H.R. ____, the Restoring Executive Branch Authorities to Oversee Offices of the United States

All right, committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Pursuant to committee rule two and house rule 11, clause two, the chairman may postpone further proceedings today on the question of approving any measure or matter or adopting an amendment for which a recorded vote is ordered. I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore, to lead us in the pledge. Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 7730, the Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment Act of 2026, for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the house. The clerk will report the bill.

H.R. 7730.

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The bill we are considering, H.R. 7730, the Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment Act, is an important bipartisan bill that will help small businesses and individual consumers reorganize their financial affairs in bankruptcy. First, H.R. 7730 increases the debt limit for cases under subchapter five. In 2019, I sponsored the bill that created the subchapter five process, which allows small businesses the opportunity to efficiently reorganize their debts and exit bankruptcy as a viable small business. Between 2020 and 2024, Congress temporarily increased subchapter five's debt limit, allowing debtors with up to $7.5 million in debt to be eligible for subchapter five. In 2024, the higher limit expired and reverted to around $3 million. All available evidence suggests that subchapter five is working as Congress intended. It was also an important resource during COVID. Subchapter five provides a quick, cheap, and effective path forward for an indebted small business, allowing business owners to keep employees on payroll while repaying creditors. Subchapter five has also proven to be better for creditors. Evidence shows that creditor recoveries are higher in subchapter five than they would have been under chapter 11. H.R. 7730 permanently reinstates the higher $7.5 million limit. By reinstating the higher debt limit, H.R. 7730 will allow more small businesses to effectively reorganize their debts and exit bankruptcy as a financially viable business. The bill also modifies the eligibility criteria for individual debtors filing for relief under chapter 13. Between 2020 and 2024, Congress temporarily allowed individual debtors to aggregate their secured and unsecured debts for purposes of qualifying for chapter 13. After 2024, the temporary change expired, meaning individual debtors can only qualify for chapter 13 if their unsecured or secured debts are under the respective thresholds. H.R. 7730 reinstates the ability for debtors to qualify for chapter 13 if their aggregate debts are less than $2.75 million, regardless of how those debts are constructed. The chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, for an opening statement.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to support this bipartisan bill, which would restore and make permanent higher debt limits for working families, individuals, and small businesses under both chapters 11 and 13 of the bankruptcy code. Bankruptcy is a critical guardrail for the life and dignity of the American people. It allows people to take chances and then to start over again. Even the president himself has filed for bankruptcy six times under chapter 11 alone. But bankruptcy is important not just for big business risk takers like the president, but for hundreds of thousands of small businesses and working families who are shouldering debts that would have once been considered extraordinary, but today merely reflect the cost of staying afloat. Although it remains a remedy of last resort, our bankruptcy system must be equipped to provide relief when economic pressures collapse the margins of household and commercial stability. A well-calibrated system does not punish misfortune or entrench failure, but provides a lawful path forward when everything else has failed. H.R. 7730 reestablishes a higher debt threshold for small businesses under subchapter five and working families under title 13. For five years, subchapter five to the bankruptcy code offered small businesses a path back to viability by providing a simpler pathway to restructure debt, save jobs, and continue serving the community. Regrettably, that path was narrowed, not because the policy failed, but because in June 2024, the debt limit set by Congress, the maximum debt small businesses can have and still be eligible for subchapter five, lapsed and dropped by 60 percent from $7.5 million to $3 million. Despite clear data and agreement among the bankruptcy bar that the $7.5 million debt limit was a success, both for small businesses and their creditors, we reverted back to the old lower debt limit that excludes way too many of the small businesses subchapter five was designed to support. Without a workable path to reorganize, all that remains of these businesses is used equipment and unpaid bills. This tremendous loss in value is lost not only for business owners, but also for their employees, their creditors, and our communities. I'm heartened by the bipartisan agreement we have to permanently restore the $7.5 million debt limit in the Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment Act of 2026. This is sensible and long overdue. I thank our colleagues, Representatives Cline, Correa, Neguse, and Lee for their leadership on this important legislation, and I urge our colleagues to support it and hope we can advance it quickly on the house floor. Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you.

I thank the gentleman, and I also want to thank our colleagues, Congressman Correa, Congressman Neguse, and Congresswoman Lee for their assistance on this bill. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. The chair recognizes himself to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Clerk will report the amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered base text for purposes of amendment. Chair recognizes himself to explain the amendment. The amendment simply strikes of 2026 from the title of the bill. This change is not intended in any way to alter the important purpose of the bill, and I urge support for the amendment. Who seeks recognition? The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to share my support for H.R. 7730, the Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment Act, a bipartisan effort I'm proud to co-lead alongside Congressman Cline, as well as Congressmen Correa and Neguse. This bill strengthens a key tool that helps small businesses reorganize and stay open, subchapter five of chapter 11. Subchapter five was designed to be a faster, more cost-effective path for small businesses to restructure their debts and continue operating. It has worked as intended, giving business owners a practical way to get back on stable footing while preserving jobs and economic activity. During the pandemic, Congress temporarily expanded access to this tool by increasing the debt eligibility threshold from $2.7 million to $7.5 million. That change allowed more small businesses like restaurants, contractors, and farms to reorganize instead of shutting their doors. But that higher threshold has since expired. H.R. 7730 restores and makes permanent the $7.5 million threshold so that more small businesses and working families can access the streamlined process moving forward. In Florida, where small businesses are the foundation of our economy, this matters. These businesses need a fair opportunity to reorganize, remain competitive, and continue serving their communities. This is a targeted common sense fix that supports small business stability without expanding the system beyond its intended scope. I'm grateful to my colleagues for their partnership, and I urge support for this bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank the gentlelady. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Correa, for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to thank my good friend, Mr. Cline, for leading this effort to provide small businesses with a more accessible, faster, and less expensive process for bankruptcy. It was your legislation that created subchapter five small business bankruptcy process through the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019. I also want to thank our co-sponsors, Mr. Neguse and Ms. Lee. This bill essentially provides an access to the bankruptcy code that small businesses can afford, that's more efficient, and keeps small businesses open on main street to serve our community. And as pointed out by the American Bankruptcy Institute, the nation's largest association of bankruptcy professionals, subchapter five provides efficient, cost-effective, and creditor-beneficial reorganizations to small businesses. Sadly, a significant number of small businesses have been denied access to this process when the $7.5 million cap reverted back to $3.5 million, which happened in 2024. ABI estimates that nearly 1,500 small businesses that could have benefited from this higher cap did not because of the lower cap. In essence, the changes will make a huge difference for many small businesses and individuals that without these changes, small businesses would be forced to choose between liquidating their assets through chapter seven, going through a relatively more laborious and expensive and drawn out regular chapter 11 process, or just not filing at all. All these options are bad for debtors, creditors, and for our community. And by permanently lifting the cap, not only helps small businesses, but it will help them restructure the debt and remain on main street. This is a bipartisan, bicameral bill. Let's get it done in support of small businesses and individuals as they restructure through bankruptcy so they can continue to contribute to our local businesses and economies. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.

Gentleman yields. I thank the gentleman for his friendship and cooperation on this bill. Who seeks recognition? Gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald. Recognized for five minutes.

Mr. Chairman, move to strike the last word. Gentleman is recognized for five minutes. Chairman, H.R. 7730 is an important piece of legislation. I want to thank you for your leadership on bankruptcy issues. I also wanted to commend the great work my colleagues, Ms. Lee, Mr. Correa, Mr. Neguse, and all that they are doing to help make the bankruptcy system work for the American people. In July of 2025, the subcommittee on administrative state, regulatory reform, and antitrust held a bipartisan hearing to examine the effectiveness of the bankruptcy system. We also explored whether narrowly tailored legislative updates were warranted to ensure that the bankruptcy system continues to work as intended. This bill is a direct result of that bipartisan exploration of the bankruptcy system. Every witness at the hearing testified about how effective the subchapter five program has been in the six years since its inception. And H.R. 7730 will help to continue the record of success. I think we can all agree that small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy in all of our districts. And as every small business owner will tell you, efficiency and predictability are critical. This is especially true when a struggling small business goes through bankruptcy. Subchapter five has proven incredibly effective at responding to the needs of small business debtors. It has also been overwhelmingly successful at giving small businesses a path out of bankruptcy. This bill will also allow more small businesses to reorganize, create American jobs, and continue supporting their local community. However, I will acknowledge the concerns of the commercial real estate sector that the law could be misused by sophisticated investors attempting to avoid meaningful oversight of financial issues. This could allow businesses that a reasonable person would not consider a small business to use subchapter five for reorganization. In cases where this may occur, I trust the judicial conference and our bankruptcy trustees will look into these cases and take action as necessary to combat potential fraud. I urge my colleagues to support this important bill, and I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes gentlelady from California for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am so pleased that we are taking this bill up today. I'm proud to have joined as a co-sponsor of this bill. And I think that we are doing this, first I want to give credit to you as well as Mr. Correa and the other members who worked on this. But it's one of the issues that this committee has historically worked on on a bipartisan basis. And it's really important to the health of the small business community. We know that this works because it did work until it expired. And so I just wanted to say briefly, I won't take my whole five minutes, that not only do I support this, but I'm hopeful that we can get this on the floor on an expedited basis. And I know the Senate is working on it as well and bring relief to the small businesses across the United States. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Gentlelady yields. Anyone else seek recognition? Hearing none, the question is on adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on favorably reporting the bill. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of substitute is adopted. The question is on favorably reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed no. The ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably of the house. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Chair pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 6453, the ADA 30 Days to Comply Act, for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the house. Clerk will report the bill.

H.R. 6453, to amend...

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. Without objection, the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. Now recognize myself for an opening statement. Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act to protect people with disabilities, not to line the pockets of plaintiffs' attorneys. But too often, parts of the ADA are abused by plaintiffs' attorneys looking for quick settlements and easy money. That kind of abuse hurts everyone. It hurts small businesses trying in good faith to comply with the law, and it distracts from the ADA's real purpose, which is improving access for people with disabilities. H.R. 6453 takes a simple, reasonable approach. Before filing suit, a plaintiff must give a business written notice of the alleged problem and a chance to fix it. That notice has to say where the problem is, when it was encountered, and how the person encountered it. The business then has up to 60 days to acknowledge the issue and make any needed corrections. That is not a loophole, but a fair chance to solve the problem without dragging everyone into expensive and time-consuming litigation. This bill is needed because ADA litigation has become a magnet for abuse. Title III of the ADA requires businesses and other places of public accommodation to be accessible to people with disabilities. And this is a very good thing. But too many lawsuits brought under these provisions are not about access, they're about cash. In recent years, ADA lawsuits have more than tripled, from just over 3,500 in 2013 to more than 10,000 in 2023. However, the number of low-volume plaintiffs, those who file fewer than eight lawsuits in a year, have stayed the same, representing around 1,100 to 1,700 cases per year. Instead, the spike in these lawsuits have come from high-volume plaintiffs, those who file at least eight lawsuits in a year, who represent over 86 percent of all ADA cases since 2013. In many instances, these are drive-by lawsuits. Lawyers look for technical violations, file suit, and pressure businesses to settle, whether or not anyone was truly harmed. In one reported case, a plaintiff was offering $1,000 per lawsuit and was told by the firm that he could make over $100,000 a year just working for them. Many of these cases have been exposed as blatantly fraudulent. For example, one suit against a Chinese restaurant in 2021 alleged that it had a, quote, "lack of sufficient knee or toe clearance under the outside dining surfaces for wheelchair users," end quote, even though the restaurant had no outdoor seating. The same firm that filed this suit also filed one against the neighbor of the Chinese restaurant, alleging the exact same violation, despite the fact that the restaurant was only open for takeout when the alleged violation occurred. In a lot of these high-volume plaintiff cases, the goal is not to protect the disabled or enforce compliance with the ADA, but to make money from legal fees and settlement agreements. And it's not just businesses that pay the price. These cases also clog up our already overburdened courts, especially in Florida, New York, and California, where most of these high-volume cases are filed. In 2022 alone, high-volume ADA filers made up 12 percent of all civil cases in the Southern District of Florida, 12.7 percent in the Central District of California, and 20.8 percent in the Southern District of New York. That means real cases with real victims are forced to wait while courts deal with a flood of manufactured claims. H.R. 6453 would help put the focus back where it belongs. It does not eliminate anyone's right to sue. It simply says, tell the business what is wrong. Give them a chance to fix it. And if they refuse, then go to court. That encourages compliance, improves accessibility, and reduces abusive litigation. It helps people with disabilities get barriers removed faster. It helps honest businesses fix problems without being shaken down. And it helps keep our courts open for legitimate claims. This is a common-sense reform. It protects the rights of the disabled while curbing abuse that undermines the law. I urge support for the bill. And with that, the chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, for an opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Cline. I'm going to oppose H.R. 6453, the so-called ADA 30 Days to Comply Act, because it would undermine the civil rights of Americans with disabilities and set a really dangerous precedent for civil rights enforcement. The bill would amend the ADA to prohibit a victim from filing a lawsuit to enforce his or her rights under the act until the victim gives detailed notice to the business owner of the ADA violation and then waits up to 60 days, not 30, to allow the business to, quote, "make substantial progress," towards removing a barrier to access. Well, this would obviously change the nature of the right. It would no longer be a right to remove barriers to guarantee equal access, but rather a right within 60 days to get someone to agree to make substantial progress towards removal of an obstacle to equal access. This undefined, vague new standard means the owner does not even have to remedy the violation within this 60-day period to forestall the discrimination lawsuit. The business owner merely has to show that they've made substantial progress, whatever that vague concept might mean. H.R. 6453 will reduce voluntary compliance with the ADA and advantage people who choose to ignore the law, despite Congress having passed this landmark civil rights legislation almost 36 years ago in July 1990. Civil rights statutes like the ADA depend on the credible threat of self-help litigation for enforcement purposes, which is why no civil rights statute has a pre-lawsuit 60-day notice and opportunity cure requirement like the one now being proposed. I ask my colleagues, is there any other civil rights statute that requires the victim to essentially obtain the permission or consent of the person who discriminated against them before they can file suit against the discriminator? The people with disabilities who are the beneficiaries of the ADA, the protected class, are not disability inspectors. The closest analog I can think of is in the context of employment discrimination where a victim is required to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC to take remedial action before a lawsuit can be filed. But this analogy does not really help the supporters of the bill. The key difference is that the EEOC is a public body, a civil rights enforcement agency that is charged with investigating the allegation and remedying the discrimination. The accused discriminator in an ADA case is not a public regulatory agency, but someone who has an incentive to use the proposed notice and cure provisions under the bill to delay litigation and to discourage or reject merited claims. I understand that my colleagues who support the bill, as Chairman Cline suggests, are concerned with so-called drive-by ADA lawsuits filed by attorneys and individuals allegedly for personal profit rather than a desire to derive the benefits of the law, and that they're concerned that small businesses are vulnerable to threats of litigation by unscrupulous parties. Of course, just because there are a lot of lawsuits filed against a business doesn't mean that they're frivolous. It could mean that there are indeed widespread ADA violations. For example, the National Council on Disability reported in 2007, 17 years after the law's enactment, that many public accommodations are still not in compliance with Title III and are not in fact accessible. There appears to be little evidence disputing that finding in the near two decades since that report's publication that compliance has significantly improved. I would also note that the bill makes no distinction between small businesses and large corporations with the significant resources to actually comply easily with the law. That would be a separate bill entirely. But to the extent that vexatious disability rights enforcement litigation is a legitimate problem, and it may be, it has mostly been limited to a handful of states, mainly California, Florida, New York, and is driven by their state disability protection laws. Unlike the ADA, these state laws provide for statutory damages. The ADA only permits private plaintiffs to obtain injunctive relief ordering the business to remedy the barrier to access, not statutory money damages. In short, to the extent there's any incentive for someone to be a vexatious litigant in the disability rights space, those incentives are not flowing from the federal ADA. If there are precautions to be added to state law somewhere, they should be advanced at the state level, but not be used to dilute and undermine the Americans with Disability Act at the national level. Furthermore, federal courts already have the tools to deal with problematic ADA litigants. For instance, they have sanctioned parties found to be vexatious litigants. They've refused to award attorneys' fees where a lawyer failed to serve a defendant with a demand letter prior to filing suit, and they've dismissed cases for lack of standing where the plaintiff cannot allege any real harm. Therefore, it's unnecessary for Congress to address this issue by passing a bill that would fundamentally undermine ADA enforcement. The ADA is already designed to address concerns regarding the cost of compliance by providing built-in flexibility. Title III defines discrimination as including the failure to remove barriers that are structural in nature in existing facilities where such removal is readily achievable. The ADA defines readily achievable as easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense. This standard has been the governing legal principle for increasing access since the ADA passed 36 years ago. It ensures that rather than having a one-size-fits-all requirement, businesses have flexibility to determine what steps are possible based on their size and resources. We cannot lose sight of the fact that the ADA is not a mere building code, but a landmark civil rights law that Congress passed to ensure that tens of millions of people with disabilities would be fully integrated into the mainstream of American life, free from the exclusion and stigma they've historically faced. This legislation would turn the ADA on its head and shift the burden from the business committing discrimination to the very people the law is meant to protect. If this bill were to become law, instead of a disabled person expecting access to a business to be the norm, they would instead expect to be discriminated against by a business until they spoke up and complained. But that is not how civil rights law works. This legislation would delay, potentially indefinitely, the ability of people with disabilities to enforce their civil rights in court. For those reasons, Mr. Chairman, I must oppose H.R. 6453. I yield back.

