▶ 0:22:28Committee will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized declare recess at any time pursuant to committee rule two house rule 11 clause 2. The chairman may postpone further the proceeding today on the question of approving any measure matter adopting or an amendment for which a recorded vote is ordered. I now recognize the gentle lady from Florida missed to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.
▶ 0:22:56One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
▶ 0:23:05Pursuant to notice, I call up HR 3100 for purpose of markup and move that the committee reported favorably to the House. The clerk will report the bill.
▶ 0:23:12HR 31. Without
▶ 0:23:13objection, the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognized the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Fry for an opening statement.
▶ 0:23:20Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 0:23:22Opening statement.
▶ 0:23:23Opening statement first, if you could.
▶ 0:23:25Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The National Child Protection Act or NCPA, uh, just for background to kind of set the scene, created a framework for child serving businesses and organizations to obtain fingerprint-based national criminal background checks from the FBI and state criminal history systems on their employees and volunteers. The NCPA was initially limited to businesses that employ individuals who work with children, but was later expanded in 1998 to include businesses that assist the elderly and other vulnerable populations.
▶ 0:23:55These organizations uh include childcare centers, elder care facilities, and transportation services. Uh for example, Hopskip Drive is an organization that provides safe transportation for children uh through highly vetted caregivers. Many children do not have access to traditional school transportation.
▶ 0:24:12Whether that's because they're in foster care, experiencing homelessness themselves, uh have specialized transportation needs, or simply fall outside existing bus routes, companies like Hop, Skip, Drive help ensure those children can still get to school and child care safely. However, under current federal law, uh they can only request background checks for W2 employees and unpaid volunteers and cannot directly request a background check for contractors.
▶ 0:24:39Until 2018, individuals contracted by these organizations were authorized under the NCPA to directly request a national background check be conducted. However, the Child Safety Improvements Act of 2018 inadvertently removed that provision uh that covered contractors when it changed the statutory definition of the word provider and replace it with covered individual. So, under the current federal law, contractors are not covered by the definition of a covered individual.
▶ 0:25:06Thus, companies like Hopk Drive that utilize independent contractors must rely on school district partners to facilitate that fingerprinting process. This bill would correct a critical oversight in the current law, ensuring that all individuals, businesses, and organizations working with these vulnerable populations can request background checks, not only for their employees and volunteers, but also for the contractors and individuals they license or certify to provide unsupervised care for those populations.
▶ 0:25:35For many working families, transportation can be a missing link between available child care and the ability to stay in the workforce. This bill will help working families and connect them with the care that they need. I urge my colleagues to support this very common sense correction in the law. And I yield back.
▶ 0:25:51Gentleman yields back. The chair recognize the ranking member, Mr. Ras from opening state.
▶ 0:25:54Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I uh strongly support this legislation. I want to commend our colleagues uh Mr. Fry, not for his promptness today, but for his hard work on the legislation and uh and Mr. Moscowitz for his uh devotion and leadership on this bill. It's a common sense bipartisan fix to close a gap in federal law that puts vulnerable populations like children at risk.
▶ 0:26:18Right now, under the National Child Protection Act, qualified entities that provide services to children, the elderly, and disabled people can request background checks for their employees and volunteers. But that authority does not extend to contractors or individuals that these organizations license or certify to provide care.
▶ 0:26:36That means schools can request nationwide FBI fingerprint-based background checks on potential teachers, but the same schools may not be able to request those checks for bus drivers who transport the students, tutors who work one-on-one with students after school or nurses and therapists contracted to provide medical or mental health care. And the problem goes beyond school.
▶ 0:26:57This limitation also affects child care centers, youth sport sports leagues, afterchool programs, foster homes, and any business or organization that contracts with someone to care for the most vulnerable people in our communities. The Child Act would close that gap. The bill explicitly includes contractors, volunteers, and individuals licensed or certified by a qualified entity.
▶ 0:27:18It would restore uniform nationwide standards and ensure employers, contractors, and other organizations have the tools they need to hire and work with qualified and thoroughly vetted candidates. We all know too well the crimes that can result when background checks fail. This bipartisan bill is a targeted technical fix that will make people who are placed in the care of others, like children and senior citizens, safer. That's something we should all support. Again, I commend Mr. Mosquitz and Mr. Fry for their work on this bill. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:27:48Gentleman yields back without objection. All of the opening statements will be included in the record. The chair recognizes gentleman from South Carolina [clears throat] to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.
▶ 0:27:56Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 0:27:58Clerk will report the amendment.
▶ 0:27:59Amendment in the nature.
▶ 0:28:00Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered as base text for the purpose of amendment. The chair now recognized gentleman from South Carolina to explain the amendment.
▶ 0:28:09Thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh this amendment simply adds a short title to the bill. It's not intended in any way to alter uh the important purpose of the bill and I urge my colleagues to support it. I yield back.
▶ 0:28:19Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Florida does wish to speak. Does Mr. Musk?
▶ 0:28:26If you want me to.
▶ 0:28:27Well, I I just
▶ 0:28:29It's been a while. It's been a while since we
▶ 0:28:31It's been a while, but the ranking ranking member said such nice things about you on this bill with Mr. Fry. I thought you wanted it. But if you don't
▶ 0:28:36I probably shouldn't say anything else
▶ 0:28:38Okay. Okay. [laughter]
▶ 0:28:41Who seeks recognition? anyone? The gentle lady from Georgia is recognized.
▶ 0:28:46Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, for decades, the National Child Protection Act or the NCPA has provided a framework work for n for nationwide background checks of those who work with vulnerable members of our communities. However, a change to the law in 2018 has created a dangerous loophole.
▶ 0:29:02Although the Child Protection Improvement Act of 2018 was passed with the best intentions, it mistakenly narrowed the definition of whose backgrounds can be checked under the NCPA, excluding independent contractors, including those with unsupervised access to children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Unfortunately, this change has created a confusing and inconsistent PA patchwork system where protections depend upon the state where the contractors work.
▶ 0:29:32Some states have very strong laws while others rely on name-based checks or leave decisions to individual school districts or other agencies. These inconsistencies put vulnerable people at unnecessary risk. Protective or excuse me, proactive screening is our first and best line of defense for vulnerable populations who often cannot advocate for themselves and they deserve consistent protection no matter where they live.
▶ 0:30:02A child in Georgia daycare deserves the same level of safety as an elderly resident in a nursing home in California. Moreover, nationwide checks make certain that a prospective hire's troubling past does not go undiscovered simply because they move to a state with weaker screening requirements.
▶ 0:30:24Every person who works with or has unrestricted access to children, teens, the elderly, or individuals with disabilities should be strongly screened full stop. That includes school bus drivers, afterchool tutors, nurses, transportation providers, physical therapists, and many others because we know that anyone at any point in time can pose a risk. Nationwide background checks are an indispensable screening tool.
▶ 0:30:52They are the gold standard in safety and HR3100, the Child Act, will allow businesses and organizations to once again rely on and request nationwide background checks for all personnel working with vulnerable populations.
▶ 0:31:10This bill will provide consistency, accountability, and a peace of mind to our mothers and our fathers, sons and daughters who must place their loved ones in the care of others every day. This is not a partisan issue. Thank you, Jesus. It's a matter of fundamental safety. The gaps in the current background check system present a risk that we simply cannot afford. Thank you to Mr.
▶ 0:31:38Moscowitz and to Mr. Fry. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan common sense measure that will ensure proper and thorough vetting of every individual entrusted with the care of those who cannot protect themselves. HR 3100 should be brought to the floor without delay and I yield.
▶ 0:32:01Delay yields Question occurs on adoption of the amendment the nature of substitute. This will be followed by immediate by A vote uh on favor reporting the bill. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. Pin the chair. The eyes have it. The amendment nature of substitute adopt the questions on favor reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say I.
▶ 0:32:23Those opposed, no.
▶ 0:32:26Uh the eyes have it and the gentleman uh from uh California has requested a recorded vote. The clerk call the role.
▶ 0:32:32Mr. Jordan,
▶ 0:32:33Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Mr. Mcccleintoch. Mr. Mcccleintoch votes I. Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Tiffany votes I. Mr. Massie, Mr. Roy, Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Fitzgerald votes I. Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Hagaman, Miss
▶ 0:33:01Miss Lee votes I. Mr. Hunt,
▶ 0:33:04Mr. Fry, I
▶ 0:33:06Mr. Fry votes I. Mr. Kylie Mr. Growthman
▶ 0:33:10Mr. Not
▶ 0:33:11I think you can
▶ 0:33:12Mr. Not votes I Mr. Harris Mr. Harris votes I Mr. Ander Mr. Her votes I Mr. Schmidt Mr. Schmidt votes I Mr. Gil Mr. Mr. Rascin Mr. Raskin votes I Mr. Nadler Miss Lofrren Miss Lofrren votes I Mr. Cohen Mr. Johnson Miss Gyipol Mr. Koreah Miss Scandlin Mr.
▶ 0:33:42Negus Miss Mcbath Miss McBth votes I. Miss Ross I
▶ 0:33:47Miss Ross votes I. Miss Balant Miss Balant votes I. Mr. Garcia Miss Camlager Dove. Miss Camlager Dove votes I. Mr. Mosquitz Mr. Mosquitz votes I. Mr. Goldman, Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Mr. Mor Mr. Morv's eye,
▶ 0:34:25Miss Lee, you have not been recorded. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes yes.
▶ 0:34:38Mr. BGS Mr. BS votes yes.
▶ 0:34:44Give me a couple. I should have just did this.
▶ 0:35:15Mr. Klein votes I.
▶ 0:36:43Gentleman from Illinois.
▶ 0:36:46Mr. Garcia votes I.
▶ 0:37:24Yeah, I just
▶ 0:38:20I appreciate it. I think that's
▶ 0:39:53Is that gentleman from California?
▶ 0:39:57Mr. Kylie votes I. Clerk will report.
▶ 0:40:05Mr. Chairman, there are 23 eyes and zero
▶ 0:40:09Without object, uh the eyes have it. The bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the house. Members will have two days submit views without objection. The bill will be reported as a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Present a notice. I call up HR 9191, the National Fossil Act. For purpose of markup, I move that the committee reported favor to the House. The clerk will report the bill
▶ 0:40:31Hr 919.
▶ 0:40:32Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair is now recognized for an opening statement. Uh HR 9191 continues the tradition of Congress designating certain plants and animals with significant connection to the United States as national symbols. 1998, Congress designated the rose as the national floral emblem. In 20 in 2004, Congress designated the oak tree as the national tree of the United States. Most recent congre Congress designated the bald eagle as a national bird.
▶ 0:40:59Figured that would have been done prior to 24, but that was done in 24. National Fossil Act would place the American Macedon and T-Rex on similar footing as the National Mammal Fossil and the National Dinosaur Fossil. These creatures have captured the imaginations of Americans for generations, oftentimes on school trips when students visit the National History Museum just down the street here in our nation's capital. Our nation marks As our nation marks its 250th anniversary, this bill is a fitting way to recognize an important part of our national heritage and encourage future generations to explore all that our country has to offer.
▶ 0:41:28I urge support of this bill and yield back and recognize the ranking member for his statement on T-Rex and the mastadon.
▶ 0:41:36Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I enthusiastically support this legislation. Uh, the National Fossil Act would amend the US code to designate the American mastadon as the national fossil mammal. This is an extinct relative of the modern elephant. Um,
▶ 0:41:54thought you were going to make a joke
▶ 0:41:56Well, I'm about to, Mr. Chairman. I thought it was coming.
▶ 0:41:59Yeah. Uh, it is the extinct relative of the modern elephant, which according to many analysts today faces extinction itself, at least in its political variety. Um, the bill would also designate as our national fossil dinosaur the Tyrannosaurus Rex, a creature that needs no introduction if you've got kids or you remember childhood yourself. And as I learned during preparing for this markup, both the mastadon and the T-Rex fossils have only been found in North America.
▶ 0:42:27Um, I love the T-Rex, but I confess that I'm also partial to Maryland State Dinosaur, the Astron John Stony, which is a long necked brachiosaurid that probably spent its days munching on plants and whose fossils were found in the suburbs of DC, likely in my district. Recent research suggested the T-Rex descended from dinosaurs that crossed the landbridge from Asia.
▶ 0:42:53Um establishing that immigrants were making America great even before humans walked the earth. Uh so um as for the choice of the elephant ancestor uh mastadon as our national fossil, please accept our enthusiastic endorsement of this nomination as a gesture of bipartisanship and not a prediction that the GOP is necessarily going the way of the mastadon.
▶ 0:43:17Um, it's my hope that by designating the fossils of these extinct creatures as national symbols, it will inspire our fellow Americans to continue to investigate the natural world and natural history and to appreciate that through the application of the miracles of modern science. We have discovered that the earth is indeed more than 4 billion years old. So old that has been inhabited by organisms which in the case of dinosaurs evolved and died off millions of years before humanity even existed. Um, for these reasons, uh, Mr.
▶ 0:43:46Chairman, um, I want to express strong support for this legislation which will be enthusiastically greeted by millions of children across America, especially my T-Rex loving nephew, Maddox. I yield
▶ 0:44:00Gentleman yields back. Um, chair, I'll as read and shall be considered base text for the purpose of the amendment. This amendment updates the short title of the bill, makes no changes substance to the legislation. Anyone else want to talk about T-Rex? M
▶ 0:44:17Mr. Chairman, if I might.
▶ 0:44:19Who is the the gentleman from Arizona is
▶ 0:44:23Thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As someone who probably is the national fossil myself, I I I hate to be the damper on this. Um,
▶ 0:44:36you're against T-Rex?
▶ 0:44:38I would not to want to face a T-Rex. No, but um
▶ 0:44:42short arms.
▶ 0:44:43I I I just can't help but think of of the myriad bills that we need to we need to go forward with. I get that. I get it. And it's all maybe done in good fun and good spirit, but as a crusty fossil, I can't I can't support this. And I'll be voting no. Yield.
▶ 0:45:04Gentleman yields back. Anyone else in the crusty fossils mood? Or the gentle lady from Vermont. Thank you so much. I am I am neither [clears throat] crusty or a fossil. Uh I just want to say as a former
▶ 0:45:17I said mood. I just just to be clear I would not I would not in any way disparage a gentleman.
▶ 0:45:21I was not meaning to disparage either.
▶ 0:45:25I think we are in a moment right now when people and and specifically children and students across this country need to find some avenue into engaging with government. This is another way to do that. And I just want to say Vermont has two official state fossils. One, a terrestrial fossil, which is the Mount Holly woolly mammoth.
▶ 0:45:51The other is our marine fossil, the Charlotte whale, which was uncovered in 1849 when they were building a railroad in Charlotte, Vermont, and they were in a farmer's field and is a reminder of how Vermont was once underneath the inland sea. I yield back.
▶ 0:46:09Gentle lady yields back. The gentleman from North Carolina.
▶ 0:46:13Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to recognize uh the efforts of Representative Houchin and Representative Dingle for this important effort, their leadership and taking the bull by the horns here.
▶ 0:46:24Maybe the lizard by the tail would be a better metaphor
▶ 0:46:27and getting this bill here. But the legislation designates the American mastadon as our national fossil mammal and the Tyrannosaurus Rex as our national fossil dinosaur, adding them to the likes of the bald eagle, the bison, the rose, and the oak tree as official symbols of the United States.
▶ 0:46:43And I echo the sentiment uh just articulated that as we approach the 250th anniversary, recognizing these two great symbols is a fitting way to celebrate America's natural heritage and to spark the curiosity about science, ge geology, and paleontology. Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 0:47:02Gentleman yields back. Gentle from California. [clears throat]
▶ 0:47:06Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, while I also agree that there are a myriad of other issues we should be debating and trust me we will get to those later on today. I also want to say that I too will be supporting this. You know Los Angeles just north of my district is home to the tar pits and it is the only active urban ice age excavation site in the world. Didn't know that.
▶ 0:47:33And thousands of go to the tarpits every single day excited about science. And millions of international visitors come every single year to marvel at the science. And why not why not recognize just a small sliver of bipartisanship with this bill?
▶ 0:48:03The irony is it is about honoring science and data. I mean, that's how you learn about mammoths and find out that they were here and celebrate the T-Rex and all of those good things. So I also enthusiastically support this bill uh and will be an I
▶ 0:48:26appreciate gentle lady yields back any anyone else seek recognition. Question is on the adoption of the amendment nature of substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on reporting the bill. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed no. Opinion of the chair the eyes have it and the amendment is in the in the nature of a substitute adopted. The question in favor of reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no.
▶ 0:48:49The eyes have it and the bill is ordered to be
▶ 0:48:51record a vote being requested. The uh clerk will call the role.
▶ 0:48:54Mr. Jordan,
▶ 0:48:56Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa,
▶ 0:48:58Mr. Biggs.
▶ 0:49:00Mr. Biggs votes no. Mr. McClentok.
▶ 0:49:02Mr. McCcleto votes I. Mr. Tiffany.
▶ 0:49:05Mr. Tiffany votes I. Mr. Massie.
▶ 0:49:08Mr. Massie votes I. Mr. Roy. Mr.
▶ 0:49:13Mr. Fitzgerald votes I. Mr. Klein, Mr. Mr. Van Drew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Hagaman, Miss Hagamman, votes I. Miss Lee of Florida, Miss Leah, Florida votes I. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Kylie votes I. Mr. Growthman, Mr. Knot, Mr. Harris, Mr.
▶ 0:49:43Harris votes I. Mr.
