Congress is a CLOWN SHOW Under Speaker Johnson's FAILED Leadership

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]Madam Chair, you you opened the meeting, um, by referring to the Serenity Prayer. Um, and I want to open this meeting by referring to the beads that I wear around my wrist, um, a year and a half ago, I was on a delegation to India and met with his Holiness the Dalai Lama as he was approaching his 90th birthday birthday and he gave me these Tibetan prayer beads. Um, he blessed them.

[00:00:26]Uh, and he gave them to me and told me they'd help deal with my anxiety, my negativity, my fears, my worries, uh, you know, my anger.

[00:00:37]And I'm anxious to see him again to tell him that they don't they don't work. Um, I I have to tell you, I mean, um, you know, we've been through a lot in this committee, but I I am terribly disappoint disappointed with the place this is being run uh, by the leadership.

[00:00:57]You have a small majority uh, and rather than working with us you ice us out and we find ourselves in these situations where, you know, we we come to the Rules Committee, we have long meetings uh, debates on amendments and then we have to adjourn because, uh, the people on your side are fighting with each other.

[00:01:23]A far better way, and I think what the American people would prefer is that we actually try to work together and try to get things done.

[00:01:31]And you don't have to agree on everything to agree on something.

[00:01:34]Um, and we ought to get that something done. And that's just not what's happening here. And as a result, we're seeing this dysfunction. I mean, I've, uh, you know, I told a reporter, I think the Republican leadership would screw up a two-car funeral. Um, and, um, and it's not getting any better.

[00:01:52]And, um, you know, uh, and I I will also say too that I think we owe an apology to the staff.

[00:01:59]Not just the minority staff, but the majority staff, uh, you know, the people like the official reporter here and others who have been on hold and who have been here late late into the night, here early early into the morning um, just because uh, the leadership here can't get its act together. That's disrespectful to them.

[00:02:21]I think it's disrespectful to this institution. Um, and I got I just I plead with you to try to figure out a way to avoid this from happening again. Um, but we are you know, I mean, but, I mean, I'm looking at the amendment uh, the that was just read to us.

[00:02:41]We we heard a lot of testimony here.

[00:02:44]Um, there were 52 bipartisan amendments offered.

[00:02:51]10 were made in order, 42 were blocked.

[00:02:54]There were 213 Democratic amendments offered.

[00:02:58]17 of them were made in order 196 of them were blocked.

[00:03:03]There were 97 Republicans amendments, um, offered.

[00:03:08]30 were made in order 67 were blocked. So, a grand total of 305 amendments were blocked. I I which begs the question, what the hell took you so long getting here? Um, a lot of very consequential and important amendments were just blocked.

[00:03:24]Um, and so, um, having said that, Madam Chair uh, I feel an obligation, uh, to move that we adjourn.

[00:03:34]You've heard the motion from the gentleman from Massachusetts. All those in favor say I.

[00:03:39]>> I.

[00:03:40]Those opposed say no. No. No.

[00:03:43]In the opinion of the chair, the no's have it. I ask for a roll call. Mr. McGovern requests a roll call. The clerk will call the roll. Mrs. Fischbach. No.

[00:03:51]Mrs. Fischbach, no. Mr. Norman.

[00:03:53]>> No. Mr. Norman, no. Mr. Roy. No. Mr. Roy, no. Mrs. Houchin. Mrs. Houchin, no.

[00:03:57]Mr. Langworthy.

[00:03:58]>> No. Mr. Langworthy, no. Mr. Scott. No.

[00:04:00]Mr. Scott, no. Mr. Griffith. No. Mr. Griffith, no. Mr. Jack. Mr. Jack, no.

[00:04:04]Mr. McGovern. I. Mr. McGovern, I. Ms. Scanlon.

[00:04:08]I. Ms. Scanlon, I. Mr. Neguse. Ms. Leger Fernandez. I. Ms. Leger Fernandez, I.

[00:04:13]Madam Chair.

[00:04:15]No. Madam Chair, no.

[00:04:18]The clerk will report the total. Three ayes, nine nays.

[00:04:22]And the, um, the no's have it. The motion to adjourn is not agreed to. Mr. McGovern, I I am very frustrated by the process. I don't blame the leadership, however um, and so um, making motions to adjourn just prolongs the situation. So, are there further amendments to the rule?

[00:04:46]>> I yeah, we have some amendments. I have a question before I do, but we're going to prolong this process, uh, Madam Chair, because we feel we have been terribly disrespected. We think the staff has been disrespected respected.