Thank the gentleman. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. Chair now recognizes himself to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Clerk will report the amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 6453.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered base text for the purposes of amendment. The chair recognizes himself to explain the amendment. The amendment strikes the year from the title of the bill. It's not intended in any way to alter the substance or important purpose of the bill. I urge support for the amendment and yield back. Who seeks recognition? You do? Gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Scanlon, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I strongly oppose H.R. 6453 as someone who's worked with the folks in the disability community for decades. Let's be honest about what this bill does. It does not strengthen the ADA, it weakens it. It tells people with disabilities that when they're denied access to a restaurant or a store or a doctor's office, a hotel, they have to wait longer, do more paperwork, and clear more hurdles before they can enforce the rights that they already have under the law. Under this bill, an individual seeking relief would have to provide a technical notice, identify the right owner or operator, which is not easy, and then wait while a non-compliant business makes "substantial progress" on addressing the complaint. You can see that this just opens up a a huge area for abuse and delay. This is a radical departure from how civil rights laws work, and it sends exactly the wrong message. It says to businesses, ignore the law unless or until someone forces you to care. Disability advocates also warn that if this bill were to become law, businesses would have little incentive to comply unless or until they are caught. As it stands, the ADA tries to make access the norm and something that businesses must consider as a condition of doing business, a precondition to opening as opposed to something they can skirt until they get caught. I am disappointed that instead of focusing on policies to reduce burdens for individuals with disabilities, the majority has decided to focus on putting up roadblocks to legal pathways meant to to protect vulnerable citizens. I'm not surprised that this majority would try to pass yet another bill that puts its thumb on the scale for business, but Americans with disabilities don't need Congress telling them to educate business about a law that's been on the books for more than 35 years. They need us to defend their civil rights, to support compliance, to expand technical assistance, and make it easier, not harder, for them to participate in American life. So I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, and I yield back.

Who seeks recognition? Mr. Onder is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to speak in strong support of the ADA 30 Days to Comply Act. My office has heard from small businesses in my district who are being harassed by out-of-state law firms who are weaponizing the ADA to make a profit. According to the NFIB, hundreds of Missouri small businesses have received ADA web accessibility demand letters demanding thousands of dollars in settlements. These law firms recruit plaintiffs to bring lawsuits against them even though these plaintiffs have never visited the business and have no intent to do so. Our state legislature is one of the first in the nation to try to address this problem. Missouri, it turns out, is one of the states most impacted by law school a law a lawsuit abuse in this area, in fact, fifth in the country. And this is why it is important this issue's important to the Missouri delegation. ADA compliance lawsuits have more than tripled since 2013, and no one truly believes this is because ADA violations have tripled since 2013 or that Missouri is a particularly egregious offender. If anything, new modern building codes and new construction result in over time more real estate, commercial and residential, being ADA compliant. Certainly in my own field of healthcare, we have been 100 percent ADA compliant for decades. If plaintiffs want to sue a small business for ADA violations, they should do so in good faith and give those businesses the opportunity to correct violations, and that is why the ADA 30 Days to Comply Act is critical for small business owners. This bipartisan legislation requires plaintiffs to tell businesses exactly how they are violating the ADA. It cracks down on phantom plaintiffs by requiring the plaintiff to describe how their rights were actually violated by the business. But most importantly, it gives businesses the chance to cure and remediate any potential ADA violation. Isn't that the whole point of the ADA? Congress did not pass the ADA to give law firms a financial windfall. It did so to protect people with disabilities. The ADA 30 Days to Comply Act will restore this congressional intent, and I urge my colleagues to support its passage. Thank you, I yield back.

Thank the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Correa, for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in strong support of this legislation and just want to share with my colleagues a few of my stories in my district. I don't get calls from Target or Walmart. I get phone calls from the small businesses, the new immigrant-owned businesses that maybe have their businesses on our main streets, State College Boulevard, where all the businesses there were probably those buildings were built 50 years ago. New immigrant comes in and buys it, an American just saved up enough money to buy a new business. Then a plaintiff comes in, and what we think is going on is they're taking the zip codes and doing a mail merge and suing everybody in that area. One lady in particular called my office in Spanish, crying, wanting to know if this was a real lawsuit, and when I explained to her this it was, her violation, her sin, bought a business 20 years ago, the striping, the blue striping for the parking was two or three inches off. Paid at the end of the day, restripe, $20,000 out the door, including attorney's fees. A few months later, got hit with another lawsuit, same thing, this time the ADA ramp was out of compliance by a few inches. Have another gentleman, a mechanic, same thing, got hit with a lawsuit. The bathroom was off, the toilet was off by a couple of inches, cost him $40,000 out the door. Look, I I'm a big supporter of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Great monumental legislation for Americans with disabilities to be treated with dignity and respect. All what we're trying to do with this legislation, give people the opportunity to fix the problem before you have to pay through the nose. And and I got an article here, California State Senate just passes the nation's first bill for accessibility violation cure period. Gives 120 days to cure an accessibility violation before filing a lawsuit. Remind everybody here that the PUMP Act gives 10 days you got to give 10 10 days notice for the business to cure before you move forward. That's all we're asking. We're not talking about taking away the opportunity of a small business or saying you can't comply with the ADA. We're saying giving the small business the opportunity to comply. Again, it's not the big guys, it's the small guys that are getting hammered. And I don't think it's unreasonable to give them the opportunity to fix the problem. Moving forward, they're already getting pounded by tariffs, they're getting pounded by other changes in our economy, and they continue to get hit with federal legislation, not state but federal legislation. And and I hope we can look at this legislation and reason enough to do what's right for Main Street as well as doing right for those Americans with disabilities. This is a win-win situation, that's why I'm fully supportive of this legislation. Would the gentleman yield? Of course.

The gentleman describes a situation that I I have also seen in in my own district of really abusive litigation. There's a set of lawyers that files lawsuits at, you know, and in fact, the state bar did intervene with some of those lawyers because of their activities. I am a strong supporter of the ADA, but there there has been abusive litigation here and it's put small businesses there's a little coffee shop in San Jose that had to close just because it was impossible to to comply and the dollar amount was beyond what they could do. I'm wondering if there could be a discussion between here and the floor to limiting the relief to small businesses instead of, you know, we don't want to let Target off the hook, but I am sympathetic to these small businesses that have basically been put in out of business because of the really the abusive action not of the disabled community but of some lawyers that are taking advantage, unfair advantage of this opportunity.

Ma'am, if if I can respond to your comments, I think that's an excellent point. If you want the legislation to make a distinction between the Targets of the world and the small coffee shop that you described in your comments, I'm happy to work with you on on some possible language moving forward. I yield back, thank you.

Gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you. I'm I'm encouraged with the discussion I'm hearing on a bipartisan basis on this bill because it really is a question of are we for a very small subset of plaintiffs' trial lawyers who victimize these companies, or are we for the legitimate implementation of the Americans with Disability Act as uniformly as we can? I just want to make one additional point in the the hope that we will bring more people from both sides of the aisle onto this legislation in its current or substantially current form. The discussion included for some reason Target or Target as some people call it, and as though they were somehow too big to be treated the same as small businesses. I'm going to make a statement which is that if Target in good faith applies for building permits, complies with them, and is inspected, and then in fact has a violation, why wouldn't we give them the same 30 days? And one of the big points that I think goes without being understood, those small companies that were whether it was 20 years ago or or or last week, in most cases, they've complied in good faith with the law, or their predecessor or the person that had it before. And and if you're the landlord, it may be a small business that is your tenant, but it's just as likely that you get sued because you're the landlord. What I would say is that if my friends on the other side of the aisle want to do any amendment, the safe haven that should apply to anyone for this 30 days, if there's going to be a limitation at all, is if the government has told you you're okay. You put out a building permit, it went through a process, you in the case of us as the two Californians that just spoke, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, they've reviewed it, and yet it's two inches off. Who is really to blame? Is it in fact simply the low-hanging fruit to sue whoever happens to be the occupant of that building or the owner at the time? So I appreciate that this is a bipartisan bill and that it has bicameral support and it might finally see a a vote and successfully be signed by a president, but to do so, I would say, has to be more expansive than just saying small or micro businesses because most often many of those small businesses rent. If we simply say well it's only small businesses, then they'll just sue the landlord or they'll just sue somebody else with deep pockets. So having seen this bill in some form for a quarter of a century and not yet being able to get it across the finish line, I'm certainly willing to make any and all compromises that are in good faith suggested, but let's realize that a first notice often includes that you've complied with your city inspector, your state inspector, the building plans simply were overlooked or erroneous. Why is it that whether it's an oversight by the architect, an oversight by the building inspector, an oversight by the reviewing board, or the contractor simply painted an inch off, why is it that there shouldn't be a notice and correction? We're not asking that when it's discovered for it to remain grandfathered wrong. We're simply saying that in good faith, unless you are fully beholding to a small group of the plaintiffs' trial bar, you're going to want to have these corrections made in a timely fashion. And 30 days is a very small amount of notice and obviously if you don't do it or if you don't correct everything that can be reasonably believed, fine. But this will dramatically reduce the kinds of suits that you're hearing about from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Would the gentleman yield?

Of course I would.

I would just note that the California State Senate recently passed a measure and they had 120 days to cure and did a safe harbor for businesses with 50 or fewer employees. Now I could argue that that's too many, but I think the point they were trying to make is that the threat of litigation for a truly small business, I mean they might have a defense but they don't have the capacity to actually advance that and so they have to pay up. And I yield.

And I applaud the gentlelady pointing out that California, which has been a litigious state, has done something because it's become that bad. I would only say that whether it's San Jose or San Diego, if your city permit allowed it to be built wrong, it shouldn't matter how large the entity is, the notice and correction, because let's face it, we can't sue San Jose even though they let it be built wrong. Why shouldn't we give notice and that's where I want to expand what the gentlelady wisely is saying could be a potential compromise. And thank the gentleman and I yield back.

The gentleman from California yields back. I appreciate the gentleman from California's views and answering the question from the gentlelady from California and the comments from the gentleman from California earlier. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen, for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was going to argue against this amendment because I've got a disability and I appreciate the ADA and when it came up in Tennessee in the 90s, I supported the state ADA and there was some people were against it entirely back then. It's a bill Steny Hoyer was greatly responsible for passing in the Congress and it's been an excellent bill. But the compromise, if there can be one, I understand the lawyer problem and we had that then too, is a good one. Mr. Chair, would you consider recommending that this bill be put off for a while so they can work on a compromise and then have us deal with the compromise rather than something else?

So we would need to take into account the views of the sponsor and so we would rather advance it now and work on it on the way. Sorry, my friend from Tennessee, I just walked in. We would need to talk with Representative Lawler, the sponsor. I'd like to proceed on the legislation but as you well know, you're an experienced member, there's always time between when something moves out of committee and when it actually gets to the floor and we can take that.

There is always that time, but I think this committee is the committee that should decide whether that proposal is the right proposal.

And we can always bring something back if we need to, but I want to, I'd want to go talk to the congressman from...

I wish you could talk to Congressman Mast and see what he thinks about it. I was listening to an Elvis song the other day, Walk a Mile in My Shoes, and I thought about myself and my shoes and Mr. Mast and he doesn't have shoes. And that's what you ought to consider is not, I understand the businesses and understand the lawyers that sometimes are out there just to make a dollar and but there could be a better way to do this. If you're out of compliance by a certain percentage, then it's different. But to make the person with the disability have to file a paper complying exactly with this statute before they can get relief is wrong. It's putting a burden on people who shouldn't have that burden. The burden should be on the businesses who already know what the law is. But if you want to do something, do it in this committee and talk to people who have disabilities and you've got people in your caucus who have disabilities and I think they would concur with me that you ought to get it, you improve it, but don't make it to where the person with the disability has the burden put on them. Will the gentleman yield? Yes.