▶ 0:49:45Mr. Herder votes I. Mr. Schmidt,
▶ 0:49:48Mr. Schmidt votes I. Mr. Gil, Mr. Mr. Raskin,
▶ 0:49:55Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nadler, Miss Lafrren, Miss Lafrren votes I. Mr. Cohen, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Lou, Miss Jipal, Mr. Korea, Miss Scandlin, Mr. A goose.
▶ 0:50:13Miss McBath. Miss Ross.
▶ 0:50:17Miss Ross votes I. Miss Balot. Miss Balot votes I. Mr. Garcia.
▶ 0:50:22Mr. Garcia.
▶ 0:50:24Mr. Garcia votes yes. Miss Kamagerdove. Miss Kamlagerdub votes I. Mr. Mosquitz. Mr. Goldman. Miss Crockett. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I.
▶ 0:51:09Mr. Kleen, Mr. Klein votes by
▶ 0:51:27Mr. Isa, you're not recorded. Mr. Isa votes yes.
▶ 0:52:12Mr. Cohen, you're not recorded.
▶ 0:52:25Mr. Cohen votes I.
▶ 0:54:13Mr. Gil,
▶ 0:54:14Mr. Gail votes yes.
▶ 0:54:21Mr. Chairman, there are 22 eyes and one
▶ 0:54:24The eyes have it. The bill is ordered to be reported favor to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments [clears throat] and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Pursuant to notice, I call up HR7834, the Safe Cloud Storage Act for purpose of markup and move the committee report it favorably to the House. The clerk will report the bill.
▶ 0:54:44Hr 78.
▶ 0:54:45Without objection, the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Florida, Miss Lee, for an opening statement.
▶ 0:54:54Thank you, Mr. chairman and thank you for prioritizing this important piece of legislation. I also want to thank my bipartisan co-leads on this bill, Representatives not Cohen and Dean for their partnership. We are here to address a serious challenge facing law enforcement in the fight against online exploitation of children. In 2024 alone, Internet Crimes Against Children task forces conducted more than 200,000 investigations into child sexual exploitation.
▶ 0:55:25The volume of child sex or exploitation material continues to grow at an alarming rate, overwhelming investigators who are working tirelessly to identify victims and bring offenders to justice. Predators in the United States remain both a major consumer and host of liveream child sex abuse material.
▶ 0:55:48That is a horrific reality and Congress has a duty to ensure that law enforcement has the necessary tools to identify and rescue victims, hold perpetrators accountable, and combat this evil.
▶ 0:56:02Many investigators are still forced to rely on outdated methods to store and preserve digital evidence, thumb drives, external hard drives, and local servers that are costly, limited in capacity, and slow investigations where we cannot afford to have delays. The problem is not a lack of secure cloud technology.
▶ 0:56:23It's that current law exposes third-party vendors to potential liability for helping law enforcement securely store this highly sensitive evidence, making it harder for agencies to find trusted partners. The Safe Cloud Storage Act provides a targeted and safe solution. This legislation builds on the bipartisan report Act, legislation introduced in the 118th Congress. This committee advanced that bill and it was signed into law in 2024.
▶ 0:56:53The report act extended limited liability protection to vendors supporting the national center for missing and exploited children. The safe cloud storage act extends those same protections to vetted law enforcement approved vendors that assist investigators in securely storing digital evidence. Just as importantly, this legislation includes strong limits.
▶ 0:57:16Liability protections do not apply in cases of intentional misconduct, negligence, or malicious acts, and vendors must comply with rigorous cyber security standards consistent with the National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines to ensure this evidence remains protected and secure. This is a narrow, practical, bipartisan solution that gives law enforcement access to secure, modern technology while maintaining strong accountability and oversight.
▶ 0:57:47Ultimately, this bill is about helping investigators move cases faster, identify victims sooner, and bring predators to justice. Every day that we can save in an investigation is an opportunity to rescue a child from ongoing abuse. I urge my colleagues to support the safe cloud storage act and I yield back.
▶ 0:58:08Gentle lady yields back. Uh chair is recognized uh recognize ranking member for an opening statement.
▶ 0:58:14Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um very happy to support the bipartisan safe cloud storage act. Uh I want to thank Miss Lee for her hard work on it. For more than a decade, we've seen an exponential growth in the volume of child sexual abuse images and videos or CISAM and child obscenity material that offenders distribute and share online. Our law enforcement agencies have struggled to keep up.
▶ 0:58:37This legislation will allow cloud service providers to work with law enforcement to maintain and store relevant evidence in a safe and secure way. When CESAM or child obscenity is found online, reports are made to the cyber tip line, a hotline operated by NickMick, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which then roots the reports to the law enforcement agencies, which may be federal, state, local, or tribal.
▶ 0:59:02As the volume of this evidence of criminal conduct continues to grow, law enforcement has faced challenges in storing, transferring, and analyzing this very sensitive evidence. Outdated policies around cloud storage only compound the challenge, slowing crucial work and creating barriers for solving crimes and bringing perpetrators to justice. While Nickmick and the digital storage companies it contracts with are generally uh generally immune from liability for possession and transmission of these materials that would otherwise be criminal.
▶ 0:59:32That liability shield does not currently extend to companies contracting with law enforcement. Instead, many investigators are forced to rely on outdated physical storage tools like thumb drives, external hard drives, and on premise servers. These tools, never designed to handle the scale of digital evidence that law enforcement is now forced to process, are costly, limited in capacity, and significantly hamper investigations.
▶ 0:59:58These inefficiencies delay victim identification, and allow offenders to remain at large longer and continue to victimize children. Cloud-based tools would give investigators, forensic examiners, and prosecutors the ability to effectively identify, categorize, and tag large volumes of files in minutes compared to human review, which can take hours or even days.
▶ 1:00:19By modernizing legal protections for secure cloud-based storage and processing of evidence related to child sex abuse and exploitation, the Safe Cloud Storage Act would allow law enforcement, investigators, and prosecutors access to better tools that are needed to pursue predators and protect our kids.
▶ 1:00:37Specifically, this legislation would allow approved thirdparty vendors to work with law enforcement to provide secure cloud-based storage of CCM and child obscenity material to police without the threat of incurring civil or criminal liability, giving law enforcement the flexibility they need to manage, preserve, analyze, and share this critical evidence. These liability protections would of course not extend to vendor misconduct, whether intentional, malicious, or negligent.
▶ 1:01:04This legislation requires vendors that provide these services to law enforcement to notify DOJ within 30 days when they enter into contracts with law enforcement. It also requires them to adhere to stringent cyber security and storage requirements. I want to thank our judiciary colleagues, Congressman Cohen, Congresswoman Lee, and Congressman not for their work on this bipartisan bill.
▶ 1:01:25I understand it's the result of extensive engagement with law enforcement with Nickmick and other stakeholders to prevent child abuse and exploitation while bringing all of our resources up to date. I urge my colleagues to support the Safe Cloud Storage Act. Yield back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:01:40Gentleman yields back without objection. All of the opening statements will be included in the record. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Florida offer an amendment in the nature of a
▶ 1:01:47Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the
▶ 1:01:49Clerk report.
▶ 1:01:50Amendment in the nature of a substitute. Without objection, the amendment in the nature of substitute would be considered as read and shall be considered base text for the purpose of amendment. The gentle lady from Florida is recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 1:01:59Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This amendment provides a rule of construction to clarify that the audit framework provided in the bill is directed at the third party vendors contracted by law enforcement to store and handle CCAM. This change does nothing to alter the substance of the legislation. I yield
▶ 1:02:16Gentle lady yields back. Um, gentleman from Tennessee.
▶ 1:02:19Gentleman from Tennessee and then we'll go to uh Georgia and Vermont. Gentleman from Tennessee is recognized.
▶ 1:02:26Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move strike the last word.
▶ 1:02:28Gentlemen's recognized.
▶ 1:02:29Thank you. Um, appreciate your scheduling this bill for markup and it's a bill that I'm pleased because I've worked to combat child abuse and sexual exploitation throughout my career back to the legis state senate days in Tennessee, including providing resources for the victims and justices uh justice for the survivors. Over the years, tackling these crimes has only gotten harder. New technologies allow perpetrators to make and disseminate child sexual abuse material aka cease SAM almost instantaneously.
▶ 1:02:58Our law enforcement response has perennially underfunded and the global nature of these crimes makes enforcement difficult. Not just in this spheres, we see this in other places too. The perpetrators have been quicker to adopt and use new technologies for their crimes uh quicker than law enforcement has been able to stop them. Um the safe cloud storage act is a bill that I proudly co-lead with representative Lee Dean and not this bill provides specific and narrow safe harbor for child for cloud providers to hold seam when contracted with law enforcement.
▶ 1:03:28Uh possession of these images is illegal. So this simple bill by allowing law enforcement cloud providers to hold this content and it will enable storage and sharing of this evidence. Just as importantly, it may open up new cloud-based forensic tools to identify victims and seek justice from perpetrators. And I would like to mention for those in the room and for those watching on C-SPAN, uh the the song I sang was because it was a recording and a recording is his song. But is also a liberty that people who are lame ducks have. [laughter]
▶ 1:03:57I yield back the balance of my time.
▶ 1:03:59Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from California is recognized.
▶ 1:04:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to lend my support to this important legislation. It is certainly obvious many of the places in which the maintaining of these uh this information is going to be added to by uh Congresswoman Lee's uh legislation. There are many areas left to do and this will be the first step toward it.
▶ 1:04:25Every day there are podcast and other communications done on the internet where predators brag about their criminal violations. Uh I'm well aware of one coming out of Thailand on a daily basis that even though there is technically a law to apprehend the [clears throat] uh the storage and maintenance of that of that information is currently not automated or in any way made to where the evidence is preserved.
▶ 1:04:54As such some of the information will be lost and later prosecution may be uh difficult or impossible. So, as we begin doing this, I want to applaud the legislation because it is a down payment on the ability to track and retain global violators so that if they're Americans and they return to our soil, they can be held accountable for their sex trafficking and sex vacations. Uh, both of which are prohibited under US law.
▶ 1:05:25And so, I want to thank all of the sponsors and yield back.
▶ 1:05:28Gentleman yields back. The gentle lady from Vermont is
▶ 1:05:33Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to strike the last word.
▶ 1:05:35Gentle is recognized. I just want to highlight something that um the ranking member alluded to in his opening statement that between 2013 in 2021, the number of cyber tipline reports of suspected child sexual exploitation received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Nick, as we're all talking about here, grew from approximately half a million
▶ 1:06:06to almost 30 million. And that is absolutely devastating. And I want to thank Miss Lee and Mr. Not and also the Democrats, uh, Representative Cohen and Maline Dean. I know that when you are a parent, as I am, this is your worst possible nightmare.
▶ 1:06:30And I'm glad that we are able to come together in a bipartisan manner and just say this this cannot continue. We have to use all the tools that we can. So I yield back.
▶ 1:06:39Gentle lady yields back. The gentle lady from Wyoming.
▶ 1:06:46Yes. Thank you. I also support this bill. ISIS Homeland Security Investigations Unit initiated 6,929 child exploitation investigations, made child exploitation related arrests, and identified and assisted over 1,700 victims of child exploitation. As the volume of this evidence containing SESAM continues to grow, we face a very difficult challenge in where to store it, transfer it, etc.
▶ 1:07:17Many investigators still rely on outd on and outdated physical storage tools such as thumb drives which are both costly and significantly slow down the investigations. Due to these challenges, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies rely on thirdparty cloud storage vendors to source C seam evidence and investigations.
▶ 1:07:36A limited number of vet vettors are willing to contract with law enforcement to store CSAM due to the significant legal risks associated with possessing and maintaining the obscene and explicit material. This bill would permit law enforcement approved vendors who adhere to the requirements to provide secure cloud-based storage of CSAM without facing criminal or civil charges for engaging in authorized activities. I commend the authors of this bill and urge all of my colleagues to support it. With that, I yield back.
▶ 1:08:07Gentle lady yields back. The gentle lady from George is recognized.
▶ 1:08:10Thank you, Mr. Chair. I um move to strike the last word.
▶ 1:08:13Gentle is recognized.
▶ 1:08:15Thank you. Thank you. I speak in support of the Safe Cloud Storage Act, a bipartisan bill that will modernize how law enforcement actually handles all of our dig digital evidence of child sexual exploitation and bring more predators to justice.
▶ 1:08:30This important measure will provide limited liability protections to law enforcement approved vendors that manage child sexual abuse material or CSAM and child obscinity evidence for the purpose of conducting investigations. Advance advancements in technology have had clear benefits to our society.
▶ 1:08:52Today, we can keep in touch with our friends and our family, attend a seminar, or connect with business partners around the world in simply an instant. But there is also a darker, more dangerous side to better technology and greater connectivity. We have learned through our work on the crime subcommittee that everexpanding connectivity has unfortunately led to a shocking increase in child sexual exploitation online.
▶ 1:09:22from distributing and exchanging CSAM and child obscinity to buying and selling children for sex. Every day, the cyber tip line, a hotline that is actually operated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children or NickMeck, receives hundreds of thousands of reports about these types of crimes.
▶ 1:09:45Since creation of the cyber tip line in 2003, NickMeck has responded to more than 226 million reports relating to child sexual exploitation. The center processes these reports, which include countless images and videos, then sends them to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
▶ 1:10:08Two years ago, Congress passed the Report Act, which expanded mandatory reporting and modernized how NickMeck manages, processes, and stores CSAM and child obscinity, allowing the use of cloud-based services.
▶ 1:10:26In the year following this enactment, Nickcheck processed nearly 62 million images and videos and other files that are related to child sexual The report act was a great start, but Congress still has yet to improve how law enforcement is allowed to manage the same evidence as they investigate the reports and prosecute these cases.
▶ 1:10:55As law enforcement is unendated with vast amounts of digital evidence, they face challenges in storing, analyzing, and sharing it within the bounds of our current federal law. Because they cannot use cloudbased services under the law, they must rely on outdated, burdensome technology. They can't keep up with the magnitude of evidence that is generated in these cases.
▶ 1:11:21This bill will extend to law enforcement approved vendors the same liability protections afforded to NickMeck, allowing law enforcement to contract with cloud-based services to manage and process evidence of Cessam and child obsimity obscinity obscinity more efficiently.
▶ 1:11:42The simple improvement means that law enforcement will be able to process evidence much faster, build stronger cases, rescue more victims sooner, and protect any potential victims. I urge all of my colleagues to support the Safe Cloud Storage Act. It's important legislation. I'm glad we're all agreeing and I yield back.
▶ 1:12:04Gentlely yields back. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized.
▶ 1:12:07Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I echo the sentiments and I uh I also want to thank Representative Lee for leading this effort. And I think that we can all agree that this is a scourge that's overtaking our country and our world. And one one reason for the growth and prevalence of this type of crime are the rules and the laws that surround the production and the storage of evidence. And we cannot allow outdated procedures to hinder our abilities in fighting this crime.
▶ 1:12:35And making it easier to store, review, and access evidence with the specificity required in these types of prosecutions is imperative. And you know, the last thing that our law enforcement professionals should be worried about are the logistics for safely storing or reviewing this type of evidence. And as anyone who has prosecuted cases realizes, efficient prosecution, efficient investigations that is required to effectively battle uh heinous crime.
▶ 1:13:04And the Safe Cloud Storage Act would make the lives of federal, state, and local law enforcement easier by providing limited liability protections to approved data storage vendors hosting this evidence. And when law enforcement currently relies on technology and processes that were developed in the 1980s, that makes it much harder at every level to fight this type of crime.
▶ 1:13:29Again, I appreciate Congresswoman Lee's efforts on this highly important and often less understood issue, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes. I yield back.
▶ 1:13:38Chairman uh yields back. The question is on adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on favorably reporting the bill. All those in favor say I. I.
▶ 1:13:48Those opposed, no. And you pin the chair. The eyes have it and the amendment in nature substitute is adopted. The question in favor of reporting the bill. All those in favor I. I. Those opposed, no. The eyes have it and the bill is order to be reported.
▶ 1:13:59Chairman, can I ask for a recorded vote?
▶ 1:14:00Report vote being requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 1:14:03Mr. Jordan,
▶ 1:14:04Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa,
▶ 1:14:07Mr. Isa votes I. Mr. Biggs.
▶ 1:14:10Mr. Mcccleintoch.
▶ 1:14:11Mr. Mcccleintoch votes I. Mr. Tiffany,
▶ 1:14:14Mr. Tiffany votes I. Mr. Massie.
▶ 1:14:16Mr. Massie votes I. Mr. Roy, Mr.
▶ 1:14:21Mr. Fitzgerald votes I. Mr. Klein.
▶ 1:14:23Mr. Klein votes I. Mr. Gooden. Mr. Mr. Nells. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore votes I. Miss
▶ 1:14:34Miss Haggman votes I. Miss Lee of Florida. Florida.
▶ 1:14:37Miss Lee of Florida votes I. Mr. Hunt. Mr. Fry. Mr. Kylie. Mr. Mr. Growthman.
▶ 1:14:45Mr. Growthman votes I. Mr. Kn
▶ 1:14:48Mr. Knott votes I. Mr. Harris.
▶ 1:14:51Mr. Harris votes I. Mr. Ander.
▶ 1:14:53Mr. Herder votes I. Mr. Schmidt.
▶ 1:14:56Mr. Schmidt votes I. Mr. Gil.
▶ 1:14:59Mr. Gil votes I. Mr. Bumgardner.
▶ 1:15:02Mr. Bumgner votes I. Mr. Rascin.
▶ 1:15:05Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nadler.
▶ 1:15:08Miss Lofgrren. Mr. Cohen. Hi.
