Providing for Consideration of H.R. Student Borrower Credit Improvement Act, and Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume and thank my friend from Maryland for yielding.

Madam Speaker, it is not lost on me that you are in the chair for this debate; and having put in the years that you have put in working on this issue, I know you couldn't be down here for your amendment later on this afternoon. I am glad that you are in the chair today.

It matters, folks who invest themselves in ideas around here; and what I love about this Chamber is that, if a man or a woman, either side of the aisle, any region of the country, commits themselves to something, commits themselves in a transparent, heartfelt way, their colleagues respond to that.

I have had the great pleasure of voting for your amendments on this topic many times over the years because what my friend from Maryland says is exactly right. When it comes to matters of war and peace, this institution has, in many ways, by the wheelbarrow load, carried its authority down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and left it down there, and the American people deserve better than that. Our men and women in uniform deserve better than that. And we, as stewards of this institution, can do better than that.

Though, while I am pleased to see you in the chair, Madam Speaker, I confess I regret that it is on this bill, at this time, in this way.

For decades, you have worked to build bipartisan support; you have not tried to work alone. When you have had to, you do go it alone. When you are going to be the only voice there, you will lead because you believe, and you will follow that path. But when you can, you build bridges.

What is so frustrating to me about the rule that is before us today is we have an opportunity to come together; we have an opportunity to speak with one voice; we have an opportunity to restore exactly the kind of dialogue that my friend from Maryland suggests this House owes the American people; and we are letting it slip.

I will start with the easier one. That is the Financial Services Committee bill that is wrapped up in this rule.

Madam Speaker, I don't know if you recall. It was just a few weeks ago we had another Financial Services Committee bill. It was H.R. 2534. It was the Insider Trading Prohibition Act.

It seems like something we ought to all be able to get together on, but it was brought to the floor in a partisan way with absolutely no consultation on the other side. It was going to be a straight party- line vote, but to the credit of the chairwoman and ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, they continued to work together right up until the Rules Committee finished its meeting--you know that is the last stop before the bill comes to the floor--and they found a bipartisan pathway forward.

They changed directions from what was going to be a straight party- line vote on the floor of the House that goes nowhere, to a vote--let me consult my notes because I want to be right--410-13 was the result when we got together and worked in a bipartisan way. That is a bill that is going to go somewhere.

All the challenges my friend in Maryland talked about with credit reporting agencies, they are real, and the ranking member on the Financial Services Committee agrees with that. In fact, he has a substitute that has supported those ideas in a bipartisan way that he wanted to make in order to try to get us away from a partisan path.

The Rules Committee, in its wisdom, voted on a party-line vote to deny the ranking member an opportunity to bring forward the bipartisan language that he had.

So, we will go down this partisan road. Again, that is a partisan road on protecting consumers. It is a shame that has to happen. This bill is going to go nowhere. The President has promised he will veto it. The Senate is not going to take it up. We are not going to protect any consumers. We had a chance to, and we let that slip. Shame on us.

As shameful as that is in the financial services space, as you know from your decades of work in the war and peace space, the consequences of failure for war and peace are even greater.

Time and time again, oftentimes with your leadership, this House has had opportunities to revisit the Authorization for Use of Military Force that it passed in 2001 and that it passed in 2002. Generally, it is in our appropriations bill, as you well know, because the committee of jurisdiction, the authorizing committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, that has the ability to have a full-throated debate on this issue to decide whether to repeal, whether to replace, how to structure that, has not moved legislation forward. We are in that exact same place today.

You introduced your language, Madam Speaker, in May 2019. That is the language that this rule is going to stuff into the Congressional Gold Medal bill for merchant mariners. We will talk about that here in a bit. It is going to stuff your language that you introduced in May that has never had a markup.

Now, you led this issue when President Bush was in the White House, and we didn't get a markup. You led this issue while President Obama was in the White House, and we didn't get a markup. You are now leading this issue while President Trump is in the White House, and we still have never had a markup.

Now, don't tell me about your commitment to men and women in uniform. Do not tell me about what our Framers intended and bring language that has never had a committee markup to the House floor.

I asked these questions last night in the Rules Committee, Madam Speaker. I said: So which operations that are going on in Iraq today are going to be curtailed if we repeal the AUMF tomorrow?

I am not misremembering, Madam Speaker. So many times, when you have offered this language, you offered it for a date certain in the future. You recognized that doing something immediately would have consequences that would be very difficult for men and women in uniform to deal with, difficult for the administration, difficult for our allies. So very often you said: Let's put this down the road 6 months, 9 months, 12 months. Let's be certain that we are going to be done with it, but let's give time to transition.

