On the recordNovember 17, 2016
Let me take a moment to acknowledge my ranking member and my chairman for I believe that this past session has generated an enormous amount of bipartisanship and cooperation. I thank Chairman Goodlatte for his leadership. I also thank Ranking Member Conyers for the important leadership he has given to issues that we have warned about for a long time, and that is criminal justice reform. I say that in the backdrop of being enormously concerned about H.R. 5982, which is redundant since we have already passed midnight regulation legislation. The House did that earlier this year to establish a moratorium on midnight rules, rather than addressing critical issues, such as creating new opportunities for job growth and advancement, or fixing our Nation's broken immigration system, providing relief from crushing student loan debt, and, yes, moving forward on criminal justice reform. We have legislation that now seems directed at President Obama before the election of last week and now, again, continuing to wish to do something that impacts, I think, personally and directly on the President of the United States, who happens to be President Barack Obama. Because otherwise there is no real basis for this legislation. I have amendment No. 3 that speaks to it and clearly specifically states why this is a problem. It provides a limited exception from the provisions of H.R.…