▶ 1:15:12Mr. Cohen votes I. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Lou, Miss Gyipol, Mr. Kareah, Miss Scandlin, Mr. Nagus, Miss Mcbath, Miss Ross, Miss Ross votes I. Miss Balot, Miss Balant votes I. Mr. Garcia, Mr. Garcia votes I. Miss Camlager Dove. Miss Camlocker Dove votes I. Mr. Mosquitz, Mr.
▶ 1:15:37Goldman, Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I
▶ 1:15:59clical report.
▶ 1:16:01Mr. Chairman, there are 24 eyes's and zero nos.
▶ 1:16:04The eyes have it. The bill is order to be reported favorable to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Pursuant to notice, we call up HR 62 625, excuse me, the local access to courts acts for purpose of markup and move the committee reported favorably to the House. The clerk report the bill.
▶ 1:16:27HR 625. [clears throat]
▶ 1:16:28Without objection, the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Isa, for an opening
▶ 1:16:36Thank you, Mr. Chairman. HR 625, although local in its nature, has a a considerable precedent that we believe needs to be considered for the current and future efficiency of our federal court. The local access to courts act ensures greater access in two particular cases which includes the communities of El Centro in California in and near my district and College Station in Texas.
▶ 1:17:04The Houston division uh of those the Houston division of the southern district of Texas comprises 13 counties larger than many states. Current law only authorizes division to hold court in Houston, approximately a 100 miles from College Station. The Southern District of Cal California currently comprises Imperial County and San Diego County, my home.
▶ 1:17:28However, the court can only be held in the city of San Diego, again approximately a 100 miles from El Centro. Requiring residents of these communities to travel extended distance to courouses placed places a burden on them, making it harder for them to access criminal and civil justice systems.
▶ 1:17:48The bill would authorize court to be held in College Station, Texas and El Central California, providing court locations are closer uh these court locations are closer for many individuals who need to travel to the courts particularly jurors. I would say that this is in fact one that I hope we see many more of.
▶ 1:18:10Uh because there are federal facilities and as all of us understand it is often less expensive for a magistrate or a judge to hold court near multiple court cases than the other way around. It is also one in which you can imagine being called to federal jury duty and being asked to drive 100 miles each way each day uh on the possibility of being called.
▶ 1:18:39So on that in that case I urge my colleagues to support this narrow but important legislation and I yield back. Gentleman yields back. The ranking members recognized for an opening statement.
▶ 1:18:48Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Um, I support HR625, which would amend title 28 to provide an additional place for holding court in the Southern District of Texas and in the Southern District of California. The Southern District of Texas spans 43 Texas counties. The Southern District of California includes San Diego County, the second most populated in California. Residents there have the same problem many people are experiencing across America.
▶ 1:19:13To get to the courthouse door, they have to travel long distances and wait in the backlog before having their day in court. The easiest way to alleviate the burdens on these residents is to add a courthouse. This change is cost-free because there's an existing judicial facility available for the court to use. Making use of this existing facility would ensure that litigants, attorneys, witnesses, and other court users would have greater access to the justice and to due process that our federal courts provide.
▶ 1:19:41The administrative body for the federal court system, the administrative office of the courts has endorsed the legislation. We have a lot to do to ensure Americans have equal access to our laws and our judiciary um so that they can trust that their disputes will be fairly adjudicated. This bill will not fix every problem, but it will take a small step to help over 13 million Americans gain equal access to justice.
▶ 1:20:05And I appreciate subcommittee chairman Isa and representatives Macau and Ruiz for calling attention to this issue and for working on a bipartisan basis to actually get something done to improve the lives of the good people of Texas and California. I urge all our colleagues to support the bill. I yield
▶ 1:20:23Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from California is recognized to offer an amendment in the nature of a
▶ 1:20:28I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 1:20:29Clerk will report.
▶ 1:20:30Amendment in the nature of
▶ 1:20:31objection. Amendment the nature of substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered base text for the purpose of amendment. [clears throat] The gentleman from California is recognized to explain the
▶ 1:20:40Amendment is simple and and and technical in nature and makes no underlying change to the bill.
▶ 1:20:45Anyone seek recognition on the legislation from the gentleman from California. Uh the question then occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed me by a vote favorably reporting the bill. All those in favor say I.
▶ 1:20:57I. Those opposed no. In the pin the chair the eyes have it. The amendment the nature substitute is adopted. The question is on reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed no. The eyes have it. The bill is ordered to be reported.
▶ 1:21:10Chairman, could I have a recorded vote?
▶ 1:21:11Reported vote being requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 1:21:14Mr. Jordan,
▶ 1:21:15Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa,
▶ 1:21:18Mr. Isa votes yes. Mr. Biggs. Mr. Mcccleintoch.
▶ 1:21:22Mr. Mcccleintoch votes I. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Massie. Mr. Massie votes I. Mr. Roy. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Fitzgerald votes I. Mr. Klein,
▶ 1:21:34Mr. Klein votes I. Mr. Gooden, Mr. Van Drew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Hagaman,
▶ 1:21:44Miss Hagamman, votes I. Miss Lee of Florida. Miss Lee of Florida votes I. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie.
▶ 1:21:54Mr. Kylie votes I. Mr. Groman,
▶ 1:21:57Mr. Gman votes I. Mr. Not Mr. Harris Mr. Harris votes I Mr. Ander Mr. Schmidt
▶ 1:22:06Mr. Schmidt votes I Mr. Gil Mr.
▶ 1:22:11Mr. Bumgardner votes I Mr. Raskin
▶ 1:22:14Mr. Raskin votes I Mr. Nadler Miss Lofgrren Mr. Cohen Mr. Johnson Mr. Blue, Miss Gyipol, Mr. Korea, Miss Scandan, Mr. Nagus, Miss Mcbath, Miss Ross, Miss Ross votes I. Miss Balot, Miss Balant votes I. Mr. Garcia, Mr.
▶ 1:22:44Garcia votes I. Miss Camlager Dove, Miss Camlager, Dove votes I. Mr. Mr. Goldman, Miss Crock, Miss Crockett,
▶ 1:22:57Miss Lee of Pennsylvania,
▶ 1:22:59Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I.
▶ 1:23:04Mr. Vandrew, you're not recorded.
▶ 1:23:06Mr. Vandrew votes yes. Mr. Moore.
▶ 1:23:09Mr. Moore votes yes.
▶ 1:23:13Mr. Tiffany.
▶ 1:23:14Mr. Tiffany votes I. We need a couple. Need one.
▶ 1:23:54Mr. Her,
▶ 1:23:55Mr. Herder votes I.
▶ 1:24:02Clerk will report. [clears throat]
▶ 1:24:03Mr. Chairman, there are 23 eyes and zero
▶ 1:24:06Eyes have the bill's order to be reported favor to the house. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment. nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and informing changes. Pursuant to notice, I call up HR9098, the Congressional Records Protection Act for purposes of markup. Move the committee reported favorably. The clerk will report the bill.
▶ 1:24:33Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment. And u we'll now start with opening statements. January 23rd, 2023, 16 days after Kevin McCarthy became speaker of the house, Merrick Garland approved and Jack Smith issued a subpoena for two months of the speaker's private phone records. They know who the speaker of the house called, who called him, how long the call lasted, and where it occurred.
▶ 1:25:01The executive branch knew who the speaker talked to before big boats. They knew who he called when he was whipping boats. They even knew when the speaker called his family. That's not only invasion of privacy. That's mapping a person's life. And to make matters worse, they kept it a secret, even misleading a judge to believe that the speaker was quote a flight risk. You got to be kidding me.
▶ 1:25:23The Biden Harris Justice Department subpoenaed the private records of the third highest ranking official in the country, the leader of Republicans in the Congress, the guy second in line to the presidency. And it wasn't just the speaker. It was a bunch of us as well. They got my phone records. They got other Republican members, including some on our committee. And if that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will. But it's worse.
▶ 1:25:46It's worse than we thought because yesterday we learned that not only did Smith's team get the toll records for over a dozen members, he also got content of text messages between 44 members of Congress and White House officials, including Democrats. 44 officials. We just got a letter from the Justice Department yesterday. Normally, when prosecutors receive messages involving members of Congress, they must go through a filter team to determine privilege. They didn't do that.
▶ 1:26:13When Smith's team received these text messages, they bypassed the filter team, Jack Smith team got material they had no right to. Messages that I believe were protected under the legislative privilege in the speech or debate clause. The constitution speech debate clause protects records relating to members legislative duties from compelled disclosure. It is supposed to stop the executive branch from obtaining congressional records.
▶ 1:26:40It ensures that the representatives of we the people here in Congress can freely deliberate, can freely debate on how to best represent the folks back home. The founders knew that if the executive branch could obtain members records, it would have a serious chilling effect on members ability to freely discuss difficult issues to do the work we're supposed to do in the United States Congress. The Congressional Records Protection Act would protect this constitutional privilege.
▶ 1:27:07It protects every member of Cong uh Congress, Democrat and Republican, from a political fishing expedition. The bill creates a simple rule. Only if there's probable cause that a member of congressional staffer committed a crime could a prosecutor obtain their records. And it creates procedural safeguards to ensure that when members records are seized, they can go to a court to vindicate their speech or debate rights.
▶ 1:27:34It strikes the right balance between accountability for bad actors and protection of genuine congressional discussion and debate. I wish this bill weren't necessary, but it's obvious that current law is not enough to prevent partisan prosecutors from spying on their political opposition. The Congressional Records Protection Act would change that. I want to thank our colleague, Mr. Mike Kelly, uh from Pennsylvania for introducing this important bill, and I'm also glad to be able to work with the ranking member.
▶ 1:28:02We spent a lot of time, the staff on both the majority and minority party in getting this bill um in a position where we think everyone supports it. Um and I I appreciate the work of uh ranking member Raskin and his team and our colleagues and I urge my colleagues to support it. This is just this is protecting the institution and uh something that we uh we need to get passed. With that, I would yield to the ranking member.
▶ 1:28:25Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for yielding and also for working so closely with us on this significant legislation. I'm pleased we are able to reach agreement on an amendment that clarifies the exact intent and scope of this bill. And when that amendment is adopted, I will be very proud to support and urge passage of the Congressional Records Protection Act.
▶ 1:28:43We've got consensus across party lines that the federal government's power to sweep up large swaths of emails, phone records, and other communications should be subject to rigorous limits and notice requirements, especially in cases where the executive branch appears to be leaning on members of Congress and their staffs. Here on Capitol Hill, our communications often deal with the deliberative processes around lawmaking and investigations, sensitive information that's already protected by the speech or debate clause of the Constitution.
▶ 1:29:12In other words, the Constitution is designed to prevent the executive branch from attempting to punish or intimidate members of Congress as we execute our constitutional lawmaking functions. As I've stated before, in recent years, federal investigators have been overzealous in their use of subpoenas against members and staff. For example, we agree, Mr. Chairman, that the collection of two years of your phone records was overly broad.
▶ 1:29:35I also think back to when the first Trump administration secretly collected data on not only two members of Congress, but also 43 congressional staffers, including at least one of my own councils and then obtained a non-disclosure order to keep the whole search under wraps for up to four years. And I know you've opposed such uh broad and indiscriminate practices. I believe Democrats and Republicans agreed that these kinds of collections must have more transparency.
▶ 1:30:01We should not have to wait years to learn that our data was swept up by the executive branch. That's why last November, this committee came together to pass the bipartisan NDO fairness act led by our colleagues Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Nadler. Except in limited circumstances where disclosure might lead to some immediate security risk, we deserve to know that the government has tried to access our communications. I agree with you, Mr. chairman that we should do even more to protect our essential congressional and constitutional prerogatives.
▶ 1:30:30But as written, the bill before us today is a bit over broad. As proposed, I worry it could styy a wide range of legitimate investigations that have nothing to do with our official legislative conduct. As I understand it, the base bill prevents every government agency at every level of government from seeking information about a member of Congress or staff unless they consent to the search or they themselves are the target of a criminal investigation and the investigating agency has established probable cause that a crime was committed or being committed.
▶ 1:30:59This kind of protection goes far beyond our constitutionally protected rights. It would hamstring virtually all investigations related to members and staff, including investigations aimed at protecting us. For example, let's say FBI agents are investigating a network of foreign agents that's been surreptitiously trying to build a relationship with a member to gain insider access. The member's records might be the best information available to help take down an international crime ring and protect the member's office against foreign espionage.
▶ 1:31:30But if the FBI has reasoned not to tell the member about the investigation, uh they cannot ask for consent. And if they cannot prove that the member is likely to be committing a crime, they cannot obtain those records at all. That seems like a step too far. Fortunately, there's a good way to work around these problems. In courts across the land, when serious questions of privilege arise, judges routinely appoint a special master to sort through the materials and make certain the government does not access materials to which they are not entitled.
▶ 1:31:58In a moment, I will offer an amendment that proposes we make use of a special master in situations like that. With that change in place, it will still be difficult for the executive branch to collect our communications. But in cases that were never meant to be protected by the speech or debate clause, it will not be impossible.
▶ 1:32:15In those cases, the government can ask the court to appoint a special master who will be charged with sorting through the evidence, removing any material that properly relates to our official duties, and releasing only what non-privileged information remains to investigators. The special master will be bound by a court approved NDA. of course. So, the government will have no way to know what privileged materials are being denied.
▶ 1:32:38Members and staff will still receive notice that the government has sought our communications and still have the benefit of a 30-day delay before the government can search them, giving us a meaningful opportunity to challenge the collection when investigators overstep their authority. With that amendment in place, we can put teeth into the speech or debate clause without blocking investigations that have nothing to do with our official work. I'm grateful to the chairman for his willingness to work with us this past month to reach what I think is an excellent consensus solution.
▶ 1:33:07We are in agreement that the rights of our colleagues and our staff have been offended by both administrations of both parties in the executive branch for far too long. I thank the chairman for his hard work. I yield back.
▶ 1:33:18Gentleman yields back. Um without objection, all of their opening statements will be included in the record. Um the clerk's now recognized to uh I got amendment in the nature of a substitute. The clerk will report the amendment. Amendment in the nature of a
▶ 1:33:31Without objection, amendment nature of substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered based tax for the purpose of amendment. The chair's uh recognized explain amendment. This amendment modifies the short title of the bill. It's not intended in any way to alter the important purpose of the legislation. Uh who seeks recognition?
▶ 1:33:45Does the gentleman want to ask
▶ 1:33:49We'll take the amendment then I'll come to Harriet. Yeah.
▶ 1:33:51Amendment is is uh recognized.
▶ 1:33:54Thank you, Chairman Jordan. I've got an amendment at the desk. Clerk will report
▶ 1:33:58amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR9.
▶ 1:34:01Not objection. Amen be considered as read and the ranking members recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 1:34:05Um the as I said in my opening statement, Mr. Chairman, that this is uh to help us prevent any unintended consequences that might follow um if we made it all but impossible for the government to get communications records in cases that have nothing to do with our official legislative conduct and are not covered by the speech and debate clause. The amendment would give the government the opportunity to ask a court to appoint a special master to review any communications records they might seek from members and staff.
▶ 1:34:31The special master would sort through them, remove any material properly covered by the speech or debate clause, and remit the balance to investigators. Even as amended, this legislation will make it very difficult for bad faith actors in any administration to obtain legislative communication records and impossible for them to do it in secret. We still receive notice when the government tries to obtain our records, and we will still have the benefit of the 30-day delay before the government can access any materials that they do obtain.
▶ 1:34:59With this amendment in place, we'll have taken a very big step forward in protecting Congress against overzealous investigations and investigators without inadvertently harming state and local probes that have nothing to do with our official duties. I urge all colleagues to support the amendment and once it's adopted, the underlying bill. I thank the chairman again and yield back. Uh I I want to I want to thank the gentleman and his team as I said in my opening statement for working together. We like this amendment. This is good and we think it is as the ranking member indicated the right balance.
▶ 1:35:27Frankly, I would just point out based on the information we got from the Justice Department yesterday, this amendment is what Jack Smith should have done relative to text messages that he got of 44 members including three Democrats in that in that batch. Uh they did not do that. They did not have the filter team go through and look at what may be privileged material as the gentleman's amendment sets up this special master which would do just what they didn't do. Um so I I strongly support this uh this amendment and would urge its adoption.
▶ 1:35:57The question occurs on the amendment offered by the we can take the amendment then go to uh go to Harry. The question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentleman uh from Maryland. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed no. opinion of the chairs. The eyes have it. The amendment is now adopted and part of the legislation. The gentle lady from uh Wyoming is recognized.
▶ 1:36:18Constitution speech or debate clause states that for any speech or debate in either house, senators and representatives shall not be questioned in any other place. Just yesterday, Chairman Grassley and Chairman Johnson, as part of their ongoing Arctic Frost oversight, revealed that special counsel Jack Smith's investigative team obtained and reviewed text messages from 44 members of Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats, according to documents provided to by the DOJ.
▶ 1:36:46Incredibly, according to the communication from the DOJ, quote, "The special counsel's investigative team apparently bypassed the filter team and directly access these text messages." End quote. This is the same filter team that the Biden Haros DOJ established to evaluate records and prevent access to privileged materials obtained over the course of Jack Smith's investigation into both January 6th and the Mara Lago documents case.
▶ 1:37:12In April 2022 and prior to issuing the subpoena for Chairman Jordan's phone and email records for the period between August 2020 and January 2021, Articrost investigators contacted the DOJ's public in in integrity section or PIN for approval which was subsequently given.
