wood wood i suppose that's why we don't have broad bipartisan support. i go back and look at the 1968 gun control act it passed. i look at the 1986, majority of democrats and republicans, perhaps that's what you expect to see tomorrow. mr. nadler: i certainly hope so.

and mentallye have nstable or whatever. shouldn't have gun in some exceptions. but we don't want to go too far. now, the now, the only objection i heard other than the fact is that it takes some time to -- if you are not buying in -- indiscernible]

you have to take the time to go to a licensed gun dealer and get checked out. wood wood and money. mr. nadler: i'm coming to that. i said there were two. and second, it will cost some money. ow much, i don't know. the licensed gun dealer will charge you a fee for doing this. if the gun dealer around the corner charges a lesser fee, you will probably go there. there will be market fees. and yes, there is a slight burden, but the judgment is, our judgment is it's worth that burden to keep guns out of the hands that shouldn't have them. and again, remember what we are dealing with.

other countries have 150 a year. we have 39 thousand and no one can tell me that americans are 10 times as mentally ill as people in europe, japan or anyone else. the prevalence of gun. if i could, i would go much further. this is a mild further. at least we will get a back grouped check. it will be a slight inconvenience and there is a cost. addition to the cost of the gun. so what. wood wood i read some of that debate back in 1986. and on know my colleagues don't agree with going back to an earlier definition.

but i'm concerned that your definition of a mild version is another person's definition of time, money and expense of something that's not going to save a single life. you raise your eye brows and you are not thinking of my family. i promise there is not a bill that is going to pass. mr. nadler: your family is going to pay for the back groubd check. the guy who can't pay for the background check. taken theple who have back grouped check failed the back grouped check and thus we keep the guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people. wood wood it's not in the bill that's referenced. could you tell me what that new enalty is for selling that gun

to a friend, selling that gun to a nonaccepted family member. what is that new penalty? mr. nadler: the penalty for selling a firearm or transferring a firearm without a ackground chk is up to a year. wood wood misdemeanor. i thank you both. mr. mcgovern: mr. perlmutter. mr. perlmutter: gentlemen, thank you for your testimony today. i serve on the gun violence task force being put together and i can say that we beg for hearings on universal back grouped checks for eight years. we actually held a hearing ourselves because we couldn't get anybody to take it up. so i appreciate mr. nadler, the judiciary committee's

willingness to take up back grouped checks. and i want this to be a universal back grouped check. so unlike mr. woodal, i want it to cover as many people as possible and those individuals who don't have anything to hide. and take advantage that you did fix nics. and we have more available information. i want to be able to use that. and this bill allows that and those people who have no issues, no felonies, no severe mental illness, fine. they are going to be able to have a gun transfer, no problem. those individuals for whatever reason that are picked up by the nics system, we are going to slow it down. and in my opinion and after colorado, we faced a lot of gun violence. not so much the day-to-day stuff

but the mass shootings. and i support this. i think you are being reasonable in the exceptions that have been allowed so far and i hope to move this thing forward. mr. mcgovern: mr. burgess. mr. burgess: thank you, mr. chairman. thank our witnesses for being here today. just on the issue of the process . a little less than two years ago, we had a committee hearing in our energy and commerce committee dealing with health care. people were really excited about it. we had a lot of amendments offered and we went straight through some 29 hours, at the same time the ways and means committee went through 18-20 hours in the markup. my former colleague, ralph hall,

ralled to me that the markup of the clean air act took eight months. so it's truly important public policy. it can take longer than a day's work. oftentimes we don't have that process in the committee. we are bound where the rest of e congress is -- if we short kirkt it the rett of the circuited. short let me ask a question, you introduced a bill that creates a fusion center focused on preventing violence through

proactive information sharing. was that something you thought of offering as an amendment to this bill? >> we have and offered several things in committee. but i want to talk about that. being an issue, the ones that are forgotten about this, what we see in chicago, atlanta, some of our cities. the issue though is not the laws hat are there that was [indiscernible] . mr. collins: federal law bans firearm of it already is against the law to for anyone with an f.f.l. from acquiring a gun against their state of residence. against the law from acquiring a rifle or shotgun outside of their state of residence. anyone transferring a handgun --

