered and figured out how to take a win. You can't be afraid to win.
You can't be afraid to figure out a way to fight and then deliver.
The country depends on people who are willing to do that. I know
that, as my friend from Arizona said, he is a little bummed. I share
that sentiment. I know my friend from Georgia, Mr. Hice, who is still a
very active part of the movement, as I said earlier, I know he was
bummed when he lost Tim to the Freedom Caucus. We are going to be
bummed to lose Tim down the road, but he is joining friends of ours in
continuation of the fight.
For those of us who want to fight for the country, the fight never
ends. We are called by Paul and Timothy to finish the race. I am proud
to say that we are in this race, and we are going to finish this race.
I often will say on the campaign trail that when I went through
cancer 15 years ago and had Hodgkin lymphoma and had a less than a 50
percent shot, they told me--although my doctor was great. He said: Your
shot is either 0 or 100 percent. You should choose 100 percent. I think
that is great advice. Choose 100 percent. When I got through to the
other side of that, my daughter at that time was 3 months old. My son
was 2 months old. And God gave me another shot at this. He gave me a
little bonus time on this Earth. I decided to not care, and as I will
say on the campaign trail: ``Leave it all on the field.'' Leave every
single thing out on the
[[Page H3039]]
field. Don't walk off the field without knowing that you are bloodied,
you are beat up, you are muddy, you are dirty, you are exhausted,
knowing you did every single thing you could to leave this great
country in stronger shape for our kids and our grandkids so that flag,
so that this Chamber, so that those words ``in God we trust,'' so that
the heroes at Arlington National Cemetery that I was walking around
this morning giving a tour that we can stand up and be proud that we
put everything on the line.
Speaking of that, as I was getting ready to wind down to a rousing
conclusion, I am proud to hand over the microphone to another veteran,
another man that has put it all on the line both in service to his
country in the military and now in Congress, a dear friend who was the
gentleman that I earlier said was reading the Bible down at the Museum
of the Bible. I think he sprinted here from the Museum of the Bible.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Self) to
celebrate our good friend Tim Reitz.
Mr. SELF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make an analogy. When I was
first assigned to a Special Forces team as a young lieutenant, I had
already been in the 82nd Airborne Division for a couple years. When I
got to the A-Team the team sergeant was an old, grizzled, experienced
NCO.
My team sergeant had been in Vietnam. He had run the patrols. He had
been behind the lines. He had seen his soldiers wounded and killed.
That was the man that actually did my training. That is the kind of man
you need.
To put it in context, if you have seen the movie ``We Were
Soldiers,'' the command sergeant major, that is Tim Reitz for me and
for the Freedom Caucus. Tim Reitz is the one that knows the rules, but
he knows more than the rules. He knows what we need to do to get things
done.
So my analogy for Tim Reitz is one of utmost respect because just as
the NCO corps is the backbone of the United States Army, Tim Reitz was
the backbone of the House Freedom Caucus to me.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Self) for his comments, and we are about to wrap up and wind down
here. I just want to say a couple more quick things. I am giving a
heads up to those that are coming in that we have a couple more
minutes.
I would note that we have got to recognize those who have served
before my friend Tim Reitz: Justin Ouimette and Steve Chartan. We have
had great patriots who are still very active in the conservative
movement who were a part of this organization that Tim worked with and
learned from. I know he wants to give credit where it is due. I would
just tell you that I had a friend of mine who was a former member of
the House Freedom Caucus who texted me watching this on the floor who
said: Tim is a hero and a patriot that never throws in the towel and
deserves to be honored.
{time} 1750
I have gotten lots of messages like that from staff, from current
Members, and from former Members who recognize what Tim has meant,
again, not just to the House Freedom Caucus, but to the House of
Representatives and, importantly, to the United States of America in
service to a greater cause than just being here. They are in service of
the Constitution, of God, of freedom, and all those who have given the
last full measure of devotion to defend this great country.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for coming down. I thank my good
friend, Tim Rice. I want to wish him well in his next endeavors. I
thank him for his service to the United States of America. I wish him
the best of success, luck, health, and happiness with his beautiful
bride.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________