Transcripts For CSPAN House Hearing On Possible Rule Changes For New Congress 20240711

For us on the committee to do something radical, to listen more than we talk. For us to heare from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle about their ideas for the next rules package. Regardless of who controls Congress Next year, i think we can all agree running this house with integrity means listening to all members so that is what we will be doing today. We took a collaborative approach with the rules package for this congress and im proud to say the first bipartisan package in decades. It took time to acknowledge no party has the monopoly on good ideas. Of what weve created together, the consensus calendar to expedite consideration of ideas with bipartisan support, the Diversity Office to get the calls falls of Congress Looking like the real world, and the Modernization Committee to advance good ideas from both sides to get this place functioning better. Although we were hearing these in committee, we required other committees hold them so all members have the chance to be heard across congress. Hopefully more ideas have the chance to see the light of day and move forward. I couldnt ask for a better partner in this process than our Ranking Member tom cole. We come from different parties, but share the same dedication to this institution. Better not forrk one Political Party or the other, but for the American People because that is really what this is all about. A well functioning Congress Allows us to make a positive difference in peoples lives and that is why we ran for congress and the first place. Before i turn to our Ranking Member, i want to ignore the newe smith,entarian, jason mr. Cole and i have said a lot about him to his predecessor. And he and his predecessor tom wickham on the floor last week. Im not going to repeat all of the stuff, but suffice it to say that our members spent a lot of time consulting with the parliamentarians office. I think its fitting that hes starting as parliamentarian on a rules committee day. So all of that is good news. So, now, i want to turn to our Ranking Member, mr. Cole, for any comments he would like to make. Can you hear me . I think we have a little bit of a Technical Glitch here. We will just wait a minute for mr. Cole. Check, check, 1, 2, i can hear you. Its working. So, mr. Cole, i said a whole bunch of nice things about you. Im not sure if you were plugged when i said that . Just now . Yeah, i just said a whole bunch of nice things about you. Oh, mr. Chairman. This is the prehearing, so its not recorded in any way, youre in the clear. Oh no, were in the hearing. Oh . Thank you for thank you nice things about me. Ill reciprocate and take your word that you said nice things, i feel obliged to say nice things back, but theyre pretty easy to say. First of all, mr. Chairman, i want to thank you for holding the hearing, and i dont think theres any one more dedicated to the institution than you and frankly, making it member friendly and having a forum where we try to make this as responsive to each individual member as an substitution as it can be while we discharge our functions. Weve been a good partner in defending the powers and prerogatives of the institution and, again, trying to position members where they can be successful as they fight to achieve whats in the best interest of the people who sent them here. And the interests of the country as a whole. So, i look forward very much to the ideas well hear today. I have no preconceptions. I would be shocked if i agreed with every one of them, but i appreciate every one being offered. And i know the members who want to present ideas are doing it, again in the best interest of the institution. So, i thank you very much for making this forum available to our colleagues. I look forward to working with you to see if there are suggestions that we can in a bipartisan manner work on together to try and improve the functionality, the flexibility and the effectiveness of the house of representatives and i know that we all want to do that. I applaud you for your leadership. With that, i yield back, mr. Chairman. I thank you very much, Ranking Member cole yields back. And im grateful for his opening. We will be calling up witnesses in panels as they log on to the virtual platform. Id like to welcome our first panel to propose rule changes to the 117th congress. Were delighted to you have. Without objection, any written materials that you submit to rulesdocuments house. Gov before the conclusion will be entered into the record. The first panel is majority leader hoyer, clyburn, thompson, mr. Landerman and miss esche. Well yield to our, mr. Hoyer. Hoyer thank you very much, mr. Chairman, im glad to be with you today, and i thank mr. Cole as well. I think the house is advantaged by the new relationship that you and tom cole as the Ranking Member have. And the fact that both of you care about the institution. And i might start with my remarks with no matter what we do in the rules, no matter what our rules say, if we dont have comedy and respect from one another, the rules will not make us work better. They can set great guidelines for us, they can be the rules of conduct. They can be the rules of how we consider bills, but one of the things that we all need to work together, in the next congress is to raise the respect for one another, raise the consideration for one another. And i think, mr. Chairman, you and the Ranking Member reflect that kind of attitude and working relationship. So, i appreciate the opportunity to participate in the days member listed day on the rules package for the house for the 117th congress. As we look ahead, many are anticipating a busy start to next year. I certainly do. Our rules ought to facilitate the houses moves for the most pressing challenges facing our country. Others have spoken or will speak, im sure, at length, about several of the proposals for next years rules package including the importance of our pay as you go rule. But i want to focus on the restoration of congressionally directed spending. Now, thats a great phrase. And you and i both know the press and the public will call them earmarks. But congressionally directed spending with the safe guards that democrats put in place in 2007 and 2009, very, very important. The safe guards are discussed at the same time we discussed the focus on congressionally directed spending. Let me add, before i go further, on the pay as you go, that we created the pay as you go waiver for emergencies like the covid19 crisis, where we have to meet a serious threat by investing in immediate priorities and needs. We now have substantial fiscal challenges however about that. And they will confront us in the years and years ahead. And we must work responsibly together to address them in the coming years. With regard to congressionally directed spending, after abuses in the system were brought to light, we implemented significant reforms, as i referenced, that made it transparent and held members accountable. A couple of those reforms are included in the rules. And i number of those reforms included in the committee rules. As you know, weve restricted to governmental or nonprofit recipients and required every request to be published online for the American People to see and judge. One of those rules is in the rules of the house. We made the system work and kept it honest. Unfortunately, however, when our republican colleagues took control of the house in 2011, they used congressionally directed spending as a partisan talking point, unfortunately. And eliminated this valuable tool for congress and surrendered part of our power to the executive branch. Tom cole just said, and i agree i with him very much, that the powers and prerogatives of the institution need to be protected. Ill speak just a minute about that. Restoring this power in congress, i believe, is essential to restoring the balance of our constitutional systems of checks and balance. A major moakfocus, mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member, if i am fortunate enough to be the majority leader in the next congress will be finding ways to restore that balance. That is the balance between the executive and the congress. And looking now, congress can better assert the powers that our founders intended us to have as a coequal branch of government. And as the Sole Authority on spending taxpayer funds. Not the executive, that is why i think the restoration of the congressionally directed spending for projects, that is so important. And my belief is that members of congress elected from 435 districts around the country know, frankly, better than those who may be in washington what their districts need. What their states need. And we ought to return to a time when members can make that decision. But obviously, have that judgment reviewed by the other 434 members of the congress. The founders neither intended nor envisioned the expansion of executive power the kind weve seen in recent years. Through many administrations, democrat and republican, however, we have seen that concern heightened by the actions of the Trump Administration. This president , in my view, sees congress not as a coequal partner in governing, but as an impediment to his authoritarian tendencies. We much approach the issue of congressly directed spending within this context. Since the elimination of congressionally directed spending in 2011, decisions about funding requests for projects in communities across the country have been made by the executive branch, not by the members of congress, who under the constitution are solely responsible for the spending of money. Members know the needs of their district as i said and are in contact on a daily basis with local leaders and civic organization. Thats why i strongly support restoring safe, transparent, and accountable congressionally directed spending of the 117th congress. And i will work towards that end with whomever is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Several of the reforms we adapted during our previous majority are still part of the current house rules. But others were adopted as committee practices, and we ought to consider whether codifying them within the house rules between the 117th congress. I want to thank the chairman and his fellow commit members, mr. Committee members, mr. Chairman, for working hard on a number of recommendations for the next congress which include restoring congressionally directed spending and i thank him for that. I believe strongly that this spending ought not to be, however, conditioned in any way on the involvement of entities outside of congress. When i say involvement, let me explain that i mean without the necessity to have a checkoff or an approval of a local official or state official. This is the congress judgment. However, obviously, we would involve all of those in communications for their advice and counsel on what spending may be helpful for local jurisdictions. I, therefore, would say that we ought not to have any requirement for outside approval, other than the voting members of the congress. I hope you will consider this proposal seriously, which can help us better serve the people and communities that we represent. Again, i want to thank you again for holding the listing day and the hearing and the many important and positive ideas members are bringing to the table for next year. I would close as i began, however, i think all of us, as leaders, as members of the congress of the United States, when we get through this toxic partisan battle that were now participating in, hopefully, well be able to restore the kind of comidy, mr. Chairman that i experienced and you were working in the congress and i was a member of the congress, the kind of comedy, not only on the rules committee but with the congress of the United States. One of the finest members with whom ive served in the congress over the last 40 years was bob michael, who was the minority leader. He was a partisan republican from peoria, illinois. The middle of our country. He cared for his party and his partys leader. But he cared for his country, and he cared for the institution. And he respected and worked with in a positive way his fellow members. I appreciated that. I think other members appreciated that. And as a member for over 20 years on the Appropriations Committee, when i came there, it was a very partisan committee. And mr. Conte was an extraordinary member, a passionate member, but also a very bipartisan member. And thats what we need. Not bipartisanship in the sense that im going to change my philosophy, or my republican counterpart is going to change his or her philosophy, but that we both have a philosophy that your ideas are worth listening to, as are mine. And we may disagree, but we can do so in a positive way. In a way that furthers the work of the congress of the United States. And our country. Thank you very much for this opportunity to be with you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. Were now going to majority w. H. I. P. Clyburn. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much, mr. Chairman. And mr. Ranking member, Ranking Member cole and members of the committee, thank you very much for allowing me to participate in this members hearing today. To discuss what may be ways to take back the Spending Authority that we have in article 1, of the constitution, which in recent years have been seated ed to the executive branch. I joined this office proudly back in 1993. By the time the appropriations process allowed members to direct funds to activities and communities they deemed worthy. This process directed a small percentage of the appropriations levels to be congressly directed, thereby not adding anything to the cost of the spending bills. This resulted in federal Agency Employees with no knowledge of needs deciding on the merit of our requests. In efforts to make the process unfairis inherently because they reward skills, rather than needs. I represented many rural communities, each with its own challenges and needs. These committees have limited resources and are unable to hire writers and lobbyists. What they do have is their congressmen who lives among them, interacts with them regularly, understands their needs, and has been elected by them to represent their needs. When i was first elected to congress, i was told by my states secretary of commerce that until all the problems in my district were solved, theres attracting thef levels of investments needed to improve the health, education and welfare of the citizens who had overwhelmingly elected me to serve them. Heeded his advice. I needed to hear my process to secure funding. Through the United States army corps of engineers, to create and expand the late marin regional water. And might i add, i was criticized severely, by many of the people in this district, because that to them was wasting federal dollars. Well, we moved not just to stab establish, but to expand it and it includes a sixcounty rural area. Today, i am pleased to say that South Carolina won the first viable plant in this country because of their water system. And now, theyre creating what is to be 4,000 jobs in this rural area. Were it not for this water system, these jobs would surely have gone elsewhere. 25 years ago, South Carolinas economy was driven by textiles and tobacco and many of these communities relied on them. Today, South Carolinas economy is driven by transportation and tourism. 25 years ago, South Carolina had no today it has two. South carolina had no, what would be called national plots. Today, South Carolina has three. The initial funding for the nationally Acclaimed Program designed to recruit, educate, and train africanamerican males to become School Teachers in elementary schools. That program, started by princeton university, was started with an earmark and is now a national program. Many of the communities in my district have been chronically neglected over the years. I was elected to address this hese inequities and help these communities that have been mired in poverty for generations to help them get their fair share. While ive spoken to a few successes, many other communities in our district are still struggling. Them need clean water. They need sewage systems. They need targeted federal investments. Mr. Chairman and members, we can fit into our rules the safe guards needed to protect the process from abuse. We should prohibit a member from sponsoring a project that their that they or family members have financial interests in. We should require transparency, so that the public can see what the members have requested. I have always been proud of the spending i requested for my district and i welcome the public knowing about every one of them. As our districts elected representatives, our rules should empower us to request spending we deem to be in the best interest of the people we represent. We do our constituents a disservice by ceding to the bureaucracy the power that the constitution has given us to improve the lives of our constituents and help them pursue their dreams and aspirations. I thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important matter and i yield back. Thank you very much. This is a rules committee, and less time. I now yield to chairman thompson. Chairman thompson thank you, chairman, Ranking Member cole. Listen, chairman, 16 years ago the Bipartisan Commission recommended that congress should create a single principle point of oversight and review of Homeland Security. That should be one permanent standing community for Homeland Security in each chamber. At the time, the commission acknowledged that their recommendation to reform congressional oversight was the most difficult to realize, but was among the most important of these recommendations. When the 109th congress convened on january 4th, 2005, the committee on Homeland Security became the 20th Standing Committee of the house. And the first new one since 1974. At that time, the committee black letter jurisdiction statement reflected the reluctance of other committees to relinquish jurisdiction to this new committee. The structure of committees on Homeland Securitys jurisdictional statement is unlike any other authorizing committee. It does not include broad subject Matter Authority like, for instance, the Armed Services for common defense generally. Instead, it utilizes a novel structure where it mostly limited committee Homeland Security black letter jurisdiction to six narrow drawn activities within dhs. Over the years, with adequate service, jurisdictional statement has been criticized in independent reports by a host of groups including the Bipartisan Policy Center, the heritage foundation, the Brookings Institution. George washington university, Homeland Security policy institute, and the center for strategic and international studies. A 2013 Task Force Report by the Aspen Institute and annanberg foundation concluded that fragmented jurisdiction impedes dhs ability to deal with three major vulnerabilities. The threat posed by small aircraft and boats, Cyber Security, and biological weapons. Yet, over the past 15 years, on under both republican and democratic leadership, that statement has remained unchanged. It concluded that dhs should have an oversight structure that resembles the one governing other critical departments such as defense of justice and the committees claim of jurisdiction over dhs should have overlapping membership. And just this past august, mr. Chairman, the Atlantic Council in its future dhs project recommended reform explaining that more than 90 committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over all or part of dhs. And that the best window of opportunity for this will be during the 90day window between the november 3 election and the start of the 117th congress on january 4th, 2021. Chairman mcgovern, i could not agree more. There is no question that the moment is right for reforming dhs jurisdictional statement in the 117th congress. Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the 9 11 attacks, a catastrophic event that drove the creation of the department of Homeland Security and, in turn, my committee. Further 15 years have passed in which theres been more than evidence to justify the support that the exclusion of the jurisdictional statement is inadequate and undermines the role as dhs authorizer. Finally, were at a moment when public trust in the department is at an alltime low. Given its role in the president s cruel immigration agenda, and more recently, on the streets, where protesters and calls for reform have grown more and more urgent. Dhs does not need dismantling, it needs reforming, but for that to happen, the committee of Homeland Security must have adequate legislative authority to produce and bring to the floor a dhs reform package. Ive been on the committee since its earliest days and im proud of the work weve been able to accomplish, despite our jurisdictional limitation. However, the committees woefully inadequate jurisdiction causes many functions of dhs, a wide reaching agency, with Collaborative Missions in many fields, to fall under the jurisdiction of far too many competing congressional committees. The resulting referrals have bogged down important legislation to shape the future of the department. And to rein in bad policy decisions and the leadership of various administrations without effective leadership from congress, including consistent, reauthorization of the department, secretaries have been able to carry out wrong, ineffective, and dangerous policies. I am proposing, as chairs on both sides of the aisle have in the past, that congress reorganize the committees jurisdiction to bring it in line with the goals of the 9 11 commissions recommendation. And give the department a true authorizing committee, with authority to advance, reform legislation, and put it on a positive path. I recognize the challenge it presents and remember the difficulty in simply creating the committee in the first place. However, it is the right thing to do and believe the time has come to do it. I yield back, and thank the committee for the opportunity to present my position. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Afternoon, chairman mcgovern, Ranking Member cole and members of the committee. Thank you for your commitment as you consider rule changes for the 117th congress. Sure my colleagues may be well aware, cybersecurity has been an issue of great importance to me for more than a dozen years. And for more than a decade, ive made protecting our nations critical infrastructure, from our health care system, to our power grid to election a top priority. I currently serve as the chairman of the intelligence disability and capability subcommittee on the house Armed Services committee and served as a Senior Member of the committee on Homeland Security subcommittee on Cyber Security, Infrastructure Protection and innovation. Congressman mike mccall and i also cofounder and still to this day cochair the congressional caucus. I come to you today to share our recommendations to improve the nations cybersecurity posher. I had the honor of being employed to this commission by speaker pelosi. Congress charged the commission, which comprised of 14 members,our of whom were legislators members of the executive branch, and six private sector experts that resulted in a strategic approach of better protecting the United States from Cyber Attacks of significant consequence. We met for a year before on march 11r report that calls for an approach of leighton cybersecurity. In addition to this strategic of cybersecurity. In addition to this strategic vision, we had 82 recommendations of how the government can implement it. More than 50 of those recommendations are directed to congress. Thanks in no small part to your leadership, chairman mcgovern, the house has included more than 20 of these bipartisan recommendations this year, including within the executive office of the president. Id like to reiterate my thanks to you and your staff to make have particularly laura ishmael, in working with us to ensure these important proposals will be presented to the full house. However, one of the commissions most critical legislative recommendations is directed not at the administration, but congress itself. The recommendation 1. 2 of the Commission Report states, and i quote, congress should create house permanent select and senate collect committees, on Cyber Security for legislative jurisdiction as well as traditional oversight. This is the proposal i put forward with my house colleagues for your consideration today. Fullhallenges were on display earlier this week when we considered three benches related to Cyber Security. It chairman thompson was correct in the concerns he expressed on thefloor during debate that bill not reflect the views of the agency, and could increase protecting this critical infrastructure. Jurisdictionally, the bills were squarely in the congress committee. Underlying this debate was the fact had energy and commerce included language to avoid the thes that the commission, bill couldve been referred to any number of additional committees. I can think of no clearer example on how the Committee Structure is broken, it what isizes antithetical to the approach we need to combat cyber threat. Todayoposal directly directly counters the stove piping by centralizing jurisdiction around among its many benefits it will increase substream making capacity by increasing staff and expertise. It will streamline oversight from the dozens of committees and subcommittees that currently claim some jurisdiction over cyber. And it will help congress with the speed and agility needed to have any hope of keeping up with the pace of technological innovation. Mr. Chairman, i understand that matters of Committee Jurisdiction are extremely important. I realize it represents a sea change. I believe its inevitable. We have seen Cyber Attacks that have failed the national economy. We have seen our adversaries invest in their offensive cybercapabilities. And we remain a country that because we best take advantage of the internet were made the most vulnerable in signercyberspace. I believe this congress will recognize we could have done more and because the current Committee Structure is actively undermining our ability to do so. Chairman, what im hoping you and your esteemed colleagues will do with the next rules package is take a page out of the cybercommissions playbook. From the outset, we time have the impact of the 9 11 commission without the reciprocating event of the National Tragedy on scale of that 9 11 event. No small task. But as former dni coats said, i devote,quote, the warning lights are blinking red again, end quote. This organization will change not by itself prevent disaster. But it will Position Congress to ensure the internet is free, open, interoperable and secure in the decades to come. Finally, mr. Chairman, let me Say Something about chairman thompsons remarks we heard a few minutes ago. First off, i want to fully associate myself with Jim Thompsons remarks. Dhs has heard. And around jurisdiction, its quite frankly, part of the problem. Secondly, while i believe a cybercommittee is inevitable, i appreciate that its a big step. If the rules committee feels more comfortable consolidates jurisdiction within the existing committee, i believe that will significantly improve the situation. And i believe the committee on Homeland Security is the only sensible home. So, again, i thank chairman thompson for his leadership on many issues. Again, i appreciate myself with him. With that, mr. Chairman, i want to thank you. I yield back and look forward to answering any questions you may. Have. Thank you. And the final person on the panel is miss esche. Thank you chairman mcgovern and Ranking Member cole. The two of you, i think, are a source of pride to all of the members in the house, by the way you work together. And all of the members of the committee. I appreciate being able to offer my suggestions for updating the house rules for the 117th congress. Specifically, i urge to you consider four changes. The first is to expand multi factor authentication requirements. The second is to establish a working group to combat recommendations. And the third is to make sure all house documents are machine readable and the fourth is to make permanent Electronic Commission of legislative tearless. Materials. I certainly respect the hard work of the house staff to protect Cyber Security, but i think we have more work to do. You might notice that the i. D. Cards of our staff have a chip. Except its not an actual chip. Its an image of a chip. And this measure is called security theater. So, i urge the Committee First of all to acquire multifactor authentication for all access to the house network. Executive branch employees have i. D. S with real chips which they insert into their laptops for multifactor authentication. We currently require multifactor authentication for remote access. But our requirements are actually incomplete. Id be happy to share vulnerabilities with the committee privately, so as to not to publicize them. Secondly, i urge the committee to establish a working group, to study and combat potential surveillance of congressional communications. On august 28th, i wrote to the director of national intelligence, the dni, and i expressed my concerns regarding recent allegations that Edward Snowden unveiled communications with congress when he was an nsa contractor. I asked whether it surveilled congress or whether it has protective safe guards for it. Most frankly, the responses to my letter really ignored answering the questions. Weve all received letters like that so i think you know exactly what im talking about. But, sadly, this isnt the first time that the i. C. Has surveilled congress. In the 1970s, the cia maintains files on 75 members of congress. So, we know that our constitution established three coequal branches of government, with separation of power, one branch being able to spy on another is totally unacceptable. Now, press reports also indicate that washington is littered with stingrays. These are devices used to intercept cellular communications. And while dhs confirmed the problem, its not clear whos operating the devices. Third, i urge the committee to require all legislative material to be posted in a machine readable format. Today, the bills are posted to congress. Gov, and a machine readable format. But the materials for markups are posted online, as pdfs and sometimes, they arent even searchable pdfs. And why does this matter . If we receive amendments in the nature of a substitute 24 hours before marking up lengthy bills , we cant compare the amendments to original bills without manually reading the documents line by line. Its the 21st century, so, we need to do something about this. With machine readable formats, members, their staff and the public can easily analyze amendments. And finally, i ask that the committee make permanent procedures for submitting legislative materials to the clerk electronically. On april 16th,excuse me, on april 16th, the clerk announced procedures for secure process to introduce legislation. Add cosponsors to bills. And insert statements to the congressional record electronically. This decision remains essential for the safety of members and staff. And my observation is that this process is working quite well. So, making this change permanent makes our operations more efficient. And electronic time stamp also means we have a paper trail as to when items were filed. So, again, i want to thank the committee for considering my recommendations. I welcome any questions that the committee might have for me, moving forward. And i yield back. Thank you very much. I thank all of you for your testimony. And you know, i think everybody has important ideas here. And i associate myself with suggestions of the majority leader. I do think congressional directed spending is something we should try get back to. Not just because we know our districts better, i think, than the executive branch, but also because i think if the past is any indication, the people have skin in the game when people know passing certain bills will make a difference in their district. We tend to get more bipartisan support. I look forward to this discussion continuing and i, again, jim clyburn was in clarify offavor of this. Was ion favor of this. And he was direct and persuasive about the value of that. I appreciate your recommendations and we will work with you i think the issue when you talk about Committee Jurisdiction is always a little bit delicate because sometimes when you want to expand your jurisdiction, it means somebody else is diminishing theirs and even though this makes sense, its not always easy to get everybody on the same reading off the same sheet of music. But i we will in the coming weeks, our staff will work with your staff to see whether we can begin these conversations and get a consensus among committees that may be impacted by a consolidation on Homeland Security that maybe we can come to some sort of accommodation. I think all of your suggestions are we will work with you. Some of these i think are rules changes. Some of them may not necessarily be rules changes. But we will work with you to make sure theyre all to the extent possible adopted. We appreciate it very, very much. Mr. Cole . Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I want to joining you in thanking all of the members of the panel. This may be the most distinguished panel that appeared before the rules committee. All the suggestions were well thought through. Let me make a couple of remarks, if you will. Im going to broadly agree with the majority leader about congressionally directed spending. As the appropriator, i dont think hell find that as a shock. I will disagree that its any worse than the loss of power with this president as opposed to any previous president. This is an institutional question. I point out that our former president , president obama, i think requested the most earmarks of anybody in congress when he was a United States senator. As soon as he became president , he was happy to be rid of them. Let me emphasize i speak only for myself. I dont speak for my conference or my leadership. We lost an important tool. I think the majority leader is exactly right. We lost an important tool and whip clyburn made this point, to help our constituents who they send us here and many of them are not in a position to get paid lobbyists. They rely on their member to look after their interest as part of the job, i think, and i agree with, again, both the majority leader and majority whip who made the point face cards have to be appropriate. Theres no question theres been abuses in the past. We have members who went to prison for abusing this system. The idea of publishing them, making them accountable, not being able to air drop projects into conference bills, all of those things make a lot of sense to me, and the idea of moving away from profitmaking institutions. I will add this, just as majority whip clyburn pointed out, really Important Program that encourages africanamerican males to go into teaching began with a single congressionally directed spending project. Thats true of one of our most important weapon systems, the predator drone which the pentagon resisted. This was a case where congress has a much better idea than the bureaucracy and our former colleague jerry lewis had a lot to do with making sure that particular weapons platform is available for our use. Its been very valuable. Controversial, ill grant you, but unquestionably valuable. Again, this idea of shipping power over to the executive branch i think is a mistake. I think its a failed experiment. I had these discussions frequently with our former colleague, my late friend, tom, coburn, who was famous for earmarks. But i actually made the point in one of our discussions, look, when we actually had earmarks, we actually balanced the budget. Weve gotten rid of them. How close have we come to a balanced budget since then. Im not suggesting that earmarks or congressionally directed spending result in a balanced budget. Im not saying theres any relationship between the two. Thats become a way to demagogue things and its cost us a tool, its cost us power. I very much agree with that. I very much am interested in chairman Thompsons Point about hal rogers with the appropriations side of to issue. I think those are important suggestions. They are difficult, i will grant you. I see this same sort of thing, mr. Chairman, probably should submit an idea to the rules committee. But i give you a perfect example of this happening within the Appropriations Committee itself. We have the Indian Health care service funded in the interior subcommittee because it mostly deals with indian issues. That seems like it makes sense. But it really ought to be in the labor health and Human Services. Its the only part of that agency that is not controlled and has two practical consequences. The first is, Indian Health is always underfunded. Its the largest item in the interior budget. You move it over to an agency that has 190 billion or a committee within its purview, they have a much better chance of getting that to where it needs to be. Second thing, and this is a separate problem, but ive presented it to the budget committee, under both republicans and democrats, its the only health care agency, number one, that we dont use mandatory funding in except this third party payment. Its subject to limitations of the appropriations process and that needs to be looked at. Number two, because its an appropriated item, for instance, when we had sequester and we held medicare and medicaid exempt from cuts, Indian Health care was cut. I dont think that was delivered, anybody, on anybodys part. We treat it differently. Theres some real merit to these suggestions in terms of looking at redistributing authority because they have live consequences. This isnt a power game on capitol hill. Where you happen to be placed in the appropriations budget since each one of those subcommittees has a different top line really determines what your prospects are. As ive told my friends in Indian Country on many occasions you will never get ihs funded appropriately as long as its stuck in interior because theres too many responsibilities within that agency and too little money. And thats actually an area where the two parties have worked very, very well together for over a decade now trying to do the best they could under that limited session. I thought i would take the occasion to put my particular favorite in front of people who might be able to help me down the line as we work through this. I want to thank every member for their testimony. I thought this was exceptionally thoughtful, good sessions, a lot of areas here, mr. Majority leader, where you and i agree and where i hope we could work in a bipartisan manner. As the chairman pointed out, this is about institutional appropriate power. This isnt about trying to score political points against anybody and i very much appreciate the spirit in which the suggestions were offered. They all have considerable merit and i look forward to working with my colleagues. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments . Yes, just a couple. Thank you. And i im 100 with mr. Cole on this, both on the directed spending. You want to present some kind of a rule change as to that Indian Health because it has come up on a number of occasions. I think you brought it up here. We ought to formalize it a little more. I remember we had two colleagues, one of them became my senator, mark udall who was opposed to earmark and jeff flake was very much. He would go down to the mic and make his statements and they were wrong then, and i told him so, and i think it really has hurt our institution. A lot of us took pride i know almost everybody took pride in the ability to provide an irrigation, help channel some kind of a difficult ravine or help with a laboratory at a local college and actually you can take ownership of that. As a personal matter as well as a community matter, its very beneficial. So mr. Clyburn, youre absolutely right. I felt personally like i was more effective and more connected to my district with the ability to do some of those things for our boys and girls clubs or Something Like that. Im with mr. Thompson. I served on Homeland Security security many moons ago. I dont know if they remember that. But we had similar problems back then as to not being able to really do all of the things that are required of that committee because we kept bumping into jurisdictional issues. I would be supportive of you two gentlemen and your requests. And that would affect Financial Services because we have a cybersecurity component to that when it comes to the Financial Sector and the hacking potentially and the disruption of the Financial Sector. We should all get together and do that. I appreciate the testimony. But particularly on the directed funding. I think we did ourselves a disservice by doing away with that, and i yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We always are able to make time to do those things that are in our wheelhouse. I liked ms. Eshoos concerned. Whether its showing your i. D. When you pass the entry points instead of expecting people to recognize or two factor identification when youre logged into your computer. By the time we come together on the concerns, its going to be too late because something awful will have happened. We have to exert in the name of protecting the institution some discipline to inconvenience ourselves in ways that ms. Eshoo has taken the time and made a career of understanding for those who do not understand them and will not until its too late. I want to thank her for that and its not in our wheelhouse. We are uncomfortable going down this road sometimes and its easy to put on the back burner until its too late and i hope we will take her advice and her pointed solutions to heart and make sure that we benefit from those. With that, i yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you ill echo the remarks of my colleagues in thanking such a distinguished panel. I want to note, i find it hard to imagine anyone who stood on a Standing Committee with Ed Perlmutter wont remember that. I was thinking back as mr. As mr. Leader and mr. Whip were having making their comments. I think about the Clinical Sciences building at the university of rochester or the eastman theater or the center for integrated manufacturing studies or the Sustainability Institute at rit. It was for students in the nationally ranked gaming, film and animation schools. Those are all things that i was able to actually get funded when i was a member of the new York State Legislature and what we called member items which is effectively the same different term, same thing, that relates to directed spending. I dont think theres any question that you could meet both objectives of insuring transparency and accountability and yet allow members who know their districts, know their communities, the very best to make decisions on priority projects in their regions. I thought mr. Clyburns discussion of what he had been able to do in South Carolina was so right on the money because each of us, each community has challenges, but each are different than every other community. And so i would be a strong supporter of doing that and as i said, i dont think its mutually exclusive that we have transparency and accountability as well as congressionally directed spending. Frankly, i think its so inherent in article 1 responsibilities of the congress and the power of the purse. I would agree with my colleagues who have spoken before and thank the panelists. If its okay, ill admit to not having very much of a Knowledge Base on jurisdictions and i suspect that i i appreciate very much the chairmans acknowledgement of the sensitivity of jurisdictions. Can you just give me sort of an example of how you and your colleagues on the committee feel constrained in ways that would help give me some clarity around what it is exactly that youre asking to do without divulging too much . Perhaps you could give me a sense of an example. Thank you very much. Ill give you a good example is one of the challenges we have is natural disasters. Fema is one of those 22 agencies thats in homeland. Well, before fema can move in the resources pertaining to a hurricane, flood, wildfire, tornado or anything like that, the stafford act has been to be engaged that gives fema the authority to go out and perform its mission. And may i interrupt you . Do you mean the staff in fema staff itself or our staff . The stafford act im sorry. Im sorry. Right. Which is the trigger that provides the resources. Well, stafford act is on another committee. Its not in homeland. So fema is sitting here with all the resources to address the natural disaster, but theyre in neutral because they dont have the authority to go and help american citizens. And sometimes our experience has been those authorities are sometime days, if not weeks, before they engage. But if that authority was within homeland, fema could do its job day one. And so its those kinds of things. The other thing give you a good example, is with i. C. E. , immigration customs enforcement. Well, if you have a problem in your district with i. C. E. , that jurisdiction is in another committee because its considered interior enforcement. But guess what . I. C. E. Is in homeland because part of their mission is border security. So i get the call from many of my colleagues saying, we have this issue with i. C. E. In our district. And then when i try to explain jurisdiction, the first thing they said, arent they in homeland . Youre correct. What im trying to do, we need to get the authorities and jurisdictions to match. And im done after this. Armed services. Anything pertaining to the military goes to Armed Services. Thats it. Agriculture. Anything that goes related to agriculture. Im just trying to connect the mission with the authority and responsibility. Those are very good examples and i appreciate that. My background is in the state legislature and we have discreet jurisdictions for the various committees. At one point i chaired the insurance committee, and Health Insurance ended up being depending on which section of law could be in the insurance committee, could be in the health committee. I guess theres no perfect way to divide that up. I note here in the house, health care could be, could come under ed and labor, energy or commerce, ways and means. Is the situation you face more acute than some of the jurisdictional challenges that would face us on some of the issues like health care, et cetera . You think its unique and more of a bright line. Absolutely. And its a matter of function. You want the agencies to work. So much of what we do is predicated on being able to respond in a timely manner. And so that response is limited simply because the agency that youre located in does not have the authority to execute on that issue. And so i give you another example im done after this. Family separation that we had big issues separating families from others. Well, that authority is not a homeland authority, per se. Its vested in another committee. But the agency that created the problem is in homeland. And so were just trying to to the best that we can tie the authorities and the functions with the agencies. I see. And nothing more than that. And, you know, if the committee would like, i could provide you with several other examples of what were talking about. Just so we can serve the American People in a timely manner. Well, i will say i apologize for the extended questioning. This has been helpful and i apologize, mr. Chair. I would i assume that some of this came out of the fact that as you mentioned 9 11 gave rise to the department of Homeland Security security. So i assume some of this is the developing of an agency and a committee that follows it youre getting shoe horned into existing law and existing wires that preexisted 9 11 and the committee. I think you make a compelling case. I cant imagine the frustration of having to have agencies that are under the jurisdiction of my committee or you have oversight for but you cant really effect or connect with on the issues that colleagues are and the American Public is talking about. I really appreciate very much your leadership and your comments here. The last thing i would say, i agree with my other colleagues. I think you make compelling arguments on Electronic Submission and cybersecurity. Just to go back for a second. The notion of creating a select committee if we were able to address the Homeland Security Committee Issues in the way that you, mr. Chairman, chairman thompson, have suggested, would you then simply create potentially a subcommittee on cybersecurity . Is there no conflict between what youre recommending and others were recommending . No. Absolutely. We created cisa which is a cyber entity that has responsibility across the federal agency platform. And so what were saying is, keep the mission of federal Agency Cybersecurity within that agency. The minute you pull it out, we start creating the same problem we had before we created homeland which is the siloing of information that ended up with 9 11. And so were trying to avoid that by creating a system where everyone is here talking to each other and not everybody trying to come with a turf issue. The other thing i can say is, all of the recommendations of the 9 11 Commission Report spoke to that issue and the only one we have not completely fulfilled is this notion of jurisdiction for the Homeland Security commission. Very good. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I apologize for the length in my questioning. But i appreciate all of the panelists and the opportunity to speak. I yield back. Ms. Lesko. Thank you, mr. Chairman. No questions. Ms. Shalala . Did i miss anybody no, im fine. Ive got ive got a couple of things. I agree with directed spending and i agree with representative eshoos recommendation. And mr. Cole, i would love to see the Indian Health service. I struggle trying to get resources for the Indian Health service as well as the food and Drug Administration which was stuck in agriculture because they just were not High Priorities for those committees. Even when i went and personally testified, it was just very difficult to get proper resources. So i would even think about the bureau of the Indian Education being moved to education just to get some attention to these really important agency. Frankly, the only reason the Indian Health service during my years at hhs and the food and Drug Administration, the fda, ever got significant resources was because i was ted stevens doubles partner. And he helped me get resources for those two for those two agencies because it was hard to get the attention of those of those committees. So i just think that thinking through the right alignment is just the right thing to do. Will the gentle lady yield for a question and comment . Yes. Thank you for your focus on this and your time in the and your continued focus on it. But to your point, this is actually an area i will tell you where i would compliment both democrats and republicans on Indian Health for over a decade. Theyve exceeded consistently what republican and democratic administrations have suggested. Theres just not enough money there. Its just a matter of what their total pot is. Exactly. And the second area that i should have mentioned earlier, your opinion on would be really valued, a number of years ago we made the decision i think it was a smart decision, to forward fund veterans health. Its never at risk if were in some sort of political spat up here. We havent done that with Indian Health care. And we ought to do the same thing, particularly if were going to keep it within the discretionary budget. That, again, is something we just simply ought to do so that if theres a squabble up here, all of a sudden theres not a dramatic decline in the availability of health care on some remote indian reservation through, you know where people there have done absolutely nothing wrong. We just havent gotten our job done up here. Thanks for your work and commitment. You have such distinguished record and its much appreciated. Thank you. Does the gentle lady yield back . Are there no other questions of this panel . I want to thank this panel and you are all now dismissed. Thank you. Calling up our next panel, mr. Davis, ms. Wassermanschultz, mr. Cline, mr. Castro and mr. Crist. Any written materials that you have, you can submit to rules documents before the conclusion of this hearing. Without objection it will be entered into the recognize. Into the record. I recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. Davis. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I wanted to make sure i was unmuted. I appreciate being here, chairman, good afternoon. And to the rest of the committee, thanks again for allowing me to testify today. The 116th congress has been full of surprises. The Silver Lining is our ability to learn from challenges and adapt and make our institution work member for the American Work better for the American People. Im going to highlight three buckets of changes to pave the path for continued improvement. The first set of changes is a clarification of mr. Davis, could you put your video on . I thought i had it on, sir. I apologize. Youre on now, yeah. Youre in stereo and in tech color. The first set of changes that im asking for is a clarification of current house rules regarding the use of proxy voting. I warned that proxy voting would likely be abused by members if authorized. I was assured that controls would be in place and being implemented in order to ensure member in order to ensure member, family and staff safety. However, mr. Chairman and mr. Ranking member, today, the trends are emerging that family and that signal abuse of this option. As infection rates stabilize and in many states fall, proxy voting is being used in increased numbers by up to 20 of all members and often inconsistently with members picking and choosing when they want to be in d. C. Were also seeing increased use of proxy voting on fridays, a sign that members are using it to take a long weekend back home. They show us that the use of proxy voting is no longer being utilized in the which it was implemented, safety. I would encourage the next congresss rules package include additional guardrails if the proxy voting remains at all. The second bucket is an acknowledgement of the work of the select committee on modernization of congress in which i and my peers passed our final report of nearly 100 recommendations last week, unanimously. These recommendations emphasize the need for the house to increase transparency, streamline operations so all of our constituents can engage in the work that we do. Rules changes to require our legislative documents be publicly shared in a machine readable format and for all Committee Votes to be recorded and compiled into a database are realistic improvements. Similarly, they can permit some of the advancements weve made such as continuing the clerks use of the hopper and allows the cosponsorship of bills. It saves our staff time and the taxpayers money. We expand electronic signatures or discharge petitions. Modernizing our institution to be accessible by those with disabilities is a duty and priority in which we are behind. We have dedicated considerable resources to making our campus physically accessible but need to put the same emphasis on to who interact from afar. Two are ensuring that all congressional websites are accessible to the disabled and that all video products of the house have closed captioning. I encourage you and your team to read the finalist recommendations for more details on each of these proposed rules changes and dozens more. The final bucket i encourage this committee to consider when crafting the rules for the 117th congress, as a previous staffer and member who has had the honor to serve on the committee of House Administration and the select committee on modernization, i see opportunities before us to better this institution and to do it in a bipartisan manner. The efforts of the select committee need to continue. I know there are different ideas on what form that should take and im open to the various options including authorizing another select committee, creating a subcommittee of House Administration, or a less fiscal year structure. Less formal structure. We continue the momentum that is been created. Again, thank you, chairman and Ranking Member for holding this hearing. It can push us all to be better. I applaud this committee for submitting input and look forward to working together. At this time, i yield back. Let me assure you we do take the recommendations of the committee of modernization seriously. We created the committee. And we extended its the life of the committee because we thought that the work was important. We will look at those. Some of the recommendations that are would require rules changes, some of them we dont need rules changes to do. We need to get various other committees to act on them. But i assure you, we take it seriously. Im happy to yield to ms. Wassermanschultz. