[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6778-6784]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing sometimes the way, in the 
heat of dispute, argument--sometimes any of us can have it happen to 
us--people don't think clearly.
  I have been here for nearly 11\1/2\ years in Congress. It is a 
tremendous honor to get to be the servant for the people of east Texas. 
But in that 11\1/2\ years, 4 of them the Democrats were in the 
majority, and my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) was the majority 
leader during those 4 years, and the rules never changed with regard to 
how the electronic voting worked.
  For the last 11\1/2\ years, it has always been the same. And that is, 
we could take our voting card--and it has a little computer chip in it. 
It doesn't matter which we way put our card in the box. If the blue 
light on the box is lit, it means that box is open for voting. Most 
every other row has a voting box on the back.
  We take our card, and we put it in the slot whichever way. It 
recognizes the one-of-a-kind computer chip that belongs to that 1 of 
435 Members, and then you can hit the green button for ``yea,'' the red 
button the ``nay,'' the yellow button for ``present.'' The blue light 
is on there. It is next in order on the box, but it can't be pushed. It 
just lets you know the box is open for voting.
  Toward the end of a vote, particularly a 15-minute vote, the Speaker 
will not have gaveled the vote dead, but oftentimes the box goes dead 
right before the gavel comes down. Even to that point, you can still 
change your vote, but it is just when the blue light goes out, you 
can't do it at the box. You have to come down to the well.
  What I have noticed every year for the last 11\1/2\ years that I have 
been here, if we are voting on a 15-minute vote--and all of us have 
probably done it at one time or another--if you need to change your 
vote, maybe you looked up and, for example, sometimes one person has 
multiple amendments, and you see their name and it is their amendment, 
and you say, ``Oh, I was not going to vote for that,'' and you vote 
``no'' and you need to change your vote to ``yes,'' you can still 
change your vote at the box.
  On a 15-minute vote, once you get past 5 minutes, you normally have 
to come down to the well and get a green card for ``yea,'' a red card 
for ``nay,'' or a yellow card for ``present'' or ``abstaining'' and 
change your vote that way. But on a 5-minute vote or a 2-

[[Page 6779]]

minute vote, if you need to change your vote, you didn't understand the 
significance, it constantly happens that people change their vote.

                              {time}  1245

  But to change their vote, if you have your voting card, you have been 
able to change it at the box on a 5-minute vote or a 2-minute vote. 
Every now and then, before the gavel comes down, the blue light will go 
off on the box, so you can no longer change your vote or vote at that 
box. That is when you hear someone yelling, ``One more, one more,'' and 
they come rushing down the aisle to get the vote in before the gavel 
comes down.
  Now, in 11\1/2\ years, only one time has there been a massive and 
gross violation of the rules the way we have followed them in bringing 
a vote to a conclusion. I can understand my friend from Maryland being 
sensitive, because this happened on his watch as majority leader. But 
Republicans were in the minority, and yet there was a vote. I don't 
even remember if it was a bill or an amendment. I think it was an 
amendment. But the Republicans voting against the amendment had enough 
Democrats voting with us that we were bringing down a Democratic 
amendment or bill, and it was left open for enough time that anybody 
that wanted to change could have changed.
  When the Democrat in the chair felt that enough time had passed, no 
other changes were being made, and the measure being voted on had 
failed, then the gavel came down. The rule has always been that when 
the gavel comes down, there can be no further changing of the vote.
  Perhaps, the majority leader, at that time Hoyer, had forgotten. But 
that was the time they violated their own rules. A subsequent 
investigation confirmed that. They violated the rules and allowed 
someone whose arm they were twisting to vote after the gavel came down 
to change the vote, change the outcome of the vote.
  That didn't happen here today. And the vote wasn't held open very 
long at all after the end of the time running out. Sometimes, whether 
it is Democrats or Republicans in the majority, it runs to zero. But 
if, in the opinion of the Chair or the Speaker, there is somebody 
wanting to change their vote or somebody that is making a good faith 
effort to get here to vote, they will leave the vote open.
  Sometimes, like when Speaker Pelosi was meeting with President Obama 
at the White House and wasn't getting back in time, or Majority Leader 
Hoyer, and they weren't getting back in time, well, that vote would be 
held open to give them time well beyond the zero, zero, zero, so they 
could cast that vote. Nobody objected because we knew they were making 
a good faith effort to get here.
  I understand sometimes we forget things that we have been doing for a 
number of years. And especially in the heat of debate and a verbal 
battle here on the floor, people can forget what they have been doing 
for many, many years. But that has been the way the voting and the 
rules on voting have worked and been interpreted for many years.