▶ 1:37:32Pin relied on an unorthodox interpretation, writing that the speech or debate clause arguably did not apply as the subpoenas targeted personal cell phone accounts while also being served to third parties. On May 1st, 2022, the DOJ issued a subpoena for Chairman Jordan for the period between January 2020 and May 2022, far broader than the initial PIN approved request.
▶ 1:37:55In January 2023, Jacksmith's team issued a subpoena for his phone records for the period between November 2020 and January 2021, stating that it was necessary to obtain an exact record of President Trump and his calls to alleged co-conspirators around the time of January 6th.
▶ 1:38:13A May 2023 memo by Smith's team later contradicted this initial explanation, stating that the purpose of congressional toll records was to determine who quote may have called these members as well as who the members called end quote on the evening of January 6th. Additional subpoenas were approved in May 2023. Pin acknowledged their creation of quote litigation risk end quote and highlighted judicial precedence that the speech or debate clauses bar on compelled disclosure is absolute.
▶ 1:38:43During this time, Smith's team continued to rely on the argument that the speech or de debate clause was inapplicable since the subpoena sought non-content records from a third party. Despite warnings internal to the DOJ and correspondents from AT&T, alluding to potential violations of the speech or debate clause, Jack Smith and his team continued to run roughshot over the constitutional protections of both members of Congress and their staff.
▶ 1:39:08Making matters worse, Smith's team by seeking non-disclosure orders or NDOS's for each of its congressional toll record subpoenas denied members of Congress the ability to exercise their rights. Smith conceded this point, testifying that quote, "Inherent in getting an NDO is that people who might have arguments about why to quash a subpoena won't be able to make those arguments." End quote.
▶ 1:39:32Jack Smith was a horrifically corrupt individual and should be held accountable for what he did. Based on this series of events alone, reforms are clearly necessary to prevent this sort of weaponization from occurring ever again. With that, I yield back. Uh, gentle yields back. Gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.
▶ 1:39:57I plan to support the legislation, but um I think it's kind of weak. I don't see the penalties or the accountability in here for somebody if they violate this new law that we're putting in. And the other thing that bothers me a little bit is we're talking about subpoena, subpoena, subpoena this, subpoena that. Where's the word warrant? We should be issuing warrants. Uh that's what the Fourth Amendment requires, not a subpoena.
▶ 1:40:26And um to Mr. Raskin's point, I think um it's dangerous to give them this kind of access and to say that some special master can serve as a gatekeeper for the Constitution instead of a warrant in a court. um just make them get a warrant if they want to go after stuff that could could have somebody's personal information in there.
▶ 1:40:49And finally, I'm a little bit troubled that we are acquiescing to the third party doctrine that you don't need a warrant if this material resides somewhere else, AT&T, National Archives, wherever the the text messages are.
▶ 1:41:05If somebody if a third party is holding them, there's a flawed judicial interpretation that dates back to things before there even text messages that you don't have a right to privacy if a third party holds those um records. So, as um I support this, I think it's a step in the right direction. I wish it'd have more teeth. I wish we didn't uh go ahead and concede the third party doctrine.
▶ 1:41:31I I wish we didn't concede that you don't need a warrant to spy on people whether they're congressmen or not. And um I appreciate this and the timeliness as one of the 44 was it members of Congress
▶ 1:41:45who were effectively spied on here um whose personal texts were collected in violation of the speech or debate. U I don't know which of my texts exactly were collected yet. I'm told I can go over and see what they were. Uh, but I can almost assure you they have a if if it's me talking to somebody at the White House, there is a nexus that has to do with my legislative responsibilities here.
▶ 1:42:13Otherwise, nobody at the White House would be taking my call. Uh, if I were just a regular citizen, you know, asking about going to lunch or something, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows would not be texting with me. So, um, anyways, appreciate the legislation. I wish you had a little more teeth and, uh, I yield back.
▶ 1:42:32Uh, gentleman yields back. Um, gentleman from gentleman from New York is
▶ 1:42:37Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, this is a issue that has been continually misrepresented by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. There there is as as much as we are talking about this bill and solely talking about metadata, not talking about the substance of any and retrospectively, not prospectively.
▶ 1:43:07That is not spying. So we need to stop using the language uh the inflammatory language that obtaining metadata of calls made from one number to another without the substance that happened in the past is spying. It is not spying. So let's dispatch with that.
▶ 1:43:32Second, this is not this is a standard investigative protocol to confirm and corroborate other evidence. If you don't engage in criminal then you will not need to be the subject of a subpoena that would corroborate and confirm other evidence of wrongdoing.
▶ 1:44:01The only way uh these phone records can be used is just to simply show that there was a call from x time to y time between a phone number and b phone number. The only utility that that has is uh as confirmation. It is not in and of itself can't be used as evidence of wrongdoing.
▶ 1:44:29So it is not a situation where in this case the special counsel uh went on some sort of um mission fishing expedition to try to find uh inculpatory evidence that could be subject to speech and debate clause or could not be. Um the fact of a phone call is not speech or debate.
▶ 1:44:55It is just the existence of an actual call which is only useful again as confirmation and So to continue to say that the special uh who legitimately justifiably and with extensive evidence indicted a conspiracy to overturn an election which is a crime.
▶ 1:45:24uh somehow misused his power because he happened to touch upon members of this body who may or may not have been involved in that conspiracy is not his fault. He is doing his job as he's supposed to do. It is the people who were engaged in whatever that conduct was.
▶ 1:45:49Whether it was criminal or not remains to be seen and certainly nobody in this body was charged and I'm not saying there is any reason for anybody to be charged. But if you if we are going to say that members of Congress have absolute immunity from being investigated by the Department of Justice. What I mean that's insane. Like think about where the slippery slope goes with that.
▶ 1:46:18Essentially, you're saying, well, you you cannot be investigated for anything. I mean, this case, we're talking about toll records, but it could be insider trading. It could be uh corruption. Well, you can't you can't subpoena phone records if there's a grand jury investigation. That's absurd. You we can't we can't be the leading uh arbittors of proper conduct.
▶ 1:46:47We we cannot restore the reputation of this body by exempting ourselves from investigation for wrongdoing. So let's not blame the investigator who was appropriately doing his job, who followed the law, whether the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement should apply or not.
▶ 1:47:10I I think my colleague from Kentucky was talking about text messages, which of course is substantive conversation as a separate conversation, but it doesn't apply to toll records. So, let's not get on our soapbox and act as if our privacy has been uh impeded when the our literal the existence of phone calls uh was subpoenaed by a prosecutor who had far more than probable cause to pursue this investigation.
▶ 1:47:41I yield back.
▶ 1:47:42Gentlemen yields back. I would just say that we're not saying that members of Congress can't be investigated. In fact, we specifically say, explicitly say in the bill that they can, if they're the target of the investigation, you can go get their toll records. Regarding the toll records, I could I could debate I could debate that with with the with the fine gentleman from New York, but I think what Mr. Massie was referencing was what we learned yesterday, that actual content was obtained by the special counsel when they had subpoenaed records from White House personnel.
▶ 1:48:10They got text messages between White House personnel and 44 members of the United States Congress, both Republican and Democrat, both senator and representative. They got that information and they did not run it through a filter team. So our our concern is with that as well. And if you'll remember, Jack Smith sat right at that table and told us we did not get anyone's content. It was only the phone records that you were referencing in your remarks. That's not accurate because they did get content. And we now know because the Justice Department told us yesterday that they did.
▶ 1:48:40So that is also a concern. I think that's what Mr. Massie was getting at his at his comments. I think we have struck the right balance in this bill, working closely with the with the minority to come up with the language. The amendment we just adopted, I think I think strikes the right balance, but I think you were focusing on total records, Mr. Goldman. Mr. Massie was focused on that somewhat, but mostly on the what we learned yesterday about 44 members of Congress actually having their text messages received by Jack Smith's team without it going through any filter.
▶ 1:49:10No magistrate as we set up in this bill to look at that look at that issue and I'll let the gentleman respond. Sure.
▶ 1:49:16Yeah. Um the the text messages, how were they obtained?
▶ 1:49:23They were obtained from White House personnel. They they didn't subpoena members of Congress, but
▶ 1:49:27No, but there wasn't I mean, you you can't subpoena for the substance of tax records. You have to get a search
▶ 1:49:32They got a warrant, right?
▶ 1:49:33So, did they get a warrant or
▶ 1:49:35No, they I think it was a subpoena in the National Archives.
▶ 1:49:39Oh, that's right. No, excuse me. That's exactly right. They went to NAR. That's
▶ 1:49:43We We'll get
▶ 1:49:44That's I agree with you. That is an entirely separate issue.
▶ 1:49:46Okay. And we will we will give you a copy of the correspondence we got from justice department if if you
▶ 1:49:51may I just ask another question just about this bill. If if it is if you're a target of investigation uh do you have to be notified that you are a target
▶ 1:50:03in under this bill?
▶ 1:50:04Not with respect to the investigation. You have to be notified when process is
▶ 1:50:10Yeah. When with right if process is served on you then you have to be notified of course.
▶ 1:50:14Well process is served on a third party. You have to be does the target of the investigation have to be notified? Because if the target of an investigation has to be notified, if there are any investigative steps that will eviscerate many investigations that just make once people learn about it, um covert becomes overt and there are a lot of investigative steps that are essential to be covert,
▶ 1:50:41right? And as I said earlier, if you're the target, of course not. But if you're not the target, you have to be notified or both both member and staff, it would have to be a notification.
▶ 1:50:51But if the if you are the target of an investigation, you do not need to be notified. Okay. Thank you.
▶ 1:50:56That's again, that's what we worked out. Working again.
▶ 1:50:59I'm I'm catching up here.
▶ 1:51:01Okay, that's fine.
▶ 1:51:03Uh the gentleman from Arizona.
▶ 1:51:06Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I associate myself with the comments of the gentleman from Kentucky and gentle lady from Wyoming. uh 44 members of Congress had their private text messages read by Jack Smith's investigators. Those text messages were related to the speech and debate clause. Those text messages um there was no predicate for them for the search and I know that because I have seen the file.
▶ 1:51:35uh specifically regarding one of them, one of those 44 and I'm talking about and the FBI office in Dallas said there was no predicate for this uh this action. We're not talking 44 suspects, not 44 criminals, but elected representatives of the American people. The Department of Justice built a filter team for exactly this purpose, to stop investigators from reading privileged communications. But Smith and his team ignored that.
▶ 1:52:05They went straight through that. They read our texts directly with no filter, no check, and no oversight. And when Jack Smith sat under oath in December, he was d asked directly whether his team read the content of members text messages and he said no. Now we know the truth. either he lied or in the unlike it was an unlikely scenario someone on his team didn't disclose to him that they had read those messages. Either way, the American people deserve an answer and they deserve one now.
▶ 1:52:36This was not exclusively directed at one party. There was bipartisan weaponization against Democrats and Republicans. Cy Booker, Adam Smith, Karen Bass, Josh Jack Smith didn't care what party you belonged to. He wanted your data. And here data. And here's the kicker. After vacuuming up the private communications of 44 sitting members of Congress, did he indict any of them? No. He only indicted one person, Donald J. Trump.
▶ 1:53:07It's not a prosecution. That was a witch The ex the speech and debate clause exists to prevent just that type of thing. Its roots goes back to its roots go back to England and the UK. when in 1689 the parliament won the right to legislate without the crown reading their mail or coming for their heads. And while today the the UK treats free speech like a relic of the past, our founders knew that how knew how vital this protection was.
▶ 1:53:36Founding father James Wilson called this protection indispensibly necessary so a representative could do his job with firmness and success without looking over his shoulder at the executive branch. As America marks his 250th anniversary, it is worth remembering that this safeguard predates the country itself. That's how fundamental that protection is meant to be. But Jack Smith trampled on it. Let's clear be clear about what the bill does and doesn't do. It doesn't give any member immunity.
▶ 1:54:04If you commit a crime, a judge can still determine that there is probable cause for Department of Justice to investigate you, issue a warrant to to seize records, etc. But what this bill does is simple. It says the executive branch cannot scour a lawmaker's communications in secret, without notice, without a check. Has four guard rails. One, a judge must certify probable cause before the government can even pursue a member's records. Not a prosecutor acting alone, but a judge.
▶ 1:54:33Two, the member gets notified when it happens before or at the same time. Not buried for years like it was under Jack Smith. Three, a 30-day pause before the government can review anything it collected, giving the member time to go to court and assert the privilege. And four, no fishing. This time it was 44 members, mostly Republicans and a few Democrats. Tomorrow, under different administration, it could be a different list entirely. This is not about protecting elected officials.
▶ 1:55:00It's about protecting the Constitution from bureaucrats who have subpoena power. I urge every member of this committee to vote yes on this. And while I think uh along with my friend from Kentucky that there's no not enough teeth here and there needs to be uh closer adherence to the to the uh constitutional requirement for a warrant when substance is being taken. I will vote yes on this and I'll yield back.
▶ 1:55:34Gentleman yields back. Um the question
▶ 1:55:40the question occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the [clears throat] n the amended amendment in the nature of a substitute. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed no. Okay. The chair the eyes have it. Um the question now occurs on adopting the
▶ 1:56:01on favorably reporting. favorably reporting the bill uh as amended. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no.
▶ 1:56:14Any of the chair, the eyes have it.
▶ 1:56:16Roll call.
▶ 1:56:17Roll call being requested. Uh the clerk will call the role.
▶ 1:56:20Mr. Jordan,
▶ 1:56:21Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa,
▶ 1:56:24Mr. Biggs,
▶ 1:56:26Mr. Biggs votes I. Mr. Mcccleintoch.
▶ 1:56:28Mr. Mcccleintoch votes I. Mr. Tiffany.
▶ 1:56:32Mr. Mr. Massie.
▶ 1:56:33Mr. Massie votes I. Mr. Roy.
▶ 1:56:37Mr. Roy votes I. Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Fitzgerald votes I. Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein votes I. Mr. Gooden. Mr. Vandrew. Mr. Vandrew votes yes. Mr. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore votes I. Miss Hagman. Miss Lee of Florida. Miss Lee of Florida votes I. Mr. Hunt.
▶ 1:57:00Mr. Fry. Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman,
▶ 1:57:07Mr. Knot,
▶ 1:57:08Mr. Harris,
▶ 1:57:10Mr. Harris votes I. Mr. Herder, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Schmidt votes I. Mr. Gil, Mr. Bumgardner, Mr. Rascin,
▶ 1:57:21Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nodler, Miss Lofgrren, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Lou, Miss Gyipol, Mr. Korea, Miss Scandlin, Mr. Nagus, Miss Mcbath, Miss Ross, Miss Ross votes I, Miss Balant, Miss Balant votes I, Mr. Garcia, Miss Camlager, Dove,
▶ 1:57:50Miss Camlager, Dove votes I, Mr. Mr. Goldman,
▶ 1:57:56Mr. Goldman votes nay. Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I. Mr. Garcia, you're not recorded. Mr. Garcia votes no. Mr. Garcia votes I.
▶ 1:58:32What am I talking about?
▶ 2:00:01Mr. Herder.
▶ 2:00:02Mr. Herder votes I. Mr. Growthman.
▶ 2:00:10Mr. Growthman votes I.
▶ 2:04:16Mr. Paul, you're not recorded. Mr. Paul votes yes.
▶ 2:09:08Mr. K Mr. Kylie Vzai.
▶ 2:09:18Mr. Chairman, there are 22 eyes and one
▶ 2:09:21The eyes have it. The bill is ordered to be reported favor to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment. the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Uh just for just for all members notice, the committee will be in recess for no more than 10 minutes. We'll be we'll be right back. We have two other bills on the agenda that we want to get to, but we I just want to take a short break and uh majority needs to conference for just uh just a second. So with that, the committee stands in recess.
▶ 2:33:11That was a congressional 10 minutes.
▶ 2:33:17Committee will come to work.
▶ 2:33:19Uh the the committee will come to order. pursuant to notice I call up house resolution 1394 for purpose of markup. Move that that committee reported favorably to the house. The clerk will report the bill HRES 1394.
▶ 2:33:35Without objection, the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. McClintto for an opening
▶ 2:33:43Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, your subcommittee on immigration integrity, security, and enforcement has held four hearings now probing the policies of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions whose policies are to shield criminal illegal aliens from deportation and instead release them back into our communities. This has nothing to do with general immigration enforcement.
▶ 2:34:06These policies specifically obstruct the removal of illegal aliens who have committed other crimes are in custody and instead of turning them over to ICE for deportation as the law requires, they instead turn them loose in our communities. The tragedies that ensue are heartbreaking. In one of our hearings, we heard from the mother [snorts] of Stephanie Mter, murdered by an illegal alien with dozens of prior arrests, each time returned into the community by Fairfax County officials.
▶ 2:34:37Their excuse was that despite an $83 million annual budget for the county sheriff, they didn't have the funds available to pick up the phone and inform ICE they had custody of an illegal alien so that alien could be deported. To them, Stephanie's life wasn't worth the cost of a phone call.
▶ 2:34:58The murderer's multiple releases were enabled by a far-left prosecutor who craft sweetheart deals for illegal aliens so they can avoid immigration consequences for their criminality. Most recently, we heard from the mother of Sheridan Gorman. In March of this year, Sheridan, an 18-year-old freshman at Lyola University, uh went to Chicago Park with friends to watch the Northern Lights.