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member, and i appreciate the opportunity to present my proposals before the House Rules Committee to my colleagues. This really is a fantastic opportunity at the beginning and onset of the 117th congress for us to really continue to make the entire process that we go through each and every day more transparent, more and more inclusive. In 2011, congress chose to surrender a great deal of its power of the purse to the executive branch. And i associate myself with the remarks of leader clyburn, mr. Hoyer, mr. Cole and many others who have testified this afternoon that it is past time that we take back the power that we surrendered. Any congressionally directed spending and giving that power to the executive branch has made the appropriations process less accountable and more arduous. Its contributed to a lack of comity, and too many members feel too little direct impact in their district and are not able to be as involved in the process. I believe that the ban on spending is one of the factors that contribute to breakdowns in the process and delays that end with frantic yearend negotiations and government shutdowns and leaders on both sides of the aisle have realized this. They recognize that the institution granted congress the power to make important decisions about spending. The Brookings Institution recognized that, quote, the removal of congressional earmarking does not make earmarking go away. Its simply transfers that power and practice from the legislative branch to the executive branch. It does not make sense for congress to surrender control over federal funding. Members of congress are in the best position to know the needs of our districts and the needs of our constituents. The band does not exist in law or in house rules as you know, but only in practice. And it can be easily changed next congress if theres only the political will to do so. We need to do this as many of my colleagues have testified the right way. We need to add additional requirements that will ensure transparency and Good Governance while prohibiting wasteful spending. I offer the following proposals to start us off on the responsible pathway. One, prohibit spending for for profit entities. Post spending on the committees website, in bill reports and on members personal websites. Establish a spending database that is publicly accessible and media friendly. Four, direct the Government Accountability office to submit an audit that examines the benefits of spending and the efficacy of the proposed transparency and accountability methods. Direct inspectors general to review a sample of spending for waste, fraud and abuse. Seven, require that all restrictions on congressionally directed spending be enshrined in house rules and any new Disclosure Requirements will apply to all legislation at all times as was discussed by other members this afternoon. Currently, many vehicles are left out of the requirements including floor and selfexecuting amendments and amendments considered under the rules. Congress could reassert its authority in a transparent manner while members to better represent targets for our districts. It wont fix everything wrong with the appropriations process but it can go a long way in negotiations over funding the government. Second, mr. Chairman, i also want to mention my support for restoring the collect Intelligence Oversight Panel. The 9 11 report included several recommendations for the intelligence community. That responsibility is really only handled by the defense appropriations subcommittee right now, and thats why the house established the select Intelligence Oversight Panel in the 110th congress. I was proud to be a member of that panel. The panel was abolished in the 112th congress. We should consider bringing it back. Revisions to the structure of the committee could update the approach and ensure its able to have oversight. Now more than ever, we need additional accountability over the budget. With an administration that continues to abuse its authorities and defy the intent of Appropriations Bills, making sure that we have this important layer of accountability and oversight in the portion of the budget of appropriations is essential. And this panel would be useful no matter which administration is in power. Its important that congress assert our authority over the intelligence budget and ensure that responsibility funding decisions are made and made thoroughly with a lot of eyeballs and its just so important for us to make sure that in terms of protecting our national security, the members coming before the committee today have raised as being an everincreasing threat, having an Oversight Committee once that would be specifically focused on the oversight of our of the administrations budget request and the intelligence spending that we do for our entire nation would be a critical oversight component that would allow us to make sure that we can continue to improve our national security. Thank you for the opportunity to present my suggestions and i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Cline . Thank you, mr. Chairman. And Ranking Member cole. I really appreciate you holding todays hearing to listen to concerns from your colleagues regarding rules of the house. Hearings like this are critical to the effective function of congress, and i appreciate this opportunity to testify on practice that is can improve the operations of this body. Many of the house rule that is are in place, provide the necessary transparency in the legislative process but unfortunately these rules are worked around or waived when it matters most. Im here today to highlight practices already established that i believe we should be exercising to increase transparency and accountability by following these well thoughtout rules, we can rein in the dysfunction that has plagued the process. The 72hour rule was established so members of congress have time to read and review legislation before having members vote on it. Unfortunately this rule can be waived and can be worked around by amending an existing bill by an amendment. Sadly, these occurrences are frequently used on appropriations in larger authorization measures. For example, last week, the text of the continuing resolution introduced less than an hour before members had an opportunity to vote on it. This flies in the face of responsible governance. Measures should not be passed under suspension of the rules. Managing it in that manner takes away any transparency to the voters. It was happening well before this congress. Both sides of the aisle have utilized this tactic while in the majority. Thats why i introduced a resolution to tighten the rule in instances where a bill is stripped of its text. Its not a matter of transparency that members should have time to be voting on, its a matter of respect, respect that all members have a right to read the legislation, not just those who are in leadership drafting it. In addition to the ability to read bills before voting on them, members should be given the opportunity to offer amendments on bills they were not able to help draft. Way, way back in the day, i was a staffer on the hill and we considered more appropriations and larger authorization bills under open rules and this allowed members who did not have an opportunity to amendment bills when they were in committee an opportunity to do so on the floor before having a vote on it. There have been no open rules on the house floor during this congress and the last time an open rule or revised open rule was reported out of rules committee was in the 114th congress. Many members do want to participate in the legislative process. We believe we have serious amendments to improve legislation. I have 16 years in the state legislature working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to improve legislation throughout the process, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle should have the chance to improve legislation here in the congress. The last area for improvement that i would like to recommend today is the importance of individual bill of consideration when it comes to appropriations measures. While its not specific to this committee, this committee has great sway and influence and i would urge you to help encourage regular order when it comes to Appropriations Bills. Each of the appropriation subcommittees work hard to produce a bill. And members should be afforded the opportunity to vote on and offer amendments to individual Appropriations Bills. As was said earlier by my colleagues, article 1 of the u. S. Constitution establishes that revenue bills should start in the house. When these bills are passed as massive packages or funding, pushed through as a continuing resolution that impacts member ability to thoughtfully consider legislation. The American People should expect more fiscal responsibility and focus from Congress Instead of relegating those duties by passing appropriations packages. Congressional leaders need to return to a regular order and the rules committee should encourage leaders to produce appropriations measures that are report today the floors as their individual bills instead of as packages. It can be fixed by using the existing processes and respecting the rules that are established. It would establish a baseline of respect that all members deserve in this chamber. It extends the same respect to the voters who elected each of us to represent them here in the house of representatives. Thank you for the work that you do and i look forward to working with the rules committee to bring about more transparency and accountability in the legislature. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you to chairman mcgovern for holding thishearing. Im here to discuss a proposed change for the next congress that would institutionize the witness diversity witness. Witness Diversity Initiative. Its composed of the congressional asiapacific american caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the congressional black caucus. This year, the caucus launched this initiative to track the diversity of the expert witnesses who testify before house committees. Our announcement included support from speaker pelosi, majority leader hoyer, the womens caucus, the congresswoman davids, cochair of the lgbtq plus caucus and cochair of the native american caucus. While a witness Diversity Initiative has never existed as part of the Core Functions of the house, two bodies in the United Kingdom are already leading this work in westminster and in scotland. Our initiative has in large part been modeled after their work to track the gender diversity of their witnesses. And while this is the first initiate of its kind here, research on this topic as it pertains to gender does exist. For example, an American University report published earlier this year shows that during the 2017 hearings on tax reforms, less than 19 of the witnesses who testified were women. As you know, the 116th congress is the most Diverse Congress in our nations history. Yet too often our witnesses do not reflect the nations diversity. Unfortunately for many years, many communities have often been underrepresented including latinos, africanamericans, asia asian, women, and lgbtq folks. At this moment and as a Global Pandemic disproportionately harms communities of color, now is a time for change and for our rules to reflect our values. As Congress Continues to draft legislation to support our countrys fight against covid19, its critical that members of Congress Hear from diverse witnesses in that process. The institutionization of this initiative will make clear to the American People make clear its diversity in congress. We should aim to improve on the ways we serve our American People. I believe this proposal is an important step toward a more just, a fair, and a more inclusive congress. And with that, i yield back my time. Thank you very much. Mr. Crist. Can you hear me all right . Yes. Great. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you and Ranking Member cole along with all of the members of the rules committee. You all work hard in the entire house, and we are grateful to you. Earlier this summer, americans from big cities and small towns across our country took to the streets to peacefully protest Racial Injustice in the largest demonstrations in american history. Between income inequality, wealth inequality, Educational Achievement gaps, criminal justice inequality, discrimination in lending and appraisals, voter suppression, Maternal Health disparities and armed White Supremacists marching through american streets, American People said enough. Americans of all shapes, sizes and colors said, quote, black lives matter and committed to fight racism. We committed to dismantle systems of racism that hold black americans back instead of going about business as usual. Going on autopilot is no longer going to cut it. Its on all of us to do whatever we can to truly deliver equal opportunity and equal justice under the law. We as legislators should be aware of the impact of the policies we make. Thats why im proposing a small but potentially significant change to the rule of the house for the 117th congress. Just as Committee Reports are required by house rules to include items like a Congressional Budget Office score or budgetary impact, we should ask for a score on racial impact of legislation the house is considering. It will be a good start. I yelled back. I want to associate myself with my friend Stephanie Murphy for her amendment to raise the threshold. Thank you again so much. I yield the balance of my time. Thank you very much for your testimony. I have no questions. I want to point it for the record that you mentioned infection rates have been stabilized. We have not had a National Strategy to manage it appropriately. I was referring to the last four months. There are many areas that are going down. I would urge this committee. We have not prepared the house. We need a comprehensive plan to be able to get the house back to work and be able to implement measures of helped stabilize other parts of the country. We can told do it better protect this chamber. I dont believe the answer is to make it more challenging for members to participate. I think its really sad that the minority has decided to enforce against its own members that they not participate in proxy voting, which disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters. Vote. Ant thank you very much, mr. Chairman. On that last point, i do want to say that i agree very much with what mr. Davis said. There are cases where people cant be here. I respect that. By a straight majority vote. I am concerned a lot of members are abusing, say that ifst members are abusing this, if based onusing this what ience, that is not had intended. I think that is wrong. I reinforce i get, that message. This is about necessity. Mr. Chairman that is unfortunate. Leaves dont think that i question you would all. I know you take it seriously. I think its worth thinking about what we can do on that score. It seems like a legitimate problem to me. I want to thank the panel. There were a lot of great suggestions. Broadly, i do. I have a couple of comments for civic members. Friendto go first to my ms. Wasserman schultz. I was on her subcommittee that she chaired and later i have her as my Ranking Member and i was chairing that committee. Thoughtfulbody more from an institutional standpoint. Witht to associate myself the very thoughtful comment she had about spending and the safeguards and the ability to evaluate the effectiveness. Of tools are indispensable in providing the public with some confidence these things are being used 95 of the time in an appropriate way. I do want to ask my friend, she theed about bringing back select committee on intelligence. Have said we do a lot of great work. Friends suggestion very seriously. Can you tell me why we did away with that . What was the rationale for not continuing that committee . When it was done away with, it was done away with by the new republican majority. What theire motivation was. Speak for mr. Boehner at the time. It was in place. It was working effectively. As you recall, the select was a special select subcommittee that combined intel and appropriators from across the Appropriations Committee. Eyes. A combined pair of we held hearings and reviews. We dove more deeply in to the budget than the Defense Appropriation Committee is able to do. The defense appropriations subcommittee has such a huge responsibility. My understanding why it wasnt brought back was it had some cumbersome elements. Perhaps it wasnt functioning in the most specific way. My proposal isnt specific to replicate and ring back exactly the way it was. Selectoes need to be a subcommittee panel recreated, and improved so we can make sure there are authorized ors and appropriators eyeballs together ors,be just appropriate so that we can really have more attention paid. Is merit tohere what you were talking about. Speaking as a defense appropriate, you are right. Its a fast budget. Most of the intel hearings we have are classified. The reality is what were doing is consuming intelligence. We are not overseeing the intelligence we are being given and asked the tough questions. Admires Speaker Boehner banner more than me. Me that wesurprise are talking about congressionally directed spending. I say that with great affection and respect for my friend the former speaker. Its a good idea. To think about this. Speaking as a defense appropriators, you are exactly right. We