>> the re-authorization of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. the measure itself has not even yet cleared the rules committee with some growing opposition both on the republican side as they are actively whipping against the bill. also "politico" reporting that the number of democratic progressive members are against the bill. john bresnahan of "politico" says, he tweets the speaker,

speaker pelosi, says the house is still moving forward on a fisa vote despite republican requests to pull the bill. quoting pelosi, we'll act upon it today one way or another. we'll have live coverage when they do here on c-span. live coverage also a very historic day when they do vote hey'll vote by --. expressed my republican leadership this morning in their morning news conference outside the u.s. capitol. we'll show that to you again we'll have the house live when they gavel back in here on -span. mr. mccarthy: we thank you for coming.

across this country we are seeing communities working towards opening up safely. in california, we are opening up churches, we are opening hair salons, even today in america we are going to send astronauts back into space. the only place that hasn't been opening is here on the capitol inside the house. we know we have a responsibility that is essential that congress does its work. today for more than 231 years never have we seen a proxy vote on the floor of the house. this challenges the constitution only to protect and empower a speaker. it violates the constitution, a dereliction of duty by its members. we look at the history of america through yellow fever of 1793, the civil war, the burning of this capitol during the war of 1812, the spanish flu of 1918. and even 9/11. congress has never flinched from its constitutional duty to uphold and assemble inside this

body. but today is different. as of right now this morning 71 democrats have written to the house clerk to have their vote by another member. the last i checked one member in this body on the democratic side will vote for five different states. just in 24 scheme, if i look to the democrats who are than half of them, 27 democrats, last i checked, filed to vote by proxy. that means 19 million people in california will not have a voice, will be lent to somebody else. across the country looking at more than 71, that would be 48 million people, constituents. these are the constituents that members of congress believe that they would uphold their voice have passed the toed side. when you look at the heroes act, it was only 12 democrats that did that show. now 71. inside what pelosi wanted to put forward on a proxy she said, only if you physically cannot come to the capitol to do your

work. the democrats continue to fail in their leadership. the constitution is very clear about this. the founders believed we should assemble. if the democrats are successful in allowing a proxy vote to make their own rules, what stops them from making a rule that only certain people can vote or certain members cannot have a full vote, a half vote? nothing. yes, the house can make the rules but they could in the make something different than the constitution says. it is very clear in the constitution from article 1, all through, that the house is upposed to assemble. it will be interesting today even even if they bring the fisa bill and move rule, there will be more republicans on the floor voting in person than there are democrats.

whatever the democrats propose to bring up cannot become law. because it is unconstitutional. this is why i stand with the members behind me and constituents across this country in upholding the constitution. , actly -- exactly what we said we should do. the founders believed we should assemble and work just as we have done through every challenge this country had. while other states open up, pelosi continues to try -- it is essential that congress continues to meet and that's why we'll move forward with the lawsuit. to uphold for the constituents across this country. turn it over to whip scalise.

scalise: the president has been getting different protocols to shot c.d.c. you can see over 36 states have already reopened entering into phase one and done it in a smartway. this has caused to our economy and the importance of getting that back up and running. we've also seen the health consequences of not having people be able to get out and go back to their doctor. deaths that are up. in my own home parish, we've seen over 40% increase in non-covid related deaths from this year compared to last year, taking a six-week period, because people aren't going out and seeing if they have chest pains, they're not going to the doctor and they're dying in their houses of heart attacks. children aren't being immunized

and we're seeing reports now, medical studies that show we could have a wide outbreak of things like measles that could kill a lot of children that otherwise would have been able to get those shots. so there is a cost and a consequence. it's why we need to safely reopen. it's why so many states have shown they can do it. but congress ought to be leading the country and showing how to safely reopen. we shouldn't be the last to reopen and show up and do our job. we should be the first. and we've been able to have votes on the house floor successfully and safely. in the last few weeks, we had votes with over 380 members here, present and voting before speaker pelosi put in this unconstitutional proxy voting scheme. and so when you think about this, the idea that today on the house floor, someone could be sitting in the state of california and be registered as voting present on the house floor because someone else pushed the present button for them. there was a great article written, voting present by proxy

is a political oxymoron. this is not constitutional. the constitution makes it clear we have to have a majority of members present for a quorum to do business. and then you look at the fisa bill, and we just formally announced a whip against it because, number one, it's not going to become law. number two, there are still so many questions that need to be answered about real abuses that happen in the fisa system. i have been a strong supporter of the fisa court and its ability to properly help maintain the national security of our country. but the fisa process was abused. and those people who abused it haven't yet been held accountable. all of the facts haven't come out on what we know happened with the fisa court, and that needs to happen to reinstitute the credibility of that important program for our national security. so i would urge the democrats to pull that bill because even if it were to pass-- and, again, think about this proxy voting which is constitutionally challenged-- if this vote were