▶ 2:35:23She was shot in the back of the head by an illegal alien from Venezuela who was allowed into this country by the Biden administration. Within months of that illegal alien's release at the border, he was arrested for shoplifting. Now, he should have been turned over to authorities for deportation then. Instead, Chicago's sanctuary law released him back into the community where he had no legal right to be, and Sheridan Gorman is dead as a result.
▶ 2:35:51These mounting and entirely preventable atrocities are made possible in part by prosecutors who boast that they make their charging decisions based on the defendant's immigration consequences. Here's how Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney Steve Discono boasted on his campaign web page. He said, quote, "If two people commit the same crime, but only one's punishment includes deportation, that's a perversion of justice and not a reflection of the values of Fairfax County." End quote.
▶ 2:36:21That means he'll charge an alien with a lesser crime than a citizen would be charged in order to avoid triggering immigration consequences for that alien. Now, that is the true perversion of justice and it's now prompted investigation by the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. Uh, in Philadelphia, pro-rime prosecutor Larry Kraners admitted that quote, "Low-level and nonviolent crime should not lead to deportation or necessarily risk one's immigration status," unquote.
▶ 2:36:51In Colorado, the Bod County District Attorney's Office even permits consideration of immigration consequences in cases involving violent offenses, vehicular man uh vehicular uh uh fatalities uh and sex crimes. And in Queens, the district attorney's office has even employed a quote immigration specialist to help dangerous foreign nationals avoid immigration consequences for their criminal offenses. And here's the ultimate irony.
▶ 2:37:18When a criminal is in custody and turned over to ICE, that's done safely, securely, and without incident. But when that criminal is released back into neighborhoods, squads of officers must be deployed. Force must often be used, and the consequences can be deadly to ICE officers, to accompllices, to bystanders, and to the targets themselves. In those cases where arrests were necessitated because sanctuaries released these criminals, we'd have fewer such incidents.
▶ 2:37:49You cannot lament these deaths while defending the policies that caused them. Unless, of course, your alternative is to stop enforcing immigration laws altogether and return to the Biden days of open wide borders. I applaud our colleague Nick Loa for his resolution that rightly calls out these absurd policies. This is as simple as it gets. The resolution states the obvious and self-evident truth that crimes committed by illegal alien criminals should be fully prosecuted.
▶ 2:38:19It condemns how families are revictimized by prosecutors who give special treatment to the perpetrators of these crimes. Uh and on behalf of the American people, it urges prosecutors to uphold the law without favor. When prosecutors favor foreign national criminals solely because of their immigration status, that is a perversion of justice. is a slap in the face to victims and it's illegal. We should call it out, condemn it, and seek to end it.
▶ 2:38:46I'd urge my colleagues to support this resolution and I yield back.
▶ 2:38:50Gentleman yields back. Appreciate the gentleman's work and opening statement. The uh gentleman uh ranking members recognized for an opening statement.
▶ 2:38:58Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I must oppose this resolution. I'm only counting 20 more legislative days in session before the 2026 midterm elections in November. So this purely non-binding advisory hordatory resolution about state and local prosecution policies seems to me to be a striking confession that the majority is now running on empty and has no actual plans or concrete proposals to make life better for anyone in America.
▶ 2:39:28With the sand running rapidly down the hourglass on this disappearing supine in collaboration as Congress, you'd think the majority would be spending our precious remaining days scrambling to address the pressing issues of the day that they've ignored, marking up legislation that might actually make a difference in the lives of the American people. At a time when the price of groceries, healthcare premiums, and rent has soared to an all-time high. when Trump's ruinous illegal tariffs have driven countless businesses into bankruptcy.
▶ 2:39:58But when the president declares that he loves inflation and spends no time thinking about the financial condition of the American people, you might think the majority would be trying to do something to distance themselves from the disastrous presidency and lethargy of Donald Trump to actually improve life for our people. And yet the discipline is fierce around here.
▶ 2:40:19And so here we go again with a divisive rhetorical exercise because what the American American people apparently really need right now is another non-binding hordatory symbolic resolution from the House distorting and second-guessing local prosecution policies.
▶ 2:40:37Meanwhile, back in the realitybased world, there are 5 million Americans who no longer have health insurance because the GOP failed to enact any legislation to prevent premiums from skyrocketing after passage of their big beautiful bill, which is so unpopular now they tried to change its name. Alas, for them, the words of the new title of the big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, never actually appeared in the bill. And just in the last week, ICE agents have killed two people in their cars.
▶ 2:41:07Two fathers who were driving to work, who, according to ICE's own statements, were not even the target of their enforcement actions. Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress have been threatening to hold the House floor hostage until the Senate passes their bill to disenfranchise voters, the Save Mega Act. How foolish and demeaning is it for Congress to be running around condemning local governments for the choices they and their voters have made?
▶ 2:41:33If you want to change the way local prosecutors operate, move to those jurisdictions and run for states attorney. But I suspect you won't get too far, at least in the case of the reviled Fairfax County, Virginia, because the people who live there are apparently not buying what the majority is selling. A few weeks ago, the majority hauled in the prosecutor and the sheriff from Fairfax because the majority disfavors the county's policies. Okay, that's fine.
▶ 2:41:59But there was a line out the door of Fairfax County residents who'd come to support their local officials against this kangaroo legislative court. Our job in Congress is not to give Yelp reviews for state and local laws and policies. If you really want to influence public policy in Fairfax County, go go run for office there or go testify in their legislative chambers. This is Congress.
▶ 2:42:25We're supposed to be focused on federal policy, enacting federal laws and working to make life better for all Americans. This is a job which we are elected to do, but which the majority is simply not doing. This Congress under GOP leadership now has a disapproval rating of 86%. a startling and terrifying all-time high, 86%. It means more than eight out of 10 Americans disapprove of the chaotic and subservient performance of Speaker Johnson.
▶ 2:42:55With bills, excuse me, non-binding resolutions like this, it's no mystery why under this majority, the Congress has abdicated its authority for oversight, for appropriations, and even for declaring war. As an outgoing member of this committee put it, if Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our head.
▶ 2:43:19Well, um, they've been doing a lot of those three- ft jumps and engaging in a lot of headscratching behavior. At the behest of the president, congressional Republicans have blocked our exercise of constitutionally mandated authority to approve or disapprove tariffs. They were silent as the administration illegally impounded congressionally appropriated funds for many programs. They watched with indifference as the president bombed fishing boats in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and Iran.
▶ 2:43:47They did nothing as the president, his family, and his robber baron friends grifted off the American people through absurd no bid contracts and corrupt crypto deals. They forked over a whopping $240 billion dollar of our tax dollars for the Department of Homeland Security and then sat on their hands as DHS agents killed three American citizens in cold blood.
▶ 2:44:11Three immigrants and a record 53 people have died in immigration detention, many due to abuse and medical neglect. Now, as November l looms large and as their moves to try to undermine elections and pay off insurrectionists are being blocked by federal judges across the land, they're desperately casting about for someone to blame for the problems they have themselves caused.
▶ 2:44:35And today, it seems the blame is landing on state and local prosecutors and once again everybody's favorite whipping post, so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. It is the [clears throat] It is the Trump administration that is styming state and local prosecutors and making everybody less safe. They deport witnesses and victims in the middle of trials, allowing perpetrators to walk free. They deport perpetrators before trial, robbing their victims of restitution, compensation, and closure.
▶ 2:45:05When their agents kill people like Renee Good, Alex Prey, and Lorenzo Sgata Arajo, instead of working towards justice and due process, they obstruct state and local investigations and bar investigators from accessing the evidence. But of course, [clears throat] we don't want to talk about that. We want to talk about how terrible immigrants are and claim that Democrats care more about criminal aliens than American citizens.
▶ 2:45:29But what Republicans fail to grasp is that for an undocumented immigrant, it does not matter what kind of crime they would be charged with, they are deportable immediately by dent of their lack of legal status. Republicans see a grand conspiracy around charging decisions when undocumented people are involved when it is actually just the day-to-day reality of prosecuting cases. Sometimes you have enough evidence to build a strong case and win a conviction and sometimes you don't. Well, why do I think that this is just political theater?
▶ 2:46:00We haven't heard a word uh from a single Republican on this committee denouncing Ken Paxton for the sweetheart deal he offered to Adam Hoffman who molested a six-year-old boy. Ken Paxton's team cut a deal where this guy would serve one day in jail. The judge in the case extended the sentence to 60 days, but that was the best he could do with the deal that Ken Paxton's prosecutors cut.
▶ 2:46:26In the end, Hoffman was released early, serving only 29 days for this grievous, outrageous crime. But we've never heard a peep out of anyone here about that decision or the local policies that permitted Paxton to make such an unforgivable deal. Every choice that we make in individual cases has consequences and I would hope the majority of us would weigh the the potential consequences before approving a policy.
▶ 2:46:53I fear that President Trump has never undertaken that rigorous deliberative process given how obvious the negative consequences are of his decisions. Take for example his infamous mass pardon of the January 6
▶ 2:47:10nearly 100 of the January 6 riers who were pardoned all mass without regard to their individual crimes, their individual criminal histories, whether they had paid restitution or not, to their victims or to the government, and whether they were properly rehabilitated and ready to go back to society. Nearly a hundred of all of these people, pardon all mass, have gone back to their communities and have since criminally reaffended.
▶ 2:47:39They have molested children. They've beaten up their spouses. They've even killed people. None of which would have happened but for the president's pardons and commutation of their sentences. Similarly, 13 American service members and thousands of civilians would still be alive and our treasury would not have burned through $135 billion if not for the president's illegal war with Iran.
▶ 2:48:02Look, this hordatory non-binding advisory uh recommending resolution changes no public policy and advances no public interest. And this one, Mr. Chairman, I'm afraid to say is a waste of time. I yield back. Gentleman yields back without objection. All of the opening statements will be included [clears throat and cough] in the record. Who seeks recognition? Gentleman from Arizona is recognized.
▶ 2:48:30Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Every person who commits a crime should be held Every American deserves equal protection under those laws. That should not be controversial. That should be the floor, not the ceiling of what we expect from our justice system. But for too long, activist prosecutors and the radical left in sanctuary jurisdictions have substituted political ideology for the rule of law. Let's be honest about what that ideology is about. It isn't about justice. It's not about fairness. It's not about mercy.
▶ 2:48:59It's a radical worldview that treats an illegal alien's immigration status as more deserving of protection than an American citizen's safety. Some across the aisle may try to call it compassion or fairness, but that's not what it is. It's a suicidal empathy that cares more about shielding a criminal from consequences than protecting the community they have harmed. When prosecutors provide special treatment to foreign nationals, they don't afford to American that they don't afford to American citizens, they don't just bend the rules.
▶ 2:49:27They abandon the principle of equal justice under law entirely. And innocent people pay for it. For instance, Fairfax County, Virginia, Mr. Uh, prosecutor Steve Dano bragged on his own campaign website that he would take immigration consequences into account wherever possible. His office built a formal sliding scale policy that puts illegal aliens at the front of the line for leniency. The result was a trail of American victims.
▶ 2:49:54Illegal alien Abdul Jala racked up more than 40 charges, nearly all dropped by Disano's office before Jala murdered Stephanie Mentor this past February. Police warned Dusano's office repeatedly that Jalo was a ticking time bomb. They ignored it and Stephanie Mentor is dead. This isn't an isolated case. In Boulder County, Colorado, prosecutors openly consider immigration consequences, even in cases involving violent crime, vehicular fatalities, and aggravated sexual assault.
▶ 2:50:24When prosecutors drop charges, they cut sweetheart deals and refuse to work with law enforcement, they're not merely soft on crime, they're complicit in the next victim. I've sat across from angel families. I just wrote letters to seven angel families this very morning. I've listened to mothers and fathers describe losing a child to a criminal alien who never should have been free. They should have been locked up or deported and instead were walking the streets because a prosecutor decided that immigration status mattered more than public safety.
▶ 2:50:54Their message was always the same. These tragedies were preventable. Every single one of them. These policies are not just morally indefensible, they are against the law. When prosecutors refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities or manipulate charges and pleas to shield foreign nationals from the consequences they've earned, they're not administering justice. They are obstructing justice. The first duty of government is to protect its own citizens. It's not optional and it does not bend to ideology.
▶ 2:51:25It begins with enforcing the law equally, holding every criminal accountable regardless of immigration status, and ending once and for all any policy that puts a person who broke our immigration laws ahead of the citizens he now lives among. HRES 1394 affirms these fundamental principles. It condemns prosecution policies that create unequal justice. It supports the prosecutors who still faithfully enforce the law without regard to politics.
▶ 2:51:50It recognizes the Department of Justice efforts to investigate jurisdictions that may be violating the civil rights of American citizens by putting foreign nationals first. American citizens come first. That's not radical. That's the basic bargain of citizenship. And this Congress should say so clearly.
▶ 2:52:08Will the gentleman yield?
▶ 2:52:10I will yield to the gentleman from
▶ 2:52:11Uh just like to make two quick points. First, the ranking member condemns a resolution calling on local prosecutors to apply the law equally and without favor. He complains there is no force of law to this resolution. Well, the fact is this committee has passed bill after bill that does use the force of law to protect public safety from sanctuary policies. Every one of them over the bitter and voseiferous opposition of the ranking member and every Democrat on this committee.
▶ 2:52:41Uh the ranking member tells us that criminal aliens should not be deported before they can be punished. Well, we agree completely with that. But the problem is and the fact is that these woke sanctuary prosecutors that he has been so doggedly defending will drop or reduce charges and then release these criminals back into our communities. That's the whole point of this resolution to urge these prosecutors to enforce the law without favor. I thank the gentleman for yielding and yield
▶ 2:53:09Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, I have two UC requests. One is entitled, "The Commonwealth's Attorney has a very holistic role, an interview with Virginia candidate Parisa Deani Tafty." And also um two uh two others illegal immigrant accomplice gets five years for murder and sweetheart deal with progressive Virginia DA and Virginia DIM split on D OJ Pub of Soros back DA accused of giving sweetheart deals to illegal aliens and Biden administration's predator
▶ 2:53:39release puts Virginia sanctuary policies back in the spotlight. Yield back
▶ 2:53:44without objection and the gentleman yields back. The gentle lady from Washington is recognized.
▶ 2:53:49Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [clears throat] What is happening under Trump's immigration militia across this country is horrific. Absolutely horrific. In just the last eight days, ICE officers shot and killed two people. Lorenzo Salgado Ajo in Texas and Yan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine. Just like they did with Renee Good, Alex Prey, Maramar Martinez, Julio Sosa.
▶ 2:54:20In all of these cases, DHS claimed that Lorenzo was trying to attack law enforcement when he was shot. And just like these other cases, contradictory evidence has emerged showing that DHS representatives made false statements and DHS agents acted inappropriately. In the case of Mr. Guerrero. DHS does not even allege that the officer feared for his life or his safety.
▶ 2:54:46Instead, DHS claims he merely attempted to flee from a vehicle and then an ICE officer shot him out of concern for quote public safety. And again, there's video that contradicts much of this. DHS agents have shot and killed six people only during immigration enforcement action since the beginning of the second Trump administration. There have been 53 deaths in detention since Trump came into office.
▶ 2:55:1460,000 immigrants across this country are incarcerated every single night in private for-profit detention facilities. And in the cases of these last two individuals and the families they left behind, our hearts should cry out. Mr. Salgado Ajo's US citizen children heard their father's last words crying for help before he was killed on social media. That's how they found out he was dead. Mr.
▶ 2:55:43Guerrero's wife and three-year-old daughter are left in complete trauma and terror. And all of this has been driven by supercharged enforcement from the White House enabled by my Republican colleagues. $210 billion dollar to ICE and CBP just since Trump came into office. 140 billion last year in the big bad betrayal bill.
▶ 2:56:10Another 70 billion just now that Republicans passed partyline vote even though there was a hundred billion left from before. And all of this while saying that there's no money for health care or for the things that are making Americans hurt across the country. Rising gas prices, grocery prices, all of those things.
▶ 2:56:32In addition, the arbitrary White House deportation quotas have resulted in veteran agents who should know better shooting and killing Americans. Mr. Mr. Chairman, we are failing the American people every single day that we refuse to hold any oversight hearings in this committee or demand independent investigations into these deaths. This should not be partisan, but it is partisan.
▶ 2:57:00Apparently, my Republican colleagues don't have time to reign in DHS's violent actions in our communities, but they can make time to take up a non-binding resolution that targets local prosecutions and their policies as part of the neverending attacks on sanctuary jurisdictions. This resolution is not how we should be spending our time in this committee. It is another way to distract from all the things that are actually happening.
▶ 2:57:26US citizens, immigrants who are here with work authorization, people being targeted in their communities being terrorized to come out of their houses. And we're certainly not talking about issues like President Trump's illegal war of choice on Iran. This war has been so disastrous that for the first time in history, both the House and the Senate passed a war powers resolution, asserting that Congress alone has the power to declare war.
▶ 2:57:51waged with no imminent threat, no endgame, this war has killed 13 US service members, injured many more, killed thousands of civilians in Iran and Lebanon, displaced millions more, and wasted wasted billions in US taxpayer dollars. This committee has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to conduct oversight on this clear breach of the Constitution.
▶ 2:58:16There are many things we could be holding hearings on and the ranking member went through many of these so I won't again. But I will say if Republicans want to focus on immigration, let's conduct oversight over DHS agents involvement in fatal shootings and the Trump administration's many abuses of authority. [snorts] From dismantling the immigration system to trampling our constitutional rights and destroying our country, our families, and our economy.