I asked: This language today, what is the impact of that?

I asked: Which members of the State Department have come to testify that this is not going to put our allies in a predicament, in a precarious predicament in Iraq?

The answer was: Well, we haven't had those hearings. We don't know those answers. We believe that we know, but we have not had those folks come to testify.

Well, what about the FBI? How is this going to impact counterterrorism operations?

Well, we have not had those conversations. We have not had that in an open hearing. We have not had a chance to talk about it.

Well, what does the Pentagon have to say?

Madam Speaker, we have an opportunity to do this in a thoughtful, bipartisan way.

The leadership that the new majority is providing in the House, candidly, gives you an opportunity to do things that might not have been possible in a Republican-led House. After your decade of work on that, I think you have earned that, and it would have been a bipartisan vote.

Instead, we are here today for a partisan exercise, with no input from the minority, that the President has already recommended a veto on.

I think our men and women in uniform deserve better. I think this institution deserves better.

Madam Speaker, I don't know if you were paying attention as the Reading Clerk read. He did not go through and read all the amendments that were offered.

For the very important issue of credit agencies and how we regulate them, the majority, in its wisdom, has made 14 amendments in order. Fourteen different ideas are going to be considered for how we regulate credit reporting agencies.

For the question of war and peace--what should be the wind-down timeline, how quickly should it take effect, who should be affected, what are the impacts of that, should it be replaced, should it just be repealed--for those very complicated life-and-death questions, no committee hearing, not one amendment made in order.

The majority, in its wisdom, has provided 1 hour of debate on the floor of the House.

My friend from Maryland is very adept at quoting our Framers. His knowledge of the Constitution runs deep. Debate has never meant an hour to come down to the House floor in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion. Debate, as our Framers intended it, meant that we were going to engage in dialogue with one another, that we were going to have a conversation about how to get it right together, that we were going to do what you have done for much of your career, in terms of building coalitions. We are doing none of it today.

Madam Speaker, I have 30 minutes on the rule. We will have an hour of a take-it-or-leave-it debate.

For our men and women in uniform, as I hold the veto threat from the White House here, and we are going to produce a partisan outcome with no hope of overriding a Presidential veto, if the Senate were even to take it up, which it won't, we are going to be absolutely no closer to achieving the goal that you and I have striven for together. In fact, I believe we are going to be further away from that goal at the end of this.

I used all the ability I had as a Rules Committee member to try to keep this from going forward last night because I believe it is a missed opportunity. But on a 9-4 party-line vote, I was defeated.

Madam Speaker, the only way to get back to the partnership that our men and women in uniform deserve, the partnership that the efforts that you have brought forward over the years have received, is to defeat this rule today and have the open hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee, to have that testimony from the experts in this field, and then to move forward, not on a party-line vote that goes nowhere in this House, but in a big, big, big bipartisan vote that moves through the Senate and either receives the President's signature or overrides that veto. This isn't going to get that done.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Kevin Hern) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. KEVIN HERN of Oklahoma. 550 so that minority voices can be heard on the critical issue of war.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), because I have seen the gentleman from Maryland change his mind many times over the years when he was on the wrong side of an issue to make himself right.

Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. 550 so that minority voices can be heard on the critical issue of war.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Miller) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Spano) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I share with my friend from Maryland that if the gentleman is interested in a real debate, the gentleman would allow minority voices to be heard.

If the gentleman is not following this, the reason that Members are coming to the floor to make this request is because these resolutions, as they pertain to dealing with Iran, do nothing to protect our ally, our strongest friend in the Middle East, Israel, and we would like to make sure that Israel is protected.

I ask my friend if he would yield for the debate on protecting our friend, Israel, and to have an opportunity for not dozens of minority amendments, but my friends are asking unanimous consent for one single Republican amendment to the underlying bill: a right that has been guaranteed to the minority for over 100 years, but has been turned off by clever procedural tricks in this particular rule today.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, understanding that my friend from Maryland has called for a real debate.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser).

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Marshall) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, your rulings here today follow very clearly the Rules Committee meeting we had just across the Chamber last night that allowed for absolutely no amendment or discussion of any kind on two war resolutions that have received no markup of any kind in the committee of jurisdiction.