[00:04:57]We think this institution has been disrespect respected. But my my question is I'm looking at what's made in order here. I just want to make sure I understand, uh, how this works. I notice that, um, the ethanol amendment that Ms. Fischbach had authored is now being offered as a separate bill. Um, and I'm trying to understand if the ethanol bill fails, I mean, it's supposed it's supposed to be merged with the farm bill.

[00:05:25]And if but I if the ethanol bill fails, does the farm bill go to the Senate without it? I mean, that's my understanding. I just want to be clear on that.

[00:05:34]I think you understand the process, Mr. So, I'm correct. You're correct. All right. And and so if the ethanol bill passes um, which according to CBO scores, uh, the E15 tax would add billions literally billions of dollars to the deficit. So, if it passes and then it gets merged with the farm bill and it goes over to the Senate, we're sending a farm bill to the Senate with an an unfunded mandate. Is am I correct on that? And it costs the billions of dollars to the tax base. I cuz I don't see any offset in this in this bill. Maybe correct me if I'm wrong on that. I believe you're correct. Okay.

[00:06:18]All right.

[00:06:20]Which is stunning to me because we got a lot of lectures about adding to the deficit, but this is, uh, this is billions of dollars that won't be paid for that will be added to the farm bill, um, which is uh, extraordinary to me.

[00:06:35]>> Well, well, as you know, Mr. McGovern, the Senate will consider the farm bill.

[00:06:40]I know, but we're sending a bill over with billions of dollars in an in an unfunded mandate and I I thought we were all in agreement that we weren't going to do that. Anyway, I have an amendment to the rule, um, I move the committee add a section to the rule to provide for a meet the immediate consideration of the Senate's amendment to H.R. 7147 funding lawful Department of Homeland Security agencies debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. And Madam Chair, you know, the Senate has now passed twice unanimously this compromise legislation that would fund all the law-abiding agencies under DHS. Not a single senator objected. Not a Repub- not a Republican senator, not a uh, not a Democratic senator, um, objected. Um, and the Senate majority leader was a Republican offered the motion. This needless shutdown has lasted 72 days. The administration is saying they can't pay DHS employees this week under executive order. So, you're moving heaven and earth to give CBP CBP and ICE money they don't need. Bring bring this bipartisan bill to the floor and you can end the shutdown tomorrow.

[00:07:57]You all know it makes no sense, uh, what you're doing here today. Um, Mr. Langworthy who just left, I mean, he especially uh, he wrote a letter to the speaker asking him to bring up this bill, a bill he already said he'd bring up and has refused to do so. So, I have good news.

[00:08:14]You don't need the speaker. This is your chance to put the bill on the floor.

[00:08:18]Your power as a member isn't to write letters and begging other people to do something. Your power is to vote for that thing to happen. And the rest of you, this is your chance as well to pay these federal employees and I urge you yes vote. Many hours later. Uh, Madam Chair, um, the point that, uh, we on this side have been trying to make, um, all day, uh, with all these motions, uh, is not dilatory.

[00:08:43]Uh, it is that you have locked us out.

[00:08:46]Uh, you have locked your own members out. Seven in 10 Republican amendments are blocked. Eight in 10 bipartisan amendments blocked. Nine in 10 Democratic amendments blocked.

[00:08:57]You also, when you pass this rule out of this committee will break another record. I mean, your own record for the most closed rules in in the history of the United States of America.

[00:09:07]And I hope that now that the, um, House has gavels out for the night you can go back to the drawing board and come up with a better process to make sure that this passes on the House floor.

[00:09:18]Um, as we were debating here today, we had Republican a member after Republican a member say that they're not going to vote for the rule. Uh, we've had the administration actually send up a message to the House asking you to pass what the Senate passed with regard the Department of Homeland Security.

[00:09:37]Um, but I hope we don't have to do this again.

[00:09:41]Uh, but if you report this rule tonight as has been proposed I fear that this will just blow up on the House floor like it did 2 weeks ago.

[00:09:49]And so I hope that this committee starts doing better for this institution because as I've said to you, Madam Chair, I think this process uh that your leadership has overseen um has not only been dysfunctional um and has not only demonstrated incompetence, but has been an embarrassment for this institution.

[00:10:09]Um and we need to figure out a way to do better.

[00:10:11]And I again, I hope that this committee can can lead the way.

[00:10:15]And so now um we'll let uh uh we I think we we we will have no further amendments. We will um allow Mr. Norman to um fight for the people of South Carolina by signing more photographs and um and we can then we can proceed, but uh again uh uh I hope that the message that we've tried to send um has gotten through, and I hope it's loud and clear uh cuz um if not, we'll be back doing this again and again and again.

[00:10:49]And so, I thank the gentle lady, and I would yield back my time.