▶ 2:58:43Let's talk about the story of Wendy Hernandez Reyes, a single mother whom ICE deported without her three-year-old US citizen child, Orland, despite her pleas to take her son with her. Orland was murdered by the abusive uncle that he ended up being placed with when Wendy was deported. This is just outrageous. I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution and I yield back.
▶ 2:59:07Gentle lady yields back. [clears throat] If no one else, I'll uh move to strike the last
▶ 2:59:17gentle from New York. Um, I I think there's a lot more agreement than disagreement in this issue because I would be hardpressed to find anyone on this side of the aisle, I'll speak for myself alone, who does not believe that uh those who have convicted deportable offense, those who have committed through a conviction deportable offenses should
▶ 2:59:47be removed. moved from this country. Um that I I don't think is is in dispute. What is the what is problematic here is that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are using anecdotal stories that are horrific and are not supported by anyone on this side of the aisle. Um nor have they ever been.
▶ 3:00:15as using these few examples to try to create the rule. But they are the exception by leaps and bounds. And if we are talking about who is actually committing crime in this country, it is generally not undocumented immigrants. Certainly not at the same rate as US-born citizens.
▶ 3:00:43US-born citizens are more than two times more likely than undocumented immigrants to be arrested for violent crimes, two and a half times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over four times more likely to be arrested for property crimes. So, it is not the data just doesn't support this idea that anybody is choosing undocumented immigrants over American citizens.
▶ 3:01:13and why my colleague from Washington and the ranking member um are so correct in identifying the flaw in this resolution and in this argument is that even if you on the other side, my colleagues are are correct, nobody is in this administration is going after the worst of the worst.
▶ 3:01:42You're not you I shouldn't say DHS ICE is not going after the convicted criminals. You are picking out a few examples that are sensationalized and trying to extrapolate. But the reality is that 92% of detainees in a Wall Street Journal study from September 21st through January 7th.
▶ 3:02:1092% had no criminal convictions. And that doesn't even break it down by serious criminal convictions that would be deportable under removable under the INA. So if this administration were actually going after the worst of the worst as they promised and as they continue to say then we would be having a very different discussion.
▶ 3:02:38But nobody is prioritizing un uh criminally convicted undocumented uh immigrants over American citizens. That's absurd. they they should be caught, they should be prosecuted, they should be deported. That we all agree on. So you're you are finding a solution in search of a problem here.
▶ 3:03:04And when you layer on the top of that that this drag net is killing Americans, is killing undocumented immigrants, is actually responsible for far more crime and death and assault and brutality than any undocumented immigrants combined are
▶ 3:03:35you're missing the forest through the trees. But it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. Even if you want to continue to maintain that these anecdotal stories are are the rule, you can also conduct oversight over ICE. That is part of our jurisdiction here.
▶ 3:03:55Wh why why do you not care about Alex Prey or Renee Good or people who are the the last two the two uh people who were killed in the last week? Why do the Republicans not care and feel like we should conduct oversight? I applaud the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Mr. Garbarino for demanding a briefing.
▶ 3:04:17But why is this committee not doing anything to conduct oversight over this mass drag net of $250 billion? And I yield back.
▶ 3:04:27Gentleman yields back. [clears throat] Question is on favorably reporting the resolution. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no.
▶ 3:04:37No. [clears throat]
▶ 3:04:38Uh in the opinion of the chair, the eyes have it and the resolution is recorded vote being requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 3:04:44Mr. Mr. Jordan.
▶ 3:04:45Oh, I'm sorry,
▶ 3:04:46Mr. Jordan.
▶ 3:04:47Oh, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang
▶ 3:04:48Mr. Garcia.
▶ 3:04:49I'm going to back up. Mr. Garcia had to ask and I I totally forgot. I apologize to the gentleman from Illinois. Um, we'll just move back a little bit and we'll The gentleman is recognized for his five minutes and then we'll go to calling the question.
▶ 3:05:02Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this resolution, which is just another cheap attempt by Republicans to scapegoat immigrants and distract from the failures to address issues facing our countries. We're in a nationwide affordability crisis. What have Republicans done? Tax cuts for billionaires and wealthy corporations. Our constituents are sick and tired of endless war. What have Republicans done?
▶ 3:05:32launched a re regime change operation and occupation in Venezuela and launched a cruel, illegal, devastating war in Iran that Trump has lost control of. Our constituents want basic health care without taking on crushing medical debt. What have Republicans done? Gutted Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, driving up premiums and causing people's deaths from lack of medical care.
▶ 3:06:01The American people overwhelmingly support immigration. What have the rep Republicans done? Send over $200 billion dollars to a bunch of mass stormtroopers at ICE and CPP to terrorize our communities. It's back in the news. It's astonishing to me that Republicans want to bring this garbage up in this committee. This week alone, ICE has caused the deaths of three people.
▶ 3:06:27They shot and killed Lorenzo Solgado Ajo in Texas and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine and caused the man in Florida to get hit by a tractor trailer. These deaths are on top of the Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pies in Minneapolis, Sylvio Viegas Gonzalez in Chicago in my district, and dozens of others in ICE custody over the last year and a half. These Republicans love to talk about big government.
▶ 3:06:58Don't tread on me. What hypocrisy. All they've done is send tax dollars to mass lawless death squads that are murdering citizens and non-citizens with impunity and racially profiling on steroids immigrant communities. This resolution is a joke. No matter how hard they try, Republicans cannot get around the fact that local jurisdictions are not required to cooperate in immigration enforcement without a warrant.
▶ 3:07:29That's due process. And the fact that they cannot comeander our law enforcement officers to carry out their terror on our streets. This latest effort suggests that Republicans are running out of steam. You think prosecutors are the problem? A disproportionate amount of federal prosecutions are of lowlevel immigration cases. State and local prosecutions prosecute people for violent offenses regardless of their immigration status.
▶ 3:07:59This is a pathetic stunt that reveals the total failure of Republicans to do anything to make life better for working families. The public knows it. And no matter how hard they try, no matter how many terrible anti-immigrant bills we mark up in this committee, including whatever nonsense they come up with next week, the public supports immigration and opposes the lawless murders by ICE.
▶ 3:08:25It's time to rid ourselves of DHS terror by dismantling this rogue agency and rebuilding the immigration enforcement from the ground up. And if Republicans want to talk about holding criminals accountable, they should start with those agents who have committed these atrocities, cabinet officials, and if necessary, the president himself. I yield back.
▶ 3:08:48Gentlemen yields back to further discussion on the amendment. Lady from
▶ 3:08:52Gentle lady from Vermont is recognized.
▶ 3:08:54Thank you. I move to strike the last
▶ 3:08:56General ladies recognized under the fiveminute rule.
▶ 3:08:59Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I want to talk for a moment about how there seems to be a different way that we talk about these cases depending on what community these folks live in.
▶ 3:09:18So looking at this horrific situation in Maine, Johan Sebastian Guerrero, who is not the subject of the arrest warrant, he was legally authorized to work. He did everything right. He had the status. He is now dead. His child is now going to grow up without their father.
▶ 3:09:47He was a beloved member of the community, a hard-working person who had the correct status to be there and to be working. And you have a situation at the same where even in deep red Montana in a town, I hope I'm pronouncing it right, Freud, Montana.
▶ 3:10:13You have a beloved community member there, Roberto Arasco Ramirez, I believe his name is. Beloved community member. He is an auto shop owner. He's a little league coach, father of four. And he came here illegally without status.
▶ 3:10:31He um then was uh returned back to his home country and then was the subject of felony charges because he had illegal re-entry. So, this little deep red town of Montana rallied around Roberto Arasco Ramirez and according to his neighbors, they were outraged that agents staked out his house,
▶ 3:11:01harassed his children. One of his neighbors said, quote, "I personally don't believe that's right. Them four boys are American citizens." Americans that the majority of the people here who are living and working in their even if they have status that is not in line with our current immigration laws, these people understand
▶ 3:11:32that the vast majority of these people are hardworking people. And we were all sold this lie that this administration needed to supersize the ICE budget because they were going after the worst of the worst. And as my colleague from New York just pointed out, you've got 92% of the people in custody right now who haven't been convicted of any crime.
▶ 3:11:53So the residents of Freud, Montana, in a deep red district understand that this person has become a beloved member of the community and they did everything that they could to rally around him. And in fact, uh, the federal government dropped the felony charges on illegal re-entry.
▶ 3:12:15And so we have this discussion that always breaks down along party lines here that somehow Democrats only care about immigrants and that we are somehow uh outrageous in our wanting to protect people on American soil who are living and working and contributing.
▶ 3:12:35And yet silence from the other side when you have a similar kind of behavior happening in a deeply Republican district because these people have gotten to know this person as a human being and that's what's at the center of this.
▶ 3:12:52So, I am still waiting to hear my colleagues speak out specifically about the case in Maine where he did everything right and he was still gunned down and he was not even the subject of the arrest warrant. Where is the outrage about that? We get silence even when we give you the case that you all say that you want.
▶ 3:13:21People need to do things by the book. He did everything by the book and now he's dead and his child does not have a father. I would like a little bit more self-reflection in this moment about where we are as a committee, as a nation, and acknowledge that most Americans understand that they've gotten to know these immigrants and understand that the vast majority are contributing to their communities. And I yield back.
▶ 3:13:51General Lady yields back. Is there further discussion on the resolution? Seeing none, the question is on favor. Well, the general lady is recognized.
▶ 3:14:00See, I just walked in. Um, you know, I I'm actually kind of speechless. We've had I don't know how many killings, but I do know that it is a record number of killings.
▶ 3:14:17And instead of trying to make sure that we do our job, which is to conduct the oversight, in fact, our colleague who was trying to conduct oversight at the Dilly facility because she wanted to make sure that people weren't dying in that facility in New Jersey is now facing 17 years in prison somehow for doing her job.
▶ 3:14:38Why is it that we can't just come to DC and do what we were elected to do, which is to make sure that these federal officers are protecting and serving. Instead, the only thing that's happening is that people are being taunted, they are being tracked, and they are being killed.
▶ 3:14:59And as I look at my colleague, I don't know if you've had anything to say, but as a Texan, I would hope that we could come together as Texans and denounce what just took place in Houston, Texas.
▶ 3:15:13How about we focus on making sure that this agency that has a record amount of dollars now, not because the Democrats were trying to send them more money, because we didn't want to reward their bad behavior, but instead of us doing our jobs and conducting oversight as it relates to federal officers, you guys decide to waste our time in the American people's tax dollars with this nonsense. How about we do our part and try to start saving some lives?
▶ 3:15:43I'll yield.
▶ 3:15:46Gentle lady yields back. Is there further discussion? Seeing none, the question is on the favorably reporting the resolution. Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no.
▶ 3:16:02The opinion of the chair, the eyes have
▶ 3:16:05We'd ask for a recorded vote.
▶ 3:16:06A recorded votes requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 3:16:09Mr. Jordan, Mr. Isa,
▶ 3:16:13Mr. Biggs,
▶ 3:16:15Mr. McCcleinto,
▶ 3:16:17Mr. Mcccleintoch votes I. Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Massie,
▶ 3:16:23Mr. Roy,
▶ 3:16:24Mr. Roy votes I. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Klein,
▶ 3:16:29Mr. Klein votes I. Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Mr. Moore, Miss Hagaman, Miss Leah, Florida.
▶ 3:16:44Miss Leah of Florida votes yes. Mr. Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Not, Mr. Harris, Mr. And
▶ 3:17:02Mr. Ands I, Mr. Schmidt. Hi,
▶ 3:17:06Mr. Gil. Mr. Bombgardner,
▶ 3:17:10Mr. Raskin,
▶ 3:17:12Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Nadler, Miss Lofrren, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Lou, Miss Gyipol, Miss Gyipol votes no, Mr. Kareah, no,
▶ 3:17:29Mr. Ka votes no. Miss Scandan, Mr. Goose, Miss McBath, Miss Ross, Miss Balant, Miss Balant votes no. Mr. Garcia, Mr. Garcia votes no. Miss Camlager Dove. Mr. Mosquitz. Mr. Goldman,
▶ 3:17:52Mr. Goldman votes no. Miss Crockett,
▶ 3:17:54Miss Crockett votes no. Miss Lee of
▶ 3:17:57Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes no. Mr.
▶ 3:18:01you are not recorded.
▶ 3:18:02Mr. Mr. Isa votes yes. Mr. Jordan.
▶ 3:18:05Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Biggs.
▶ 3:18:09Mr. Bigs votes I. Mr. Moore.
▶ 3:18:12Mr. Moore votes I. Miss Hagamman.
▶ 3:18:14Miss Hagman votes I. Mr. Fitzgerald.
▶ 3:18:17Mr. Fitzgerald votes I.
▶ 3:19:56Mr. Gman.
▶ 3:19:58Mr. Gman votes. Yes. Miss Camdub, you're not recorded. Miss Camard votes Yeah.
▶ 3:21:22Mr. Schmidt, you're not recorded.
▶ 3:21:25Mr. Schmidt eye.
▶ 3:24:36Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Tiffany votes I.
▶ 3:24:47Clerical report.
▶ 3:24:48Mr. Chairman, there are 14 eyes and nine
▶ 3:24:51Vote being 14 the affirmative and nine in the negative. Resolution is ordered to be reported uh favorably to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Pursuant to notice, I call up HR7651, the Khloe Cole Act of 2026 for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the House. Clerk will report the bill. to provide a private right of action.
▶ 3:25:17Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any time. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Andre, for an opening statement.
▶ 3:25:27Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are here today to talk about one of the most consequential issues facing our children. Children too young to purchase a cigarette or drive a car are being coerced into adults in positions of authority to undergo lifealtering harmful so-called gender transition procedures without fully understanding the effects of these procedures on their long-term health and lives.
▶ 3:25:51This is especially tragic because the evidence shows that if left alone and supported, these children 61 to 98% of the time will identify with their biologic sex after puberty. Activists are exploiting these children. There these children are suffering. They're often depressed, anxious, on the autism spectrum, or are victims of abuse. These activists coers desperate parents by asserting that if their daughters does not undergo go transgender medical procedures, she will commit suicide.
▶ 3:26:22They cynically ask the question, would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter? There is little to no evidence that chemically and surgically mutilating children does anything to treat their actual underlying mental health struggles. In fact, the best study to date in my view is published in by Finnish researchers in the journal act of pediatrica which shows quite the opposite that serious mental disorders get dramatically worse after transgender procedures. Today we may hear weak appeals to authority.
▶ 3:26:51We should remember that the so-called Dutch protocol has been thoroughly debunked. Activists rammed through its self-interested guidelines at the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society without meaningful input from their members. dissenting voices were silenced. But in February, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, then the AMA, revised their positions on the surgical mutilation of children, stating that such procedures should be delayed until at least 19 years of age.
▶ 3:27:19My profession and society at large need to take a hard look in the mirror and remind ourselves of the ancient principle of medicine, primum nonoser, first do no harm. The United States needs urgently to join progressive western countries such as the UK, Sweden, Finland, and Norway in protecting children as 26 states have also done.
▶ 3:27:41This legislation is the the so legislation that is the subject of today's markup is named for that brave advocate Khloe Cole, who testified before this committee in 2023 when she was just 19 years old. Khloe is one of a growing number of young people who were wronged by adults who were supposed to protect her. She was rushed into sex rejecting procedures. First puberty blockers, then testosterone starting at age 12. She suffered a double mastctomy at age 15 only to deeply regret it by age 16.
▶ 3:28:12Now she suffers a multitude of health health complications. And Khloe testified that she was never suicidal until after she was subjected to sex rejecting procedures. Khloe's story is unfortunate but not unique. dransitioners across the country report a multitude of crippling health issues as a result of chemical castration and surgery including increased levels of anxiety and depression.
▶ 3:28:37The victims of sex rejecting procedures also suffer surgical complications, blood clots, bone and endocrine disorders, and fertility issues. Victims of these procedures become lifelong patients. Doctors and hospitals must be held accountable for harming children. History and the American people are on the side of protecting children.
▶ 3:28:56Which is why upon taking office, President Trump acted swiftly through executive order to enact protections against the mutilation of children, including directing the Department of Justice to draft and transmit this bill to Congress. I'm proud to work with both Khloe and the DOJ on this legislation and am grateful to dransitioners like Khloe who have bravely shared their stories so other children will not be harmed.
▶ 3:29:21The Khloe Cole Act simply allows minors who are harmed by sexrejecting procedures and their parents to hold clinics and doctors accountable for the harm they caused. It provides for strict liability and appropriately long statute of limitations and damages including the costs of dransition. The embrace of sex rejecting procedures on children is now recognized in multiple countries and in multiple systematic reviews as the emperor that has no clothes. Congress must act now.
▶ 3:29:53Protecting children should not be a partisan issues issue. I urge all my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, to support this bill and I yield back.
▶ 3:30:01General yields back. The chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, for an opening statement.
▶ 3:30:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, we all know that authoritarians vilify and scapegoat minorities. It's a great way to distract from corruption, self-enrichment, villain, and incompetence. Now, in America, inflation has hit a three-year high. Gas prices remain crushingly high, and Trump's disastrous and illegal war with Iran has cost taxpayers $132 billion in counting.
▶ 3:30:35But the failed president who has already added more than $2 trillion dollars to our national debt and the tagalong Congress have given up on advancing any policy solutions to the huge ditches that they've dug for our economy. It's a lot easier just to follow the authoritarian playbook.
▶ 3:30:52With just 21 session days left before November, the House majority pulls out of its bag of tricks another hopeless bill targeting MAGA's favorite scapegoat, the tiny group of Americans in the transgender community. Here, to be fair, they're only following the directions of their leader who lost the straight of Hormuz for safe and free international commerce, but created the straight of warm ooze in Washington DC, turning blue water green.