are not able to get into the whenls of this budget youre dealing with interior and 30 billion. I dont think you could have too many eyes on this particular area. I say that with no disrespect to any administration. Let me move down to my friend mr. Cline. As an appropriate or, i couldnt agree more. Every appropriate would want the bill to come individually. Thats the way we treat them. We have unlimited amendments. A good idea, has they can offer those amendments. I long for the day when we did that in the full house. There are two problems. Nature. Bipartisan in the first is the explosion of the number of people to decide they want to add amendments to the appropriations bill. Question, howent much time do you want to spend on appropriations . We are happy to take the time. I dont know. 400 amendments, thats a problem. How do you discipline that . Problem as enormous problem. The second thing i will tell you and both sides equally guilty, the number of got you amendments have grown exponentially. The fear of voting on those , when the by members republican majority came back, it restored open rules on Appropriations Bills. Point on a Confederate Flag issue over national monuments. It blew apart the bill. Members were afraid. Literally if you were a republican, you would vote of the amendments however he wanted. He would always vote for the final republican bill. That was assumed. If youve got any thoughts about how to control the number of again,nts, number two, we have lots of republicans who wont for vote for republicans Appropriations Bills. If you have that, you cant move the bill. You can expect democrats to do the work it the republican morty is supposed to do. Its a problem in our party. Again, i have no problem with people voting against bills that exceed what the budget cap is done. Write the budget within our budget. Bill within our budget. Theres got to be some way with dealing with the number of amendments. I like individual bills. I agree. Do you have any suggestions for how we avoid got you amendments . We do have to govern the country. That means the Defense Department needs to be funded. That means health and Human Services needs to be funded. You have a responsibility to govern. You can expect the other party to do it when you are the majority. Thats a lot of rambling thought. You are one of our brightest members. A mentor said what you have to say. I appreciate the opportunity to respond. The Appropriations Committee does a great job. The answer is to get skin in the game on the part of the various members regarding the bills, get broader support. Amendments vote for gets their skin in the game. In 16 years, when we had amendments that went on and on on the floor, we had to sit through the mall. Toyou just asked for people offer amendments in the order received, you have to sit through all the amendments before you get to offer yours, a lot of people will give up on their amendments. Actually a very clever idea. Im not sure i want to subject myself to it. A lot of members offer frivolous amendments. Confined to either side. We appreciate all the testimony. I yield back. Jeff flake offered 500 amendments. Increasing the amount. Mr. Chairman, can i respond to that. They tried that and it didnt work. We had members that wouldnt vote to move a bill out of subcommittee that cut the top line by 14 . Send real appropriators, not people that you think will want to be there. Im sure you would be a great appropriators. Thank you. Thanks, mr. Chairman. Subject, i remember the rules committee, we were doing appropriations. He had been going for 24 hours straight. So many amendments have been offered. I dont know if you remember this. He had five pencils in his pocket. He broke the mall. He was so mad. He came to us and said i quit unless you go back up and limit this appropriation. I will do 100 amendments. Thats it. We had to leave the floor and change the rule. Make them sleep there. He felt like he was being punished and he did not deserve to be punished. We agreed. Abuse. As been some real i want you to know that. Thats why there has been limitation. Points as tosome eliminating factors. Amendmentshave your and sony days in advance, youve got to sit through them. That may be a better approach and people are more involved. I appreciate that. We open rules applied as well. More open process with put more skin in the game and get them supporting the bills on final passage. We have jefferson rules in virginia. You are bound to vote for the product. You can still vote against the bill. That is Something Else that we watch closely. I recognize what you are suggesting. Respond to the chairman. Im a little bit in disagreement proxyll of you on the voting piece of this. Written,he rule was proxies are only available. Uring a covered period that is where there has been a pandemic declared in the sergeant at arms and the house physician have to advise the nowker who says this is lasting for 45 days. Timein a very restrictive to be able to use the proxy. We would havey when it is sunny and warm and everybody is healthy. You may want to offer proxies for voting. Thats not the system that we created. Isnt, mr. Davis, there isnt a call for a doctors note. I get to doo say proxy voting. What is required is a declaration of a pandemic. I just wanted to say that. We really do have to look closely. Proxies, witho 25, which that rule is the rule on the continuity of government. I will leave it at that. I am for, congressionally directed spending. Our committee has to take a good look when we have a quorum. Its really a catastrophe of an attack or pandemic. With that, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We have outlasted many of our witnesses. I think its incredibly important, but more so now that im in the minority than when i was in the majority. Interestedabout institutions, the majority have the privilege of setting the agenda. When we have these panel that includes five majority witnesses and one minority witness, it does appear we are preparing for press release more than shedding subjects. Ifficult i would like to see the metrics that weve been focused on, that we enter of ideas as areas where we will have fewer republican ideas versus democratic ideas and just more good ideas versus bad ideas. I think there is an opportunity for that. First open rule i got to be part of was 2011. We took up the entire appropriations package at once. It went from tuesday to saturday morning. We considered every amendment offer onmember had to anything in the entire bill. Ultimately, it won the day. We will now have more amendments offered under the structured in thehen the open rules 1980s. There is a habit that has been offeringat members are frivolous amendments that are designed to take down the bills. To tough amendments because we dont have any experience voting on tough amendments. We have lost those relationships with our committees. As a freshman member, i dont need to always remind them. I need to take it to the chairman. Two weeks before the bill gets marked up, it doesnt survive conference. Steps to get any members back in a good habit . We would fear encounter the exact same comfortable situation and have leaders on both sides of the aisle shut the process down. I appreciate the question. Have been hereou a lot longer than i have. There at the state level, there is a lot more contact between the chairman and the Ranking Member. Maybe the Ranking Member does go to the members on his committee. This is your opportunity for input. If earlier input is solicited likelyth sides, the less you get these efforts to be part of the process. Issuemay be a legitimate as the bill goes to the floor. As a freshman, my opportunity to weigh in on issues of jurisdiction which i serve on it, not for bill where i did not see it come through. I should have weighed in at the Committee Level to make that point. Here, havingived watch that process continued, i see the wisdom of providing some structure. Times,ave done many giving the Ranking Member on the floor the ability to consider of their choice. Providing some parameters. We dont have enough floor time. We end early, i think we can the chairman and Ranking Member air the brunt of that workload. Think we would be derelict not to try to move back in that direction. I dont think theres any member of this chamber and that leads to a better work product. I appreciate the suggestion. I yield back. Rule, it had one open doesnt have to be an appropriation bill, he learned the lessons in the freshman learn the lessons again of why you dont have open rules on every bill and why structured rules have benefit. I appreciate that. Have is deeper than just open rule versus not open rules. We have a problem and i think its fair to say there are members on both sides who look at their role very differently. We have a problem with Appropriations Bills. We dont want these big omnibus bills, otherwise theres no way to move forward. I share that frustration. To mr. Marelli. Just a couple of questions or maybe just thoughts. Feel if all, i dont know enough about the approach isnt process or lawmaking yet. I am trying to unlearn everything i learned in new york. I do think the problems in any legislature is a balance between trying to allow as much dissipation and good ideas from members. Passpoint, you have to bills. Youve only got so much time here. I would be delighted to work with all of my colleagues in trying to figure out how to balance better those interests and end up with better products. Wasnt going to mention, but i would say this. I think two conditions ought to be met. Rule aroundted the this pandemic, one condition had to be met and that was you had a National Emergency which we recognize would make it difficult for members to be here physically in washington. We did not want to disenfranchise them or their constituents. Pursue af we were to temporary or permanent rule the two conditions ought to be met. The first is the national periodcy has a cover that has to be met. Even if its not covid19, if its a future disaster of some kind, the failure to appear to vote in person and be used by proxy ought to be by virtue of your inability to be here because the National Emergency. I expressed as we first started talking about this. I voted for the rule. There is some concern that we could be down a slippery slope. I could have said for instance i dont want to fly. The drive is 6. 5 hours each way. I have driven virtually every week with one exception. I spent 13 hours in the car. That is, in my mind, an inconvenience. Its a covered period, i adopt i dont want to spend 13 hours in a car to come down, vote for a few days and go back. Its not a reason because of the covered emergency which would prohibit me, or prevent me, from being here. I think that ought to be the second condition or test that needs to be met when we go to would the gentleman yield for one second . Of course, mr. Chairman. Chair mcgovern so, right now, if you want to vote by proxy, you have to sign a letter that says you cannot physically be here due to the pandemic. Now, i mean, thats the requirement. We have that requirement. I dont think its in the rule. Frankly, im not sure well, i would always defer to the chair. Chair mcgovern the deal is, were trusting members to abide by the regulations that we have put out there. The point is well taken, that if there are people who are doing this simply out of convenience, thats not that is not appropriate. Right. Chair mcgovern and, again, you know, i think thats something we need to think about. I would simply just say tightening it up or perhaps putting it in the actual rule. By the way, i think by and large, this has used very best this has been used very effectively. I think people have been very good about observing not only the letter but the spirit of the rule. Hopefully some small adjustment to ensure that would make our friends on the other side of the aisle more comfortable. Where that with that, mr. Chair, i yield back. Thank you, sir. Chair mcgovern ms. Shalala . Rep. Shalala no thank you. I enjoyed the discussion. Chair mcgovern did i miss anybody . Mr. Chair, i had a question for mr. Crist. Can i ask that question . Chair mcgovern you may. Am trying to find the racial and ethnic impact score, what is it that youre actually is there Something Like that that exists today, not so much in the florida, but m may be , i dont know, im trying to figure out what it looks like. Youre muted, charlie. Youre still muted. There you go. Rep. Perlmutter i understand that it does exist in the congress presently if requested. And this would make it more of a mandatory thing so that any legislation that we would put forward, it would give us an idea about whether or not the legislation is going to be disadvantageous, if you will, to a minority or not. Thank you. I yield back. I like the question. Chair mcgovern thank you very much. No other questions. This panel is dismissed. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chair mcgovern we go to our mr. Kilmer, miss , mr. Y, miss davids taylor, and mr. Woodall. We will begin with mr. Kilmer , and let me just say before i yield to mr. Kilmer, i want to thank chairman kilmer and vice chair graves, in particular. I want to take a moment to congratulate both of you on an incredibly successful congress. I mean, under your leadership, the select committee on modernization and did important work on analyzing how congress could work more effectively and efficiently on behalf of the American People and identifying specific recommendations, somewhere i think near 100, i believe to do just that. A feat unto itself. Your staff must be exhausted. But mr. Chairman, you end vice chair graves went even further and took the committees recommendations into results. As all our colleagues will recall, this select committee ushered in two critical resolutions the help of the House Administration committee. While we may not have known at the time, the select committees recommendations to improve Host Technology our systems, enhanced our unified telework practice and generally pushed the house into the 21st century helped pave the way for , Key Technology changes that were critical to ensuring the house could work and do it safely in the wake of this terrible pandemic, and you did it all while having to endure nickelback, whatever that is, and woodall who we all know , so well. But we will have more time for this in the coming weeks. To mr. Woodall and mr. Graves, thank you both for your service to your nation. Chairman kilmer and ms. Scanlan, our rules colleague, and the rest of the Modernization Committee, i hope youre all proud of the work that youve done. I thing its had a Lasting Impact and thank the hardworking staff of the Modernization Committee. I think you have improved this institution and i am grateful for your leadership. Anyway, i just wanted to say because i think a lot of people may not appreciate the extent of your work and how hard you work. And the fact that, you know, this is the way this place should work, when democrats and republicans come together and tried to do things for the good of the institution. Thank you. To mr. Kilmer. thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your kind words. Thank you, Ranking Member cole. I appreciate you hosting the hearing and appreciate the hearing to share you ideas for improving house rules for the 117th congress. Two years ago in testimony before this committee, i proposed as part of the house rules for the 116th congress a committee to consider measures to improve the operation of congress as an independent and coequal branch of government. Theunder your leadership, select committee on the modernization of congress was created as part of the rules package for the 116th. As chair of the selectcommittee, im hear to say thank you for your guidance and support of the past two years. I am very grateful to you and to your staff. And with that help, the select committee unanimously passed 97 bipartisan recommendations to make Congress Work better for the American People. I am proud of what we achieved in him grateful for the opportunity to leave the effort along with vice chair graves and in partnership with mr. Woodall and ms. Scanlan from your committee im here to share. Im here to share bipartisan recommendations the committee recently passed that would improve their river house functions. The select committee spent a lot of time focusing on ways to reclaim Congress Article 1 pows powers and made a number of strong recommendations in that space. The first one i would like to highlight would help restore congresss article power of the one purse. We recommended on a bipartisan basis a communityfocused Grant Program to reduce dysfunction in the annual budgeting process. And to restore congress unique Constitutional Authority to appropriate federal dollars to support projects that have the broad support of local communities across the United States. This competitive Grant Program calls for transparency and accountability and supports meaningful and transformative investments in the communities we represent. Taxpayer dollars will be spent more efficiently and transparent local projects, with guard rails against abuse. The select committee believes this program could help end the era of government shutdowns and i urge the committee to include it as part of the 117th congress rules package. In addition to the communityfocused Grant Program, id like to share a couple of ideas designed to strengthen Congress Article 1 powers. The first has to do with encouraging the article 1 principle of debate and deliberation. The select Committee Recommended establishing a pilot for weekly oxfordstyle policy debates on the house floor. Debate exposes us to perspectives that are different from our own and requires us to really think through our positions in order to build the best arguments we can. It requires the ability too listen as well as speak, and that is incredibly important. My select committee colleague Emanuel Cleaver constantly reminded us that how we treat each other matters, and these oxfordstyle debates could have showcase passionate exchanges about the issues of the day, and we should encourage more of that. Along the same lines, the committee encouraged alternative hearing formats to encourage more bipartisan discussion. Committees should try questioning witnesses in ways of discourse rather than grandstanding. We also recommended more committees follow the select committees lead and experiment with mixed seating arrangements. Where democrats and republicans sit sidebyside rather than opposite sides of the dais. These encourage dialogue, civility, and often strengthen congress. Including these ideas in the next house wil rules package would help