these are already against the law. an example is that you would see is just in chicago alone where we had a lot of instances, what you discussed. the ones or twos or even the others -- the state saw 506 murders in twelve. i agree completely that there's a problem here that we need to look at. my concern is, with this bill, especially the way we had our hearings and others, and it's been in many times, and i understand the concern here. from all of our partners here. is mass violence. but in this bill would have not stopped any of the major mass violence when he testimony about or any that we have seen from columbine, you know, back to parkland. it would not have -- on any of these we have looked at. what we're looking at on that is a fusion center why would have made sure that the signs

that were missed were actually caught it. would take into account illegal street sales, it strengthens the penalty for burglary and robbery for federal firearms licensees on the retail store. it also goes into prosecuting violent crime and clarifying that -- which is a clarification on 18 u.s.c. 924 of the law enforcement can apply the statute for those intended to prosecute or deter violent crime. these are the kind of things that actually try to get back at what actually does work. and actually what we have seen the prosecution -- and i agree with the chairman. i don't think we're that much more mentally ill. i think the problem is in many of these areas we don't see these crimes prosecuted. and we offered an amendment that was voted down and hopefully they'll be made in order here, it's illegal, if you try to buy a firearm illegally, you're supposed to have that reported. we've seen it from even illegal immigration status as a part of this, along with other issues that we have.

these are voted down. the issue, though, that we have here, and going back to something that the chairman had mentioned, and i understand the concern on doing a background check. it's not just the inconvenience which is -- for someone who owns many firearms and has went through that and have a concealed carry permit myself, it's not an issue of the background inconvenience. the bill actually has in here -- and there's some discussion about this as the cap on this -- the not a problem in north georgia. i've got 14 firearms dealers in my -- i mean, i can't shake a stick at them in my area. you either got baptist churches or banks or firearms dealers. so it doesn't matter if one is going to charge a lot, i'll go to the other one. but in places that are rural like colorado, north dakota, alabama -- alaska, even washington, d.c., where there's one federally firearms license dealer, that's a mo no -- monopoly and they can charge whatever they want to charge on this. when you get into states or maybe where it's not as popular to have firearms, the question becomes, what could happen

there? pressure brought by others for half this amount. at that point in time it keems it out of folks who can't afford -- they maybe could afford the gun, maybe that's a possibility. but then going for the snake step, could not -- again, and i would love to talk with mr. tonko. we eseach other almost every morning anyway. this is a bill that hits to the law that's not being enforced. judge, i think you probably saw that on the bench. there's just not enforced because they're hard. because the law that is on the books to enforce is deaf -- difficult. but they're on books and my question actually becomes, and thanks question where when we have the hearing, it said it will save at the end of the day, the police chief from houston made a comment, it came i think to the help of the committee and it was actually a good comment. he said, if it will just save one. i can't disagree with that. but my concern is, would it put others in danger? and that was the flip side of this. by some of the concerns of the cost -- some of the concerns

that were going through here would. it put someone in zanger? a domestic violence victim, i could not let them borrow a gun. if we knew it, there's other issues when we talk about imminent. if you think something you're going to deal with a health risk, i could give my firearms to my neighbor and that wouldn't constitute a transfer and wouldn't have to go through a background check. but what does imminent mean? are we going again to trust the courts in this? this is why a hearing, even if it was seven or eight hours long or 10 hours long needed to be had. i want to find a fix for this. my father's a state trooper. i'm from a law enforcement background. but we're not seeing this stuff actually prosecuted. my question then becomes, if it will save one, great. but if we put another law on the books and it's the lady who was a very good witness from the foundation, she said when asked about this, how would you prosecute it, the answer came back, basically was if -- and i go back and read the transcript, i don't have -- but what she said is, when a crime

is committed, then we know there's not a transfer made. that's the problem we're dealing with here. because without some of the other issues in the bill itself, there's no way to actually follow up on this. and i appreciate the work being done. i just think that stuff like this, what i'm trying to do, the fusion -- [inaudible] -- and also putting the resources to actually prosecute this is a better way to go about it. bill plaschke chairman adler, let me -- mr. bilirakis: -- mr. burgess: chairman alder, the fusion, do you think that's something that would be helpful? to have a fusion center like the national counterterrorism center? mr. adler: it might be. i haven't studied it. we can take a look at it. but again, they're not exclusive. they're not mutually exclusive. to argue against the bill that will clearly save lives, a bill that research has shown that state laws requiring background checks for all handgun sales by point of sale and/or permit are