▶ 3:31:21and the whole executive branch of government into a swamp of corruption and murky waste. Trump told Republicans earlier this year to make targeting the transgender community a central focus of the midterm elections. Not healthcare, not housing, not bringing down inflation, not climate change, targeting the transgender community for disparagement and Does the White House not understand that everybody gets this cruel game?
▶ 3:31:50Even though the GOP House already passed a bill to criminalize doctors for providing gender affirming care, now they're back with HR7651, which creates a federal private right of action to allow federal civil lawsuits against medical providers, doctors, and facilities for providing gender affirming care to minors, even the most common kinds of gender affirming care, which have nothing to do with surgery. and everything to do with counseling, therapy, and non-invasive treatment.
▶ 3:32:20by subjecting providers and facilities to federal civil liability and litigation without regard to the established standards of care in their states. This bill makes a mockery of federalism to effectively impose a national ban on gender affirming care for minors with potentially devastating mental, emotional, psychological, and medical consequences for vulnerable young people who need our support, not demonization and ostracism.
▶ 3:32:49I've received visits from constituents whose children are transgender in which they have told me that they are literally considering leaving America, this country, our country, because Donald Trump and his allies have been waging this campaign to make the country unsafe for them. President Trump has attacked the transgender community ever since he got back in office. One of the first executive orders issued directed agency and department heads to take whatever steps possible to end gender affirming care.
▶ 3:33:18Even after a judge blocked enforcement of that order, many federal agencies continued to take steps to implement it. The FBI even posted an Orwellian tweet urging its followers to report hospitals, clinics, and practitioners who provide gender affirming care to minors. The president has also purged government websites of any reference to transgender people, essentially disappearing hundreds of thousands of Americans.
▶ 3:33:44He's issued an executive order directing that Americans serving honorably in the armed forces be summarily discharged for being transgender. He has threatened to defund schools that support trans students. and he's trying to bully schools into banning trans girls from playing sports with other girls, even if there's no objection and even if the school agrees to it.
▶ 3:34:07He has ordered transgender women incarcerated in women's facilities to be immediately transferred out and placed in male facilities, putting their safety in jeopardy. The list goes on. Because my colleagues clearly weren't paying attention the last time we debated an anti-transgender bill. Let me restate. All major medical associations agree that evidence-based gender- affirming care is necessary and in some instances life saving for transgender youth.
▶ 3:34:37And while my colleagues will once again tell you that there are young people across the country being mutilated by malicious doctors, that's not true. Like all medical care, gender affirming care is tailored to the age and unique needs of individual patients in consultation with medical doctors, mental health professionals, and of course, in the case of youth seeking care, their parents. Before puberty, no medical treatment is even recommended.
▶ 3:35:05The majority of medical experts agree that the standards of care for minors almost never require surgery. A recent study from the Harvard Thchan School of Public Health confirmed that US surgeons are following these guidelines and largely not performing gender affirming care that includes any surgery on minors.
▶ 3:35:24HR7651, however, threatens to leave gender dysphoria completely untreated by subjecting providers to legal liability even for prescribing medications and hormone treatments according to state law, putting young people at risk for depression, anxiety, and suicide. Gender dysphoria is a medical problem. Studies show that the number of transgender people who revert back to living as their sex assigned at birth is rare.
▶ 3:35:52In the largest ever survey of transgender Americans, just 9% reported that they'd gone back to living their sex assigned at birth. Of those 9%, their main reason was not they said that they regretted their choice to transition, but rather it was simply too hard and they faced too much hate and discrimination trying to live as their true selves. So here's the key thing.
▶ 3:36:14In the rare instances where a doctor or medical professional deviates from the wellestablished medical standards standards of care, state laws already provide a remedy for those patients. For example, just earlier this year, a jury in New York awarded a young woman $2 million in damages for a double mastctomy she received as a teenager as part of gender affirming care that she was undergoing.
▶ 3:36:39The plaintiff in the case accused her medical providers of failing to obtain her adequate consent about the risks of the surgery before she agreed to undergo the procedure. And she further claimed that the doctors deviated from the standards of care governing gender affirming treatment in her state. The namesake of this bill has a pending lawsuit against her medical providers with a trial set for later next year.
▶ 3:37:05No one has explained why the states do not have the expertise to guarantee that the rights of patients and families are being protected under their laws. Meanwhile, on the federal issues actually affecting children across America that can actually do something, the GOP today um is basically doing nothing.
▶ 3:37:29Nearly a year after Republicans passed the big ugly law with false promises that cuts to SNAP would not affect vulnerable people, we now know that at least 776,000 children have lost access to food assistance. A stunning 1.5 million children have lost their health insurance over the same period.
▶ 3:37:50And yet we're doing nothing about this other than piling on to the criminal law that the majority already passed to throw in now a civil right of action. This administration has fired all 17 members of the advisory committee on immunization practices which provides recommendations for immunization schedules in our country. They've dropped the number of recommended childhood vaccines as a measles outbreak ravages huge regions of the country.
▶ 3:38:19And they've abandon a longunning FDA proposal to ban people under 18 from using tanning beds, which are a serious threat to minors, hundreds of thousands of them across the country, many of whom do not understand the risks associated with tanning. That would be a far better investment of our time and energy at this point than again uh retreading the road that the majority already went down by criminalizing uh transgender care.
▶ 3:38:51does nothing to help American kids. It ignores science and interferes with decision-making that should remain between the patient, his or her family, and their health care providers, not politicians, much less those of us who come to Washington in Congress. This legislation is just another occasion to demean and scapegoat people and distract all Americans from the real harms being visited on kids because of the disastrous policies of this administration.
▶ 3:39:19I urge our colleagues to rethink this, oppose this legislation, and I yield back.
▶ 3:39:24Gentlemen yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements be included in the record. Chair now recognizes a gentleman from Missouri to offer an amendment in the nature of a
▶ 3:39:34Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment in the nature of this of the of a substitute to
▶ 3:39:41report the amendment.
▶ 3:39:43Amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR. Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and should be considered base text for purposes of amendment. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri to explain the
▶ 3:39:55Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. This amendment makes uh simple technical changes and does not alter the underlying uh import of the bill.
▶ 3:40:03Gentleman yields back. Is there any discussion on the amendment the nature of a substitute?
▶ 3:40:08Gentle lady from Washington is
▶ 3:40:10Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last
▶ 3:40:12Gentle lady's recognized under the fiveminute rule. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this bill. It is remarkable to me that as gas and grocery prices go up because of this continued illegal war in Iran, as Americans pay tens of thousands of dollars for health care because Republicans destroyed any semblance of health care with their big bad betrayal bill and cuts to the ACA subsidies.
▶ 3:40:38As Donald Trump enriched himself last year to the tune of$2.2 2 billion dollar while fleecing Americans of their hard-earned money. What are we spending time on? Once again, on targeting young trans people who make up less than 1 half of 1% of the I would ask the majority, why are you spending so much time manufacturing a culture war targeting a group
▶ 3:41:08of young people who make up less than 1 half of 1% of the population? Is it perhaps because you want to fearmonger about them so that you distract people from the daily troubles that they have of keeping a roof over their head and paying for their healthcare and groceries? Is it because you literally have no productive proposals to make life better for the American people?
▶ 3:41:33Is it because you want to distract attention away once again from the fact that ICE just killed two people in Texas and in Maine because Republicans refuse to hose hold them accountable and are spending $170 billion on these agencies instead of Americans healthcare? Or maybe you're trying to distract from Donald Trump refusing to sign into law the most significant bipartisan bill in a generation to invest in housing. Yes, you heard me right.
▶ 3:42:02It was passed into law by big bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate. But Donald Trump refused to sign the bill because he says affordability is a quote hoax. Tell that to the American people who are struggling to afford rent or buy a home. Let me be very clear. Trans people have always and will always exist.
▶ 3:42:30Republicans will try to negate the urgency of gender affirming care by cherrypicking extreme examples of people who regret care. A review of gender- affirming care for transgender youth conducted by the Utah legislature found that quote, "There is virtually no regret associated with receiving treatments." And that is why nearly every major medical association recognizes the importance of gender affirming care for young trans people and have standards in place to ensure that this care can
▶ 3:43:00be provided What is true is that for most trans youth care simply comes in the form of puberty pausing medications after close consultation with youth, their parents, and their medical providers. These medications have been prescribed safely for both non-transgender and transgender children for decades.
▶ 3:43:23Trans patients use them at exactly the same doses and for exactly the same outcomes as their counterparts now. Just an hour ago, the Secretary of Forever Wars, Pete Hagsth, said that they are going to provide hormone therapy for male service members who don't have enough testosterone.
▶ 3:43:50This, by the way, is gender affirming care. And by the way, male members of this committee, watch what you vote for. Do you really want the government getting into your business, taking your testosterone levels and determining whether or not you have enough testosterone? Are you male enough to be in Congress? That is the question.
▶ 3:44:16Now, to go from the absurd to the very, very, very serious. In the past year, 40% of transgender and non-binary young people seriously considered attempting Instead of shaming and targeting them for seeking the care they need, as Republicans constantly do, let us provide support to them.
▶ 3:44:42This bill is so extreme that even mental health professionals could face legal action for talking to trans youth about the options they have available to live an authentic life. To Americans who are frustrated, you are right to be frustrated. To trans people who are listening, you have every right to be fully who you are.
▶ 3:45:06Your freedom is not a threat to anyone else's and we will stand up and never throw you under the bus. I yield back.
▶ 3:45:15Gentlemen, gentle ladies, time is expired. Uh, further discussion. Miss
▶ 3:45:22Despite being considered the so-called gold standard when it comes to the efficacy of what some people refer to as gender affirming care, a 2023 study found that the research behind the Dutch studies was deeply flawed. Only the cases with the most positive outcomes were included in the results with those cases in which adverse events occurred or unsu unsuccessful outcomes arose were dropped from the study.
▶ 3:45:48Altering the gender dysphoria questionnaire which was used as a scoring method following the treatment was done to artificially exhibit a post-surgical drop in gender dysphoria scores. Concurrent psychotherapy made it impossible to separate the effects of this intervention from those of hormones and surgery. The purported success of the Dutch studies has never been replicated with attempts to do so having repeatedly failed. Democrats like to look to Europe for examples on public policy.
▶ 3:46:16In December 2024, the UK indefinitely banned new prescriptions of puberty blockers to address minors gender dysphoria, citing previous findings from the cast review, which evaluated the scientific basis of medical inter intervention for minors.
▶ 3:46:32Findings in the cast review include, quote, "While a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions or for children and their families to make informed choices." End quote. Furthermore, quote, "The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health.
▶ 3:47:02The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown." End quote. In March 2023, a Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board report report stated, quote, "The knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender affirming treatment, hormonal and surgical, is deficient, and the long-term effects are little known." This is particularly true for the teenage population, where the stability of their gender inongruence is also not known." End quote.
▶ 3:47:31Earlier this year, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a position statement on on gender surgery for children and adolescence, concluding that there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk benefit ratio for the pathway of gender related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolesccents. As such, they recommend that surgeons delay gender- related breast or chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.
▶ 3:47:59I think protecting our children from these barbarians is incredibly important for us to do that. It is for that reason that I support the Khloe Cole Act of 2026. And I thank Representative Ander for bringing this important legislation.
▶ 3:48:17Gentle lady yields back. Is there further discussion? Miss Camel Dove.
▶ 3:48:23Thank you. I um I oppose this bill. I think it is a dangerous bill uh baked in ignorance and hate and fear and another opportunity to engage in a culture war debate rather than to investigate what the people are seeing with their own eyes on television and in the news every single day. Uh to the trans community, your freedom is not a threat.
▶ 3:48:53Your existence is not a threat. And I wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be talking about what the rest of America is talking about. We should talk about children. I want to talk about one child in particular. I want to talk about Juan Guerrero's child. Mr. Guerrero was 26 years old. He was authorized to work in the United States.
▶ 3:49:22He was getting up in the morning to go to work. He got in his car. His three-year-old daughter was in the car with him. She was in her pajamas and he was shot through the windshield of his own car by ICE agents.
▶ 3:49:42He was pulled out of the car while bleeding out in front of his three yearear-old child. This was not some high fast car pursuit. It wasn't something you see in some Netflix movie. This was not some crazy shootout. There was no illicit activity involved.
▶ 3:50:14It was a drive by shooting. It was an execution done by an ICE agent. Questions are now emerging if this person even received adequate training. The sad reality is that this child no longer has a father.
▶ 3:50:41And there was another murder similar to this in Houston, Texas. Another father also killed. The other sad reality is that neither of those two men, neither of those two fathers were even the people that were named in the warrants. That's why I call it a killing. That's why I call it an execution.
▶ 3:51:09And now we are having a culture war debate about transgender Let's talk about the fact that legitimate law enforcement where body cameras. No body cameras on these ICE Let's talk about the fact that ICE now wants to investigate itself. Are you kidding me?
▶ 3:51:33Where are the claims, the calls, the yells from both sides of this committee about demanding an independent investigation, a transparent investigation into these two murders and all of the others that have happened since this rogue ICE agency has been flushed with taxpayer dollars to kill You want to talk about medically necessary treatment?
▶ 3:52:03I have a constituent, Mr. Pereus, in Adilanto detention facility in California. He has not received medical treatment. The McM Mullen Marqu Mullen said, "Oh, folks that are in these detention centers, they are visited by a doctor.
▶ 3:52:24They get medical treatment every two weeks." Well, my constituent was shot in the arm by an ICE agent because he was documenting what was going on in his community. He now has a flesh wound. His arm may be amputated. He was given Ben Gay and vitamin D for a gunshot wound into his arm. That's not medical treatment. And you want to talk about these kids?
▶ 3:52:50I'm so glad these kids have parents and family members who love them, who are standing in the gap fighting for them. our transgender boys and girls while members of Congress are trying to erase them and turn them into paras in this We can have a bipartisan conversation about some dinosaurs.
▶ 3:53:11We need to have a bipartisan investigation about ICE and the killings that are happening out of that agency that seem to be sanctioned by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
▶ 3:53:24And with that, I yield back. Lady's time is expired. Further discussion. Mr. Her.
▶ 3:53:28Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [clears throat] Uh, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle profoundly misunderstand this bill. Uh, they accuse us of somehow targeting transgender youth. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are protecting these vulnerable children and we're protecting from their families from the kind of cynical manipulation that's embodied in this statement, would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?
▶ 3:53:58But if gender denying treatments are half as wonderful as my Democratic colleagues seem to think they are, then they should have no problem with this bill either. Because all this bill does is give those gives those parents and their families the opportunity to sue for damages if they are harmed. And if there are no damages, no lawsuit.
▶ 3:54:24Now uh now Representative Rascin cited some information about low rates of of desistance uh transgender identifying individuals um returning to identify with their bi to with their biological sex that is based on a study in published in the journal of pediatrics with early transition transition of children social transition of children age 6 to 7 and then looking at them 5 years later.
▶ 3:54:54Um, and and not surprisingly, if you start brainwashing a child at age five, at age 10, he or she might continue to accept the subject matter of that brainwashing. the these the 11 studies that I cited earlier where on average 75 to 98% of children who identify as transgender before puberty after puberty identify as their biologic sex, the sex God made them.
▶ 3:55:24That is that is the children who are not aggressively transitioned. Yes. Once the once the transgender industrial complex gets a hold of these poor children, heaven knows how poor their their outcomes will be. One of my colleagues referred to puberty blockers as noninvasive and another used the word reversible. Remember the idea of giving puberty blockers to prepubescent children is to stop puberty.
▶ 3:55:53By the way, these are the same drugs that courts have ruled are not constitutional, that they are cruel and unusual punishment for rapists. These are chemical castration drugs. But the plan when starting one of these poor children, children who need psychological support and counseling, when you put those kids on puper blockers, the plan is then to change them to wrong sex hormones later on.
▶ 3:56:21And that course of therapy results in results in issues with fertility, sexual health, bone development, eurog gynecologic complications, metabolic and cardiac complications. Finally, uh a couple of um members of the other side on the other side of the aisle said that counseling would be outlawed. That is not true at all. This refers to quote covered interventions as defined and spelled out very clearly in this bill, which means puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones, and surgery.
▶ 3:56:51So, I look, I I don't believe this should be a partisan issue. I think we should all be on the same side of this issue. I think not a short time ago, you probably would be hardpressed to find a single Democrat who would embrace the idea that a child that is too young to buy a beer can somehow consent many times against the wishes of their parents and in some states against the knowledge of their parents to irreversible
▶ 3:57:23medical and surgical treatments. So um m uh Mr. Chairman, I um I thank you. I urge all my members to support this ANS and I yield back.
▶ 3:57:33Gentleman yields back. Further discussion, Miss Crockett.
▶ 3:57:36Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, it seems like we are um at a point where we have a solution in search of a problem. Unfortunately for the American people, when they send us to DC, they want us to solve problems. And so while I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claiming that this is about protecting children, let's talk about the fact that children are not protected in so many ways right now.
▶ 3:58:05We can talk about gun violence, which I'll never want to talk about because our kids are being killed. And frankly, if you look at the numbers, if I was to ask you and you decided you wanted to be honest about whether or not more children are killed in their schools because of gun violence versus children dying because of issues like this. If you tell the truth, you'll know that gun violence is killing our children. You'd also understand the importance of making investments into things such as mental health.