Mr. Cohen, thank you so much for that excellent intervention in the discussion. I just want to support what you've said and perhaps my good friend from California can respond to this point. I understand that the State Senate in California, as Mr. Issa says, also has acted to create this, I think it's a 120-day period, which would allow for cure there. And I think that there's a far more compelling argument to do it at the state level precisely because there's statutory damages. You talked about a case with $20,000, a case with $40,000. Under the federal law, the only remedy is equitable relief, only ordering compliance with the statute. So we don't have that problem with the ambulance-chasing lawyers trying to rev up a million-dollar hit against some small business. That's not happening. So it seems to me the only problems I've heard about are in California and it sounds like the representatives in California are dealing with the problem, they're addressing it. But why would we impose this straitjacket on people all across America when as Mr. Cohen says, this is so vital to make commerce equally available to people with a disability?

Because of the way California frames this issue right now. Most of the lawsuits, if not all, are through federal law. And what we want to do is put some equitable constraints of using this federal sword against small businesses. That's why.

If I could just correct one thing. It's not through federal law. What's happening is they're adding a state law claim to a federal lawsuit to get into federal court. But once California corrects the state law, they're not going to be able to do that anymore. And then that will filter out anybody who's just looking for a shakedown money judgment as opposed to the people like Mr. Cohen who really just want to see that the law's complied with with equitable enforcement.

Right now the issue is really extortion by the attorneys at the federal level. We want to put some guardrails around that. Most of the lawsuits under existing law, if we don't move forward with this legislation, will continue to have the situation right now, which is the small guys getting beat up, a lot of them being put out of business.

It's not happening in other parts of the country. And again, I...

It is happening, I believe, in other states, not only California. It is happening in other states.

We've heard of a few states like Florida and California where there are money statutory damages available where they are appending the state law claim to a federal lawsuit to get into federal court. And then you're right, and then that becomes a real problem for people who may be the subject of abusive lawyers who have not been ferreted out by the bar or by a judge. But that doesn't happen in the other places.

But it does happen in other states. And Mr. Raskin, right now the situation is we do have lawyers that are essentially extorting the small businesses under state law and it's got to be dealt with at the state level, not under federal... No, it has to be happened at the federal level, sir.

No, because they're only appending it to federal litigation. So I just, I think that that's a real problem you identify, but it's a separate problem.

The time of the gentleman from Tennessee has expired. We're going to agree to disagree on this even though we have Maryland and California in a discussion. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.

Mr. Chairman, move to strike the last word.

The gentleman's recognized.

I've already spoken to this in the opening statement, but I would just want to raise the point that as I said, in 2022, ADA filers made up 12 percent of all civil cases in the Southern District of Florida, 12.7 percent in the Central District of California, and 20.8 in the Southern District of New York. So we have a nationwide problem here. And it's also important to note that you don't just have injunctive relief as part of the federal litigation, the underlying law allows for attorneys' fees as well. So that's where you have a lot of the problem arising. So it is a national problem, it is this bill is appropriate and I'd ask that we move it today. Will the gentleman yield for one question? I will yield. Yes, I yield to the ranking member and then I'll yield to Mr. Biggs.

Just very quickly, the attorneys' fees are only for a prevailing party, correct?

That's my understanding.

Okay. So in other words, if somebody finds that there's an ADA violation and they get the only kind of relief you can get, which is injunctive relief that you need to put in a ramp or whatever, then there would be the reasonable attorneys' fees subject to all the rules of the court. In other words, I think what the gentleman from California is complaining about is a real problem under state law, but you've got to deal with it in Florida or New York or California because even if we pass this today, it strikes me they still have the same problem there.

But my point is that what you get is a negotiation and a settlement where you have these attorneys' fees come into play and then you have $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 for redrawing lines outside a restaurant. So I do think we have a problem at the federal level. I yield to the gentleman from California.

If I could, Mr. Raskin, that's the issue. Attorneys' fees, okay? If you're a small guy, you're not going to be able to afford attorneys' fees. Okay? And that's a challenge that we have here. Yes, you're right, plaintiffs can't get monetary damages under the ADA, but you get the fees, litigation expenses, and the cost fueling this essentially lawsuit abuse surge. We want to do is put guardrails on this, put parameters here. We can have the goals of the ADA move forward, but not at the expense of small businesses. Give them the opportunity to cure. Give them the opportunity to do what they're supposed to do, fully 100 percent ADA compliant, but not at the expense of going out of business. That is not a win-win for everybody. They're not going to fix the problem, they're going to go out of business, give them the opportunity to cure. I yield back.

The gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I would tell you that Arizona suffers from the same state issues that California suffers from because we allow anyone to bring a lawsuit on ADA compliance even if you're not asserting that you yourself are disabled but that you have observed. So we have lawyers going around chasing around and they're measuring, literally hired these people are hired to measure signs on a pool at a hotel and if it's supposed to be four feet or three foot six inches and it's three foot eight inches, they will then extort a settlement. And that's part of that's one side of it. The other side of it is exactly what Mr. Correa was describing where someone will go around and again, they have people looking for these kinds of violations. And let me give you an example of some of the violations in Arizona and what they will then do is they will file for injunctive relief, they're hoping to get the attorneys' fees of many thousands so the small business owner is stuck with paying their own attorneys' fees and the cost of someone else because here's some of the here's some of those. This one is indoor batting cage owner, Deanna Francis, she had four more than required of wheelchair handicap accessible spaces in her parking lot, four more than are required under ADA. But her problem was that she had reserved parking signs there, those signs were a few inches too short. So the lawsuit was brought. Here's others, I mean you just go through these, this guy's his signs were two inches too short. And that's the that's the problem with this is is you're not allowing these people to cure and if you really are if you really about we want to make sure that the folks are compliant with ADA to benefit those who are disabled, then you should give them the right to cure. And so I'm going to, Mr. Chairman, just offer a couple of some articles for UC if that's possible.

Without objection. Without objection, sure.

Yeah, Parking Lot Trolls: Lawsuit-Happy ADA Defenders are Officially Enemies of the State.

Without objection.

Parking Lot Trolls Part Two: Slew of ADA Compliance Suits May Have Dangerous Repercussions for Arizona's Disabled.

Without objection.

Attorney Behind ADA Lawsuits Disciplined, so at least one guy got disciplined. Businesses Blindsided: Thousands are Sued for ADA Violations on Their Website.

Without objection.

Legally Blind Racing Woman Accused of Filing Frivolous ADA Lawsuits. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. The gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized.

Thank you. I have a couple unanimous consent requests. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from the Consortium for Constituents with Disabilities dated March 25, 2026, signed by 27 organizations opposing H.R. 6453, highlighting how under this legislation businesses would have no incentive to comply with the ADA's accessibility requirements unless and until they receive notice.

Without objection.

I also ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from the Paralyzed Veterans of America Act dated March 25, 2026, opposing H.R. 6453. Thank you.

Without objection. Who seeks recognition? Question is on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will follow, will be followed immediately by a vote on reporting the bill. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, no.

No.

In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. The question is on favorably reporting the bill. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, no.

No.

Roll call being requested, the clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Jordan.

Yes.

Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Issa. Mr. Biggs.

Aye.

Mr. Biggs votes aye. Mr. McClintock. Mr. Tiffany.

Aye.

Mr. Tiffany votes aye. Mr. Massie.

Aye.

Mr. Massie votes aye. Mr. Roy. Mr. Fitzgerald.

Aye.

Mr. Fitzgerald votes aye. Mr. Kline.

Aye.

Mr. Kline votes aye. Mr. Gooden.

Aye.

Mr. Gooden votes aye. Mr. Van Drew.

Yes.

Mr. Van Drew votes yes. Mr. Nehls. Mr. Nehls votes yes. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore votes yes. Ms. Hageman. Ms. Lee.

Aye.

Ms. Lee votes aye. Mr. Hunt. Mr. Fry. Mr. Grothman.

Aye.

Mr. Grothman votes aye. Mr. Knott. Mr. Harris.

Aye.

Mr. Harris votes aye. Mr. Onder. Mr. Schmidt. Mr. Gill. Mr. Baumgartner. Mr. Raskin.

No.

Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Nadler. Ms. Lofgren.

I'm going to pass until we get our compromise worked out.

Mr. Cohen.

I'll take care of it so I'm going to vote no because I don't have enough time to wait.

Mr. Cohen votes no. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Lieu. Ms. Jayapal. Ms. Jayapal votes no. Mr. Correa.

Aye.

Mr. Correa votes aye. Ms. Scanlon.

No.

Ms. Scanlon votes no. Mr. Neguse. Ms. McBath. Ms. Ross.

No.

Ms. Ross votes no. Ms. Balint.

No.

Ms. Balint votes no. Mr. Garcia.

No.

Mr. Garcia votes no. Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Goldman. Ms. Crockett. Mr. Gill, you're not recorded.

Yes.

Mr. Gill votes yes. Mr. Knott, you're not recorded.

Yes.

Mr. Knott votes yes. Ms. Kamlager-Dove, you are not recorded.

No.

Ms. Kamlager-Dove votes no. Clerk report. Mr. Chairman, there are 16 ayes and eight nos.

The ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 3420, the Words Matter Act of 2025 for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the House. The clerk will report the bill.

H.R. 3420.

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes himself for an opening statement. This bill updates certain federal laws to reflect changes in the terminology used to refer to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Congress began this process in 2010 with Rosa's Law. In a number of statutes, the law changed references to mental retardation to references to be references to intellectual disabilities. Over the past few decades, intellectual disability has replaced mental retardation as the term used by both public and by both the public and doctors to refer to conditions affecting cognitive development and functions. Unfortunately, Rosa's Law did not update every reference throughout the code. The Words Matter Act would finish the job that Rosa's Law began. Notably, this bill would not change how any law on the books works. The bill explicitly states that it cannot be construed to alter any rights or obligations imposed by the statutes that it amends. The bill is simply about replacing an outdated term with one that is commonly used and widely understood today. And I want to thank our friend and colleague Mr. Sessions from Texas for introducing this bill and I urge members to support it. And with that, I would recognize the ranking member for an opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Jordan. I'm very pleased to support this bipartisan legislation. The Words Matter Act would remove obsolete terminology in more than two dozen federal statutes by replacing references to mentally retarded and mental retardation with the term intellectual disability and its variants. Language evolves and government struggles to catch up. In fact, the R-word was initially adopted as medical terminology to replace older and even more demeaning language to describe people diagnosed with an intellectual disability. However, the R-word turned into a slur against people with intellectual disabilities, a way to denigrate, diminish, and deride. Advocates fought for decades to end use of this word, but the movement galvanized as a result of young activists who partnered with the Special Olympics in 2009 to launch a campaign called Spread the Word to End the Word, which encouraged students across America to sign a pledge to stop using the R-word. The following year, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the bipartisan Rosa's Law, which required the government to replace the term mental retardation with intellectual disability in the federal code, named after then nine-year-old Marylander Rosa Marcellino, whose family started to advocate for the change after Rosa's individual education plan explicitly labeled her with the R-word. That law, however, was limited to education, health, and labor laws and did not mandate the change pervasively in generally through the U.S. Code. Sadly, after so much progress, at a time of public cruelty and coarseness, the R-word is once again back in fashion everywhere from social media to schools and in everyday conversation, making today's markup an important statement. But don't take my word for it, let me share the thoughts of some people living with intellectual disabilities. My constituent Nicole LeBlanc from Silver Spring said, quote, "Every time I hear the R-word, I want to run, hide, and curl up into a ball. I was bullied and called the R-word from elementary school to early adulthood. I often wished I was normal. My only friends at school were the teachers at the playground. I also grew up with a brother saying the R-word when he would get mad and it took years to get him and others to understand how harmful it is. We need to stop the R-word now more than ever. It's just as harmful even if it's not being said to someone's face. It's time to demand a world where people with disabilities, visible or invisible, are respected and accepted for who they are." I'm thankful to my colleagues Congressman Sessions and Congressman Pocan and all the co-sponsors of the bill who've joined together to finish the work started by Rosa's Law back in 2010 to once and for all remove the harmful term from our federal code. All people are worthy of and should be treated with respect, including in how we refer to them in federal law. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the bill and yield back.

Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. Chair now recognizes himself to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Clerk will report the amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3420.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered base text for the purposes of amendment. Chair now recognizes himself to explain the amendment. The amendment simply updates the year in the short title of the bill, does not in any way alter the substance of the measure before us. Who seeks recognition? The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized.

I am going to be uncharacteristically short here. This is a day in American history. The Judiciary Committee, the Republicans and the Democrats came together and agreed on a piece of legislation. It's a good day in America. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Does anyone else seek recognition? Hearing none, the question is on adoption of the amendment in the nature of substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on reporting the bill. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of substitute is adopted. The question is now on favorably reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. The ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Hold on for one minute, we need to get Mr. Steube here from HASC. Committee will be at ease. Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 8065, the Restoring Executive Branch Authorities to Oversee Offices of the United States Attorneys Act of 2026 for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the House. The clerk will report the bill.

H.R. 8065, to amend title...

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the freshman gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Schmidt, for an opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to all of my colleagues, it is an honor to introduce H.R. 8065, the Restoring Executive Branch Authorities to Oversee Offices of the United States Attorneys Act of 2026. The enforcement of federal law is a fundamental constitutional duty that is at the heart of the executive branch's Article II responsibilities. It is the president's job to nominate U.S. attorneys, and it is the Senate's job to provide advice and consent. Yet senators have abused the blue slip process to obstruct highly qualified nominees in their states, leaving vital law enforcement positions unfilled. This does a disservice not only to their constituents but to the broader justice system as a whole. In light of this obstruction, at least three separate district courts have attempted to choose the U.S. attorneys who would appear before them. These actions create the potential for conflicts, and they violate the vital separation of powers set forth in our Constitution by vesting in the judiciary a function which is inherently executive. This bill averts the constitutional crisis that district courts and senators have created. First, it restores the authority of the United States Attorney General to appoint temporary U.S. attorneys for time-limited assignments by clarifying that each and every temporary appointee may serve for 120 days. These 120-day time-limited assignments ensure that the important positions at the head of each of the U.S. attorney's offices are helmed during times of transition and are filled by individuals chosen by the executive branch. It also puts an end to the delay tactics and gamesmanship by senators to prevent the executive branch from exercising its constitutional responsibility to steer the U.S. attorney's offices while awaiting confirmation of permanent nominees. At the same time, by limiting each temporary U.S. attorney's appointment to a 120-day limit, the bill preserves the important role of the Senate in providing advice and consent for permanent nominees. The bill also puts an end to the recent attempts by activist U.S. district courts to violate the Constitution and usurp the authority of the executive branch by rejecting the executive branch's chosen temporary U.S. attorneys and replacing them with the court's own choices. H.R. 8065 would stop the payoff for gamesmanship and removes the constitutionally questionable statutory provisions for courts to appoint U.S. attorneys when the position is unfilled. At base, U.S. attorneys are the executive branch's representatives in federal court, executing and enforcing federal law. The president and his administration, not judges, should select the men and women who speak on behalf of the president in court. H.R. 8065 is common sense legislation that restores the separation of powers and safeguards the functioning of the U.S. attorney's offices. I would urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation. I would yield back, and then, Mr. Chairman, I do have an amendment at the desk.

The chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, for an opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am glad we waited for Mr. Schmidt to arrive because we are going to have an interesting constitutional conversation today, I think. We, or at least I, oppose this legislation, H.R. 8065, which seeks to punish and reprove and bypass all the courts and judges who found that the Trump Department of Justice violated the law by illegally installing acting U.S. attorneys. Rather than simply telling the president and their party leader to try to change his MO and follow the law by actually nominating U.S. attorneys to the Republican-controlled Senate to confirm them, the response from the majority in the committee is to try to change the law by cutting out the courts and Congress and empowering Attorney General Bondi to indefinitely and repeatedly and recurrently appoint political loyalists who could not get the support of the U.S. Senate. Now, let's get back to basics, as the gentleman from Missouri suggests. The president appoints, and then the Senate engages in advice and consent. That's the constitutional design for principal officers and for other officers that are designated by law. Okay. This, if you read Hamilton in number 76 in the Federalist Papers, he said the reason that the Senate is put into that position is to prevent executive favoritism, corruption, and the appointment of unfit individuals just based on personal connections. In at least six different judicial districts around the country, judges who have been appointed both by Republican and Democratic presidents, including one appointed by President Trump himself, have ruled that President Trump and Attorney General Bondi unlawfully installed a temporary U.S. attorney in the district in order to circumvent the Senate's rendering of advice and consent. This bill would change the law to make all of these illegal U.S. attorney picks legal. Current law states that if there's a vacancy in the office of U.S. attorney, the AG may appoint an interim attorney who's allowed to serve 120 days. If 120 days passes and there's still no presidential nominee who's been confirmed by the Senate, at that point the district court may appoint an interim U.S. attorney to serve until the vacancy can be filled. This bill would remove the courts from the process entirely. If a U.S. attorney position is vacant because the president cannot get Senate confirmation, the attorney general would be able to just keep appointing one loyalist or sycophant after another over and over again to serve throughout the entire presidency, completely defeating the constitutional design. This bill would change U.S. attorney appointments law so that the Trump administration can continue to weaponize the legal system and the DOJ as a tool to exact revenge on the people he doesn't like. And we could name lots of them. Everybody knows, for example, about Lindsey Halligan, who was on President Trump's personal legal team before she joined his White House after the president forced out his own previous pick for U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia because that prosecutor refused to pursue baseless charges against FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. Trump put Ms. Halligan in the job to do his political bidding. And she did just that, pursuing an indictment for former Director Comey that very same week of her appointment. The problem was Trump did not have the legal authority to appoint Ms. Halligan without the advice and consent of the Senate. So a district judge threw out the indictments because Ms. Halligan was never actually legally allowed to become U.S. attorney. Did that stop Ms. Halligan? No. She continued to play U.S. attorney in court for another two months before a different judge was forced to bar her from misrepresenting herself that way. That judge, the Honorable David Novak, who was appointed to the bench in 2019 by President Trump, wrote, quote, 'The court finds it inconceivable that the Department of Justice, which holds a duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, even those with which it may have disagreement, would repeatedly ignore court orders while simultaneously prosecuting citizens for breaking the law.' But that is the inconceivable situation we find ourselves in today. This administration has repeatedly ignored and defied dozens of court orders. In New Jersey, judges first found that the complex personnel maneuvers Trump and Bondi used to install another one of his personal attorneys, Alina Habba, as U.S. attorney were illegal. Months later, New Jersey judges had to again strike down a convoluted Trump scheme to get around the rules, finding that the gang of three the Justice Department tried to put in place to lead that office was also unconstitutional. A district judge in New Jersey warned that if the government continues to illegally appoint U.S. attorneys in the district, the court will be forced to start having to dismiss valid criminal cases because of their lack of legal force, because of all the illegality at the top. These are not isolated episodes, alas. Courts have had to confront unlawfully appointed interim U.S. attorneys in numerous cases. The administration has avoided the normal Senate confirmation process. The president has only managed to submit nominations for 18 of the 62 currently vacant U.S. attorney positions and instead relied on the attorney general's ability to temporarily install top prosecutors at a moment's notice, sometimes in quick succession when the president fails to pressure them into pursuing baseless political prosecutions. That's what happened in the Eastern District of Virginia, where three different people were named as U.S. attorney in four days as the president looked for a prosecutor who would bring the charges he wanted against FBI Director Comey. So what are we doing here today in the face of these repeated attempts to circumvent the requirement that nominees be respected and reputable enough to actually be confirmed by the Senate, and today a Republican-controlled Senate? Are we encouraging the administration to abide by all these court orders and follow the law? No. Instead, our colleagues are trying to change the rules so that Trump can get away with this lawless behavior and appoint whomever he wants as U.S. attorney without any input from the United States Senate as provided for in the Constitution. Since the Civil War, when there's been a vacancy in the office of U.S. attorney, the courts have had the ability to appoint someone to temporarily fill the role. But now the majority wants to cut the courts out completely and vest all that power in the attorney general to continually appoint U.S. attorneys that could not be passed by the Senate. And if they could be confirmed by the Senate, they would be confirmed by the Senate. The purpose of Senate confirmation and the district's authority in the event of a vacancy is to serve as a check on unlimited presidential power. The framers recognized the dangers of unilateral power, and that's why Hamilton wrote in 76 that the purpose of confirmation would be to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from state prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. And yet today, that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing, illegally appointing unfit U.S. attorneys based on prejudice, connection, and political loyalty. And my colleagues seem not only to approve of that, but they want to make it the law. We've had no hearings on this topic or this bill. Instead, it's been rushed to markup. We didn't even see text for it, I think, until two or three days ago. I can only conclude that the rush here was at the behest of President Trump and the attorney general who cannot seem to be bothered to pick U.S. attorneys who could actually make it through the U.S. Senate. I oppose this effort strongly to remove, to change the process and to hand unchecked authority to Pam Bondi to install political loyalists as the nation's top prosecutors, and I urge my colleagues to reject the bill. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kansas to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment at the desk.

Clerk will report the amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered base text for the purposes of amendment. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kansas to explain the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amendment in the nature of a substitute strikes the year from the title of the bill. It does not change the substance of the bill before us. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? Gentlelady from Georgia, Ms. McBath, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to speak in opposition to H.R. 8065. And like the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, I too believe that Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department is illegally installing unqualified loyalists as interim U.S. attorneys is just the latest attempt to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of political retribution. Some of Trump's picks for U.S. attorney have no prosecutorial experience whatsoever, and others are so embroiled in political controversy that they can't even seem to be confirmed in the United States Senate. And with that, I'd like to yield the balance of my time to my esteemed colleague from Georgia, Mr. Johnson.

Gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, my dear colleague. MAGA Republicans are introducing this bill so that President Trump can install loyalists, incompetent loyalists, who are so inexperienced, incompetent, and partisan that they cannot even be confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies and anyone who has ever tried to hold him to account. To do this, he demands lackeys in place as United States attorneys who will follow his orders and do his bidding regardless of the legal merit of any of those cases. That is not how the system works. The 93 U.S. attorneys are charged with ensuring that, quote, "the laws be faithfully executed," end quote, and serve as the chief federal law enforcement officer in their district. They have tremendous discretion and power because they choose who in their districts will be charged with crimes like firearms trafficking, drug cartel investigations, tax fraud, bank fraud, public corruption, child exploitation, and every other federal law. That is why, from the very creation of the federal court system in 1789, U.S. attorneys have been appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. Congress knew from its founding that there needs to be a check on such unbridled power. Recognizing that sometimes it takes time to obtain advice and consent of the Senate, Congress allowed for certain stopgap measures, such as allowing the court to appoint an interim U.S. attorney or allowing the attorney general to appoint a short-term U.S. attorney to give four months' time for the president to appoint someone who can be confirmed by the Senate. But the lawless Trump administration does not want any checks on its power because Donald Trump wants to be a king. And that's why we are here today, and that's why we're going to be out on the streets this weekend in over 2,000 locations across the country. Millions of Americans will be out proclaiming, in America, we have no kings. And we rejected kings 250 years ago, and we reject them today. It's dangerous to give Trump an end-around Congress. If his picks for U.S. attorney are so extreme that they cannot even get through a MAGA Republican Senate, the answer is not to cut out the Senate and let Trump do whatever he wants. It's to hold him to account because we reject kings. And because we reject kings, I strongly oppose this bill, and I'll urge my colleagues to do the same. And with that, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? Gentleman yields back to the gentlelady from Georgia. Gentlelady from Georgia yields back. Who seeks recognition?

Mr. Chairman.

Gentleman from New York is recognized.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this bill, which I find to be more remarkable not that Donald Trump wants this to happen, because of course he does, but that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle once again have rolled over and are actually peddling this drivel and garbage onto the House floor. The notion that Donald Trump cannot appoint unilaterally the most unqualified, unfit, and partisan U.S. attorneys would therefore lead you to try to pass a bill allowing him to do it, rather than going to him and saying, well, the advice and consent process is intentionally designed to be a bipartisan process where the president needs to work with the Senate to get approval. Just because he does not get his own lackey installed indefinitely does not mean that the Constitution and the advice and consent clause is deficient. It just means that not everything can be partisan. And when we are sitting in the middle of a shutdown right now because, as Senator John Kennedy, Republican from Louisiana, said this weekend, Donald Trump refused to enter into a deal with Democrats, you are just facilitating the complete deterioration of the separation of powers and of our government. Do you really have such an issue with needing to appoint a qualified U.S. attorney that would get bipartisan support? Is that so unbelievable to you? Is that so preposterous? Is that so objectionable that, my God, you might actually have to recognize that we live in a two-party system and sometimes you're going to need the other party to get something done? Has it become so partisan that you can't even imagine actually working with Democrats to move our country forward? That you are going to ratify the appointment of Lindsey Halligan or Alina Habba, which I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe to be some of, if not the, most incompetent, unqualified appointees for a U.S. attorney in the history of this country. Lindsey Halligan did not even know how to present a case to the grand jury. She literally got there, nobody in her office would go to the grand jury to try to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on absolute garbage and zero evidence, so she had to do it herself. But she didn't even know how to do it. And that's who you're going to bat for for Donald Trump? An insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial history who was installed at the direction of Donald Trump in order to prosecute his enemies? I get that Donald Trump is going to view everything from his own personal political vantage point. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't have to do that. Some of you were assistant U.S. attorneys like I was. You care about the Department of Justice. You can't possibly support the political prosecutions that you are seeing. And I don't want to hear one thing about Jack Smith and we started it. You know it is full well apples and oranges. Nothing about Jack Smith has ever been demonstrated to be partisan, and yet we have a tweet from Donald Trump directing the attorney general to prosecute his enemies. I know you can't sit there and even imagine that those are the same things. You can't gaslight yourself in your own mirror. And yet here you are trying to peddle his drivel and do his dirty work as you have been doing for the last year and a half, and which is why our Department of Justice has completely lost all credibility, and you are responsible for it, and you are responsible for the devastation to our rule of law. I yield back.

Gentleman's time has expired. Who seeks recognition? Gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs.

Thank you. I'm glad the previous speaker said what he said with about 30 seconds so I could get the laughs out of my system because I'm just looking at Jack Smith and, you know, the same argument they're making is the same argument for which Jack Smith was found to be not constitutionally appointed. That is, under the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution, he was found not to have been properly appointed under that clause. And it's under appeal, perhaps, but let's see how that plays out. But I just find it humorous that you'd make that same argument and say, oh, no, no, no, because it's the same doggone clause. It's the same doggone clause that you're relying on here. And Jack Smith, to kind of say, well, we've never seen this kind of bias and never saw that under Joe Biden's, you know, reign of terror, we didn't see that kind of stuff going on. I'm looking at this AG memo that Chuck Grassley, Senator Grassley, released, and it's dated January 13, 2023. AG briefing, AG briefing it is. And they're talking about all the people whose records they want to get. All the members of Congress' records that they want to get. Oddly enough, I see my name on there. And the reason is that my name was on there, it says it pretty clearly here, he sent lots of texts with Meadows. Calls with Meadows, Perry, and Chip Roy. He made those calls, so he wanted to go in and get all of my phone records. That, that's not abuse?

No.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, come on.

You commit a crime, you should be investigated.

You know it's, you know it's abuse. And that's my time, so shut up. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. No, no, he's interrupting me and doggone it, he needs to be quiet. That's the rule.

The committee will be in order.

Yeah, no, I can say it. You calm down. You calm down.

The gentleman from Arizona is recognized.

Thank you. So when we, when we go through here and I ask the rhetorical question, is that, is that reason to grab all my records because I texted to the chief of staff, a personal friend I've known for a long time? No, apparently so. But that wouldn't be abuse when the authoritarian left is in control, would it? No, because that's the problem with y'all. That's the problem. You have no ability to self-reflect and say, well, maybe we got a problem on our side too. You're just going to project. I'm going to yield time to Mr. Schmidt.

The gentleman from Kansas is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. Just a couple of points I'd offer to the committee as we try to consider the bill as opposed to sort of debating the politics of the day. First, with respect to the constitutional provision at issue, I certainly agree with the points that my friends on the other side have made about the importance of the advice and consent role of the Senate. I would simply remind the committee that the constitutional provision says nothing about courts. Nothing. And so to the extent the process here is the president nominates and the Senate gives its advice and its consent, having a process that then allows whichever party blocks action in that manner that was contemplated by the Constitution to turn to the court and say, you do the president's job for him, you do the Senate's job for them, is manufactured out of whole cloth. This bill eliminates that problem. Secondly, the constitutional provision talks about vesting power in the Senate to give its advice and consent. It does not talk about vesting power in an individual senator to block the ability of the Senate to give its vote up or down on a nominee or of the president to have a nominee of his or her choosing. But that's exactly what happens here. The reality is that these are not nominees who are being offered up, debated as folks seem to want to today on their individual merits or their individual personalities or their individual actions, and then the Senate disposes of them. What's happening is an individual senator, because of the arcane procedures of the Senate, is able to prevent the Senate from ever doing its constitutional duty. If you don't like these nominees, that's fine. The Senate can vote them down. Then they're gone. But to suggest that somehow the Constitution contemplated that an individual U.S. senator who does not like the president has a veto power over both the role of the president and the role of the Senate as a whole is simply a misreading of what that document does. So I think staying on point of what the bill actually does, the problems it actually corrects is helpful, and I would urge my colleagues to adopt this measure. I would yield back to the gentleman from Arizona.