  So I was greatly surprised to hear the former majority leader 
challenging on the basis that people didn't come into the well to 
change their vote on either a 5-minute or a 2-minute vote. Well, they 
have always been able to change their vote. The voting boxes were open.
  Anyway, we all have those mental lapses where we forget things that 
we have been doing for years. I mean, it just happens, and especially 
here on the floor. There is nothing to be taken from former Majority 
Leader Hoyer forgetting how the rules were when he was majority leader 
and forgetting how they have been all these years since, so no hard 
feelings. He just had a mental lapse and forgot how the rules have been 
ever since he has been here the entire time.
  There has been a great deal of to-do and a lot of wailing and 
gnashing of teeth about what I would term the ``Iranian crisis'' 
because it truly is a crisis that this administration has enabled Iran 
to go ahead and develop nuclear weapons to continue down that path. 
Even though they are supposed to be prohibited, they continued to 
develop missiles that eventually will be capable of delivering nuclear 
weapons onto the United States. They have got missiles to deliver them 
on to Israel right now.
  But as Prime Minister Netanyahu so ably has pointed out from this 
very rostrum right up here, those missiles they are developing now are 
not for Israel. They can already reach Israel. Those are for the Great 
Satan.
  So it was deeply troubling to hear the confessions and admissions of 
the White House adviser consultant mouthpiece, Ben Rhodes, reveal that 
the administration--and I am being careful not to use any specific 
names. I am addressing generally the administration--that the 
administration had to lie to the American people and had to lie to the 
House and Senate about how evil Iran really was and had to talk about 
how moderate they were when, actually, the fact is, apparently, under 
the so-called moderate President Rouhani, there have been more people 
put to death than even under the former President Ahmadinejad. This man 
is no moderate.
  Though the American people were fed lies about the negotiations, they 
were having to negotiate, either directly or indirectly, with the 
Ayatollah Khamenei. They don't make big decisions like a nuclear 
weapons deal, unless the religious leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, 
actually agreed, just like his predecessor, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
  So just like with the revelations about ObamaCare, now that we have 
had someone working behind the scenes with the administration who 
revealed, yes, the reason ObamaCare passed was because people are such 
fools, they were able to fool them into voting for a bill that was 
really not anything like what was being represented. And yet along 
comes Ben Rhodes, and he admits they did the same thing on ObamaCare 
that they did on the Iranian treaty.
  Now, I understand the administration has never called it a treaty, 
and there are people in the Senate who have not had the courage to call 
it a treaty, but it is a treaty. You can't change a nuclear 
proliferation treaty with an executive agreement or an executive order. 
It can't be done. It has to be done with another treaty. So, clearly, 
there are a number of things that made clear that the Iranian deal was 
a treaty.
  It should have been brought to the floor of the Senate. It still 
should be. It is time. You can do it any time this year. You could do 
it with 51 votes of the Senate setting aside cloture and saying, the 
Iranian treaty is a treaty, it is going to allow Iran to have nuclear 
weapons that will allow them to devastate both the Little Satan, in 
their opinion Israel, and the Great Satan, the United States, and it 
needs to be stopped.
  So, hopefully, the courage will abound eventually in the Senate and 
we will get that vote. And therefore, people with standing could go to 
court and stop the flood of millions of dollars to Iran, which has 
already said that with the billions of dollars, $100 billion to $150 
billion in the first year this administration is going to make 
available, they are going to commit so much more to terrorism than they 
ever had.
  Then we get this story just a few days ago from the Washington Free 
Beacon entitled, Iran Shows Off Third Underground Missile Site. It 
says:
  ``Iran's military recently publicized a third underground missile 
facility and showed the launch of a new ballistic missile through the 
top of a mountain.
  ``It was the third time since October that Tehran showed off an 
extensive network of underground missile facilities. The new video, 
however, for the first time, shows a missile launch from one of the 
country's underground launch facilities.
  ``Disclosure of the new video comes as Iran this week conducted the 
third launch of a ballistic missile since January, when the nuclear 
deal aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear weapons development went into 
effect.''
  And I would submit, that part of the story is inaccurate. It is being 
considered to have gone into effect, but it is

[[Page 6780]]

a treaty that was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, and it is an 
ineffective treaty. But the Obama administration is choosing to act as 
if the Iranian agreement really is an effective treaty. Iran has shown 
they have no intention of following that agreement. They have violated 
it a number of times.
