Providing for Consideration of H.R. National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Emergency Security Supplemental to Respond to January 6th Appropriations Act, 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, today's rule covers two items. The first item I will discuss is H.R. 3237, a supplemental appropriations bill intended to provide security funding for the Capitol complex, including funding for the U.S. Capitol Police, the National Guard, and other agencies that responded to the January 6 attack on the Capitol complex, as well as to provide funds to address the coronavirus throughout a variety of agencies Congress directly controls.
Although the process leading to this bill started out with bipartisan negotiations, unfortunately, no deal was reached. Instead of negotiating with Republicans on our counterproposal, as is typical in these discussions, Democrats walked away, once again, choosing to go it alone with the bipartisan bill before us today.
Madam Speaker, it is truly disappointing that Democrats were unwilling to continue to work towards an agreement with Republicans on a matter of this magnitude, and given that the Senate is in no hurry to take up this legislation, a few additional weeks of discussion could and likely would have led to a bipartisan product instead of a product destined for the legislative graveyard.
In the wake of the January 6 attack, I would hope that the majority would join with Republicans and choose to speak with one voice. Instead, like so many items in this Congress, the majority has insisted on its way or the highway. And today, they are doing it so again with this partisan bill.
House Republicans and even some Senate Democrats have concerns with this package. The bill creates a rapid response force with the D.C. National Guard. Any rapid response force intended to provide backup for the United States Capitol Police and to protect the Capitol complex should be under the control of, and housed within Congress.
As a number of my colleagues mentioned during the debate in the Committee on Rules yesterday, housing these capabilities within the D.C. National Guard introduces the exact same concerns my friends on the other side raised in the aftermath of January 6, that Congress would be reliant on the executive branch to deploy this rapid response force.
Madam Speaker, I have deep concerns about putting this rapid response force under the control of any other entity, whether that is the government or the District of Columbia or the executive branch. I also have grave concerns about assigning this role to the military since this is undoubtedly a law enforcement function.
Further bipartisan and bicameral negotiations would have helped us to tailor the package to allay some of the serious concerns Members have, and at the same time would direct funds to where they are needed most.
Madam Speaker, I do know that what the House passes this week will not be the final word. And I am hopeful that in the not-too-distant future, the House will take up a different version of this package, one that has been negotiated with Republicans and that can pass the Senate, and I look forward to supporting that package before the President signs it into law.
Madam Speaker, our second item for today is H.R. 3233, a bill which establishes a national commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol complex.
I thank Ranking Member John Katko and Chairman Bennie Thompson of the Committee on Homeland Security for their hard work in putting this legislation together. They took an unworkable and hyper-partisan proposal from the Speaker and turned it into a far better bill. I commend these two gentlemen for their desire to find bipartisan agreement.
However, I continue to have concerns with the legislation, concerns that could have been addressed if several of the amendments proposed at our Committee on Rules hearing would have been made in order.
On an issue this serious, the full House deserves the opportunity to debate and discuss areas of disagreement to see if we can find common ground. One of these areas of continued disagreement is that of scope, which remains too narrow in the proposal.
As the culture of our national politics has coarsened over the past several years, there has been a resulting broader wave of political violence in this country. This includes events like the 2017 domestic terror attack that targeted Republican Members of Congress at a baseball practice, and which would have been catastrophically worse but for the bravery of the U.S. Capitol Police officers who were present that day.
It includes the April 2 attack that killed U.S. Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans.
It includes the wave of violence, rioting, and property destruction that swept across the country last summer.
The commission should have specific flexibility to examine these events in their appropriate context.
I am also concerned about current language in the bill related to the ongoing work of law enforcement to bring the perpetrators of January 6 to justice. There are multiple investigations already underway. Several committees in both the House and the Senate have held, and will continue to hold, hearings on the topic.
The Architect of the Capitol is reviewing security vulnerabilities in the Capitol complex. As of yesterday, more than 450 people have been arrested in connection with the events of January 6, with at least 100 more arrests to come. All of these individuals will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, as well they should.