associated with 48% lower rates of gun trafficking in cities and 29% lower rates of gun trafficking across state lines. nod nod -- mr. nadler: we ought to pass this bill and look at other things. this bill will not solve all problems. it's a mild bill. it will not -- i mean, if i had my -- i would ban assault rifles and magazines, mr. mr. collins' idea is a good idea too, take a look at, that but we ought to start. this is a bill that has 90% support of the american people. that's the bill before us. if there are other bills too, we'll look at them. ms. collins: can i add stog that, though. the chairman -- can i add something to that, though. the chairman has granted. but some of the states with the most restrictive gun laws on the books have some of the highest gun violence crimes. granted, it's been pointed out, some of that is because they've bought it from out of state or -- that's illegal already. again, it's a concern. i understand the chairman's passion and i understand the need. we've had hearings on this.

i think there's -- this is the difference we have in this is finding actually solutions that work. mr. burgess: so why aren't the prosecutions happening? ms. collins: i think -- you want to try, mr. chairman? mr. nadler: i think some prosecutions are happening but -- mr. burgess: let me just expand upon that. o.i.g. report from a couple of ears ago, not too many years ago, in the last administration, but of people that were known to have lied on background check, a number of rosecutions of that subset was infinitesimal. it was startlingly small. so if we pass this law and it were to be signed by the president, which i don't think will happen, how does that change? mr. nadler: well, i think we would agree that there ought to be more prosecutions. if the numbers are as small as

you say, there's certainly going to be more prosecutions. i would point out that appropriations for the a.t.f. have gone down. mr. burgess: and yet, if i may just reclaim my time for a moment, the availability of funding through the fix nix bill did in fact increase some of those grants. mr. nadler: it increased somewhat but the fact is there's much too small -- you know, the prosecutors have a lot of things to do. maybe the sort of -- these things arguably ought to be higher priority on their list. but we have not properly funded the a.t.f. we ought to properly fund the a.t.f. and i would certainly agree that there ought to be more prosecutions. that's a separate question as to why there aren't. but again, that doesn't argue against commonsense improvements to the law such as this bill. mr. burgess: let me say if i may. mr. cole and i have this

discussion all the time. you are the authorizing committee. you tell them what to appropriate in a perfect world as authorizers -- world, as wugget risers we should give our instruction -- authorizers we should give our instruction to the appropriators. ms. collins: my bill does. that authorizes 50 more folks on gun crimes itself. the other issue is, and part of this is -- i don't want to say desensitized, but we have to say that former vice president joe biden actually said probably some of these don't get prosecuted because they're viewed as paperwork crimes. they're viewed as paper crimes. not actually that you're testing to something. i think sometimes we don't put it a high enough priority on the list. but these are the things that do effect when they're applied illegally and you're trying to get it around a system. it then pushes it to the other market, which is going to be even more difficult. but i think these are the kind of things that you do put resources and time and effort into as get forward. i appreciate the chairman's concern. i just think we're just not catching the whole process here.

mr. nadler: well, we're not catching the whole process. this bill is a partial bill. i certainly am open to -- i mean, remember we've been -- i've been chairman of this committee, chairman for a month and a half or something like that, and maybe we need greater appropriations and maybe we sudden have more enforcement. i'm certainly open to looking at that. but it's not an argument against this bill. it is very frustrating always to hear that we shouldn't do things that we obviously ought to do because the solution is better enforcement of existing laws. part of the solution may be better enforcement of existing laws. and maybe appropriations should be changed appropriately. but it's not an argument against closing huge loopholes in the law. , i forget know that the statistic, it was in my opening statement, but we know that a large percentage of people who are applying for guns fail the background check.

that means that they shouldn't get guns. and that also means presumably that if people who are buying guns through a gun dealer fail a background check, people buying guns online or at a gun show are probably going to also be failing the background check at a more or less similar ratio which means a lot of people who shouldn't get guns are getting guns. whether we should enforce existing law more effectively or not is a different question. it doesn't bear on the fact that -- mr. burgess: i fundamentally -- reclaiming my time, first of all. because i know we've gone on long. i disagree that it's fundamentally a different question. if we're going to pass laws and not care about the enforcement, then what in the world are we doing? and you have that -- i don't know all the details about the shooting in aurora. but the gentleman had a felony conviction for aggravated assault in a different state. he applied for and was given permission to purchase a gun and it was only when he went