The gentleman from Arizona yields back. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Neguse.

I yield, sir.

The gentleman from Arizona yields back. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Neguse, is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I might, because I appreciate the gentleman's point from Kansas and I certainly want to engage in a reasoned debate about the merits of this bill. And so if he's willing to engage in a colloquy, Mr. Schmidt, help me understand. My understanding of the argument is that you disagree with judicial, the district court appointing a temporary or interim U.S. attorney. Is that fair?

It is. And it's because I believe that has been abused given the Senate's refusal to do its job.

Got it. And that provision has in effect, with the exception of a brief two-year period or a year-and-a-half period, has existed since the Civil War. I know you served as Kansas attorney general. How are district attorneys, vacancies for district attorneys handled in Kansas?

District attorney, Kansas for state prosecutions has a two-tiered system. We have 105 counties of which I believe six have district attorneys.

Correct.

99 have county attorneys. They're slightly different in the law.

And how are the district attorney vacancies handled?

And they are all handled by election. And when there's a vacancy, it's replaced in the manner you'd replace any other elected office holder in a partisan election.

Okay. So let me read to you Kansas law, section 22A, subparagraph 103, or excuse me, section 103, subparagraph B. When a vacancy occurs in the office of district attorney, the district judges of the district in which the vacancy occurs shall appoint a person to serve as temporary district attorney until a person qualifies to fill the vacancy pursuant to the governor's power to appoint a permanent district attorney to fill that vacancy akin to the president's decision to the U.S. attorney. So my view would be, if it's good enough for Kansas, ought to be good enough for the country. Don't you agree? I know proudly representing the state of Kansas, I find it hard to believe that you believe that in Kansas it's totally appropriate and proper for district judges to fill a vacancy on a temporary basis, but improper for district judges at the federal level to do so notwithstanding the fact that they've been doing so since the Civil War. And I'll give you a chance to respond.

Yes. What my friend the gentleman misses in that analysis is two I think fairly important points. One is that while I served in that role, I also objected to that provision of state law and we tried to get it changed and were not successful in doing that. Having said that, I realize that's a bit beside his point.

I hope your success there is emulated here, sir. I hope you're as successful changing federal law as you were Kansas law.

If at first you don't succeed, isn't that right? But secondly, I would point out to my friend there is I think an important difference, and that is that the Kansas law for replacing when there's a vacancy in office of, for example, a district attorney, it does have time elements in it. That is to say you cannot have a circumstance as tends to happen here where essentially you have just forfeited to the judicial branch the ability to fill that role, calling it temporary but functionally it's permanent because there are other provisions in law that cause things to move along. We wouldn't have this problem here if the Senate didn't abuse its blue slip process.

I hear you. And I appreciate the back and forth.

Would the gentleman yield for a question?

Sure. I'll yield.

Well, would we not think it ironic that the Senate has actually confirmed 31 of President Trump's nominees to U.S. attorney in his first year, the exact same number that were confirmed in the first year of the Biden administration? So it's not that they're not moving the nominations, it's that they don't want to have to go through that process because of the kind of people they want to appoint to do the kinds of prosecutions that real lawyers won't do.

Precisely right. The ranking member is correct. And I would just say the law of unintended consequences is very plainly present in this bill. And I talk to I think my colleagues who I suspect will be around a little longer. I know the top of the dais, half of my colleagues on the other side are running for governor in Wisconsin and Arizona. They won't be here to deal with the fallout of this bill. But in effect, just understand, if this bill were to be signed into law, I don't think it will be, but if it were, a Democratic president could make the decision to appoint interim U.S. attorneys in every judicial district in the United States of America and have those interim appointments go into perpetuity. Every 120 days. In New Jersey, in Kansas. That is the future that this bill contemplates. And so I just would ask my colleagues to think very carefully about the slippery slope that they are creating with respect to this statutory proposal. And again, I appreciate the gentleman's, I'm out of time. I'm happy to engage in a colloquy with your time if you'd like, but I yield back to the gentleman.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? The gentleman from Kansas, does he seek? No. All right. We go to the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen, for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make clear it was stated that Democrats have resisted Mr. Trump's recommendations on occasion. In Tennessee, I have been the only elected Democrat. And so when a vacancy becomes due, the president looks to me for recommendations. When Obama was president and I made recommendations, I worked with Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker to get people who they could be for and who kept our bench at an outstanding level of judicial experience and ethical achievements. Good people. During the last term of Mr. Biden, the Republican senators would not work with me at all and they stopped people who were recommended who were outstanding nominees with great credentials recommended by the bar, etc., etc., etc. So it's a bipartisan problem with the blue slip. As far as Mr. Trump's appointees, they, some of them like Miss Cannon had no business being appointed and that's who was mentioned about Jack Smith and saying invalidating the appointment of Jack Smith. Miss Cannon doesn't have a clue and she was put in there, should never have gotten in. She was a political appointee. She's now in charge of a grand jury looking to try to indict John Brennan because Trump wants him indicted. And unfortunately, the Intelligence Committee in a party-line vote released 10-year-old classified documents to the Justice Department which they wanted to go after John Brennan. An 80-some-odd-year-old American patriot who Trump is trying to indict or force to hire a lawyer to defend himself in federal court because he's vindictive and wants to go after anybody that did anything about him. Mr. Trump's recommendations on some of these judges are more like who should have been nominated for Miss America in Atlantic City in days past. Mr. Trump looks at their pulchritude, not their aptitude. And if he looked at their aptitude and not their pulchritude, he might have done better with his judges and he might have even done better with his wives. I yield back.

Yield to Mr. Goldman? Gentleman yields to Mr. Goldman from New York.

Thank you for yielding from my friend from Tennessee. To my friend from Kansas, I would love to address I think the thrust of what your argument is, which is effectively that the blue slip process has overtaken the appointment of U.S. attorneys and has effectively undermined the advice and consent requirement under the Constitution. Is that fair?

I think that's fair if my colleague would add to that the important underscoring in my view at least that the Senate still retains its full authority to determine how to process these, how to dispose of them, how to handle them. They could vote them down.

Right. But the Senate makes its own rules. And the Senate could decide, the Senate has decided that the blue slip process initially they decided that that's how it would work and they're deciding every day today that that's how it should continue to work. And let's remember, their majority there controlled by the Republicans. So the Senate has the advice and consent power and then the Senate decides how to implement that power. You may not like the blue slip process, but that is the Senate's decision. That is not something that we should be sitting here talking about a law to undermine and overturn that when, and this is I think the critical point, if this bill were to pass, there would be no advice and consent clause. It would write the advice and consent clause out of the Constitution because it would mean that the president could appoint an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days and renew that over and over and over again. The president would never go to the Senate to seek confirmation. That's obvious. That's obvious that that's what the consequences would be. So rather than try to eliminate the advice and consent clause, why don't you encourage the president to find someone that both parties can agree on? I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from Tennessee yields. Time's expired. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Van Drew, is recognized for five minutes.

Just a couple issues. I wouldn't bring them up, but they were brought up, and it's a little bit of a segue, but let's talk about Jack Smith because my friend from New York, Mr. Goldman, did bring him up and said that he wasn't political. And I got to give it to him, he kept a straight face. Nobody here, nobody else could. I think even a few Democrats smiled. I mean, I don't know anybody in his position that could be more political, more obviously political than he was in everything that he did. The documents case, the way he went about investigation, what the Department of Justice did. I mean, it was raw, abusive, mean, overstepping bounds politics.

Would the gentleman yield for a question on that?

As soon as I'm done, I promise I will. I just want to talk about one other issue as well. The shutdown that was also brought into it, and I just don't like things, statements are made and then they hang out there and some people think they may be accurate. Republicans have been willing to compromise. We do want this to end. And when it came to ICE, we were willing to have them wear badges, we were willing to have them have body cams, we were willing to have them trained in crowd control, we were willing to ensure that they didn't go into sensitive areas, and there is a longer list than that, that's all that I just recall, remember. And I think it's been political, they believe, I don't think it has been, but they believe it's been politically advantageous to just continue this horrible shutdown that we have, which hurts our Coast Guard, by the way. Nobody mentions the Coast Guard. Matters a lot to me because boot camp for the Coast Guard, 90 percent of them are trained in New Jersey in my district. The Secret Service, the TSA, what it does to all of our constituents everywhere. I would maintain, and I will say it with a straight face, this is, without question, a Democrat shutdown. With that, I will yield to the gentleman.

Thank you. To my friend from New Jersey, you and your colleagues very frequently accuse Jack Smith of being hyper-partisan and political. When I previously referenced Lindsey Halligan's attempted indictment of the New York State Attorney General, I didn't just say that's political and partisan because she is a Democrat. It's pretty even obvious that she's not only a Democrat, but she held Donald Trump accountable, so there's clear motive there. But I'm not even referring to that. What I pointed to is a direct statement from the president of the United States to indict her after he removed a career U.S. attorney who refused to do it because there was no evidence. So as you describe Jack Smith's partisanship and his politicization, I would ask you, can you please point me to a single piece of actual evidence other than just your assertion that because he investigated and indicted the former president of the United States that it therefore must be partisan and political?

And that's not why it was partisan and political. It is the way that he was willing to indict. It is everything how he...

What way?

Wait a minute, let me, my time now. The Department of Justice at that time, that existing Department of Justice in the last administration, treated Republicans and Democrats totally differently, and particularly President Trump. Whether you like President Trump or not is not the issue. Whether you find him obnoxious or you love him is not the issue. The issue was, it's a court of law, you're a special counsel, you're a prosecutor, whatever the case may be in all these cases, they were not carried out in an even-handed way. Letitia, the whole thing. We had attorneys general. Here's the point I'm making. The point I'm making is you're saying that this system is so sacrosanct now and so perfect, or it was. It was not. I've never seen more raw politics. It's scary what some of the members in the dais have gone through over the years, some of the things that happened, particularly with that Department of Justice, with Jack Smith was part and parcel to and was called in especially because he was so unbelievably partisan and mean-spirited at the same time. It was hellish.

Will the gentleman yield?

To Mr. McClintock? Yes. I, you're yielding back to me, I will yield to Mr. McClintock.

I was just going to suggest maybe one of the bits of evidence we could offer is the fact that he ignored FBI procedures in approving the armed raid on the home of a former president of the United States over a civil dispute involving documents. And that is from testimony that this committee has received from whistleblowers within the Department of Justice who were involved with that case.

I thank the gentleman for the point. I yield back, Chairman.

Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from California. Is the gentleman from California seek time? No. You want to yield, Lou? All right. Gentleman from California is recognized and yields to the gentleman from New York.

Just very briefly. I want to go back to what you said, Mr. Van Drew, that Democrats, Republicans and Democrats were treated very differently under the Biden administration. I would point out to you that the Department of Justice in the Biden administration indicted the president's son. That department indicted the president of the United States' son. And you are trying to say that that was a purely partisan department.

Will the gentleman yield for five seconds?

I'm going to ask you a question actually, and then I'll yield. What party was Bob Menendez, Senator Bob Menendez, with?

You're asking me? Yeah. These cases were so egregious, so outrageous, there was such a public outcry, yeah, they had to. I mean, they kept trying to protect. If you remember with his son, they were trying to strike a sweetheart deal and they didn't get away with it because the judge wouldn't allow it, thank God for the judge.

All right, I'll reclaim my time because actually the reason they, the reason they, the reason the plea deal didn't go through... Forgive me, I have to vote in transportation, it's the only reason I'm walking out on you. The only reason that plea agreement fell through is because of the exact same issue that we are talking about right now. Is the vindictiveness, the vengefulness, the lawlessness of this president. And so what Hunter Biden's lawyers wanted was the same plea agreement that nobody would have, that they agreed to, but it wasn't because it was a lenient plea agreement, it was because they wanted protections against Donald Trump becoming president and retroactively undoing the decision about Hunter Biden and going after him because of the exact same things that we have seen over and over and over with Tish James, with James Comey, with John Brennan, with Adam Schiff. The list goes on. It is a joke that you're trying to say, oh, that Republicans were treated so terribly under Biden and Democrats were treated so well. George Santos got a pardon. Every single Republican that was under investigation had their investigation dropped or dismissed. Every single person with any political background that Donald Trump has investigated or prosecuted is a Democrat. So you can try to make an excuse, oh, well, Senator Bob Menendez was so egregious. It doesn't, I mean, Donald Trump's, George Santos's crimes were pretty darn egregious too. You're not complaining about the pardon that went to him. So let's go back just briefly to the original point, which is you can throw stones and cast aspersions and make all sorts of allegations. And Mr. McClintock, the testimony you're referring to, of course, has nothing to do with the reality of whether or not there was probable cause and whether or not that was a legitimate search. Because it may have been a civil dispute when it began, when the National Archives politely asked for the classified documents back, but it certainly became a much larger dispute, criminal in nature, when the president obstructed the National Archives, then the president obstructed the FBI and refused to give them back, lied about how many documents he had, withheld documents that were supposed to be turned over, and then ultimately after two years of obstruction and learning that he was continuing to conceal information which the ranking member revealed so importantly related to his own business interests, they did a search warrant. Now, there's not a prosecutor in the world that would say that that search warrant on its face did not have probable cause or was not legitimate. And yet somehow because it's a search warrant of Donald Trump, it couldn't possibly be because Donald Trump did something wrong, it's got to be because it's partisan. It's absurd. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Does the ranking member have an amendment?

I do, it's at the desk.

Can you speak on his amendment? Is this a good amendment? It's a good amendment. Okay, the gentleman reserves, the clerk will read the amendment.

Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 8065 offered by Mr. Raskin.

Without objection, I guess it was read. And the gentleman from Maryland is recognized to explain his amendment.