to pass, it would only vote-- it would only pass with proxy votes. meaning the constitutionality of this program would be questioned for a program that's already got its own taint on it. so we need to work together to help reopen the country, to show america that congress is here working for the american people. and it's time for that to happen. speaker pelosi needs to start insisting that all of her members show up to work here at the capitol, doing it safely, and working to do things like holding china accountable. why is it that nancy pelosi will not spend time on the house floor holding china accountable for their role in this? that's something they are going to have to answer for but we're going to keep pushing for those kind of reforms. with that i yield to our conference chair, liz cheney. ms. cheney: thank you, steve. thank you very much. you know, we're in the midst of a grave national public health and economic crisis, and as members of congress, we have an

obligation to ensure that congress can operate. now, there are different views and perspectives up here in terms of remote voting. we tried very hard to work in a bipartisan fashion. we've all tried to reach across the aisle and work with our counterparts on the democratic side to help to come up with ways that congress can operate. to help them come up with ways we can fulfill the constitution requirement that we e present. now, in my own view, being present doesn't necessarily --i think remote operations are possible. but that's not the path democrats have gone down. what the democrats have done, instead of working with us, is use this crisis to try to gain partisan benefits. what the democrats have done counter to their own report, you know, a number of us, including ranking member of the rules committee, mr. cole, and the leader and whip, a number of us have worked closely with the democrats to try to say, listen,

let's come up with ways, as we did after 9/11, that we can operate in the middle of a pandemic. and let's also look for ways to protect us in the future. we know there will be future crises and we know we've got to come up with ways we can operate in the future. there may be circumstances when we cannot assemble at the capitol. and we may need to look at things voting remotely. instead of going down that path, despite the fact that we have tried to work together,after the speaker of the house delayed for weeks and weeks, refuse to even address the issue, she then commissioned a report. the report came up with some interesting suggestions. there were some good suggestions in the report. the report also noted that proxy voting was likely unconstitutional. the democrats' own report. so instead of going down the path of saying how can we do this together, the democrats adopted a completely partisan scheme and they have done it in a way that absolutely infringes on the rights of the minority and infringes on the constitution.

and so we today, it's a sad day that we have got to be to the position where we're bringing suit against the speaker, bringing suit against the democrats, in order to prevent them from pushing this proxy vote through. it's important to mention that one of the first items on which they are planning to use this proxy vote is an item that deals directly with the national security of this nation. now, i'm hopeful the leader and the whip have asked that they pull that fisa vote. fisa is a crucially important set of authorities and it's a set of authorities that was abused. we have to make sure we deal with the abuse and address the abuse but we should not push through a bill which in my view would fundamentally weaken our ability to keep the nation safe because of the amendments that have been added to that bill and we shouldn't do that with proxy vote. imagine that. you got millions of americans across this country who will not be represented because their members have decided to use a proxy and we're going to pass a bill that's going to

fundamentally harm the security of the nation if the democrats continue down that path. now, that's not an abuse of their constitutional authority and power, i can't imagine what is. so i urge the democrats to pull that bill, and i also urge them to rescind this rule that allows proxy voting. there are ways that we can work together, as i said, many of us have been public about wanting to do that. this is not a time for partisanship. it's not a time to try to take partisan advantage of the crisis. with that i'd like to turn things over to my colleague, mr. roy. mr. roy: i want to thank the leader and the whip for their efforts in bringing us together here to stand up for the constitution. as a former prosecutor, attorney general in texas, i worked on these cases in the past and it's important we stand up for the constitution but it's also personal. my dad is a survivor of polio.

contracted the virus in 1949 and still deals with those effects today. i am a cancer survivor. we have one plaintiff on our side who is battling cancer right now and didn't get to vote on this proxy measure but believes it's important for us to stand up and defend the constitution. and i think that's really at stake right here. and so if you think about the founding fathers and what occurred, the leader referenced what happened with respect to philadelphia and yellow fever. there were 5,000 deaths out of 50,000 people living in philadelphia in 1793. 10% of the population. that would be the equivalent today of 170,000 or so people losing their lives. and that's where the congress is supposed to meet. you go look at a letter from october 24 of 1793 that james madison wrote to president washington, he outlines the concerns about how congress should meet. where we should meet. walks through the consternation of following the constitution to ensure that congress does its job. i would encourage you to look at that letter. the founders struggled with these issues. that's why it's important we