  And the only reason Iran would have the gall to go forward and say, 
Hey, look, we have got a third underground missile site, we are going 
to let you see a launch, we don't care that the world knows that we are 
violating this last agreement with Obama and Kerry and Wendy Sherman 
that helped give North Korea nuclear weapons in the Clinton 
administration, we don't care that they know because we have now seen 
that this administration will not stand up to us, they will let us push 
them around, they will even let us take their soldiers or their naval 
officers, their naval seamen captive, violate virtually every treaty on 
the treatment of prisoners, humiliate the American sailors, force them 
to lie on camera, and after all that is said and done, we will get the 
Secretary of State to come back and thank us.
  I mean, it is like from ``Animal House,'' Kevin Bacon being beaten 
saying, Thank you, sir, may I have another? Iran has figured out they 
are the senior pledges, and this administration will take a beating and 
keep asking, Thank you, sir, may I have another? And Iran is all that 
willing to give them another and another.
  The trouble is this isn't a comedy movie, this is real life. 
Christians and Jews are being targeted, persecuted, and killed in 
greater numbers than at any time in the history of the world. The 
Middle East is on fire, except Israel is a place of stability. But if 
this administration has its will, it will become a powder keg before 
long as well.
  Libya had become more stable. And after the United States went into 
Iraq, because Saddam Hussein continued to refuse to abide by the orders 
of the U.N. that were passed by huge majorities, requiring them to 
disclose what they had, he wouldn't comply, most everybody was--
including those who now say, I voted for it, I really wasn't for it--
but, at the time, people thought, look, this guy must have something to 
hide because he is certainly not letting us get in to see what weapons 
he has. Other reports indicate that they had been taken from Iraq and 
were no longer present.
  But either way, it scared Qadhafi enough that, as some of the Israeli 
leaders have told me, we were shocked when you provided the firepower, 
the planes, and the bombs that made it possible to eliminate Qadhafi 
because, yeah, he had blood on his hands before 2003, but after 2003, 
he helped you more in fighting terrorism than anybody but us, and you 
took him out, and look what happened as a result.

                              {time}  1300

  It turned Egypt upside down. There are problems in Albania, problems 
all over North Africa, problems for the Middle East and North Africa 
both, problems coming down now of radical Islamists in Nigeria and 
other, more central African countries. They have paid a heavy price for 
the improper leadership of this administration here in the United 
States. It is just tragic how many have lost their lives already.
  Then we hear reports that in Nigeria--and I heard it when I was in 
Nigeria and was trying to help the Nigerian families whose daughters 
had been abducted--that this administration, behind the scenes, was 
saying: Look, we will help you with Boko Haram, with the terrorism--
although they don't like to use that word--with the radical extremism 
that is occurring in Nigeria. If you will change your laws, violate 
your religious beliefs, allow same-sex marriage, and pay for abortion, 
then we will help you.
  As one Nigerian Catholic bishop said: Our religious beliefs are not 
for sale, not to the U.S. President, not to anybody.
  I have an article that goes on about the situation with Iran. This is 
also from May 12: ``Kerry's Peculiar Message About Iran for European 
Banks.''
  It reads:
  ``U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Thursday in London with a 
group of European financial institutions for a discussion about 
`Iranian banking matters.' The meeting, which followed repeated 
complaints by Iranian officials that they aren't getting the benefit of 
the bargain under the nuclear deal, was an effort by the State 
Department to persuade major non-U.S. banks that doing Iran-related 
business is not only permitted following the relaxation of Iran 
sanctions, but is actually encouraged.
  ``The irony will not be lost on these financial institutions. Most of 
them were similarly gathered almost 10 years ago by U.S. Treasury Henry 
Paulson to discuss Iranian banking matters, but that discussion focused 
on protecting the integrity of the global financial system against the 
risk posed by Iran.
  ``In the decade that followed, the George W. Bush and Obama 
administrations, as well as the U.K. and other governments, the 
European Union, and the United Nations, all imposed extensive sanctions 
targeting Iran's illicit and deceptive conduct. Banks were briefed 
extensively and repeatedly by the U.S. Treasury Department on the 
details of Iran's conduct. The Financial Action Task Force, the global 
standard-setting body for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist 
financing, warned about the financial crime risks posed by Iran as a 
jurisdiction. The result: Iran became a financial pariah.
  ``No one has claimed that Iran has ceased to engage in much of the 
same conduct for which it was sanctioned, including actively supporting 
terrorism and building and testing ballistic missiles; but now 
Washington is pushing non-U.S. banks to do what is still illegal for 
American banks to do.
  ``This is a very odd position for the U.S. Government to be taking.''
  It is shocking that this administration continues to be complicit 
with the largest supporter of terrorism in the world.
  How many lives will be lost because of this complicity?