Congress Restore article 1 capacity. Another way to build capacity is build efficiency into the congressional schedule. Between Committee Work, floor work and consider and work in the district, the demand for time is constant, so the Committee Try to find ways to reduce frustrating conflicts. We recommend that the house establish specific committeeonly meeting times web when congress is in session. We also recommended that the house establish specific days or weeks where Committee Work takes priority. Creating a Common Committee calendar portal to help with scheduling could also reduce conflicts. These ideas will make Congress Work more efficiently and productively on behalf of the American People. Finally, id like to thank you for your continued attention to a number of operational issues the select committee has recommended. Prior to the covid19 pandemic, we recommend of the house update its procedures to allow members to electronically add or remove their names as bill cosponsors. Were happy to see this now in effect and think it should be permanently authorized. Same goes for our recommendations to expand the use of digital signatures and make permanent the option to electronically submit Committee Reports. We should adopt procedures that make congress more efficient rather than reserve them for emergencies. The covid19 pandemic has forced us to take a hard look at continuity issues and think about how we can better prepare for the unexpected. The select Committee Recommends that committees established bipartisan telework policies and update systems to encourage inperson electronic voting, and other modern technologies. Cyber security, telework, and Emergency Preparedness training should also be given to all members of congress. By taking these steps we can ensure that congress is fully prepared in the event of another crisis. Continuity of government plans should be built into our procedures and happen as a matter of course. From day one, the select committees guiding principle has been to make Congress Work better so that we can better serve the American People. That simple but profound goal has guided all of our work, some of which i have shared with you today. Vice chair graves and i believe the bipartisan ideas we proposed to improve the house rules can help build capacity and ultimately strengthen congress , and we hope they will be implemented. Committee general, we agree that the work to modernize the house should be an ongoing effort and not once every 20 or 30 years or so. So i encourage this committee to consider how the work continues going forward. On behalf of the select committee, i appreciate your consideration. I am happy to provide Additional Information to support your work again, for your leadership, partnership and opportunity to speak before the committee today. Chair mcgovern thank you very much. Miss murphy . Miss murphy chairman mcgovern, Ranking Member cole, members of committee, thank you so much for this opportunity to testify about my views on the rules that will govern the operation of the chamber in the next congress. So, my first set of recommendations involve fiscal discipline and transparency. I respectfully request that we retain the rule 21, clause 10, of the current house rules. This rule was also in effect for the 110th and 111th congresses, when democrats were in majority. In general, it prohibits the consideration of the spending or revenue legislation that is projected to increase the deficit over two to three times. Second, i would recommend that we strengthen the transparency around this rule. If the rules Committee Reports a special rule providing for a consideration of a bill, the company Committee Reports should be required to include a specific statement indicating whether the special rule waives the pago rule in particular. As opposed to a vague statement waiving all points of order against the bill. This can be accomplished by amending rule 13 my office is. 3. Preparing draft language and share it with your staff. Third, id like to work with the committee on crafting a carefully calibrated amendment to the house rules that would accept in exigent circumstances prohibit the house from considering a bill, unless cbo and jct have prepared and published a cost estimate of that bill. I seek these three changes for a simple reason. You know, contrary to Wishful Thinking in some quarters, deficits and debt do matter. They matter to our economy, they matter to our security, and to our children and grandchildrens future. And i recognize that deficit spending to combat the health and economic consequences of covid19 is necessary. And i support that spending, but congress will need to bring spending and revenues into better balance once the pandemic is behind us. We shouldnt keep digging ourselves into a deeper fiscal if we do come at we better be upfront with the American People about it. My second set of recommendations involves a motion to recommit, provided for rule 19. Unlike some of my colleagues, i do not believe we should eliminate the mtr, which i view as an important tool for the Minority Party in an otherwise majoritarian institution. At the same time, i recognize that the mtr is frequently used by the Minority Party to engage in cynical politics, campaigning on the house floor, rather than as a part of a genuine effort to improve a bill. The text of the mtr does not undergo Committee Review or otherwise get vetted through regular order. And so its often poorly written and confusing, and members rarely have the sufficient time to review the language and to determine what it actually does as opposed to what the minority , party claims it does. And i think this is a recipe for bad legislating. So, for those reasons, i believe we should retain the mtr that require twothirds support for mtr to pass rather than a requirement of majority support. On theuld put the mtr same plane as a suspension bill. Finally, i recommend that we continue to find new ways to foster bipartisan ship in the house by considering floor bills that have a mass of cosponsors. At the urging of myself and other members, the house established the consensus calendar in rule 15, clause 7, and namedrent rule, it the grateful to you and your staff for helping make that happen. My office will propose different ways to strengthen the calendar and otherwise promote bipartisan cooperation during these otherwise highly partisan times. I think the American People want their representatives to work across party lines, and house rules should reward lawmakers who conduct themselves in that spirit. With that, thank you, and i yield back. Chair mcgovern thank you very much. I should just point out for the record, though, in the current rules Committee Reports, we dont just say, waive all points of order. We actually, in the section on explanation of waivers, if we waive pago, it specifically says , in our report, that we waived clause 10 or rule 21 which is the pago provision, so rules Committee Report is pretty explicit about waiving pago. Aiving pago for that matter. It is there. In any event, thank you. I now turn to miss davids. Miss davids thank you. Thank you, chairman mcgovern and ole for member c holding this hearing and allowing us the opportunity to comment on proposed house changes for the 117th congress. So my recommendation for rule changes are pretty straightforward. I propose the director of the Congressional Budget Office be provide an address or report to congress on the fiscal state of the nation each year. Right now we are in a crisis, which necessitates spending to keep our economy going. Our federal budget is on an unsustainable trajectory. I believe this is the sort of report that can provide a common baseline for my colleagues and i to work from, using the same data and operating under the same budgetary assumptions yeartoyear. As this body formulates budgets and votes on appropriations packages each year, it would be helpful to have a general input and objective position so that we can set goals based on facts. I also think. This sort of and will report could help remind our colleagues effects ofy real congressional spending and perhaps facilitate a on how we could direct federal resources in a responsible way. Of course, we should be adhering to the existing house rules that pay as you go, which we were just talking about or hearing about, rule, which requires congress to pay for legislation, le proposing and voting on you know, budgeting is about priorities and deciding whats important and what price were willing to pay for it and that principle is at the fundamental core of pago, which is why i itsort i inclusion and continued inclusion in the house rules for this congress and the next congress. Weve seen the disastrous consequences of fiscal irresponsibility with deficit financed tax cuts for the wealthy and outofcontrol ,udgets, and it is worth noting we are going through pandemic right now. The spending that we are doing and the relief that people need is very real and necessary, and this is the kind of crisis where rules might need toh be waived. This is a good example of that. When were in a crisis, we need to make sure the people of this country are being cared for and its also times like these that we see a real demonstration of a necessity for greater fiscal responsibility in normal times, in times that are good. So we are setting ourselves up to go through times like this. So i would encourage the adoption of this will change in any other changes that would help promote the adherence to fiscal responsibility as we aim to use our taxpayer resources in the most effective way possible. Without, i yield back. Thank you for having me. That, i yield back. Thank you for having me. Chair mcgovern thank you. Mr. Taylor . Taylor its great to be with you and the Ranking Member and all the members of the rules committee. I just want to say that i am a big believer in rules and process, in the process we have is really important. One statistic that kind of strikes me in the 100th congress, this is when i was in high school, in 1987, 88. 80 of all bills that were filed, actually became law. And now in this congress, were at about 1 . And thats because were filing about 50 more bills. But we are passing many fewer bills. So the percentage of success has dropped as well as the number of bills that are being filed has gone up. So i am concerned that the ability for members to do small common sense legislation and get it through the desk has been impaired. So i will offer three solutions. I have talked to some of the rules Committee Staff about this and this has been a discussion with it the Problem Solver caucus. The first one is to build on the 290 will that were successfully implemented in the last congress and that is to have 290 summit rule to that same rol senate bills. So most legislative chambers in this country, in state legislatures, have a provision that allows house members to support senate bills, senate bills to support house bills. You would have to create that mechanism in order to do 290 for senate bills. It allows members to not only advocate for bill or take credit for it, but also members have been be able to get behind a and then actually compel it to get on the floor, to get on the consensus calendar, and really expand what i think has been a big success. Your staff has been very complimentary of the Problem Solvers success, getting the 290 rule into effect and seeing it work. The second thing i wanted to talk about is what i call fourfifths twothirds. That is, again, allowing bills and are modest and intent singular in focus to be a were to come to the floor of the u. S. House. If a bill gets 4 5 of the Committee Members to sign on to the bill 80 of the committee , members, services committee, there are 60 members. So, getting 50 members, you would then in turn be able to bring that bill to the floor of the u. S. House and then basically you would have to get a twothirds vote. I put it on the consensus calendar. We could have discussions about some of the details about it. But again, he would have to get 4 5 of the committee of jurisdiction, and there are some bills that are big and complicated that are referred to many committees and jurisdiction. I think we probably have to have some mechanism to allow Committee Chairs if they wanted to to waive it, and if not, say i want fourfifths of my committee then theyd have that power. Finally, the third idea is trying to make sure that bills that are common sense where they could pass the house on the senate, actually go to the president s desk. Do you believe that in most congresses, there actually half bills that passed the house and pass the senate but actually dont get to the president s desk . What have a dozen of the state legislatures have done is i they have a rule process called this a very difficult one to explain. Its very simple in pack it is very simple in practice. You have a senate bill that comes over. Its in the house. Its now on the floor. The house author of the house bill can say, you know what, im going to take my bill, put it on the table, its down at the chamber, i am going to pull that up to vote on the senate bill. Some state legislatures actually have it automatic. When the senate bill comes over to the house, its automatically whove moved to whatever point in the process it was in. Nobody loses any powers, per se. One of the ideas i have is to protect the house members, the authors of the bill. It leaves a small number of bills every congress. I would encourage members to do more to work on companion legislation, and in turn improve the probability. I have actually talked to a member of the senate about having a similar bill over on the senate side, and say, we are doing this to extradite your bills, you should do this to accident our bills, and i got a favorable response from democrats and republicans i have spoken to about all of these discussed itve with my colleagues in the Problem Solver caucus. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Chair mcgovern thank you. Mr. Woodall. Rep. Woodall thank you, mr. Chairman. I know ours is not supposed to be based solely on competition, our business. But i just think it is worth pointing out that under your leadership here on the rules i have voted 100 of the time against ms. Scanlan and her against me. While serving under chairman kilmers leadership on the select committee, this scanlan and i voted 100 of the time together. So i dont know if theres anything that mr. Kilmer has to add that he was uncomfortable sharing in open session, about how you might bring people together here on the rules committee as hes been bringing people together on the joint select committee. But i did want to put that out there and tell them how much i appreciated his leadership. I will tell you, mr. Chairman, i think we were disadvantaged by not having ms. Davids and ms. Murphy on our committee. I support both of their ideas. And they sounded very similar to some of the ideas that you and i on the committee have worked on throughout the year. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is to solve the good work you did at the very beginning of this congress by requiring that bills be reported out of committee before they are considered here in the rules committee. ,nd i would go one step further Section Three to paragraph three and section 103i that was six, that said it shall not be in order to consider the rule or order that waives the application of par paragraph one after the bill has been referred to committee for 15 legislative days. The point of this change, mr. Chairman is to say that we have found reasons, and there are always reasons, to waive the news, including brand rules that were done with the best of intentions as this one that you promulgated. If a bill has been sitting in committee for 15 days, clearly , there is not an emergency that requires it move forward without a hearing, if it is just been sitting in committee and no one has been acting on it, surely it doesnt need to be rushed to the floor with no input from the committee whatsoever. I recognize that no matter who is in the majority, we have emergency measures, and in fact the rules that exist today make an exception for emergencydesignated legislation, but this would inther the building of trust the Committee Process that you began by saying we are not going to use this process to shortcircuit a Committee Process, we are only going to use it to expedite things that are simply coming so quickly they havent had an opportunity to be dropped in committee, and the chairman hasnt had an opportunity to have the hearing or the markup. Making the point that the reason rulent follow your isnt because we dont want to, it is because we havent had an opportunity to. If the opportunity is presented, then we need to be able to say yes to that opportunity as your rule was designed to achieve. It requires that the point of , the under this paragraph question of consideration shall be debatable for 10 minutes and the member initiating the point of order and an opponent to have , but shall otherwise be decided without and intervening motion except the one that the house adjourns. Again, this is not intended to disadvantage the majority which is in charge of running this institution, and it is only intended to complement the effort that the rules Committee Chairman made at the beginning of this congress. With that, i yield back. Yourecgovern i think are the last person on this panel mr. Woodall. , let me just say this. I appreciate your words mr. , with regard to the mcgovern rule. Said before that, there was no such rule, there was nothing in place. And i said when we were doing this that we would try to do as well as we can but it wouldnt be perfect because there would be times when it would be difficult to do that. I think we were much better at it last year than this year. Year, to be fair, we are in the middle of the pandemic and theres a lot of things that are normal. So we will continue to try to do better. I really do believe in principle that it is a mistake to shortcircuit the Committee Process, but i think we have been making a concerted effort and a really effective effort in trying to comply with that. World,ain, in my perfect that is the way things should run. There should be hearings and a Markup Committee before it comes to the rules committee before we bring the bill to the floor. I will try to do better. Having said that, i think there were some really good ideas that have been presented here today and we will obviously be working with the members who are here today and the staff to try to figure out how we can move forward on some of these. Maybe we might do some tweaks here and there, but i really appreciate your time. I am going to yield to