Okay, and the rest of that sentence was insert after that person the following: who must have prosecutorial experience at the federal or the state level and must be a member of the bar of that state. So despite all of the eloquence and the passion on our side of the aisle, I don't think we've been able to successfully persuade anyone that this is a dangerous circumvention and perhaps a violation of our Constitution, which requires that there be Senate advice and consent for people who are going to act in this capacity. And as we said, in Donald Trump's first year in office, 31 U.S. attorneys have been approved under Senate advice and consent, the exact same number that happened to have been approved under President Biden. So it's not that they're not getting people through, it's that they want, some people seem to want the president to have the ability to appoint whomever he wants, even if that person could never pass even a Republican-controlled Senate. That's what this is about. Because he's been installing people who will bring prosecutions against the former FBI Director Comey or against lawyers in New York who he has an objection to or against members of the United States Congress, like six veterans who serve with us, who had the temerity to exercise their First Amendment rights simply by saying that members of the armed services not only have a right but a duty to not follow unlawful orders, and he wanted to bring them to court. Well, we've been unsuccessful in trying to convince you, I think. Maybe some people, there are a lot of members on your side who aren't here, so maybe that's why they're not here, because they're made very uncomfortable by this bill. But let's try to slightly improve the proposition. I would hope that everybody here can agree that if this bill's going to be passed, that the people who the president could repeatedly and recurrently and continuously appoint as U.S. attorneys outside of the constitutional design, they must have prosecutorial experience at the state or federal level and must be a member of the bar of that state. That is simple. I am certain that the former attorney general of a state would agree with this. But look what's actually happened. Take Alina Habba in New Jersey, who had no prosecutorial experience. Right? She was a political operative. She said that her objective was to help turn New Jersey red. Then she brought charges against U.S. Congresswoman Monica McIver. Look at Lindsey Halligan in Virginia, also had no experience as a prosecutor and she was thrust into that position because the prior U.S. attorney, who President Trump had himself put into office, refused to go along with the completely illegitimate harassment investigation and prosecution of the former FBI director, Mr. Comey. So she had no experience as a prosecutor. Look at this one from Nevada, Sigal Chattah. Okay, she ran for attorney general in 2022 and lost, but in the course of the campaign suggested that her opponent, incumbent Aaron Ford, who is Black, should be hanging from an effing crane. She compared Jewish Democratic members of Congress to Nazi collaborators and called Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who's Black and who charged Trump with interfering with that state's election, so ghetto. Okay, and this person also had no prosecutorial experience, obviously, because qualified prosecutors don't talk like that. So if we're really going to go down this road of trying to sideline the Constitution, sideline the U.S. Senate, punish the Senate because of their internal rules, even though we've got our internal rules in the House, then at least let's build some minimal professional standards into the process so that they've got to be a member of the bar and they have to have some prosecutorial experience at the federal or state level anywhere. And with that, I submit it to the wisdom of the committee, Mr. Chairman.

Thank the gentleman. Does he continue to have a reserve? Point of order. No, the gentleman withdraws his amendment, his reserve. I'll recognize the gentleman from Kansas.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and appreciate our colleague from Maryland engaging in the discussion. Just looking at the at the proposal, it is as I understand it twofold, that is to say it proposes to impose by statute two restrictions on the authority of in this case the president to nominate somebody to serve as United States attorney. I suppose I suppose it also would impose a limitation on the ability of the Senate to confirm that person, but...

Would the gentleman yield for clarification?

Of course.

We're not talking about the nomination process now, we're talking about the unilateral appointment under your legislation of someone to just become the U.S. attorney, right? Or are you saying it goes back to the Senate? The appointment.

The appointment. Okay, the appointment, so not nomination process, the appointment. Yes. And I would just point out a couple of things as the committee weighs this. I intend to vote against it. I think first of all, there already is a residency requirement for U.S. attorneys. It's in federal law now. They must reside in the district to which they've been appointed to serve. I'm not sure what is gained by adding a requirement that they also be a member of the bar of that district. I believe they must be a member of the bar now in order to practice, but remember they are practicing federal law on behalf of the federal government. They just happen to be in that federal district. I'm not sure what the relevance or the rationale is for the local state bar requirement. With respect to prosecutorial experience, I mean certainly with respect to some of the the latter argumentation today and the examples that have been pointed out, there's a lot of interest in the criminal prosecution component of U.S. attorneys, but as I'm sure my colleague is well aware, there is a long list of United States attorneys, now former United States attorneys, who have been appointed by presidents of both parties who have not had criminal prosecution experience, but have done really a very good job. They've ultimately been under the current process confirmed by the Senate. So I'm not sure, it seems to me this is a bit of a solution in search of a problem that's focusing on the headlines of the day and not on the underlying issue of how we make sure that the executive branch, not the judicial branch, is deciding who is appearing in court to represent the executive branch. I yield back.

Would the gentleman yield? Would gentleman yield?

Of course.

Thank you. I might suggest a friendly amendment to my colleague from Maryland in light of the gentleman from Kansas's point. If you were to say must be a member of the federal bar, I think that would be consistent with anyone who in history in modern times has been a U.S. attorney. I might also point out that U.S. attorneys are often tasked to be multi-jurisdictional, even national. So the the idea that you have to be from one, the reality is you might be moved somewhere else or or asked to be at. So the the notice of state law seems to be inconsequential to the question of are you before the federal bar, are you qualified? And I'm going to join with my colleague from Kansas and just say would we be hurting ourselves since once you're the U.S. attorney, you do all that comes before the office of the U.S. attorney? And I can tell you in the case of, for example, Carol Lam, a U.S. attorney appointed by George W. Bush, fired by George W. Bush. Her background was really not criminal. As a matter of fact, she loved white-collar crime and and so on, and she got into the complexity of that. Many U.S. attorneys under your party in fact are plaintiffs' trial lawyers who do civil. So I might suggest that as a friendly one, that if you were to cut it down to just members of the federal bar, you might see an open door and still reach the basic point, which is if you're a lawyer in good standing before the federal bar, you should be considered even if your entire portfolio was in civil matters because you will have dozens, maybe even hundreds of attorneys who have the criminal background involved. So that's just a friendly suggestion and I thank the gentleman for yielding and I yield back.

Oh, actually you wanted to be first. Fair enough. She's from even the previous one. The gentlelady Ms. Scanlon is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do strongly oppose H.R. 8065 and also support Mr. Raskin's amendment. It is shocking but not surprising that our House Republican colleagues would bring forward legislation designed to enable rather than curtail this administration's efforts to undermine both the Department of Justice and our constitutional order. Under current law, when the president appoints a U.S. attorney, that nominee needs the advice and consent of the Senate to become permanent. And if the Senate doesn't act within a certain period, then the district court can make an interim appointment. That framework exists for a reason. It preserves accountability, it prevents abuse, and it ensures that these powerful prosecutorial positions are not filled indefinitely without meaningful oversight. Yet this president has repeatedly nominated U.S. attorney candidates so partisan and so unqualified that they cannot win Senate approval even when the president has a Senate majority. So the solution is not to make it easier for this president and every other president to bypass the Senate altogether. Time and time again, we've seen this administration use the interim appointment process to prosecute the president's political enemies, reward loyalists, and attempt to block or delay court proceedings relating to the White House's own unlawful conduct. The weaponization of the Department of Justice flies in the face of both ethical government, ethical prosecutions, and the separation of powers. And it's exactly the kind of abuse that our current law is designed to prevent and which it has prevented. Hence today's bill, which would make it easier for the administration to appoint unqualified partisan hacks whose only qualification is their willingness to do the president's bidding regardless of the law. So I would support Mr. Raskin's amendment, which would require the president's appointees to have a bare minimum of qualifications, but the underlying concern remains. If H.R. 8065 were to become law, the administration could simply abandon the Senate confirmation process for U.S. attorneys. It could cycle through its interim prosecutors indefinitely, denying Congress its constitutional role in providing advice and consent on those appointments. Congress should not stand by while House Republicans try to hand Donald Trump even more unchecked power. Our district courts serve a critical role in checking abuses of executive power, including efforts by strongman administrations to politicize and weaponize the Department of Justice. We should be defending the courts' authority to appoint U.S. attorneys when necessary, not stripping it away. So I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation. I also seek unanimous consent to introduce into the record a letter dated July 28, 2025, signed by 116 retired federal and state judges...

Without objection, so ordered.

Thank you. They were pointing out the grotesque disqualifying use of...

The gentlelady does not describe the entire content, just...

Just a little bit. Yeah, it's still still my time. But so raising the point that we had some very disqualified disqualifying people on the on the dais there. Does the ranking member have anything else he wants to add?

I do, and maybe I can thank you very much and thank you for those trenchant remarks, Ms. Scanlon. So our distinguished acting chair raised two questions that I want to be able to respond to. The first was he said, well, the amendment is good so far as it goes with respect to requiring criminal prosecutorial experience, but there might be somebody that the administration wants to unilaterally appoint who doesn't have prosecutorial experience, who's a civil lawyer, who's a distinguished civil lawyer. And here's the thing, what we're talking about is the filling of a vacancy outside of the normal constitutional process. Now, do I agree with Mr. Issa that somebody who is a very distinguished civil lawyer could be a great U.S. attorney? Sure. But then that's got to be up to the U.S. Senate. That's their job to be able to examine and analyze it. We're doing a whole side escape valve during a vacancy. And in that case, I think we've got to stick with what we know is the bread and butter of the job. And that's why somebody who's put in that job for 120 days or 240 days or 360 days or 480 days or 600 days, if my math is right, that is somebody who's got to know about what is the basic function of the U.S. attorney, which is criminal prosecution. And so that's why I think that's an absolutely bare minimum if we're going to circumvent the Senate of the United States. But secondly, I think it's the exact same point with respect to the state bar. I thought this would be totally non-controversial. I really did. I thought everybody would say, well, of course they should be a member of the state bar. I can guarantee you, and I risk being contradicted here, but without having done any research, I would be willing to bet anybody in the room that every U.S. attorney in America today is a member of the bar of the state in which they practice. Now, somebody can start Googling it and contradicting me.

And in that note, who else seeks time? The gentlelady's long recognized.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay. I seek time.

I recognize the gentlelady. Would you like to yield to the ranking member?

I will. I yield to the ranking member.

There we go. Thank you kindly. Anyway, I'll take somebody to lunch if they can find a U.S. attorney who doesn't come from the local legal and political culture that they're from. And certainly Mr. Schmidt would see the logic of that because so much of what goes on is federal-state cooperation, so much of what goes on is managing relationships with the bench, with the judges, with the lawyers, and so on. I mean, I shouldn't even really need to state that a U.S. attorney should be a member of the bar of the jurisdiction where they serve. So for the life of me, I can't understand why anybody would object to either side of this if we're talking about just filling a vacancy, but perhaps indefinitely. We can't be putting unqualified people on the bench, and I think without this provision, this bill is utterly hopeless. I mean, I think it's going to have a difficult time in the Senate as it is, but it's utterly hopeless if you're going to say that the president of the United States, whether Republican or a Democrat, can start plucking people from other parts of the country and installing them indefinitely as U.S. attorneys over the local population. If you go back and read the Declaration of Independence, part of the bill of particulars mobilized against King George was his appointment of prosecutors and judges against and over the wishes of the local population. And we shouldn't be moving in that direction. We as the Judiciary Committee should be upholding professional excellence and not undermining it. So I don't know if anybody needs some time from me. The gentlelady from Vermont, I can offer you some time back.

Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. Just briefly. This is an incredibly reasonable amendment. And I just I sit here week after week, and I know that there are people on both sides of the aisle that want us to do reasonable things together. And this is not an outrageous amendment. It's not a trick. It's simply saying the people that will be put in these incredibly important positions will have experience, will be able to do the job, especially as my colleague from New York pointed out, the president can just continue to re-up them and re-up them and re-up them. So they'll be in this position for how many days? And this is incredibly reasonable. And Mr. Van Drew, my colleague from New Jersey, you often talk in this committee about reasonableness. You often talk in this committee about come on, can we come to our senses and come together in a bipartisan manner? I can't express how many times I've heard you say some version of that. Here is an opportunity, Mr. Van Drew. Here is an opportunity for a reasonable amendment.

If I could reclaim my time for a sec, Ms. Balint.

You're reclaiming my time, but that's fine. Yes, please.

If I could re-reclaim your time. You know, there are states, including my own, Maryland, which have years requirements before you can even run for attorney general. In Maryland, you've got to be a member of the bar and a practicing lawyer for 10 years before you can run for attorney general. I'd be interested how many states have a requisite like that. So that shows you how far away the federal government is straying from common sense and public opinion in the states where we really do want professionals and people who have experience, who've trained to be doing these jobs as opposed to I'm going to send in my political crony or hack. Thank you for yielding.

Would the gentlelady further yield just for a moment? The gentleman has the kernel of a good basic suggestion, which is where where I want to make sure we understood. If we were talking about legally available by license in some state to practice before their bar and thus can wave into the district for which they're assigned, that would seem to be the minimum standard under which the Senate would routinely look at a candidate. I just simply was opining that I believe that this standard is greater than that which some very often is put before the Senate and approved. And I agree with the ranking member that this is a challenge to get through the Senate, and I understand that. But why wouldn't we use the basic standard that most of you all that are attorneys in the room would appreciate, which is hey, you want to be a U.S. attorney for a short period of time, maybe 600 days according to the member, you have to be a member of the bar and you have to be able to wave into the federal bar that you're going to practice in front of. I think that standard is acceptable to both sides.

And just briefly, and we don't need to belabor this, but I think the point that my colleague from New York made is that there is no stopgap. The president just can continue to do this, and we have seen him push the boundaries of what is an acceptable practice over and over again. And I yield back.

The gentlelady yields back. Does anyone else seek recognition? If not, the question is... Oh, the gentlelady from Washington. Oh, the gentlelady from Washington, I apologize. I had already looked that way and I looked back. No worries. The gentlelady is recognized to strike the last word for five minutes.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. This, you know, the fact that we're debating this amendment, which is a very sensible amendment, tells you the state of affairs that we're in, that we're saying that the person must have prosecutorial experience at the federal or the state level and must be a member of the bar of that state. It just tells us the dire situation that we're in and addresses the underlying bill, which is what I want to speak to. Because I do think this bill is a thinly veiled attempt to give President Trump unlimited power to use the Department of Justice as his own personal law firm. And it comes in response to an appropriate check that was exercised by judges to the abuse of power from Trump when he tried and failed to install his own personal lawyer as the interim U.S. attorney so he could pursue his own personal vendettas against people who disagreed with him. And I think this is incredibly dangerous. I want to rewind a bit. Because the mission of the DOJ is to quote, uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights, end quote. Donald Trump has done the exact opposite. His administration has disregarded judicial orders, eliminated $150 million in community violence prevention grants, and gutted the civil rights division. He has fired dozens of experienced career prosecutors. And instead of advancing DOJ's mission, he has weaponized the department to pursue his political enemies. Take for example the indictments of former FBI director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to retaliate against Mr. Comey for refusing to politicize the FBI and against Ms. James for successfully suing Trump for fraudulent business practices. In the Eastern District of Virginia, a longtime civil servant, Eric Seibert, was serving as interim U.S. attorney when the Trump administration pressured him to file charges against both Mr. Comey and Ms. James. But investigators found insufficient evidence to bring charges against Ms. James and raised concerns about a potential case against Mr. Comey. So Seibert told senior DOJ officials about this lack of evidence and decided not to file charges. When Donald Trump found out, he immediately told reporters that he wanted Seibert out. Seibert resigned under this pressure and Trump inserted Lindsey Halligan, a former member of his personal legal team with no prosecutorial evidence, hence Mr. Raskin's amendment, to succeed Seibert as interim U.S. attorney. Within three weeks, Halligan filed charges against Ms. James and secured an indictment. Now thankfully, a federal judge saw through this corruption and dismissed the indictment for violating the laws that Congress passed that established clear and specific restrictions on how the president can fill vacancies in U.S. attorney positions. And when Halligan tried to bring these charges again, a grand jury twice, not once, but twice, declined to bring an indictment. Judges in at least five other federal districts made similar rulings, including in the Northern District of New York, where Trump loyalist John Sarcone was disqualified from serving as acting U.S. attorney after he launched a federal investigation into Ms. James' successful civil fraud suit. In all of these instances, the rule of law prevailed. Now this bill seeks to get around the rule of law and take Congress and judges out of the equation completely. It would allow Trump to permanently install his loyalists, people like Halligan and Sarcone, to all 96 U.S. attorney positions without congressional consent or judicial review. And this would fundamentally threaten the independence and the mission of the DOJ and make it much easier for the Trump administration to steer valuable resources away from things that make us safer and towards his personal vendetta campaign.