  There was a time when America would not tolerate the kind of 
treatment of Americans that occurred to our seamen when they were taken 
captive. Not only did we not come to their defense, we praised Iran and 
thanked them for being so gracious for the manner in which they abused 
our sailors.
  This article goes on. It reads:
  ``On the one hand, Washington is continuing to prohibit American 
banks and companies from doing Iran-related business. In February, the 
FATF''--that is the Financial Action Task Force--``reaffirmed its prior 
concerns about the `serious threat' Iran poses to the international 
financial system, urging countries to apply effective countermeasures. 
The U.S. Treasury Department's designation of Iran, including its 
central bank and financial institutions, as a primary money laundering 
concern also still stands. As part of that designation, Treasury 
determined that `the international financial system is increasingly 
vulnerable to the risk that otherwise responsible financial 
institutions will, unwittingly, participate in Iran's illicit 
activities.'
  ``On the other hand, Mr. Kerry wants non-U.S. banks to do business 
with Iran without a U.S. repudiation of its prior statements about the 
associated financial crime risks. There are no assurances as to how 
such activity would subsequently be viewed by U.S. regulatory and law 
enforcement authorities, which might seek to take enforcement action 
against banks that enter the Iranian market and run afoul of 
complicated U.S. restrictions. The State Department neither controls 
nor plays any meaningful role in the enforcement decisions of these 
authorities.
  ``Washington has warned repeatedly that the Islamic Revolutionary 
Guard Corps controls broad swaths of the Iranian economy. The IRGC 
remains sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union 
because of the central role it plays in Iran's illicit conduct. When 
the U.S., EU, and U.N. removed sanctions from several hundred Iranian 
banks and companies, there were no assurances that the conduct of those 
banks and companies had changed.
  ``This will present a challenge for European banks. HSBC is 
endeavoring to

[[Page 6781]]

implement consistent and high standards across its global operations, 
designed to combat financial crime and prevent abuse by illicit actors. 
We have more work to do, but achieving that objective is one of our 
highest priorities. This approach is rightly expected by our 
regulators, including in the U.K. and the U.S.
  ``Our decisions will be driven by the financial crime risks and the 
underlying conduct. For these reasons, HSBC has no intention of doing 
any new business involving Iran. Governments can lift sanctions, but 
the private sector is still responsible for managing its own risk and, 
no doubt, will be held accountable if it falls short.''
  That was from May 12, and it appears to be somebody who certainly 
knows the banking business.
  I would like to comment a bit about, again, our illegal immigration 
problems and our porous borders because the administration continues to 
act as if all is well--all is well--when it is not well.
  An article from May 19: ``Previously Deported Illegal Alien Allegedly 
Killed Prom Teen.''
  ``The man that Houston police say was driving drunk and evading 
arrest when he crashed into a car, killing a young woman on her way 
home from the prom, is listed by Federal officials as a previously 
deported illegal alien.''
  ``Edin Palacios-Rodas, a 27-year-old previously deported illegal 
alien from Guatemala, has now had an immigration detainer placed on him 
after being processed into the Harris County Jail on one count of 
felony murder and one count of felony evading resulting in death and 
serious bodily injury.''
  It is still going on. With that going on, this administration 
continues to push for and has allies in Congress pushing for what they 
are calling sentencing reform when, actually, it won't be reform as 
much as it will be rather devastating. The pendulum on criminal justice 
swings back and forth. Most history shows that it has always been and 
probably will always be, whether a totalitarian government or a 
democratic republic such as ours.
  My friend in the Senate, Senator Jeff Sessions, has an article, 
again, from May 19 that reads:
  ``Senator Jeff Sessions warns that Congress must be careful to ensure 
the sentencing reductions bills pending before Congress did not boost 
already rising crime rates and `sign death warrants' for innocent 
victims.''
  ``The Sentencing Reform and Correction Act, which the Alabama 
Republican opposes, hews to Obama's anti-law enforcement agenda and 
could cost an enormous human toll, Senator Sessions said. `Frankly, 
this is Obama's policy and the Attorney General who he's appointed, 
Loretta Lynch's policy, and Eric Holder's before her, to basically cut 
people's sentences that have been lawfully imposed throughout this 
country, and it's impacting public safety and will continue to do so in 
the future.'
  ``The Senator also highlighted many high-profile cop killings as the 
Obama administration makes police work more difficult.
  ``He said, `In the last year, we've lost 123 police officers, 35 in 
the first 4 months of 2016. Violent crimes and murders have increased 
across the country at alarming rates. Let me just share with my 
colleagues some of the things we're seeing in violent crime. Recently, 
the Major Cities Chiefs of Police Association, a long-established 
group, called an emergency meeting to deal with the numbers I'm going 
to share with you today.'