mr. Cole. [indiscernible] , to mr. Woodall for any questions. Maybe you might want to question yourself. [laughter] woodall the the only thing i wanted to mention, mr. Chairman, is whether or not there is a process related to attaching unrelated legislation to a message between the chambers without bipartisan concurrence. That is something you and i have talked about in the rules committee on many occasions, and i have tried to work out some language but it does have to be incredible the nuanced to protect the ability of the majority leader to continue to operate the floor while still protecting minority rights. Ppreciate it miss davids i believe it was miss davids, mentioning the motion to recommit wasnt you, miss murphy . The nature of the motion to recommit as being one. Hat the minority has as you recall from the articles on the leader decided he was going to start attaching unrelated legislation, messages between the chambers. Folks celebrated that as being this wonderful new procedural tool thats been crafted to prevent the minority from getting in the way of their messaging motions to recommit. I recognize the need to attach legislation, and i recognize the desire for the expedited process between the chambers. I certainly wouldnt want to craft something that was so restrictive the majority could not assert its agenda, but i do think because there has been so much consternation about that process throughout the year, whether it is celebrating on one or bemoaning on the other, its worth looking at these habits that we get into, not passing Appropriations Bills individually, not having open rules, not send things through committee. Atin, you took major steps the beginning of this congress to try to get a set of some of those bad habits that we spent a couple of decades getting into, and i put messages between the chambers in that category. And i appreciate you recognizing me. I yield back. Chair mcgovern ms. Taras res, any questions . No questions, mr. Chairman. Chair mcgovern mr. Perlmutter. Rep. Perlmutter i have a couple. To the Modernization Committee members. The question i have, and we have seen it in a number of different proposals that we have, is how to streamline and modernize the calendar and be more efficient in our travel and more efficient in our work the best in our workdays, if you will. More efficient in our workdays, if you will. I am curious what you all the summary you proposed. It is pretty general. Weve got some more specific proposals, but generally, what did your committee come up with . Take first crack at that and then if either your ores Committee Colleagues those who served on the select Committee Want to weigh in as well, i welcome that. We focused from early on principles rather than proposing a specific calendar. One of the principles that we proposed was that there should be more days in session than travel days. I think last calendar year, we had 65 full days and 65 travel days. In session. Is, how do weion have Congress Work best for the American People, i would argue that we need to increase time legislating, so reducing the amount of time in transit is important. The other thing we looked at, though, was the productivity of the time that we have. And the Bipartisan Policy Center did, i think, a very strong report looking at the conflicts that exist between committees, they look that one day and found on just one morning, 131 members of the house had a conflict between two or more committees. So, the concern, of course, is, know, and i dont raise that as an individual member who feels like i need a clone to attend all of my committee meetings, but rather as someone who thinks that important learning and work is intended to happen in committees. You know, that work is challenged when folks arent there. And that can negatively impact the ability of congress to deliver. And so we made recommendations in that space as well to create to encourage block scheduling when committees meet, to create a Common Committee calendar portal so that committees can have visibility into other Committee Activities and potential conflicts for their members. Over covid, you have actually seen the house do committeeonly weeks anything that has been very positive. We have received by members, where you have days of that are activityonly, without floor activity. So we recommended continuing that as well. Just to try to drive as much productivity as possible. The other thing, ill just mention quickly, it may not seem like a big deal, but related to the calendar, we also said that the congressional calendar should accommodate a bipartisan member retreat because actually having democrats and republicans engage one another to try to advance an agenda and to try to enhance enhance civility was the something 12 members of our committee all felt were important efforts. Chair mcgovern thank you. Miss murphy, a question. The twothirds proposal , your logic behind that, please . Miss murphy sure. Presented atlways the very last minute on the floor with very little Time Available for members to consider what the m. T. R. Is actually saying. , thesehad to do that m. T. R. S are so poorly written sometimes it is hard to figure out exactly what the m. T. R. Is bumping it up , against the legislation, the law that its trying to change. So, one, mtrs are written a bit haphazardly. They are introduced with very little time for members to view and understand the impacts. Finally, if you are going to make a change to a bill that has already gone through the entire debate,and has had and youre going to throw something at the last minute, it really should be successfully passed as part of that bill unless it meets a higher threshold. We just picked the threshold that suspension bills of course, with a suspension bill, thats the level that would say, okay, this is harmless enough, enough people would agree with this that we should make this change. I just think when you allow a to be added with just simple majority when it has gone through very short and sloppy that ends up making for bad legislation. We have a process for a reason. I dont want to take away minority rights. I dont want to eliminate the m. T. R. But i think that if the m. T. R. Is going to have the impact of law, then it should pass a higher threshold than the simple majority. Chair mcgovern thank you. Last question to you, mr. Taylor. So there is a desire, and i think we all share the same desire to see legislation moves through both chambers and get to the executive and signed. I dont care whether it is a democratic or Republican Senate i remember my first four years here, we had a democratic senate, but since then things and it would get all boxed up over there. I dont want it to be just a oneway street that we pass everything the senate sends to us but everything we send to them get bottled up. How do you think we sel solve that . I think you are in a position to start going to the senators and saying, look, we are doing a rule for your bills. You should do Something Like that for our bills. To improve the probability of your legislation passing. Ive already had that conversation saying im going to offer this in the house. This is a commonsense thing. Nvidias cut out, everybody gets their say. The speaker gets their say, they all get their say. , as i the divides describe it to my constituents, everybody sees the partisan divide, but they dont see the bicameral divide. There is a lack of interaction chambers. Before i got here, i read the house rules and the senate rules because i wanted to see who had floor privileges. Could the house senators come on the house floor . And i got in an argument with two members who insisted to me that senators couldnt be on the house floor unless they were former house members. And then i said can house numbers go on the senate floor, and they said, no, you are wrong senate rule 127, we could go on , their floor. But just, even if thats technically true, culturally its not true. We have a lack of interaction between the chambers. But to 90 encourages senators to come and work for their bills. To come to the house floor and ii want you signature want your signature because i am at 270 signatures. If you sign on, i can get this thing on the president s desk. Also, it encourages companion legislation. One of the advantages of , as aion legislation state legislator in texas, one of the advantages is that if you did your chamber cannot figure out what the problem is that the computing legislature figures out what the problem is and they send you the fix, i put these amendments on and now its good. Youre ready to go. I think you have to begin with a step of faith and just start working on their stuff. I will say this, for every 10 bills that are sent from the house to the senate, the senate sends one back. They are a far more effective legislative body from a volume point of view than they are. There can be no debate about that. I believe that thats because our consent calendar is basically a 95 calendar. Their consent calendar is unanimous, and having an incredibly high bar makes it very difficult for them to play small ball, to do smaller things. Until they drop that from unanimous to 90 or 80 or some other more reasonable number, well continue to have bills get blocked, and thats happened. Because somebody once a better because somebody once a better over of the capitol. And that has happened. Chair mcgovern thank you very much. Mr. Taylor . Rep. Taylor thank you, mr. Chairman. I just want to thank each of the members. While i may not also agree with each of them, i think theyre very thoughtful and appreciate their participation. And singling out mr. Kilmer and the members of the Modernization Committee, there is a lot to in front of i have me. Obviously, some of the changes that would allow us to have an , that have totem be done in the physical world, i would embrace. I think they make a lot of sense. The other thing i would just say just as a general observation of he talked about was the ability for members in committee to take advantage of who are in front of the committees and engage in a more thoughtful dialogue, instead of what at times to me appears to be making speeches. One of the things that i particularly appreciate about this committee is the ability to have more back and forth and to really ask questions and thats why i value these opportunities. And whenever a rule is before the house, before the committee,. So i appreciate his awfulness on that. I will yield back, mr. Chair. Chair mcgovern miss scanlan . Rep. Scanlon im going to pass, thank you. Chair mcgovern ms. Shalala . Rep. Shalala ill pass. Very thoughtful. Chair mcgovern did i miss anybody . Okay. I think were all set. I want to thank the panelists for being here. Youre now dismissed. We are going to be calling our next panel will be mr. Schneider and mr. Lieu and as theyre getting ready to testify, i want to ask unanimous consent to insert in the record porter,y from steve also askleaver, and i unanimous consent to insert into the record the regulations to accompany h r 965. I will now turn this over to mr. Schneider. thank you. Er as very much appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I want to thank the chairman and members of the committee for hosting todays hearing for members of the 117th congress. I would like to discuss my views on the motion to recommit as outlined in rule 19. As a majoritarian institution, the m. T. R. Represents one of the last opportunities in the house to those in the minority to influence legislation being considered on the floor. In principle, i support the m. T. R. As a procedure that retains minority rights in the house. In practice, however, the ty, both democrats and republicans, use the m. T. R. To wedgeisan along partisan fault lines is. What i find reprehensible and dangerous is the republicans use of antisemitism to divide us. The great seal of the United States bears the motto e pluribus unum, out of many, one. It should be a principle that unites us. Its concerning when any group of americans is used as a prop to sow division. Using American Jews who have long faced bigotry and violence is something altogether different. The altright unite the right rally in charlottesville in 2017 and subsequent attacks in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, and california are the was that dominate the news, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. According to the antidefamation league, incidents increased by 12 in the 2019 and marked the highest number in the adls four decades of record keeping. I have no doubt that all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle oppose bigotry and hatred including antisemitism. So no party should ever asserted that there is anything but unanimous opposition against antisemitism. To do otherwise raises the risk of empowering those who traffic in hate and would like nothing more than to believe that there are analyzing the u. S. Congress who support their antisemitic views. I want to repeat myself, the m. T. R. Provides a venue of debate for issues and opinions. Action on the floor of the u. S. House of representatives dehumanizes any group, in this case american , jews facing antisemitism, its disservices the institution. Weaponizing antisemitism for political gain is as offensive as it is dangerous. Again, m. T. R. S should be a tool to insult healthy debate within the legislative process, and parties may choose to use it to push their agenda or put the Majority Party on the record. Minority parties should not, however, cynically use any of our citizens or group of our citizens as a wedge or a pawn. We dont know who will be the majority in the nascar press. I believe we can take this opportunity to prohibit the use of m. T. R. S in the next congress until there is a while wen agreement can and often shouldnt vote controversial issues on policy disagreements, we must never use the mtr to condemn antisemitism. As a way toe m. T. R. Retain the minoritys voice in the process but i refuse to condone how it has been used by toublicans in this congress infer that democrats or any other group in this body are not sufficiently opposed to antisemitism. I support proposals to require a high bar for a passive of an mtr requiring votes for passage similar to suspension bills. When were legislating on the fly as is the case with mtrs, its important that we get the details right. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak on how m. T. R. S have been used in this congress, and with that i yield back. Chair mcgovern thank you. . R. Lieu rep. Lieu thank you, chair mcgovern. I im going to talk on two subjects. The first is my proposal is on inherent contempt and the second is the mtr. Inherent contempt is a power that the house of representatives already has. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld this power. Congress has repeatedly used it in the past. My proposal simply puts in procedures in the house rules to let us execute this power. Specifically, inherent content is us the ability to enforce congressional subpoenas, and in my proposal, it does that through imposition of a fine for witnesses who dont comply with congressional subpoenas. This is not a partisan issue, we have seen congress over time cede way too much power to the executive branch. Both democratic and republican administrations have thumbed their noses at congressional oversight although i have to say the Trump Administration has done it more than others. Local change does is it provokes witnesses in this process. For example, it creates a process for a dialogue between the witness and the committee. It puts in procedures for the witness to lodge objections, it puts in procedures for the administration to lodge privilege objections. The witness can negotiate. But at some point and then allows the committee to forward a resolution to the house floor where the chair of the committee will present and then can ask questions, and at some point it allows the house to vote on the imposition of a fine, and then a majorityasses vote, the witness will in fact be fined. At the end of the day, if the administration or a private witness will simply not comply with a congressional subpoena, than the full house can impose a fine of up to 25,000. Impose atinues, we can fine of up to 100,000 at the end of the day. Again, it is not partisan in the sense that, i fully believe joe biden is going to win in november, and i think many of you do as well. This would apply to the biden administration. And then i would like to talk about the motion to recommit. First of all, it is a stupid way to govern. This specifically hides language from members of congress and gives us 15 minutes to cast a vote. That is not really governing, that is called a game. That is what makes the American People hate us, that we play these games. It was wrong when we did it to you, it was wrong with the democrats in the minority, we did this to republicans, it is wrong when you do it to us. This is not to influence legislation, this is simply to play games on the taxpayers dime. That is what makes this so offensive. I have to reject the notion the sometime this is the majority or the Minority Party is weak. It is not. The minority has many ways to the Minority Party has numerous ways to influence legislation. You get to participate in committees, introduce amendments in committees, and when the bill leaves a committee, you introduce amendments in the rules committee. If theres a problem with a bill thats about to be voted on the floor, what happens is the whole purpose of your committee that youre on is to allow amendments to that bill. And then the Minority Party gets to speak about the bill on the house floor. The Minority Party can go to the press. There are so many ways to influence legislation. The m. T. R. Is not designed to do that and it doesnt even do that. None of the m. T. R. Proposals are real or changes. Theyre just designed to be gotcha moments for the members of congress. Again, this is a procedure where , literally, the language is hidden from the vast majority of the members of congress and we are asked to vote on it. We just have to get rid of the motion to recommit, stop playing these games on taxpayers dime. It doesnt make any sense to continue any form of motion to recommit. We should not be playing these games. We should be trying to make legislation and not do an end around around the rules committee. With that, i yield back. Chair mcgovern thank you very much for your testimony. Words. Ciate your just on the contempt issue, i have been frustrated as well at the lack of cooperation with subpoenas that have been issued by committees here in the house. But if we impose a fine, i dont know what that fine would be, but to compel some of the people who