▶ 3:58:35And when we look at the actual numbers as it relates to mental health and what these types of bills do to our children, let me give you some facts because I don't want to operate on feelings. I want to operate on facts. Trans youth face some of the highest suicide risk of any other youth groups in this country. Nearly half of trans and non-binary young people seriously consider attempting suicide each year. The actual number is 46%.
▶ 3:59:06But I don't see y'all trying to propose anything to make sure that we can assist these children. Suicide actual attempts. We know that a study showed that one in five trans or non-binary youth have attempted suicide just in the past year. Over their lifetimes, up to 40% of transgender individuals report suicide attempts.
▶ 3:59:31And states that passed laws banning gender affirming care saw suicide attempts by transgender youth increase by up to 72%. So if you want to protect children and youth maybe consider what is actually you are absolutely not protecting their mental health and you're absolutely not providing mental health resources because we know that Republicans
▶ 4:00:02hate to put money into mental health but they blame every travesty that we see on mental health. We also know that measles which unfortunately have started to kill children in this country because it's back on the rise. Y'all haven't decided to have a hearing or pass a bill to make sure that we could eradicate measles, which was eradicated before the Republicans got back in control. TB is up. Whooping cough is up.
▶ 4:00:30Listen, Primilla asked earlier, why are we doing this? I can tell you we're doing this because the midterms are coming and you don't want to talk about the actual problems because you guys are the ones that have caused the vast majority of the problems that we're dealing right now. If some people don't want to talk about measles or whooping cough, we can just talk about the fact that the vast majority of the country right now is scared to eat lettuce because they believe that they may start pooping and can't stop. Now, I didn't even know that this existed.
▶ 4:01:01But this is where we are. We are at the point that y'all are so careless with who it is that runs the CDC and y'all are so reckless that from our farmers and ranchers not knowing whether or not their cattle is going to or literally people saying I can't eat the berries and and the salad because I may not be able to get off the toilet. I think it's it's actually very symbolic of kind of how most Americans feel.
▶ 4:01:31We are in a very um uh place right [clears throat] now in this country. In all seriousness though, we got a lot of things that we could be solving. And I can guarantee you if you go knock a door right now and ask your constituents whether or not they want to be concerned about Ebola, which has come back around again, or whether they want to be concerned about the fact because of Elon and his recklessness as it relates to USID,
▶ 4:02:02we know that there is an increase in HIV globally right now. I can tell you that there are some medical conditions that people care about in this moment. The fact that cancer research dollars have been cut. There's a lot that we could be doing and I would really want to engage in a real conversation. But going after trans children is just a campaign spiel for you because it has worked in the past.
▶ 4:02:30But I can tell you right now that the American people understand that y'all are not serious people in this moment and therefore the midterms are coming. The Democrats, we going to talk about this pooy situation that y'all got us
▶ 4:02:47Gentlemen back.
▶ 4:02:48Uh gentle yields back. Uh gentleman from Arizona is recognized.
▶ 4:02:54Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, just uh just to point out that TB, measles, and whooping cough, those are coming back as communicable diseases at a high rate. Why? Because under the previous administration, 20 million illegal aliens cross this country. Many who are sick, many were Yeah, check it out. Don't be dumb. It's
▶ 4:03:17Okay. The radical left gender ideology experiment on American
▶ 4:03:20video will be in order. The time belongs to the gentleman from Arizona. you had your five minutes or if you haven't I'll make sure you get it. But the gentleman's uh controls the time.
▶ 4:03:30Sure is fun when they don't like to hear the truth. Is it? Radical left gender ideology experiment on America's children has gone too far. It's time we held them accountable. For years, so-called gender specialists and activist clinics have pushed dangerous puberty blockers, cross- sex hormones, and mutilating surgeries on children in the name of affirmation. They told parents it was life-saving care. They told the public it was settled science. They didn't tell the truth. This bill is personal.
▶ 4:03:56It's named for Khloe Cole, a brave young woman who was rushed into this destructive path as a minor by gender specialist promoting affirmation at all cost. She suffered permanent harm and now she's fighting back and so are we. The Khloe Cole Act gives victims and their parents a real private right of action to sue the doctors, hospitals, and clinics that performed or facilitated these experimental interventions on minors. covers the full arsenal of so-called gender affirming care. The bill is crystal clear.
▶ 4:04:25Sex is biological, immutable, and determined at conception. The bill draws a hard line. No more chemical castration and surgical mutilation of minors. It isn't about adults making choices. This is about protecting innocent children from barbaric, irreversible procedures pushed by a radical gender cult. This ideological butchery stops here. As a co-sponsor of the Khloe Cole Act, I stand with Khloe and every dransitioner demanding accountability. Protect [clears throat] our children.
▶ 4:04:54Stop this madness and deliver accountability for the victims. Mr. Chairman, I have several UC's. Mr. Chairman, I have several UC
▶ 4:05:03Gentleman's recognized.
▶ 4:05:04Thank you. This is uh an article called What I Suffered Being Transgender. I'm suing the people who did this to me.
▶ 4:05:13UCLA student sues doctors. says she was fasttracked for gender transition at age
▶ 4:05:19Without objection.
▶ 4:05:20Article [clears throat] by Khloe Cole. The medical system pushed transgender surgery on kids. Now it's facing legal
▶ 4:05:26Without objection.
▶ 4:05:27I yield back.
▶ 4:05:28Gentleman yields back. Gentle lady from Vermont is recognized.
▶ 4:05:32Thank you, [clears throat and cough] Mr. So, how do we get here that we are we are sitting here once again talking about these these issues when uh Fox News poll recently showed that fewer than 1% of folks pled said that quote wokeness or transgender issues was the most important issue that we should be focused on right now. Fewer than 1%.
▶ 4:06:00And yet here we are again having a hearing Uh so again, how do we get here? This was a a concerted targeted strategy by the Republican party when they realized they had lost the battle over equal rights for gay And so you can look at an Atlantic article dating back to 2021.
▶ 4:06:31Quote, "The Republican Party finds a new group to demonize." That was of April 2021. Then you had another article, New York Times, April 2023, how a campaign against transgender rights mobilized conservatives. So they realized they had been losing on their demonization campaign of gay and lesbian Americans.
▶ 4:06:54So they needed a new enemy and they landed on transgender Americans who make up a very very small percentage of the American population. So, you know, 5 years later, here we are. And I was on this committee when Miss Cole came in and I can say what I said at the time, which is I have a lot of compassion for anyone who feels like they were not served by her her medical doctors.
▶ 4:07:24And as was pointed out, she actually has a court date, which is how it should be. She has a court date to bring her case before the courts to find out if in fact she was ills served and whether her medical malpractice claim will go forward.
▶ 4:07:44So there's already a mechanism So it's difficult in light of that and I I respect you Mr. Ander and I I believe your heart is in the right place.
▶ 4:07:57you come from a medical So this is not personal but it's very difficult to sit here now four years in for me when I have constituents who are transgender.
▶ 4:08:16I have parents who come to me and they say, "Why is it that so much is being taken up by the medical care that we want for our children?
▶ 4:08:32And why is it in this moment that Congress feels like it should be intervening?" And of course, I think this is a continuation of the Republican party's push also to restrict women's ability to get the full reproductive care that they need and deserve. But let's put that aside. We are coming off of a year when a trillion dollar was cut from healthcare.
▶ 4:09:04and I can't travel to any hospital FQC clinic in my district and even my own hometown of Little Brattleboro, Vermont. We are facing the closing of our birthing center and this is happening in rural communities across this country.
▶ 4:09:23We have a medical crisis right now and it was caused by decisions made just about a year ago by this administration to ram through cuts to Medicaid and to not extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies subsidies which I might point out we could fully pay for when compared to the amount of money that has been spade spent already on this ill-conceived war in Iran.
▶ 4:09:54and illegal. Thank you,
▶ 4:10:00Mr. Chairman.
▶ 4:10:00So, it is it's still my time, sir. So, it is incredibly frustrating when I just came off of a week at home talking to people in my medical community. They are not talking to me about this. They are saying, "How am I going to keep my hospital open? How am I going to continue to give care to the folks in my rural area?" And here we are again. And as I said, Khloe Cole has an avenue to get redressed.
▶ 4:10:29And I feel compassion for her and her family. But I am deeply troubled that we can't have a real substantive discussion about how we deliver medical care to rural America. And this isn't going to do it. And I yield back.
▶ 4:10:44Gentle yields back. Gentleman from Missouri is recognized.
▶ 4:10:47Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a unanimous uh consent request.
▶ 4:10:52Gentlemen uh can proceed.
▶ 4:10:53Uh thank you Mr. Chairman. The first is from Ruska at all active pediatric July 2026. Psychiatric morbidity among adolesccents and young adults who can contacted specialized gender identity services in Finland 1996 to 2019. A register study.
▶ 4:11:12Uh the second is reassessing the Trevor Project suicide attempt findings. uh uh June 2026 from the Society of Evidence-Based Gender uh medicine refuting the 72% cited ear uh statistic cited earlier by objection.
▶ 4:11:29Yeah. Thank you. Next is uh the uh American Academy of Pediatrics February 2026 position statement on gender surgery for children and adolesccents.
▶ 4:11:39Objection. And then uh finally, first major medical organization comes out against trans surgeries for minors national review uh February 2026.
▶ 4:11:48Without objection.
▶ 4:11:49Mr. Chair, I have a you see
▶ 4:11:51gentle ladies recognized.
▶ 4:11:52Thank you. Uh Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to include in the record a letter from over 170 civil rights, health, equity, and gender justice advocates opposing the Khloe Cole Act.
▶ 4:12:03Without objection.
▶ 4:12:03Thank you.
▶ 4:12:06From Texas.
▶ 4:12:07The gentleman from Texas. Uh, Mr. Chair, I have a number of UC's to correct the record. Uh, this one is from Newsweek July 10th, 2026. Trump's CDC stop monitoring explosive diarrhea parasite before outbreak.
▶ 4:12:25Um, this one is from the Texas Tribune. It is August 26, 2025. As measles exploded, West Texas officials looked to CDC scientist. That was the Trump administration. No one answered. Without
▶ 4:12:40The next one. CDC scientist. This is from the Washington Post. Texas measles outbreak response hurt by funding cuts. Also Trump administration. The CDC is struggling to respond to the measles outbreak in Texas. The US has reported more than 700 cases in 25 states.
▶ 4:12:59And I got a lot more of these, but I'm going to let make this one the last one. USA. Today on July 14th, 2026, RFK's CDC, that's Trump's Sky, cut back on parasite moni monitoring. Then an outbreak expired. That's about the explosive diarrhea as well.
▶ 4:13:18Without objection.
▶ 4:13:20Gentleman from Maryland's ranking members recogniz.
▶ 4:13:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, three UC requests. One is uh a statement from 115 civil rights and healthcare access and LGBTQ rights organizations opposing the
▶ 4:13:36Um a uh a statement from the Human Rights Campaign again urging opposition.
▶ 4:13:42And finally, this is um uh excerpts from statements from more than 30 different major medical associations and world health authorities supporting uh gender affirming care for young people. Without
▶ 4:13:56Question occurs on adoption of the Mr. Asen.
▶ 4:14:01Yeah. I Yeah, if I could seek five minutes, that's okay. Recognized.
▶ 4:14:06Thank you kindly. Um, so, uh, first I wanted to pick up on what the distinguished gentle lady from Texas was talking about with respect to gun violence. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death for children under 17 years old or 17 and under in the country. It is the leading cause of death in the country and we've got jurisdiction over that.
▶ 4:14:30And this is the nth hearing we've had on different attempts to uh micromanage what the states do in regulating uh medical practice relating to transgender kids. And we're not dealing with an issue directly under our jurisdiction that is causing trauma in everybody's state uh in everybody's district uh which is the the the slaughter of young people uh by gun violence.
▶ 4:15:00America is in a class by itself because of our extremely permissive and lacks uh gun laws. And I would yield the next four minutes to uh to my friend from California.
▶ 4:15:09Well, thank you ranking member. you actually um brought up a good point about what this committee has jurisdiction over. Um and in uh relation to this bill, we know that the DOJ has issued a flurry of subpoenas to hospitals across the country trying to obtain the medical records of transgender youth who have received gender affirming care. So they are investigating these hospitals.
▶ 4:15:33And I was just wondering because um you have so much more information, ranking member, do you know if the DOJ is investigating this billion dollar mining deal with Kazakhstan between Trump uh and and Trump's kids and the commerce secretar's kids? I mean, are they spending important time investigating this?
▶ 4:15:59I'm aware of no such investigation. intent to doubt it based on your description of the characters involved.
▶ 4:16:04Yeah, I didn't I didn't think so. And yet they're chasing down medical records of private citizens and hospitals on this terror. I was also wondering if you'd heard whether or not the DOJ was investigating the potential pay-to-play scheme hatched possibly in BIS and Commerce Department uh between UAE, United Arab Emirates and World Liberty Financial, which is also an entity that is co-owned by Trump's
▶ 4:16:34son. This is a multiund million dollar deal about AI chips being sold to UAE. Do you know if the DOJ is investigating that?
▶ 4:16:43I've heard of no such investigation.
▶ 4:16:45I didn't think so either. And then lastly, since we keep bringing up this man, uh the Secretary of Health and Human Services, um I was wondering, had you heard whether or not the DOJ had opened up an investigation into the allegations that a cabinet secretary has been meddling in elections?
▶ 4:17:07No, I've not heard about that one
▶ 4:17:08So, no, I hadn't either. And I was thinking, there are so many things that the DOJ could be investigating, legitimate issues that are hurting Americans that are putting us and our national security at risk. And I am just wondering why the DOJ does not come before us to shed light on whether or not they are investigating into these potentially illegal, wildly problematic schemes.
▶ 4:17:39Well, you ask a tough question and hold them to the high test of actually wanting them to engage in positive uh progress for the country. I'd be happy if they just ceased uh all of their projects that are undermining the rule of law. I mean, we we have hundreds of federal judges across the country who have been denouncing the Department of Justice for lying in court, for withholding or misstating or distorting evidence, and for failing to comply with court orders.
▶ 4:18:08And we just saw from the Southern District of Florida this week, uh, Judge Williams, uh, finding, uh, finding lawyers, uh, guilty of Rule 11 violations and holding them, uh, for sanctions, uh, because of their concocted fraudulent settlement in Trump versus Trump, where he sued the government for $10 billion and then they engaged in a phony settlement for $1.8 $8 billion for
▶ 4:18:38him to give away to convicted criminals, Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, people who assaulted officers, and also gave them um Trump uh his family and his businesses permanent immunity from being prosecuted for any criminal, civil or tax violations that had been committed up until that point.
▶ 4:18:58Well, thank you, ranking member, for answering my questions. I yield you back your time.
▶ 4:19:02You bet. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman yields back. The question occurs on adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on favorably reporting the legislation. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed,
▶ 4:19:17Nay nay.
▶ 4:19:18In the opinion of the chair, the eyes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. The question is on favor reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no.
▶ 4:19:28No. Um, the eyes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House.
▶ 4:19:36Recorded vote.
▶ 4:19:38Uh, recorded vote being requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 4:19:41Mr. Jordan,
▶ 4:19:42Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa,
▶ 4:19:46Mr. Biggs.
▶ 4:19:47Mr. Biggs votes I. Mr. Mcccleintoch.
▶ 4:19:50Mr. Mcccleintoch votes I. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Massie. Mr. Roy. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Van Drew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Haggamman,
▶ 4:20:12Miss Hagamman votes I, Miss Lee, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman,
▶ 4:20:25Mr. Growthman votes I, Mr. Not Mr. Mr. Ander, Mr. Herder votes I. Mr. Mr. Gil, Mr. Bombgardner, Mr. Rascin,
▶ 4:20:41Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Nadler,
▶ 4:20:45Miss Lofrren,
▶ 4:20:47Mr. Cohen, Mr. Johnson,
▶ 4:20:51Mr. Lou,
▶ 4:20:53Miss Gipol,
▶ 4:20:56Miss Gipol votes no. Mr. Korea,
▶ 4:20:58Mr. Kura votes no. Miss Scandan, Mr. Miss Mcbath. Miss Ross, Miss Balant,
▶ 4:21:08Miss Balent votes no. Mr. Garcia, no.
▶ 4:21:10Mr. Garcia votes no. Miss Camlager Dove,
▶ 4:21:13Miss Camlager, Dove votes no. Mr.
▶ 4:21:17Mr. Goldman. Miss Crockett. Miss Crockett votes no. Miss Lee of Mr. Moore, you're not recorded. Mr. Moore votes yes.
▶ 4:21:30Mr. Roy, you're not recorded.
▶ 4:21:32Mr. Rory votes I.
▶ 4:21:47Gonna be here while This is
▶ 4:22:15Mr. Klein.
▶ 4:22:17Mr. Klein votes I. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania.
▶ 4:22:21Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes no. Mr. Schmidt, you're not recorded.
▶ 4:22:51Mr. Schmidt votes I.
▶ 4:23:44Mr. Fry, you're not recorded. Mr. F probably probably
▶ 4:24:28Mr. Mr. Harris Mr. Harris. Yes.
▶ 4:32:44Mr. Kylie votes I
▶ 4:34:40Mr. Bombgardner.
▶ 4:34:41Mr. Bombgardner votes yes.
▶ 4:34:50Mr. Fitzgerald votes I.
▶ 4:36:37clerk will report.
▶ 4:36:38Mr. Chairman, there are 15 eyes and eight nos.
▶ 4:36:41Uh the eyes have it. The bill is ordered to be reported favor to the house. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes to that concludes the committee's business for this meeting. The meeting is adjourned.