  ``The numbers I will quote represent the percentage increase in total 
murders in the first quarter of this year, 2016, over the first quarter 
. . . of 2015. Las Vegas: 82 percent increase.''
  This is the murder increase.
  ``Dallas, Texas: 73 percent increase. Chicago: 70 percent. 
Jacksonville, Florida: 67 percent. Newark, New Jersey: 60 percent 
increase. Miami-Dade: 38 percent. Los Angeles: 33 percent.''
  And on and on.
  ``These are substantial increases in crime. According to FBI 
statistics released just this year, the number of violent crimes 
committed across the country was up in the first half of 2015 compared 
with the same period of 2014.''
  So, actually, we are going up and up, and the percentage increase in 
these cities of 82 percent, 73 percent, and a 70 percent increase is 
even more dramatic than that when you go back 2 years.
  Sessions also quoted FBI Director James Comey's concerns about the 
rising tide of crime.
  ```I was very worried about it last fall, and I am, in many ways, 
more worried because the numbers are not only going up, they're 
continuing to go up in most of those cities faster than they were going 
up last year. Something is happening. I don't know what the answer is, 
but, holy cow, do we have a problem.'''
  Yes, we do have a problem. One of the answers is mentioned in this 
article, again, from May 19, entitled: ``Obama doesn't think rapists, 
armed robbers, drug dealers are criminals.'' I think I found the 
euphemism of the year.
  ``According to Team Obama, criminals should now be declared `justice-
involved individuals.'
  ``The neo-Orwellianism comes to us from the bizarre flurry of last-
minute dictates, regulations, and bone-chilling threats, collectively 
known to fanboys as Obama's Gorgeous Good-bye.
  ``In another of those smiley faced but deeply sinister `dear 
colleague' letters sent to universities and colleges this week, Obama's 
Education Secretary, John King, discouraged colleges from asking 
applicants whether they were convicted criminals.''

                              {time}  1315

  It used to be a matter of common sense. Most Americans wanted to 
know.
  Especially in dormitories that have now become co-ed, where you have 
men and women living in and with and around each other, it was 
considered valuable information to know if your daughter was going to 
be living in, around, or with a convicted rapist. That was thought to 
be good information, but apparently that is no longer considered by 
this administration as good information.
  People all across America have shown an interest in knowing whether 
there are child molesters in their neighborhood where their children 
are growing up and children are playing around the area. They want to 
know if their child is at risk because they know there is a significant 
recidivism rate, particularly among child molesters.
  Yet, this administration says it is time to stop calling criminals 
criminals. Again, that is in keeping with the unwillingness to call 
radical Islamist, as the Muslim leader of Egypt, our friend, President 
el-Sisi, calls it--I mean, it is radical Islamists. He has had the 
courage to tell imams themselves that we have to get control again of 
Islam and wrestle it back away from the radical Islamists.
  As my friend, Carolyn Glick, pointed out in The Jerusalem Post, by 
this administration's refusal to call radical Islam radical Islam, it 
betrays our allies who are Muslim--like President el-Sisi in Egypt--who 
are wanting Muslims to stand up and say that these Islamists should not 
be allowed to represent our religion because they know that they do.
  When you have a man with multiple degrees in Islamic studies saying 
that, yes, radical Islam is the ultimate Islam and, on the other hand, 
you have a President who did go to school in Indonesia in Muslim 
schools and elementary school but does not have any degrees in Islamic 
studies, like the world expert in Islamic studies, al-Qaradawi, well, 
one is President of the United States with no degrees in Islamic 
studies, and he says it is not Islam. But a man who has studied Islam 
his whole life and has multiple degrees, including a Ph.D., says not 
only is it Islam, as the head of ISIS as he is, this is Islam the way 
it should be.
  We should be giving assistance to our allies, giving them cover by 
not going on with this facade where this administration refuses to call 
radical Islam radical Islam. They call radical Islamic terrorism 
exactly what it is. They are not helping our friends around the world 
that are trying to stand up and do the right thing.

[[Page 6782]]

  You could go back to Libya, the attack of Benghazi. We now know from 
what has been gathered from emails and information that Secretary 
Clinton basically told the President of Libya: We know that this 
Benghazi attack was not on a video, in essence, and that it was a 
planned attack. She told her daughter.
  Yet, she went out, as did Susan Rice, representing this 
administration and told us all, oh, it was all about the video; telling 
victims families that we are going to get the guy who did the video. 
Victims families from Benghazi have told me personally, when Secretary 
Clinton said we are going to get the guys that did the videos, which 
she now says she didn't say--how tragic is that?