I know that seemed like a bothersome and worrisome procedural process to have just gone through. Madam Speaker, in those few minutes that you were ruling those unanimous consent requests out of order, we have just discussed whether or not our commitment to Israel and its safety and security will be hampered by the underlying Khanna amendment in more detail than any committee of jurisdiction has ever done. In these few minutes of Members' asking for a debate and being told no, ironically, when time was yielded for the purpose of debate only, we have discussed the issue more than in any markup in any committee of jurisdiction.

There is not one Member of this Chamber who does not think our Nation's sons and daughters in uniform deserve better. There is not one Member of this Chamber who does not think our ally Israel deserves better.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I don't question my friend from Maryland's passion at all. He says that we have the perfect vehicle to get this done today. I refer you back to the rule. That perfect vehicle is called H.R. 550, the Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2019.

You haven't heard us talk about merchant mariners or gold medals yet today because, as you know, Madam Speaker, this rule would strip out all the language in the underlying bill that deals with gold medals and merchant mariners and replace it with matters of war and peace.

I will quote the author of one of the amendments that is stuffed into the merchant mariners bill in place of the merchant mariners language, Mr. Khanna, who said in Politico last week: ``Majority Leader Hoyer has done an excellent job in figuring out a procedure for how we can get a vote on the floor on these bills without an MTR,'' a motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, a motion to recommit is what you heard folks asking unanimous consent for. A motion to recommit in this case would be the only opportunity for any voices to be heard at all on this issue.

My friend from Maryland proudly talks about a single hearing that was held 2 weeks ago, but it wasn't held on this bill. There has been not one markup, not one word, discussed in committee, marked up, and reported to the floor of this House--not one.

My friend from Maryland says that we have to debate and deliberate over matters of this gravity, that that is our job.

Madam Speaker, let's do our job: debate and deliberate.

What does it tell you? That I have been voting with the Speaker on these issues for almost a decade, on issues of war and peace, and I am offended by the process that you are using to bring this to the floor the first time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, we will offer an amendment to the rule that will make in order a bipartisan resolution, an amendment to deal with fentanyl and its listing on schedule I.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) for the purpose of explaining that previous question vote.

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Mr. WOODALL. 3201 in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Everything we have talked about has been partisan and divisive. What you have just heard from the gentleman from Oregon is to say, in the midst of why ever it is the majority has chosen to use this rule today to move partisan priorities, to make statements instead of policy, that we have one opportunity to make policy, actual policy, policy that passed the Senate unanimously, policy that America needs, desires, that is going to expire next week, and that, if we added it today, would go straight to the President's desk for his approval.

I can't count the number of times my colleagues have said that issues deserve debate. I didn't come here to be part of a debating society. I came here to be a part of a getting-something-done group, conscientious men and women who want to do the best they can to serve their constituents.

My friend from Oregon is offering us a chance to do exactly that today, and I would ask my friends--they have seen fit to use a very strange procedure to turn a Congressional Gold Medal for merchant mariners bill into a bill on war and peace. They have seen fit to strip away an opportunity for any voices to be heard on any of those measures whatsoever.

They could, as long as they are setting precedent, go ahead and support our defeat of the previous question today to add one more item so that we don't leave here today having just made a point, so that we can leave here today having made a difference, as my friend from Oregon is giving us the opportunity to do.

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Mr. WOODALL. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I know my friend from Maryland is prepared to close.

We had a bipartisan pathway forward on credit reporting agencies and reform, but the majority, in its wisdom, saw fit to shut those voices out; and this rule makes in order a partisan pathway forward that will go to the President's desk, if it makes it through the Senate, for a veto.

For decades, you have worked to build bipartisan support for finally reexamining an AUMF that should have been reexamined decades ago. The majority, in its wisdom, has decided to shut out all voices, Republican and Democrat, hold no markups, change language not at all, and make a partisan exercise of what should be a bipartisan issue, a resounding bipartisan issue, in this House; and my friend from Oregon is offering us an opportunity to take what has always been a bipartisan effort to protect our young people from the harms of opioids, to prevent traffickers from making chemical changes that allow them to thwart the law, and move that to the President's desk immediately.

Madam Speaker, defeat the previous question. Defeat the previous question so that we can at least do one thing that we know will make a difference today, one thing that will bring us together, one thing the Senate did unanimously and the President would put a signature on tomorrow. Let's do that one thing: defeat the previous question.

I tell my colleagues, if they won't defeat the previous question, they are going to have to defeat the rule, because they have turned protecting consumers into a partisan exercise, protecting men and women in uniform into a partisan exercise, and all of the goodwill that men and women of this Chamber have put into building for decades becomes a little bit weaker today.

Defeat the previous question; if not, defeat the rule.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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