Given each of these ongoing investigations and proceedings, I fear that adding yet another investigation from this proposed commission would only muddy the waters and make achieving due process and reaching justice all that much harder.
For that reason, I supported an amendment offered in the Rules Committee that would ensure that the ongoing and critically important work of law enforcement would continue unimpeded by this commission. For reasons I do not fully understand, this amendment was blocked.
Moreover, in my personal opinion, the commission would benefit from any revelations emerging from the investigations currently underway.
In addition, I note that it was 14 months between the events of 9/11 and the creation of the 9/11 commission. During that time, many facts emerged that informed the investigation of the commission. The same could be true here. As such, it makes sense to take more time prior to commencing an undertaking like this commission.
Though I have reservations about the bill, I have no reservations at all about the job Ranking Member Katko and Chairman Thompson have done. I am hopeful that this bill will be improved further as it proceeds through the legislative process.
Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up House Resolution 153, a resolution condemning the recent hate crimes committed against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Steel), my good friend, the author of the resolution, to further explain the amendment.
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Mr. COLE.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, for his excellent work on this bill; and I want to thank his ranking member and negotiating partner. I think they, frankly, moved us in the right direction toward agreement.
We continue to have concerns. It is a long, legislative process. Obviously, we will have to pass something through the Senate as well. So it is my hope we can build upon their work and continue to move forward.
We are not prepared at this time to provide huge support for this bill. We think it can continue to improve. But that doesn't take anything away from my appreciation and admiration for the gentleman from Mississippi for his good work. We will continue to try and work with him and others and get to a place we can all come to agree.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I oppose the rule. The majority is proposing two significant pieces of legislation today. Unfortunately, concerns remain with both of them.
H.R. 3237, the supplemental appropriations package intended to provide funds for the security of the Capitol complex is, unfortunately and unnecessarily, a partisan bill.
It was the subject of bipartisan negotiations, and there is no reason we could not have gotten to a bipartisan result had the majority wanted to do so. Instead, we are left with a partisan package that does not meet the needs of the institution and, frankly, has no chance of becoming law in its current form.
I would urge my friends particularly to look at the section relating to the rapid response force. That is something where I think, honestly, with a little bit more reflection, we could find some common ground.
I think it is a mistake to put a force like that under the control of either the District of Columbia or the executive branch. I think we need direct control of that ourselves. I know some of my colleagues on the other side feel strongly that way, too. It simply makes sense that if we are having a crisis here, we ought to make the decision if we need an extra force.
I think if we keep working at it, we are going to find some common ground there, and I hope that we do.
H.R. 3233 establishes a commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol complex. Here, too, I want to acknowledge that real progress was made in the course of negotiations, and I want to commend particularly Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Katko for having brought us closer to agreement.
However, on our side, many of us continue to have reservations about this bill and the parameters of the commission itself. After all, the events of January 6 did not occur in a vacuum. If we truly hope to find answers for the American people, then we must take into account everything, all the other political violence that has taken place in recent years.
I would just ask my friends to go back--and I know they have--and look at the 9/11 Commission, which did exactly that. It didn't just look at 9/11. It looked at the attack on the USS Cole. It went back to the attack on the African Embassies that we experienced.
There is room here, I think, for context and additional discussion. We also have concerns structurally with some of the staffing provisions and other items that I have mentioned that we hopefully would look at. We would like to continue to work on that.
I think we could have made good progress had any of the amendments that were offered in the Rules Committee been made in order. My friends chose not to do that. That is their privilege to do so, but I think it probably obstructed what could have been a larger bipartisan vote for this particular piece of legislation.
But, again, we will see going forward. What we do here isn't the final arbiter. This is one stage in the process. The United States Senate is the next stop. Hopefully, there will be some changes made there. Then, it will have to come back here. We should look at both of these matters as stops in a journey, or parts of a journey, not as the final decision on any of them.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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