Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Removing A Certain Member From Certain Standing Committees of the House of Representatives

Floor Speech

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Mr. DEUTCH. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 91, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 72) removing a certain Member from certain standing committees of the House of Representatives, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 72.

In 2019, the FBI warned that ``antigovernment, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories very likely to motivate some domestic extremists to commit criminal, sometimes violent activity.''

In October last year, this House voted nearly unanimously to condemn QAnon conspiracy theories because they encourage the rejection of objective reality, deepen political polarization, and undermine trust in our democratic institutions; but also because they have inspired real-world violence, bomb threats, vandalism, kidnapping, terrorism, murder, and insurrection.

Congresswoman Greene of Georgia has a long history of amplifying dangerous conspiracy theories online and threatening violent, racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic conduct. H. Res. 72 will ensure that Mrs. Greene's conduct is not rewarded with seats on two important committees.

The Congresswoman has said that American citizens who practice Islam ``do not belong in our government,'' and ``they should stay in their country.''

Mr. Speaker, this is their country, and it is their government as much as any American's.

Mrs. Greene has trafficked in dangerous anti-Semitic lies about the Rothschild family, George Soros, Zionist supremacists, and secret Jewish plots.

Over millennia, because of baseless, ugly lies, millions of Jews have been hated, targeted, expelled from their countries, violently attacked, killed, and exterminated because words lead to action and death.

Mrs. Greene claimed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 26 people, including 20 6- and 7-year-old kids, was staged. She claimed the Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people and injured over 800 was an orchestrated attempt to weaken gun rights. And she claimed the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was a false flag event and called the survivors crisis actors.

Mr. Speaker, the 17 people who never came home from school in Parkland on February 14, 2018, were my constituents. Their families' pain is real, and it is felt every single day.

Yesterday, parents of children slain at Sandy Hook, Mark Barden, Daniel's dad; and Nicole Hockley, Dylan's mom, wrote a letter to Leader McCarthy to share how these conspiracy theories impact their families: ``These vicious lies deny the deaths of our murdered children and bring death threats and constant harassment to our doors and our surviving children.''

In 2019, Mrs. Greene created a White House petition to impeach Speaker Pelosi for treason, emphasizing that it is punishable by death, and she liked a Facebook comment stating that: ``A bullet to the head would be a quicker way to remove Speaker Nancy Pelosi.''

In a video statement from December 31, 2018, Mrs. Greene called on her followers to storm Washington, D.C., in what sounds today like a prescient forecast of last month's deadly insurrection: Flood the Capitol. Flood all the government buildings. Go inside. We can end it. We can do it peacefully. We can. I hope we don't have to do it the other way, but we should feel like we will if we have to.

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what happened.

Conspiracy theories and hate are malignant. They do not fade away. We must stand up to them and say, Enough.

Mrs. Greene has promised that she will never apologize.

Well, we are here today because Republican leadership has decided to embrace and elevate Mrs. Greene. They rewarded her with a seat on the committee of this House that has responsibility for teaching our children the truth and giving them a safe place to learn it.

Two years ago, the Republican leader spoke on this floor, very strongly saying, ``I will pledge to you this, from this side of the aisle, and I hope you understand this clearly, any hatred, we take action.''

Mr. McCarthy did take action, but it wasn't condemnation. It was elevation, appointing her to committee seats.

That is why it is necessary to put this resolution to a vote for every Member of this body because this House must take action. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and remove Representative Greene of Georgia from her positions on the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on Budget.

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Mr. Speaker, I just want to make clear that this is not an action by one party. This is a House resolution. Today, all of us will be voting.

And the Constitution couldn't be clearer. Article I, Section 5 vests the House with the authority, independent of the Ethics Committee, to discipline a Member. As a sanction for such behavior, the House may limit any right, power, privilege, or immunity of that Member. I am sure my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are aware of that.

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Mr. DEUTCH. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me just address some of what we have heard today.

First, we have heard the argument made by our colleagues that this is something that should go to the Ethics Committee, despite the fact that we have the authority to be here today to tackle something that our friends should have tackled.

But then they turn around and say that the Ethics Committee doesn't have jurisdiction for anything that has been said before a Member is elected, thereby creating a loop that will result in no accountability, zero accountability, for any of the horrific sayings, any of the horrific actions that have been promoted by Representative Greene on social media and in her words.

We also heard that what we are doing here risks deepening dangerous divisions. The dangerous divisions that exist in our country resulted in an attack on this Capitol, putting all of our lives at risk. We are trying to stop the divisions in our country by not giving a platform to the kinds of conspiracy theories that helped to inflame them.

We heard that this is cynical and hypocritical. Mr. Speaker, is there anything more cynical and hypocritical than to be told on the floor of this House that the minority leader was prepared to take Mrs. Greene off the committee, not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was a political decision he was willing to consider?

Finally, we heard that Representative Greene has apologized for this. She came to the floor today. She acknowledged that 9/11 happened; she acknowledged that school shootings are real; and she acknowledged that she learned some things about QAnon that she didn't know before.

There was no apology. There was nothing to address any of the pain and hurt that she has done to my constituents and gun violence survivors in every part of this country and the families who lost loved ones.

Mr. Speaker, we need to be here today. This hateful rhetoric is in the real world as well, outside the Halls of Congress, not just here. Memories of the lives we have lost to gun violence are being forsaken by those who baselessly claim those tragedies were false flag events. Online rants about anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and conspiracy theories have manifested in real and violent acts. It is not a debating society that we are participating in. This has real impact, in the real world.

Finally, I close with this, Mr. Speaker: We are worried about precedent?

So am I. So we should all be. And the precedent of rewarding a Member of the House by giving her a platform of a congressional committee to amplify dangerous conspiracy theories is one we should never set.

Leader McCarthy said so himself. I would remind my colleagues again, 2 years ago he said: Any hatred, any hatred we take action.

Unfortunately, the only action taken by Republican leadership has been to appoint Representative Greene to two powerful committees.

This resolution condemns the practice of promoting extreme ideologies, conspiracy theories, and antigovernment rhetoric. The resolution proclaims that there is no place for such conduct in this Congress or in society. When Mrs. Greene came to the floor today and compared the media to QAnon, it is a reminder of just how important this action is that we are about to take. This is why we must adopt H. Res. 72.

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