dont want to comply with subpoenas, it would be very high, because all these people are multimillionaires and billionaires, and you just wonder whether they would just rather pay the fine. On the other hand, if it is if you had a Different Congress and they were trying to compel a government worker to come and testify but that government worker may be told by his or her advisor not to come, in here is somebody on the government workers salary, they would be bankrupted if it were abused. I am just trying to figure out i think we need to do something, because what has been going on with lack of compliance and lack of respect for congress is unacceptable. I just want to make sure that we thought this out and that we are doing this in the way that is most compelling. I dont know if you have any response to that. You have to unmute. Unmute. Rep. Lee thank you. Youre absolutely right. If someone is super wealthy than this is not going to work, but that is also a function of our capitalist system. People who are super wealthy get tax breaks that none of us on this committee get, so, yes, that is a problem. I am not sure we can fix that however, the vast majority of people subjected to congressional subpoenas are not like wilbur ross. They are not in fact super wealthy. There is room in this proposal to allow the head of the agency to be fined. We can do it so that we go after the head of agents, in effect they are the ones ordering a , so thatte to not come is a modification that can definitely be made. Chair mcgovern thank you. Mr. Woodall. Rep. Woodall thank you, mr. Chairman. Ill start where you left off with mr. Lieu. I think its absolutely critical that we are able to compel the executive branch to comply with congressional subpoenas. I think our challenge has been the partisanship here in the in our chamber. It was obvious to you that the Trump Administration was practicing this obstruction more than any other. I came to town in 2011, so my first bout along these lines was our criminal contempt resolution against attorney general holder, which passed the house, was referred to the justice department, and then the attorney general decided he was not going to pursue the criminal contempt resolution against himself. It passed in a largely partisan way. I think we had 17 democrats vote with us. But the problem was not that we were not able to issue the subpoena or pass the contempt resolution, its that the enforcement, which ought to be zeroing out somebodys budget, making sure the head of the agency doesnt get their pet project funded, all of these things that we ought to be doing together, we end up being ,ivided on, and i fear collecting those finds it would be yet another one of those things. Given that youve spent some time thinking about this in constructive ways to solve it, did you come across something that would lead to us passing word these subpoenas and contempt resolutions in a partnership fashion we have seen . Right. Are absolutely and republican administrations have found their noses at congress. Thumbed their noses at congress. To me, this is not a partisan issue. Its simply taking back its not even taking back our power. We already have this power, the Supreme Court has in fact upheld it and congress has used it in the past. Im putting in procedures to allow us to execute it if we want to. We still dont have to execute this power next term. But at least theres an option to do that. And right now it just seems silly for us to have no ability to execute that option even though we have the power to do so. It is my hope that we could get more subpoenas issued on a bipartisan basis. I think that would be better for the institution. Rep. Lieu you may recall republicans grappled with this when we were in control and went down the line of creating procedures to zero out individual Government Employees salary if we didnt like the way they were treating congress and creates an incredibly punishing tool to just your average government worker who had no idea they were getting ready to get dragged into a congressional fight. But i do hope we can solve that because i believe that we are both irrespective of who leads , the congress and who leads the white house, we are all disadvantaged as americans when Congress Becomes feckless in its attempt to do oversight of the executive branch. Let me go now to the motion to recommit. They taught me in freshman orientation ten years ago that that was just a procedural motion. It had no policy aspect to it whatsoever, and so just vote no. And so i recognize that that is not the sign of something that is valuable legislation, thats the sign of something that you would think could go by the wayside. But in our very new era of having almost all closed rules all the time, right, not a single open rule in paul ryans administration, not a single open rule now in speaker pelosis operation, there is no opportunity sometimes for the minority to have input on the house floor. If we had open rules, the challenges would be very much the same as the ones you pointed to, mr. Lieu, those amendments are offered, dropped right there on the floor, can be written on the back of a cocktail napkin, no opportunity for legislative drafting and perfection. Folks dont have time to consult with their staff and under the fiveminute rule, ten minutes later you could be asked to vote on a very consequential amendment that had not been seen before. So lastminute legislative language used to be a hallmark of this institution, wasnt used to disrupt the institution. It was common as a function of the legislative process. I remember once on our Prescription Drug bill last year , the majority saw in its wisdom the ability to offer the minority an amendment in the nature of a substitute and in exchange the minority said, were not going to press for our motion to recommit. We traded away what you and i would both agree was not an effective legislative tool and in exchange we got a very , substantive conversation about how we wanted to reform Prescription Drugs in the country. I support that. Im particularly concerned about mr. Schneiders concerns because raised the very same issues in the rules Committee Last night, mr. Schneider. We were talking about a bill that was a resolution that was intended to speak out against horrific treatment that has been alleged of noncitizens in the country after they have been detained by federal forces. And the resolution, i believed, was designed to divide us on something that we should have been speaking in one voice to condemn. There is no benefit in america of having it appear that someone condones inhuman treatment by federal authorities against noncitizens. So is it clear to you that there is a difference, the occasional majority bills that are brought to the floor for a vote, that are designed apparently to divide us as opposed to unite us, versus the motion to recommit, which i would absolutely concede is often designed as something that makes it appear that we are divided when in fact we may not be so . Rep. Woodall thank you. I appreciate the question. The distinction i would draw here is its never good to divide us. But thats part of the politics and part of the process here. Its using a group as a pawn, as the wedge to create that division. To try to create a false impression of antagonism to a group or an individual that doesnt actually exist, that i think becomes so dangerous. And my concern specifically with respect to the use of American Jews and the issue of antisemitism in our country is on the rise in the country as it is around the world. Were empowering groups that are trafficking antisemitism and were diminishing groups that are being used as the wedge. Rep. Schneider i think back on some of those im sure you are referring to. I would say we were talking about protecting this group or that from some groups that rightfully need production and the motion to recommit said, yes, those things are important, but someone needs to speak out against antisemitism and theyre not. Someone needs to speak out against antiisrael sentiment and theyre not. So were going to do this, we cant move legislation to the floor on our own and so were going to put it in and in this context. In our last panel we heard members on both sides of the aisle talk about the need to protect the motion to recommit. I do hope that we can find a way to make it more valuable as a legislative tool. But i could not agree with you more that the politics of division that we play have dangerous consequences in many ways. Again, i believe not being able to speak with one voice on behalf of noncitizens in u. S. Custody is dangerous because it suggests that something is acceptable when it in fact is not. And that is certainly true as it relates to antisemitism and so i would be happy to work with you in a republican majority as were sure to see in january, i want you to know ill be just as willing to partner with you as i am in a democratic majority today. Rep. Schneider i appreciate that and all of our intersections weve had good thaty and i think it is comity that allows us to put forward to advance the nation. There will be arguments and division of opinions, but we should never use individuals as a pawn in advancing that cause. Rep. Schneider i will share with you, i dont believe our conversations in the Modernization Committee are privileged any longer. We tried not to out one another while those conversations were going on. But we grappled with the motion to recommit because folks did have such strong feelings about it and i while reforming it was in our final recommendations, i thought one of the more fruitful places was how can we encourage the minority to surrender that motion in favor of getting a more substantive legislative alternative path . Lets not use lets not eliminate the motion to recommit to silence the minority. Lets change the motion to commit to empower legislative discussion and just give the minority one opportunity to take it where they would like to take it. And so your counsel is well taken. Mr. Chairman i yield back. , thank you. Ms. Torres . No questions or comments, thank you. Mr. . I have a couple of comments. And i would like to start where rob and brad just left off. And i had not opposed mtrs before as a general principle, but the mtr from a week ago on antisemitism really bothered me in a whole range of ways. Obviously as a member of the rules committee, we say its procedural, you know, and i sort of went down that path and i voted against it. And then it passed and then we vote on the bill as amended by the mtr and every single republican voted against the bill with that amendment. And we had mr. Cline on just a few minutes ago and we talked about the virginia rule where if you amend something, you vote for the bill. That doesnt seem to be commonplace around this place. But i was making some fundraising some calls and a guy answers and he says, why are you antisemitic . He didnt say it quite like that. Why did you vote against the antisemitism amendment . I just i dont understand. I said, it was procedural. I said, but then i voted for the bill, so it was part of the bill. And i said, all of those guys who presented the amendment, it was just a phony baloney stunt because they all voted against the bill. And it did create precisely what brad is concerned about, that i could say all the republicans were antisemitic and he could say, he was worried that any democrat who voted against the amendment was antisemitic and went right here for me. Thats a core value thing for me. And so i i have to admit, im attracted to mr. Lieus proposition here on mtrs, that what is the value of them . You know is this really , something important that its the last word for the minorities . Is that really something or is it a gotcha thing . And we certainly did it. We would do our mtrs, so i have some reservation about these things that i didnt have until about last week. And so, i just i want to raise that. And i guess my other comment to mr. Lieu on the contempt is the enforcement component that mr. What all woodall raised, that what are we going to do . Add to the Capital Police . Are we going to get fines . Are we going to sell somebodys house on the courthouse steps . I mean, i dont understand how we have the i dont understand what you would put into place to actually enforce something in some substantial way. So, i guess im presenting that to you, mr. Lieu, because i have some skepticism about this. Mr. Lieu could i answer that . Sure. Rep. Perlmutter so right now, in fact, our congressional subpoenas can be enforced as mr. Woodall pointed out when they went after attorney general holder. Towards the end, that wasnt enforced. It just took many years. We have to litigate it through the courts, meaning that the district court, Appellate Court and the u. S. Supreme court. It takes years to enforce a subpoena. The difference with this proposal is, lets say you assess a hundred thousand dollars fine ultimately on a witness and, yes, it will be litigated through the courts. But at the end of the day, if the witness is wrong on the issue and the courts find, yes, we have the ability to enforce this subpoena, it was lawfully ordered that witness will be on , the hook for a hundred thousand dollars. So it flips the burden where the witness now knows, if they ignore the subpoena, they could in effect be on the hook for a lot of money at the end of the day. Well take the don mcgahn case. Weve been litigating that issue through the district court, the Appellate Court. It hasnt gone through the Supreme Court yet. At some point there will be a decision and lets say we in congress win. What happens . Don mcgahn comes in and testifies. But if there was also a threat that he might think, oh, i might also be on the hook for a hundred thousand dollars, i dont know if he actually would ignore the congressional subpoena. So thats the difference. It puts this burden on the administration that if they lose, they could be on the hook. So i guess i follow up and yield back. Lets say we get a hundred thousand dollars, so you in your scenario, the court said, yes, its a hundred thousand dollar fine and we have to collect through the courts, thats what i was saying, option auction it on the courthouse steps. Do you think were going to do that . Rep lieu same way that the courts right now impose fines on people who ignore court orders. And, yes, there would be at some point a collection would occur. Okay. Thanks. I appreciate that. I just have a little im not sure that we have the staying power to do that. But i hear you and i yield back to the chair. Ms. Scanlon . Thank you. Mr. Morelli . I just want to add my thanks to mr. Schneider and mr. Lieu for their thoughtful comments and for the opportunity to have them in front of us. I yield back. Ms. Shalala . No questions, mr. Chairman. Thank you. And i think mr. Raskin may have some see if mr. Raskin mr. Chairman . Yes. Mr. Raskin . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I just i wanted to say a word about mr. Lieus proposal which i think is and put your video on, please. Sorry. Okay. Can you hear me now, mr. Chairman . I can hear you, but we cant see you. We need your video. I thought it was on. Okay. There you go. Rep. Raskin i just wanted to say a word on mr. Lieus proposal. You know, at a certain point earlier in this congress, i looked at the Supreme Court precedent governing contempt of congress, going back to anderson versus dunn and this goes back to the beginning of the congress and the Supreme Court has been very clear from the beginning that congress has the same Institutional Authority to impose sanctions for disobedience of its orders that a court has and, you know, as a body equal in stature and powers to the Supreme Court, we have the authority to enforce our orders. And if we dont have that, then the lawmaking function is fatally compromised because its inherent in lawmaking that we have the power to obtain the information that we need. And, you know, James Madison was very clear about this when he said that those who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. And so what does it mean for us to have the power to legislate over all of these subjects over war and Foreign Policy and commerce and bankruptcy and piracy and banking, you name it, if we cant get the information that we need . The lawmaking power implies the power to go out and collect information, the power of subpoena, the power to have people come and testify before us. If we get an executive branch, if we get a president of whatever Political Party or persuasion who decides to thumb his nose at congress or give the finger to congress, thats a crisis in our form of government. And so we need to have the full panoply of powers to enforce our obviously, that is something that goes beyond any particular party or any particular president. But we are the preeminent branch of government. The reason were in article 1, we come first, like the First Amendment and all of its rights comes first. And the reason why the congress has the power to impeach the president and the president does not have the power to impeach us is because we are the lawmaking power and the representatives of the people. So with all of that, i just want to say i am in very strong support of what mr. Lieu is doing and we have to move a process forward that allows us to make the contempt power not just latent within our arsenal, but something that is explicit and right there, so people understand it. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Rep. Raskin thank you very much. Does any other member of the committee wish to ask a question . Seeing that, i want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. You are now excused. Are there any other members who wish to testify on proposed rules changes for the 117th congress . Last chance. Seeing none, this closes our member day hearing. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Thank you, everybody. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] tuesday morning, Andrew Mccabe testifies on the review of the russia invented geisha investigation in front of the senate committee. Watch on cspan3, online at cspan. Org, or on the cspan radio app. The Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the Affordable Care act in the consolidated cases of texas v california and california v texas at 10 00 a. M. The Health Care Law was challenged by texas after a republican tax law eliminated the penalty for not having health care insurance. Listen to the arguments live at 10 00 a. M. On cspan, on at cspan cspan. Org Supreme Court, or ondemand at the Supreme Court app. Late at night, joe biden addressed the nation. He addressed the coronavirus, the economy, and calls for the nation to come together