  So basically calling these victims' families liars. But the families 
say, when she said we will get the guy that did the video, they were 
infuriated. They said: We didn't care about the guy that did some 
video. We wanted our government to get the guys that killed our loved 
one, and that was not the message.
  You have to understand that there were a lot of things to do, there 
were promises to keep, and miles to go before they slept. But we don't 
know if they just went to bed and slept.
  When they found out the personal ambassador of the Secretary of State 
was missing, Clinton and President Obama, did they just go to bed?
  They won't tell us.
  We know President Obama had a very important engagement the next day. 
He had to fly out early to Las Vegas for a big campaign speech. We 
know. We understand. Hey, that was more pressing. We got that. We 
understand. To him, that was more pressing.
  What do you do? Do you go to sleep when you get word that your 
personal ambassador is missing?
  For the first time since 1979, an ambassador ends up being killed. He 
wasn't given adequate protection.
  Now, we are hearing more and more reports from people that the assets 
were there to go help. They could have saved at least two, maybe more 
of the four, but they were not allowed go and save the American heroes.
  Well, there is an article from Conservative Review entitled ``Busted: 
The 10 Most Dangerous Myths About Criminal Justice Reform'' that is 
being pushed especially by this administration. And we do have some 
colleagues here in the House and Senate that are as well.
  ``Myth number one: The prison population keeps growing, even though 
crime is declining.''
  ``Fact: The D.C. intelligentsia argues our criminal justice system is 
in dire need of reform. But ask anyone outside the beltway, and they'll 
give you a different definition of `broken.' Many Americans would agree 
that current laws are too lenient on criminals and disregard the victim 
all too often. It was the tough reforms put into place during the 
Reagan years and in the '90s that produced the sharpest decline in 
violent crime on record. Those reforms, coupled with more aggressive 
policing, led to the only positive social trend in public policy in 
recent memory. That trend is now being reversed precisely as 
incarceration rates decline and Obama and his allies ratchet up the war 
against law enforcement. While correlation doesn't necessarily prove 
causation, the correlation is indeed striking and in conjunction with 
the defanging of local police departments, the release of tens of 
thousands of Federal prisoners can only result in exacerbating this 
negative trajectory.''
  From the information that the FBI provided to Senator Sessions, we 
know about maybe less than 1 percent of Federal inmates in Federal 
prison are there for possession of a controlled substance; that most 
are there for more. Ninety-nine percent or so are there for more than 
that.
  But those that have been involved in the criminal justice system, 
both in the State side, as I was, and on the Federal side--I mean, we 
work with each other. And we know the Federal Government never had 
interest, that I ever saw, in simple possession cases.
  Where the Federal Government had interest is if a real bad guy--maybe 
he had been involved in a shooting, a killing, a robbing, a 
possession--but they wanted him to turn on his boss so they could get 
the bigger fish. They had to offer something to get him to turn, and 
they would offer--I have seen it many times--okay, we can't have a plea 
agreement where we set a certain sentence, as they do in State court, 
but what we can do is agree to drop all the charges, except this one 
possession.
  So the sentence is not that great. Whatever the judge does won't be 
that great. It won't have the weapons charge in there, even though he 
used a weapon and engaged in violent activity, if he will help us get 
Mr. Big. That happens. I have seen it happened.
  Back in the early '80s, when I was court appointed in Federal court, 
I had approaches like that with regard to my clients: What can you help 
us with, and here are the charges we are willing to drop, even though 
we know we can prove them.
  Yet, this administration acts like that never happens and that, 
obviously, all these people in prison because of drug charges are 
really nonviolent. That is garbage. That is why the crime rate keeps 
going up as this administration forces the release of more and more 
people.
  This article points out another myth:
  ``There are millions of people incarcerated in American prisons for 
no good reason.''
  ``Fact: While there are approximately 1.5 million people incarcerated 
in American jails, prisons, and other institutions, only 195,900 are 
Federal inmates (a 10-year low). And only 159,000 in the Federal system 
are housed in actual prisons. The rest are in privately managed 
facilities, home confinement, short-term detention, long-term boarders, 
residential reentry centers, pretrial/presentence holding, et cetera. 
At least 25 percent of the Federal prison population is comprised of 
illegal aliens and possibly more who are noncitizens. We should save 
money by releasing those criminals and deporting them.''
  What good does it do to deport somebody now when the border is so 
wide open?
  ``Myth number 3: Incarceration costs so much money and criminal 
justice reform will save billions.''
  Well, without reading through the whole article, I can tell you that 
is garbage as well.
