John Ratcliffe: “While I respect the gentlewoman's service and the spirit in which she offers this amendment, this amendment carves out…”

“While I respect the gentlewoman's service and the spirit in which she offers this amendment, this amendment carves out of the bill national security regulations from the Department of Homeland Security. As we all know, Mr. Chair, the Department of Homeland Security is an agency that has a long record of significant, unconstitutional regulatory overreach. To that end, we should be strengthening the courts' ability to check that, not weakening it, as the gentlewoman's amendment would do. Again, no area of regulation is so important that we should allow unelected bureaucrats to avoid the vigorous system of checks and balances that our Framers intended and that this bill would restore; so I urge opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.”