back and said, i really would like to get a concealed carry permit that they submitted his fingerprints and found, oh, my gosh, you're not own he will -- even eligible to on the darn gun, please bring it back to us, and he never did. next time you hear from him is he committed this terrible atrocity. i submit that the enforcement does matter and if we're going pass laws, we ought to be concerned about that. let me just stress one other thing. because i do have constituents complain that we do stuff that restricts their rights and at the same time once the federal government is the problem, we seem uninterested. i have here an excerpt from marjory stoneman douglas high school public safety commission, the support or report submitted to the governor, speaker of the house of representatives, senate, president of florida, and i'll just concert -- it was a lengthy report. i encourage people to read it

because it's very rerealing. chapter eight, the summary of the shooter's life and contacts prior to february 14, 2018, prior information received by the f.b.i. regarding the shooter's behavior, it was widely reported and confirmed by the federal bureau of investigation, soon after the shooting, that the f.b.i. had previously received tips concerning the individual who did the shooting. first was received on the f.b.i. public access line on september 25, 2017. from someone in mississippi. the person was unknown to the shooter, reported a video on youtube stating, quote, i'm going to be the next school shooter, closed quote, made by a user identified as nikolas cruz. the information was forwarded to the mississippi f.b.i. office for follow-up. and the tipster was interviewed.

however, it was determined there was not enough information to positively identify the poster of the video and the tip was closed on october 11, 2017. effort to serve legal process on youtube or google that could have identified the poster were not made. the second call came to the public access line january 5, 2018, by a friend of the cruz family, marry hammel. ms. hammel had become increasingly concerned about postings cruz was making on instagram and feared he would actually follow through on threats to harm others by perpetrating a school shooting. during the 13-minute phone call hammel provided details of cruz's gun purchases, animal mutations, escalating temper, and cruz's instagram user names. the names, addresses and phone numbers for the family were also provided which was the residence where cruz was

residing at the time due to the death of his mother. after some initial searches by the call taker, the tip was closed after it was labeled as having no lead value. it is not clear at this time exactly why the lead was labeled as having no value and closed without being forwarded to the f.b.i. for further evaluation. it is this type of information that is out in the public domain, i took this off of a google search, it is this type of information that's out in the public domain that is so frustrating to the public. they say us saying you cannot have full access to your second amendment rights and yet the federal agencies, when failure is up and down the line in this situation, but the federal agency that's responsible for protecting the public and enforcing the law simply could not be bothered to follow through. thank you, mr. chairman. i'll yield back my time. do i want to -- if i could insert this for the record.

mr. mcgovern: without objection. ms. scanlon: thank you. mr. mcgovern: make sure your mic is on. ms. scanlon: i know there's been a suggestion this bill has been rushed but from my constituents' perspective, it's long overdue. two weeks ago in a six-day period, there were six shootings in my district. four people died, two were critically injured. the oldest was 28. the rest were 16 years old, 17 years old and 18 years old. my constituents saying, why aren't you doing something? and i'm glad to know that we share a heritage of families who own guns and hunt because i grew up in that family too. but it was responsible gun ownership. you know what, i've got some cousins that i want a background check run on. it really is not that big a burden. i think we really need to take this step forward. i agree with chairman nadler that this isn't the bill that i would write, the one i would

write would be more restrictive. but we have to comploexro miles. that's what we're here -- compromise. that's what we're here to do. there are things in this bill that would not be my first choice, but i certainly don't see any second amendment restrictions. with respect to mr. clyburn's bill, h.r. 1112, i just want to read a quick thing from an article in the "wall street journal" from last week, february 19. the article is entitled, armed and dangerous, how the a.t.f. retrieves guns from banned buyers. mr. chair, can i enter this article into the record? mr. mcgovern: without objection. ms. scanlon: just quickly. the article says, current and former federal officials say the three-daytime limit doesn't give f.b.i. examiners enough time to perform a thorough record search. that is the single most influential fact that are could be changed without affecting the whole integrity of the process. said steven morris, the former f.b.i. assistant director who oversaw the background check process. so our own federal officials are saying they need these