  Myth number 4: ``This bill will only release low level, nonviolent 
drug offenders.''
  As I pointed out, that is simply not the case. It is a good article.
  Myth number 5: ``We have a big government culture of 
overcriminalization that threatens liberty.''
  Well, the biggest problem of overcriminalization is when Congress has 
passed a law that says you can go to prison for violating any of the 
regulations regarding this subject, and then bureaucrats in some 
cubicle somewhere put some regulations in place under this 
administration--sometimes 80,000 pages of new regulations a year--and 
people, as the Heritage Foundation has said before in one of their 
books, are probably all violating three or four Federal laws a day.
  One other thing I wanted to touch on because it has been debated and 
a lot of allegations made, people are trying to assert that Republicans 
somehow are supportive of the old ways of slavery.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to read from the Democratic Party Platform 
of 1856. This is a part of the platform. This is the belief of the 
Democratic Party, the national party:
  ``That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere 
with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and 
that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything 
appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; 
that all efforts of the abolitionists''--that is those who wanted to 
end slavery--``or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with 
questions of slavery . . . are calculated to lead to the most alarming 
and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts''--talking about 
the end of slavery--``have an inevitable tendency to diminish the 
happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of 
the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our 
political institutions.''

[[Page 6783]]

  The Democratic Party Platform of 1856 also declares that ``new 
States'' to the Union should be admitted ``with or without domestic 
slavery, as the State may elect.''
  The Platform that year also says that ``we recognize the right of the 
people of all the Territories . . . to form a Constitution, with or 
without domestic slavery.''

                              {time}  1330

  The platform of 1860 of the national Democratic Party, in seeking to 
uphold the Fugitive Slave Act, states: ``The enactments of the State 
legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Act 
are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and 
revolutionary in their effect.''
  The 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to freed slaves, passed 
in 1868 with 94 percent Republican support and zero percent Democratic 
support in Congress. The 15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right 
to vote, passed in 1870 with 100 percent Republican support and zero 
percent Democratic support in Congress.
  The Constitution of 1902 in the State of Virginia disenfranchised 
about 90 percent of the Black men who still voted at the beginning of 
the 20th century and nearly half of the White men. The number of 
eligible African American voters fell from about 147,000 in 1901 to 
about 10,000 by 1905. The measure was supported almost entirely by 
Virginia State Democrats.
  In 1924, the Democratic National Convention convened in New York at 
Madison Square Garden. The convention is commonly known as the Klanbake 
due to the overwhelming influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the party.
  In 1964, the Democratic Party led a 75-day filibuster against the 
1964 Civil Rights Act. Leading the Democrats in their opposition to 
civil rights for African Americans was a member of the Democratic 
Party, Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia, who was known to be a 
recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. Senator Byrd spoke directly about the 
Civil Rights Act in a 14-hour filibuster, proclaiming: ``Men are not 
equal today, and they were not created equal in 1776, when the 
Declaration of Independence was written. Men and races of men differ in 
appearance, ways, physical power, mental capacity, creativity, and 
vision.''
  The Democratic Party identified itself as the ``White man's party'' 
and demonized the Republican Party as being dominated by African 
Americans.
  So it is interesting to hear these rewritten parts of our history. 
When you know the hearts and minds of the people on the Republican side 
of the aisle, you find out there is nobody who wants slavery. We wish 
that slavery that held this Nation back--because as Daniel Webster used 
to preach and John Quincy Adams used to preach, how was a good God 
going to keep blessing America when we were treating brothers and 
sisters in Christ this way, putting them in chains and bondage? America 
was harmed. It was devastating to African American lives to be placed 
in slavery--the degradation, the humiliation. I am grateful to be part 
of the party that stood up and made the change.
  But more than the Republican Party, the Judeo-Christian beliefs, 
especially in the 1700s after the Great Awakening, the First Great 
Awakening in America, revival in America where people turned to God, 
became Christians, they understood travesties better by understanding 
the Bible. They stood up, and they demanded equal rights for people, 
and it led to a revolution.
  In the 1800s, there was a lot of debauchery, but during the Second 
Great Awakening, churches were really the core behind the abolitionist 
movement. We should never be putting brothers and sisters in chains. 
That is an abomination. It held America back. It helped greatly prevent 
America from reaching the heights that it would once slavery was gone.
  But then even after slavery was gone, as a result of the great 
Republican father of our party, Abraham Lincoln, as he is sometimes 
referred to, people were not treated equally. As I just read, even in 
Virginia, this great State of Virginia, Democrats were determined to 
prevent African Americans from voting, and they were successful in 
large degree.
