Washington, D.C. – Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), went to the House Floor to warn of the trojan horse House Democrats are pushing through a NASA focused piece of legislation. House Democrats are usingthe House Amendment to theSenate Amendment to H.R. 5746, the NASA Enhanced Use Leasing Extension Act of 2021 as a vehicle to nationalize our election systems. They stripped theNASA language out and replaced itwith the text of H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and S. 2747, the Freedom to Vote Act.
As Prepared for Delivery: "Madame Speaker, the bill provided for in this rule does not reflect the actual text. Once again, the Rules Committee had one-hour notice to consider text without any chance of being able to read it."
"This NASA focused bill is actually the Democrats' vehicle to drastically change election law, without any input from the Republicans. The Democrats are using this “messaging” bill to quickly get it passed in the Senate while they have an agreement. We saw how chaotic their attempts to pass Build Back Better became, and how that effort eventually failed.
"It is ridiculous that such large changes to longstanding law would happen approaching the middle of the night, when the American people likely won’t realize until after the fact what we have done.
"Instead, we should be focusing on issues that are actually facing Americans right now. There has been no oversight of Covid relief bills amid reporting of waste and abuse. Inflation remains high, and there is a crisis along our southern border.
"Congress has provided over $5 trillion in Covid relief funds, with little to no oversight. Billions of dollars remain unspent while inflation is at its highest level in decades. There aren’t enough Covid tests, and hospitals and health care facilities remain under immense strain.
"Our response should not be so uncoordinated and ineffective three years into this pandemic.
"Another national crisis is occurring as hundreds of thousands of migrants have poured over our southern border since President Biden took office. Our frontline border officials are overwhelmed and under-resourced, and the Open Now sign remains on. Even more concerning, eligible migrants are offered a Covid-19 vaccine, but it is not required. Why are our federal officials required to be vaccinated when migrants released to the interior of our country are not? We must halt illegal border crossings immediately in order to ease the strain on our frontline federal agencies and protect American communities.
"Unfortunately, these crises remain while we waste time on another partisan exercise, that may or may not actually produce a result."