tools. so, you know, i'm looking forward to passing both h.r. 8 and h.r. 1112. and to working in a bipartisan manner on many of the things that mr. collins has suggested, looking at mass shootings, we're hearing from some of the other gentlemen here that they want to work on better funding for a.t.f. and better enforcement. i'd love to work on all of those things. so thank you. i yield back. mr. mcgovern: thank you. i ask unanimous consent to insert into the record a statement from the giffords foundation, 50 state analysis shows lower rate of gun deaths in states with strong gun laws. then also insert into the record an article that appeared on fox which i'll share with my colleagues entitled i looked for a state that's taking gun violence seriously, then i found massachusetts. and it talks about how massachusetts offers a model for dealing with gun violence that the rest of the country should follow. endied -- indeed massachusetts is one of the lowest gun

violence rates of any state in the country. i yield to ms. shalala. ms. shalala: thank you very much, mr. chairman. i'll be brief. i also come from a family of gun owners. some of which -- whom live in north dakota. and they're hunters. and we see this bill as a prevention bill. i worked on the brady bill early in my career. and this closes many of the loopholes that we weren't able to close at that time. in my state, florida, and particularly in south florida, closing loopholes like gun shows and internet sales are absolutely critical. this is an important bill, it's a promise i made to those young people from parkland that i would do everything i could to support. i believe that i can support this bill as well as believing in the second amendment.

but more than anything else, it's a bill about prevention. and if it prevents one death, it's worth it to me. because of my conversations with those young people and their parents and the other children in my community that have been killed by guns, that were purchased because of the loopholes that exist before. so i strongly support this bill. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. mr. mcgovern: thank you very much. i want to thank both of you for being here. and appreciate the time you spent with us. you're now free to go. [laughter] it wasn't quite 11 hours. >> [inaudible] mr. mcgovern: i'd like to call for our next panel, mr. gianforte, mr. armstrong and mr. cline. why don't you pull up to -- yeah. you'll be one panel here.

mr. thompson, do you want to speak or are you -- you're -- ok. let the record reflect that mr. thompson from california is here. author of h.r. 8. ust pull up another chair. >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you regarding amendment to h.r. 8. our communities face tragic instances of mass violence. my wife, susan, and i hold the victims of violence and their families in our prayers. we need to work together to combat all forms of violence. h.r. 8 seeks to be a solution. i appreciate that. i don't believe it solves anything, however. our country already has strong background checks and transfer guidelines. this bill's wide scope puts law-abiding citizens in the crosshairs. simply put, this is a bill that's an irresponsible attempt

to criminalize lawful gun owners. h.r. 8 is another example of a washington-knows-best approach that ignores the realities that folks in our rural communities face. my amendment allows farmers and ranchers to transfer firearms to their employees or neighbors for the purposes of ranch activities. these activities include pest and predator control, hunting, target practice, and firearm safety courses. genie godula my -- mr. gianforte: my constituents own and operate ranches across montana. in nean -- in many of these counties we have more cattle than we have people. many of these ranchers employ ranch hands to help run these ranches. and they often have neighbors help them to pitch in with chors. most trucks on -- chore. most trucks on these ranches have firearms that are owned by the rancher. like so many ranchers and farmers throughout montana, and across our country, they equip their trucks with firearms so

that workers can quickly and effectively address the constant threat of pests and predators. if an employee of the ranch drives a truck equipped with a consider r. 8 would this activity an illegal firearm transfer. the bill is written -- as written requires employees or neighbors just helping out to undergo a background check and paired with a three-day waiting period. predators and -- like coyotes and wolves don't care about a three-day background check. when they're hunting, their next meal at the expense of the ranchers' livelihood. it's absurd to require a background check on every transfer of a firearm between a ranch owner and a neighbor or a ranchhand. this bill is another example of washington-knows-best approach that fails to consider our rural communities.

it targets law-abiding gun owners while failing to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. my amendment is a commonsense clarification that protects our montana way of life and preserves our farmers and ranchers' second amendment rights. i thank you, mr. chairman, for letting me testify. again for this opportunity to speak. and i ask that you make this amendment in order. mr. mcgovern: thank you very much. mr. armstrong. make sure your mic's on there. arm arm it's on -- mr. armstrong: it's on. my amendment is essentially the same as mr. gianforte's. i haven't seen his. but it's the same thing. i don't understand how we would have hunting, fishing and trapping excluded under an exemption and not farming and ranching. particularly where we are at. we live in these rural areas. you're often hundreds of miles away from an f.f.l. and the types of activities that occur in these rural communities are not the problems that h.r. 8 is trying to solve.