  Mr. Speaker, I think a good way to finish today is to go back to the 
final argument. We have the entire final argument from John Quincy 
Adams. He was elected President in 1824. He was defeated by Andrew 
Jackson in 1828. But in 1830 he did an incredible thing that no one has 
ever done since. After being President, he ran for Congress, for the 
House of Representatives. He didn't even run for Senate. He ran for the 
House of Representatives. He believed God was calling him. As William 
Wilberforce believed God had called him to bring an end to slavery in 
Great Britain, Adams believed God was calling him back into government 
after being defeated as President, that he would lower himself to run 
for the House of Representatives. He got elected in 1830.
  Speech after speech was against slavery. How can we expect God to 
bless America when we are treating brothers and sisters with chains and 
bondage? Sermons were so powerful that those sermons given against 
slavery, as he filed bills to end slavery, to free specific slaves over 
and over, those sermons he preached on the floor of the House right 
down the hall had a powerful impact on a homely-looking guy with an 
unpleasant sounding voice named Abraham Lincoln. He overlapped briefly 
before the massive stroke that took John Quincy Adams out.
  Adams knew when he died back in the Speaker's suite that he had not 
done what he thought God had called him to do--end slavery. It was 
1848. But we now know, and Lincoln knew and said as much, as Steve 
Mansfield was telling me. He wrote a great book on Lincoln's struggle 
with God. He knew that those speeches on the House floor down the hall, 
they didn't end slavery, but they materially changed the attitude and 
affected that man named Abraham Lincoln that, 13 years after Adams 
would die, he would see to slavery's end.
  At the end of his argument, he was afraid he had not prevailed on 
behalf of Africans who were taken as captives by another African tribe, 
sold into slavery, and taken to the African coast. They were put on a 
ship and taken to the Caribbean, where they were put on a smaller ship 
called the Amistad.
  ``Amistad'' is a great movie. Longview, Texas, native Matthew 
McConaughey plays the trial lawyer representing the Africans. Their 
position was: We are not anybody's property. When the Africans took 
over the ship, landed accidentally in America, the Spanish said: These 
people are our property, and this ship is ours. Let us go. The 
Africans' version: Hey, we are not anybody's property. We want to go 
home.

  That case was argued downstairs in the old Supreme Court Chamber. 
Adams knew if he didn't do an adequate job, those Africans would leave 
in chains, their children would wear chains; and he was scared to death 
that he would not have been up to the job, and, as a result, there 
would be more suffering.

  We have his exact argument. He finished like this. This is after he 
had been President.
  He said: ``Little did I imagine that I should ever again be required 
to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this 
Court; yet such has been the dictate of my destiny--and I appear again 
to plead the cause of justice, and now of liberty and life, in behalf 
of many of my fellow men, before that same Court, which in a former age 
I had addressed in support of rights of property I stand again, I trust 
for the last time, before the same Court.''

  He goes on to say: ``I stand before the same Court, but not before 
the same judges--nor aided by the same associates--nor resisted by the 
same opponents. As I cast my eyes--'' he stood looking at the judges--
``along those seats of honor and of public trust, now occupied by you, 
they seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose 
indulgence listened then to my voice. Marshall--Cushing--Chase--
Washington--Johnson--Livingston--Todd--where are they? Where is

[[Page 6784]]

that eloquent statesman and learned lawyer who was my associate counsel 
in the management of that cause, Robert Goodloe Harper? Where is that 
brilliant luminary, so long the pride of Maryland and of the American 
bar, then my opposing counsel, Luther Martin? Where is the excellent 
clerk of that day, whose name has been inscribed on the shores of 
Africa, as a monument of his abhorrence of the African slave-trade, 
Elias B. Caldwell? Where is the marshal--where are the criers of the 
Court? Alas. Where is one of the very judges of the Court, arbiters of 
life and death, before whom I commenced this anxious argument, even now 
prematurely closed? Where are they all? Gone. Gone. All gone--gone from 
the services which, in their day and generation, they faithfully 
rendered to their country. From the excellent characters which they 
sustained in life, so far as I have had the means of knowing, I humbly 
hope, and fondly trust, that they have gone to receive the rewards of 
blessedness on high. In taking, then, my final leave of this Bar, and 
of this honorable Court, I can only . . . ``a fervent petition to 
Heaven, that every member of it may go to his final account with as 
little of earthly frailty to answer for as those illustrious dead, and 
that you may, every one''--talking to the judges--``after the close of 
a long and virtuous career in this world, be received at the portals of 
the next with the approving sentence--`Well done, good and faithful 
servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'''
  We should all hope as such.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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