Will the gentlelady yield?

I will in just one second. I really believe that we have to fight against this kind of authoritarianism, and I wonder if my colleagues are thinking about what happens when there's a Democratic president in in office and how you would respond to that. I'd be happy to yield.

And just for the timekeeper, can I get the next five minutes in case I run over? [Laughter.]

The gentleman will be recognized for five minutes when his when the time expires in 19 seconds.

You just wasted nine seconds.

I did. Gosh, now I'm discombobulated. So just a question, do you just conceptually do you think it's a problem for an Article III judge to pick the government's attorney who will bring cases in front of him or her? Take take the administration out.

The gentleman is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So when I was when I was practicing, it'd be a very odd it'd be a very odd mechanism to have the judges that we practice before on the federal bench select my boss. Because my boss ultimately gives the thumbs up, thumbs down, change this charge, amend amend the the course of the investigation. That's a little bit that's a little bit awkward in my opinion. And I would love your thoughts.

Would the gentlelady yield? It's his time now. Oh, could I could I impinge on your time to answer the question?

It depends on what you're thinking about asking. [Laughter.]

Well, your question of course is equally powerful. Makes sense? No, it no, it doesn't make sense because the Supreme Court justices who are appointed by the Supreme Court by the president also have to rule on the president all the time as we've seen even in cases like presidential immunity.

There's some degrees of separation there, but...

Far less so than a temporary appointment of an assistant of of a U.S. attorney, I think not. But in any event, the courts have upheld the whole practice because they're inferior officers. And so that's why the courts can play this stopgap role when there's an immediate vacancy. In other words, if it were unconstitutional, it would have been rejected long ago, but the courts have repeatedly upheld it against that attack.

Well, I I understand. I'm just asking conceptually, do you not see how there could at least be a perceived conflict if the judges are choosing the charging attorney exclusively for that jurisdiction?

Would no more so than the president choosing the U.S. Supreme Court justices who are the people who are going to have to rule on the president. That's, I mean, we are human, so that's built into the system.

Well, the Supreme Court hears cases that have nothing to do with the president. The Article III judge—

They hear a lot of cases that have nothing to do with the U.S. attorney.

Well, they would have exclusive review of all the cases brought by the U.S. attorney.

But they could recuse in the event of a direct conflict of interest if they needed to, and I think there've been some examples where that's happened.

I'm not talking about a direct conflict. I'm just saying the U.S. attorney has to be integrally involved in every civil or criminal matter that comes before the bench. That's a direct involvement in my— at least potentially.

Would the gentleman yield?

Depends on what you're going to ask.

You won't know until I ask.

Yes, go ahead.

The problem is that the only reason you have U.S. attorneys appointed by the judges is because the president hasn't submitted someone to the Senate for confirmation, or the Senate has refused confirmation. So the law says, okay, in that case, you can have the local judges appoint a U.S. attorney temporarily. But it assumes that there's going to be a nominee for the position approved by the Senate. And so right now you've got the judges doing it, you've got the administration trying to say, okay, we'll appoint this person for X number of days, 250 days, I think. And then when that person expires, we'll assume the next one and the next one, which eliminates Senate confirmation altogether.

Well, you're assuming political impropriety on the side of the president. Well, you're assuming political impropriety on the side of the president or the Senate, but couldn't there be political impropriety on behalf of the judges as well?

There could be political impropriety on anybody, but the point is that the president has to submit someone for the Senate and we wouldn't be talking about this if the Senate had approved somebody.

Well, I tend to agree, but again, my issue is, let's say hypothetically if there is political impropriety from the judges, that's an extremely close involvement to the cases being brought before them in that court.

I don't think it's a question of impropriety on the part of the judges. The judges have a duty to appoint someone for 250 days to give the president and the Senate the time to—

Would it not make more sense if the judges could just decline and say this person's not suitable?

No, because then there'd be no U.S. attorney.

If the gentleman yield for one second, I would just say you should be supporting my amendment because that builds in the professional qualifications that might be missing if we just let anybody be appointed by anybody whoever they want.

I understand the gentleman's point, but there is some separation of powers issue that is what I'm trying to get at. Again, I can't imagine the judges that I appeared before saying, I'm going to appoint your boss. That just seems to be very closely tied in terms of how the practice is unfolding in front of those various courts. I appreciate the discussion from both.

I mean, I agree, but that's been the system and I don't know that anybody has been able to show that it's contaminated in any way. I mean, the judges obviously have a vested interest in maintaining their probity and their reputation and their integrity.

And if the gentleman would yield just for one second. This is in the situation of a temporary assignment. So obviously the real process, I think, addresses the underlying issue that you're talking about because it requires confirmation by the Senate. This is in a situation where a president might actually fire somebody just so they can install somebody of their own choosing. And in that situation, where is the bigger problem? So I think the whole intent was to have the Senate confirmation process. This is an interim situation solution that we're talking about.

And the gentleman's time has expired. Seeing nobody else, thank goodness, the question now is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland in the form of a substitute. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no.

No.

In the opinion of the chair, the nos definitely have it. The nos have it.

Can we have a recorded vote, Mr. Chair?

Pursuant to the rule, that amendment will be rolled. I'm sorry, I have to do that? Yeah. We are. I thought we were— oh, that's right, we're not. I just switched committees. I apologize. The clerk will call the roll. I'm not in Foreign Affairs right now, I just left there. I apologize.

You're not in Kansas anymore either, so.

It's the problem with multiple committees, you have to go back and forth and readdress. The clerk will call the roll because I would have gotten an objection to rolling the vote. Darn it.

Mr. Jordan. Mr. Issa.

No.

Mr. Issa votes no. Mr. Biggs.

No.

Mr. Biggs votes no. Mr. McClintock. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Massie.

No.

Mr. Massie votes no. Mr. Roy. Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Cline.

No.

Mr. Cline votes no. Mr. Gooden.

No.

Mr. Gooden votes no. Mr. Van Drew.

No.

Mr. Van Drew votes no. Mr. Nehls. Mr. Moore.

No.

Mr. Moore votes no. Ms. Hageman. Ms. Lee.

No.

Mr. Hunt. Mr. Fry. Mr. Grothman. Mr. Knott.

No.

Mr. Knott votes no. Mr. Harris. Mr. Onder. Mr. Schmidt.

No.

Mr. Schmidt votes no. Mr. Gill. Mr. Baumgartner. Mr. Raskin.

Yes.

Mr. Raskin votes yes. Mr. Nadler.

Aye.

Mr. Nadler votes aye. Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Cohen.

Aye.

Mr. Cohen votes aye. Mr. Johnson.

Aye.

Mr. Johnson votes aye. Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Lieu. Ms. Jayapal.

Aye.

Ms. Jayapal votes aye. Mr. Correa. Ms. Scanlon. Mr. Neguse. Ms. McBath.

Aye.

Ms. McBath votes aye. Ms. Ross. Ms. Balint.

Aye.

Ms. Balint votes aye. Mr. Garcia. Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Goldman.

Aye.

Mr. Goldman votes aye. Ms. Crockett. Mr. Fitzgerald, you're not recorded.

No.

Mr. Fitzgerald votes no.

The clerk will report.

Mr. Chairman, there are eight ayes and 10 nos.

The amendment is not agreed to. Who seeks recognition? Seeking none— seeing none, the question is on the the bill— no, come on. The question is on a— on appointment of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed by immediately by a vote reporting the bill. All those in favor on the question of adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, the ayes have it.

Can we have a recorded vote? Yes, please.

The clerk— on the amendment in the nature— this is— no, no, this is the— oh, this is the ANS. Okay. No— he withdraws it. The question now occurs— in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The question now appears— occurs on the amendment in the nature of substitute as adopted. The question is in favor of reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, the ayes will have it after a roll call vote. The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Jordan. Mr. Issa.

Aye.

Mr. Issa votes aye. Mr. Biggs.

Aye.

Mr. Biggs votes aye. Mr. McClintock. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Massie.

Aye.

Mr. Massie votes aye. Mr. Roy. Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Cline.

Aye.

Mr. Cline votes aye. Mr. Gooden.

Aye.

Mr. Gooden votes aye. Mr. Van Drew.

Yes.

Mr. Van Drew votes yes. Mr. Nehls. Mr. Moore.

Yes.

Mr. Moore votes yes. Ms. Hageman. Ms. Lee. Mr. Hunt. Mr. Fry. Mr. Grothman. Mr. Knott.

Aye.

Mr. Knott votes aye. Mr. Harris. Mr. Onder.

Aye.

Mr. Onder votes aye. Mr. Schmidt.

Aye.

Mr. Schmidt votes aye. Mr. Gill. Mr. Baumgartner. Mr. Raskin.

No.

Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Nadler.

No.

Mr. Nadler votes no. Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Cohen.

No.

Mr. Cohen votes no. Mr. Johnson.

No.

Mr. Johnson votes no. Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Lieu. Ms. Jayapal.

No.

Ms. Jayapal votes no. Mr. Correa. Ms. Scanlon.

No.

Ms. Scanlon votes no. Mr. Neguse. Ms. McBath.

No.

Ms. McBath votes no. Ms. Ross.

No.

Ms. Ross votes no. Ms. Balint.

No.

Ms. Balint votes no. Mr. Garcia. Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Goldman.

No.

Mr. Goldman votes no. Ms. Crockett. Mr. McClintock votes aye. Mr. Gill.

Yes.

Mr. Gill votes yes. Mr. Johnson, you are recorded as no. Mr. Correa.

No.

Mr. Correa votes no.

Clerk report.

Mr. Chairman, there are 12 ayes and 11 nos.

The vote being 12 in the affirmative and 11 in the negative, the ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 1468, the Protect America's Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act of 2025, for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the House. The clerk will report the bill.

H.R. 1468, to establish the CCP Initiative program.

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gooden, for an opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the committee for considering H.R. 1468, the Protect America's Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act, which focuses our attention on the single greatest threat to the American people, the Chinese Communist Party. The threat we face from China needs no introduction, but catering to all those present, I will repeat, the CCP, the sole entity in control of China, is a threat to us on every socioeconomic, political, and cultural level. Our intelligence community has been raising these concerns for years, labeling China the defining threat of our generation. These concerns were echoed in testimonies from current and previous agency heads before this committee. Even Director Wray testified before this committee that no country presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, innovation, and economic security than the CCP. In China's multi-pronged war against our people, economy, and infrastructure, the CCP has infiltrated our communities, sown disharmony, and stolen our hard-earned successes. The CCP achieves this by aggressively targeting and recruiting civilians to spy on other Chinese nationals and steal critical data from their employers. The sectors most targeted by Chinese espionage are the bedrock of American innovation: academic institutions, R&D, and IP. CCP-backed espionage against American companies has become rampant in recent years. In 2019, trade theft alone cost our economy over half a trillion dollars annually with China behind most of it. Since then, the damage could have only have grown. This bill addresses this problem by creating a dedicated program under the DOJ called the CCP Initiative, focusing on countering economic espionage. The initiative establishes an enforcement strategy to protect critical sectors most vulnerable to the CCP's thievery: academic institutions, R&D labs, and the defense industrial base. While the intelligence community sounded the alarm on China's continued infiltration of our society, the Biden administration shuttered existing programs already addressing these concerns. Thanks to them, we regressed without a justifiable cause and had a virtually non-existent policy to counter the CCP's economic espionage activities. This bill fixes the last administration's mistakes by adopting a clear, multi-faceted approach. It builds a framework of multi-agency cooperation and mutual consultation, ensuring that effective measures against our nation's greatest threats are never compromised by an incompetent executive wing. And the rollback of the China Initiative left us also lacking a dedicated approach and no oversight on issues of critical national interest. Since the program's end, the DOJ has done little to counter the CCP's economic espionage while Congress has rarely, if ever, been updated on the status of these activities. To ensure the DOJ's cooperation and dedication of at least some resources in this area, an annual reporting requirement has been included, which secures congressional oversight and involvement. This ensures agencies focus on countering China's economic espionage and keeps Congress updated to act against these threats. The CCP poses a whole-of-community threat, which requires nothing less than a whole-of-government approach. This also requires no additional funding from Congress and has a negligible impact on the DOJ's current budget under the program. Before concluding, I'd like to underline that the worst affected by the CCP are people of Asian descent, specifically Chinese American citizens and people of Chinese origin in the United States who are identified and disproportionately targeted by the CCP for their schemes. The CCP ruthlessly targets and harasses them and their family members in many cases, especially those who are considered dissidents and refuse to bow down. Passing this bill will not only counter existing cases and deter new attempts to infiltrate our country, but also signal that the CCP's days of targeting our communities are over. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of safeguarding our country, our people, and our future against the greatest threat of our lifetimes and support H.R. 1468. And I also have a amendment in nature of a substitute when you're ready. I yield back to the chairman.