i'm new here. we've had these debates, we just listened to it here. we had for 12 hours on the committee. i will be 100% honest, i swonet support this bill in any form -- i won't support this bill in any form. however do i think it's incredibly important to deal with the realities that happen and i think there's some things that should be pointed out for a temporary -- one, the transfer for farming and ranching would be the temporary transfer, the same as hunting and fishing. two, you can still continue to prosecute it if it's not legitimately being used for those things. then, with that, because i know it's getting late and we're going brief into that, i would also point out, wherever it is and however you can do it, outside of how you think this bill should go, somebody should really, really look at the exemptions in d.n.f. because the way they are written -- this becomes a criminal penalty of which you can get prosecuted under. to different degrees, it essential -- federalizes game and fish law across the entire country and holds culpability

for potential future conduct and, d, while i -- the exemption in d is intended, i think, primarily for domestic violence victims or those times of issues, the way it is written, -- types of issues, the way it is written, it is so narrowly tailored, i can't imagine how it would be used in the real world. to give you an example of that. i was back at home in district and i went to speak at my former law school and knowing full well that the room would be prettyly evenly split between people who like me and don't like me, i thought why give them a legal test instead of a political test. so i read the exemption to d and we said -- spent a half hour discussing all of the different ways in which civil liability or criminal liability could or could not occur. that's not good code writing and it should be cleaned up. with that, i yield. mr. mcgovern: thank you very much. mr. cline. mr. cline: mr. chairman, i'm sure all of mr. armstrong's constituents love him, a 50/50 split is never a good estimate. mr. armstrong: in fairness, they're law students and not all my constituents.

mr. cline: mr. chairman, thank you for the opportunity. before we move on h.r. 8 to expand what is current law regarding background checks, we must ensure that the existing laws are being enforced. my amendment would simply require existing law to be enforced by asking the attorney general to report to i.c.e. the individual illegally aliens who haven been -- been denied a -- have been denied a firearm transfer. f.b.i. reported last month that the background check system had nearly eight million people listed as illegal unlawful aliens. additionaly, illegal aliens rankedment in one prohibited category in the f.b.i.'s nix indecease. 3,300 aliens were denied a firearm in 2017. this means 3,300 criminals were effectively allowed to stay in the united states when i.c.e. vud she been alerted about their criminal acts. h.r. 8 does not do anything to prevent crime and i encourage my colleagues to start focusing

on the real threats to our nation and moving forward with legislation that protects the american people by stop stopping the violent gang members and drugs flooding you are a oi-- flooding across our southern border. this will only limit the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. congress should focus on punishing the criminals who are a danger to our society and my amendment would go a long way toward accomplishing that. thank you and i ask that my amendment be made in order. mr. mcgovern: thank you very much -- >> i just want to point out that congressman hurd from texas also asked to join the farming and ranching exemption. so we're dealing with montana, north dakota and texas. mr. mcgovern: the record will reflect that. thank you for your testimony. i appreciate you waiting. anybody on our side have questions or comments? mr. cole, anyone on this side? mr. woodall does. woody paige i wanted to ask mr. -- woody paige -- mr. woodall: i wanted to ask if this was offered in committee. >> i offered a broader amendment in committee which

was not send. this is a more narrowly tailored one just adding farming and ranching to the exemptions. mr. mcgovern: and mr. burgess. mr. burgess: thank you, mr. chairman. i think these are all wonderful amendments and it really is indicative of the process that should be followed. i think all of the amendments should be made in order and debated fully on the floor. i yield back. mr. mcgovern: any other questions? no questions? we're all set. thank you very much for being here. nybody else want to testify? glad you made it in. mrs. lesko: thank you, mr. chair. i came right from the airplane. mr. mcgovern: we held the hearing open just for you. mrs. lesko: oh, you're so sweet. thank you. are we at a point where i'm going to talk about my amendment? mr. mcgovern: yes. mrs. lesko: awesome. thank you very much. thank you, mr. chair. and members. i ask that you please consider the lesko amendment, number one. basically what it does is give

an exemption for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault who have an order of protection issued by the court. and the reason that i think this is important is because i think it's fair for -- and just for these victims to be able to defend themselves against their perpetrator. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] >> the house is now gaveling back in, but the house rules committee meet will continue live on c-span3. and by h.r. 539 and h.r. 276 the yeas and nays and geeg to the speaker's approval of the jourm if ordered. the first electronic vote will -minute cted as a 15 vote. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 e unfinished business is a vote on the motion of the th