The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes ranking member Mr. Raskin for an opening statement.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I strongly oppose H.R. 1468, which would reestablish the discredited and discriminatory China Initiative at the Department of Justice. Our colleagues in offering the bill today invite us all to participate in some magical thinking. They invite us to pretend the China Initiative didn't happen during the last Trump administration and to pretend that it wasn't a total failure. They'd like us to believe that the first China Initiative did not result in Chinese researchers at American universities being targeted for simple paperwork errors so the DOJ could criminally prosecute someone and claim a victory, but that's what happened, which is why many of those cases were dismissed and overturned on appeal. And our colleagues want us to pretend that if we just change the name a little bit from the China Initiative to the CCP Initiative, well, then no one will notice that the bill is essentially the same failed enterprise all over again. But we should resist this exercise in magical thinking because we can't change the past. If collective delusion meant we could all just go back in time and actually abolish the China Initiative, I for one would be all for that. That initiative contributed to the climate of anti-Asian American hate that proliferated in our country during that time period. And we've seen nearly 13,000 race-driven acts of hate and crimes against Asian Americans that have taken place just in the last few years. But the most magical thinking I see today is when I hear our colleagues talk about the threat from China as though President Trump is not seeding more global power to China every single day and as though he is not completely financially entangled and intertwined with China and the CCP. During his first term, Chinese government and state-owned companies spent no less than $5.5 million at Trump hotels and properties. That's in documented receipts we've got that, and that's to say nothing of the more than 100 valuable trademarks that Chinese authorities rushed to grant President Trump and his family after his first inauguration. In exchange, he opposed sanctions against Chinese telecom companies and banks even when they threatened our national security. He even tried to cancel military exercises with Japan and South Korea because China and Russia complained about it. And the Trump-China connection has only grown stronger in his second term. Over the last six months, the Trump administration, especially with the war in Iran, has weakened America's position in the world, strengthened China's position in the world. The administration has weakened America's soft power abroad by defunding foreign aid programs and closing embassies, hurt America's economy with blatantly unconstitutional, illegal and arbitrary tariffs, and hamstrung our ability to respond to threats by firing government workers, including experts on China and national security personnel. Meantime, he has used his cryptocurrency ventures to pocket millions, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from Chinese billionaires with ties to the CCP. In May, a tiny Chinese tech company with ties to the Chinese government announced it had bought as much as $300 million of President Trump's meme coin despite having no revenue and only eight employees. Trump's use of his office for personal enrichment is notorious. But what's more striking now is how President Trump is using Xi as a model for leadership, referring to him as a brilliant guy who controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. He assured President Xi that sending Uyghurs to forced labor camps was, quote, exactly the right thing to do, he said. And that violently cracking down on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong was acting very responsibly. In a second administration, the president appears to be hell-bent on remaking his own administration in the image of Xi's regime, cracking down on media outlets he disapproves of, attempting hostile takeovers of colleges and universities, attacking attorneys for representing causes or clients he just doesn't like, purging libraries of books he disfavors, sending masked agents in unmarked vans to arrest foreign students for voicing opinions he disagrees with, shipping people to El Salvador's torture prison, and using AI to surveil individual social media posts and to create a mega-database of information on America's citizens. Today's hearing is yet another attempt by Republican colleagues to attack our courts and judges for doing their duty and following the law. Because if my colleagues actually wanted to get something done on the trade crime threat from China, we'd have bipartisan legislation that would accomplish it. H.R. 1869, the Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act of 2025, has 44 bipartisan cosponsors, including many members of this committee. Moreover, it would do exactly what our colleagues say they want to accomplish with this bill. H.R. 1869 would create a task force within the criminal division at DOJ to investigate and prosecute trade-related crimes with particular emphasis on violations of the statutes enumerated. But it's no surprise that we're not looking at bipartisan ways to augment national security at the Department of Justice because Trump has for over a year now been deconstructing our national security infrastructure, replacing experience and expertise with loyalists and partisan vitriol. Since taking office, the president has gutted the national security division at DOJ and fired thousands of experienced employees at the State Department, draining our agencies of expertise. This administration has no real interest in protecting our national security from Chinese threats or otherwise. This is a big business money-making operation for the people in power. It's up to us, Congress, to take action to truly protect against strategic threats from China while preventing discrimination against American citizens. I encourage all of my colleagues to reject this legislation and I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements and Trump derangement rants will be included in the record.

Mr. Chairman, what's a deranged Trump rant? Did you call the president deranged?

No.

It sounded like you called the president deranged. I know a lot of psychiatrists are saying that, but they're not allowed...

That's how far this disorder affects your hearing and your reasoning, Mr. Raskin. Reflect on what I actually said.

I thought Trump derangement syndrome was following a deranged man in whatever he says.

Gentleman is not in order. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This amendment in the nature of a substitute makes technical corrections and substantive changes to some provisions...

Does the gentleman wish to introduce the...

Yes, I have an amendment at the desk. Excuse me.

The clerk will report the amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 1468.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered as base text for the purpose of amendment. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas to explain the amendment.

Thank you. The earlier derangement threw off my procedural knowledge, I apologize. This amendment in the nature of a substitute makes technical corrections and substantive changes to some provisions to better serve the stated goals and objectives of the bill. This includes the substitution of provisions restricting the DOJ's discretionary authority. Additionally, the reporting requirements have been amended to include agencies with relevant expertise in subject matters covered by the report. And these amendments were made with the aim of providing necessary clarity, avoiding interagency and internal conflict, and enhancing and strengthening the reporting capabilities of the DOJ while providing more opportunities for interagency cooperation. One of the complaints two years ago was that our bill did not work with the DOJ. And that's because the DOJ didn't want to work with us. And so I heard your complaints and we answered them by working with the DOJ to get language that everyone is on the same page with with respect to the administration. And I will yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Is there any discussion on the amendment in the nature of a substitute? Gentlelady from Washington.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately, I have to oppose this bill from my friend in Texas. I do have serious concerns about this. It would reestablish the China Initiative, which is a failed Trump-era program that targeted Chinese government agents stealing U.S. intellectual property. But in reality, the DOJ targeted research universities and defense contractors for minor infractions instead of actual threats to national security and intellectual property rights. DOJ already can and does prosecute cases of economic espionage and trade secret theft, but this legislation is not just unnecessary, it would actually set us back. And look, I represent a district that has a lot of Chinese Americans and has very strong ties through trade, import-export, and other things to the Pacific region. Chinese immigrants were actually the first Asians to settle in Seattle in my area. And they arrived in the 1860s from California or directly from China. And we have been dealing with anti-Asian hate in our state and across the country for a long time. The China Initiative just enhanced that, exacerbated it. It was not just racist, but it was horribly ineffective. Despite thousands of investigations, only 150 individuals were even charged pursuant to the initiative. And only a quarter of those charged were actually charged for economic espionage. Still more of the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence or in the rare case of a conviction, overturned on appeal. What we actually saw is that Chinese and Asian American scientists, academics, researchers were the ones who bore the brunt of the China Initiative. Many of the people that were charged under this effort were academics and researchers who were accused of omitting details on their immigration paperwork or grant applications. And those issues would almost certainly never be charged absent the initiative driving a racist targeting of these individuals to pad the quote success numbers of the China Initiative. There were a couple of directly impacted individuals I can give you the cases here. Professor Gang Chen, former head of MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, was subjected to a year-long investigation under the China Initiative. Dr. Chen had his quote loyalty questioned, which is something that frankly many of us as immigrants often have, no matter how long we've been in this country. But he had his quote loyalty questioned during a press conference and he was scapegoated as a national security threat. But in 2022, the DOJ dropped all charges against Dr. Chen. But it doesn't take away the harm that Dr. Chen went through. He said, according to Dr. Chen, for 37 days his family and he went through a living hell. That's how he described it. And the impact of that is going to last for a long time. Similarly, Professor Anming Hu at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville was the first academic to stand trial under the China Initiative. After an initial visit from the FBI in 2018, he was charged in early 2020 for fraud and false statements and the trial took place in June of 2021. When the jury deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial and the government sought a second trial. That trial never occurred because the judge issued a full acquittal on the basis that the government failed to meet its evidentiary burden. Now, today's renamed initiative does nothing to protect intellectual property rights or national security interests, but it does drive away talent from the United States. And it drains us of our STEM leaders and other academics. An Asian American Scholar Forum study of over 1,300 respondents found that as a result of the China Initiative, 61 percent felt pressure to leave the United States despite the vast majority of respondents wanting to stay and contribute to our science and technology fields. And the racial profiling, as the ranking member said, does spur anti-Asian hate, which has already been on the rise since COVID. Nearly 13,000 incidents of anti-Asian hate, including hate crimes, have been reported in the last six years and that's likely a vast underestimation because so many of those hate crimes just don't get reported. The Biden-Harris administration was right to end the initiative and we have to prevent its return for the sake of our research institutions and also to prevent the racial profiling of Chinese individuals that utterly lacks any legitimate national security justification. So I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and I yield back.

Gentlelady yields back. Is there further discussion on the ANS? Seeing none, the question is on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on reporting the bill. Those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. No. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. The question is now on favorably adopting the bill as amended. Those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. No. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House. Members will have... Gentleman requests a recorded vote. Clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Jordan. Mr. Issa. Mr. Biggs. Mr. Biggs votes aye. Mr. McClintock. Aye. Mr. McClintock votes aye. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Massie. Mr. Roy. Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Cline. Aye. Mr. Cline votes aye. Mr. Gooden. Aye. Mr. Gooden votes aye. Mr. Van Drew. Mr. Nehls. Mr. Moore. Ms. Hageman. Ms. Lee. Mr. Hunt. Mr. Fry. Mr. Grothman. Mr. Knott. Aye. Mr. Knott votes aye. Mr. Harris. Mr. Onder. Mr. Schmidt. Mr. Gill. Mr. Baumgartner. Mr. Raskin.

No.

Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Nadler. Ms. Lofgren.

No.

Ms. Lofgren votes no. Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Lieu. Ms. Jayapal.

No.

Ms. Jayapal votes no. Mr. Correa.

No.

Mr. Correa votes no. Ms. Scanlon. Mr. Neguse. Ms. McBath.

No.

Ms. McBath votes no. Ms. Ross.

No.

Ms. Ross votes no. Ms. Balint.

No.

Ms. Balint votes no. Mr. Garcia. Ms. Kamlager-Dove.

No.

Ms. Kamlager-Dove votes no. Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Goldman. Ms. Crockett. Mr. Moore, you are not recorded.

Yes.

Mr. Moore votes yes. Mr. Issa, you are not recorded.

Yes.

Mr. Issa votes yes. Mr. Nadler, you are not recorded. Amendment in the nature of a substitute.

No.

Mr. Nadler votes no. Mr. Gill, you are not recorded.

Yes.

Mr. Gill votes yes. Mr. Harris, you are not recorded.

Yes. Yes.

Mr. Harris votes yes. Mr. Onder votes aye. Mr. Jordan. Mr. Harris votes yes. Mr. Onder votes aye. Mr. Jordan.

Yes.

Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Massie, you are not recorded.

Yes.

Mr. Massie votes yes. Mr. Fitzgerald votes aye. Mr. Grothman votes yes.

Clerk will report.

Mr. Chairman, there are 14 ayes and nine nos.

The ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 6194, the Protecting Americans from Russian Litigation Act of 2025 for purpose of markup and move that the committee report it favorably to the House. The clerk will report the bill.

H.R. 6194.

Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for an opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I make this statement today on behalf of Representative Hunt. American businesses are being targeted by foreign adversaries and H.R. 6194, the Protecting Americans from Russian Litigation Act, is needed to protect them. When foreign adversaries engage in malign activities that threaten our country and our allies, we often use sanctions to defend American interests. U.S. sanctions are a vital tool of American foreign policy and they safeguard peace and security. However, we have seen that American businesses can find themselves in difficult situations because of U.S. sanctions. For example, a U.S. business that sells goods in Russia may no longer be able to fulfill orders or complete contracts because of sanctions. Those Russian customers can go to Russian courts for breach of contract or other claims. It is no surprise that American businesses may not be treated fairly in some of these foreign courts and that compliance with U.S. sanctions is not recognized as a defense. As a result, these foreign courts issue judgments and orders that target American businesses. When foreign interests seek to enforce judgments from foreign courts against U.S. businesses in U.S. courts, those judgments are typically enforced under principles of comity. As a general matter, those principles can be important because we want foreign courts to similarly enforce U.S. judgments. But in the case of U.S. firms simply complying with U.S. sanctions, we must protect our businesses and H.R. 6194 accomplishes that. This bill will prevent legal action taken against businesses who are simply complying in good faith with U.S. sanctions. Similar provisions protect European countries in EU courts and the UK businesses in UK courts. Americans should get the same protections. I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support H.R. 6194 because protecting our businesses from being targeted by adversaries shouldn't be a partisan issue. I yield back the balance.

Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, for an opening statement.

Mr. Chairman, thanks so much. I want to thank you also for bringing this important bipartisan bill, the Protecting Americans from Russian Litigation Act of 2025, back to the committee for markup session. Americans should face penalties for breaking the law, not for following the law. But right now, we've got a conflict of law that could allow Russia to sue and win against American companies for following our laws, specifically with regard to U.S. sanctions against Russia, by bringing punitive tort suits in our courts. We're telling U.S. companies that they must enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs and companies and other corrupt entities, but we can't help them when the targets of those sanctions turn around and sue the U.S. company just for complying with the law that we've passed. So, suing American businesses in contract for refusing to perform a purchase agreement or for revoking software credentials or for freezing the funds of a Russian entity are valid causes of action right now under U.S. law, but they should not be. This is nonsensical. American companies are facing an impossible choice: either break with Russia, following the law, and face tort penalties, or violate the sanctions law and face government penalties. In February of 2022, JPMorgan froze nearly $500 million of a Russian bank, VTB, VTB's funds in compliance with sanctions issued by the U.S. Treasury. Two years later, VTB sued JPMorgan in Russian arbitration court, a case that later spilled into U.S. federal district court and got litigated in our system. Although the case ended up collapsing procedurally, it shows how Russian entities can drag U.S. companies into court with all the attendant time and exorbitant legal fees to punish them simply for daring to enforce sanctions. So this bill addresses that discrepancy and ensures that sanctioned Russian entities cannot sue U.S. companies in the U.S. court system merely for complying with sanctions in good faith. These sanctions were imposed in the wake of Russia's lawless, imperialist invasion of Ukraine and they are a necessary tool in the fight to help Ukrainians defend their sovereignty and their independence. Since Putin launched his lawless land-grabbing invasion in 2022, conservative estimates suggest that 15,000 innocent Ukrainians have been killed, including more than 700 children, on top of the at least 50,000 soldiers who have died. Ukrainian officials have documented thousands of war crimes taking place by Russian forces, including rape, execution, torture, and the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. This illegal attack has internally displaced more than three million Ukrainians, it sent six million fleeing Ukraine in fear of their lives, and left another 10 million in dire need of humanitarian aid. So, we have every reason to double down on our sanctions and to make sure that Russia does not have the opportunity to sue our businesses just for complying with the law. I thank you, Chairman Jordan, Congressman Hunt, for shepherding the bill through our committee, as well as our ranking member, Mr. Nadler, for his great work on this bill in the 118th Congress to get to get it where it is today. I urge my colleagues to support this measure and protect American businesses against legal harassment. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Without objection, the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered base text for the purposes of amendment. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona to explain the amendment.

Yes, Chairman. The amendment in the nature of substitute strikes the year from the title of the bill. It doesn't change the substance of the bill before us. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment and I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? The question is on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote on reporting the bill. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. The question is on favorably reporting the bill as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the bill is ordered to be reported favorably to the House. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. I believe that concludes today's work and the hearing is adjourned. Thank you all.