stand up today. we cannot delegate away that which our constituents have delegated to us, under the constitution. we cannot hand that to another member. much less hand it to 10 other members. that's an extraordinary change in our constitutional system of government. and i would just point out, year ago this last sunday, i walked onto the floor of the house and i objected to $19.5 billion passing by unanimous consent. why? you guys wrote stories that it was about trying to object to the funding. but the truth is, it was about process. it was about making sure our rights are protected so we can have a vote, a roll call vote. fast forward to march of this last year, what happened? we had a member of this body who demanded we have a quorum and then demanded we actually have a roll call vote. the constitution provides that you have to have a fifth of the body agree and the body didn't have a fifth that agreed so we didn't have a roll call vote. that's the constitution working. that's what we're up here trying to defend and protect, to make

sure we protect our ability to represent our constituents instead of undermining the structure of the government. i want to thank chuck cooper who is willing to take on this case with the excellence he's known for. he's one of the most brilliant legal minds in the country. i'll look forward to it moving through the system. i'll pass it off to mr. johnson. mr. johnson: hey, thank y'all for being here. 20 years before i got to congress i litigated constitutional law cases in federal courts around the country. i had some difficult cases on occasion. this is a really easy one. i brought along a little visual aid here for my democrat colleagues. i want them to take a look at the manual that each of us gets each congress. it has our name on the front here. and it has all the rules and all the procedural goings on in the house and published, but it's proceeded by the united states constitution. i know one of them don't carry it around in their lapel pocket. i would refer them to the actual language of the

constitution. it's been said this lawsuit and this effort is about politics. this is about the constitution itself. let me read you three excerpts. you just have to look at article 1, the first article of the constitution, and look at section 4. it says congress shall assemble at least once in every year and such meeting shall be on the first monday in december. now, we know that one-- that provision was superseded by the 20th amendment in 1933. but they echoed and adopted that same language. you flip over to article 1, section 5, says a majority of each house shall constitute a quorum to do business. and a smaller number may sad journ from day fo day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members under such penalties as each house may provide. flip over to the next section 6. senators and representatives shall be privilege from arrest in attendance of their session in the respective houses.

this is in the 1780's when the constitution was drafted and rat feud. -- ratified. 100 years later the supreme court cited, 1892, the supreme court said the constitution requires, quote, the presence of a majority. and when that majority is present the power of the house arise. this is simple for folks back home. we have the greatest, most powerful, most free nation in the history of the world. we celebrate that on memorial day, as we all did this last weekend. those who have given their lives to preserve that, to preserve this constitution. but only 243 years into it, we have to remember we are a young country. we are still a grand experiment in the ideas of liberties and self-governance. our constitution that is based upon identity dethat we have a government of, by, and for the people, based on particular foundations and one of them is important. the members that are elected, the representatives who are elected to represent all the people throughout the country will come together physically and arm wrestle over public policy. you have very different ideas, very different principles,

philosophies that's represented. that's kind of the point. but the idea is we would all get together and work together to find consensus to move the ball forward for the most people. that's the premise of our constitution. that's the premise of our republic. you can't have a republic operate any other way. we don't have a king who is a sovereign. the people are the sovereign. that's why meeting together and assembling and having a physical presence is all about. you can't do that by video. you certainly can't do it by proxy. so that's what this is about. i tell you, i represent myself in this lawsuit, all of us are signed on as plaintiffs. we also have constituents. i talked to my constituent who signed on as a plaintiff last night, lorene spratt, she's deeply upset about this. she's a patriot. she votes in every election. she is afraid that our votes are watered-down and our constitution is being violated and she has the right to be heard. i think it goes to the supreme court very quickly and the answer is pretty simple in the book that we defer to our -- refer our colleagues to. i'll defer back to the majority

leader, future majority leader, evin mccarthy. mr. mccarthy: open it up to questions. reporter: do you have reaction to leader hoyer's remarks that the g.o.p. senate is already voting, basically proxy voting with unanimous consent, get your reaction to that? mr. mccarthy: no. anybody can object in here. what we're finding is when you have 71 democrats put a vote to somebody else, their constituents aren't being heard. they don't know what's coming up. they are not participating in it. it's unconstitutional. yes, sir. reporter: what's the practical effect of the lawsuit? you are not going to stop the proxy vote happening today. what do you see -- mr. mccarthy: it's playing a baseball game in a protest. at the end of the game we'll have to figure out who's right. whatever the democrats move forward, probably will never become uphold to become law. it's a question whether the senate will take it up, if you listen to leader mcconnell. because he questions even the

constitutionality of what we're going forward. let me give you one example. what if we have a bill come forward and in the process, what speaker pelosi puts in this proxy, that members have to sign over and 20 people can have all the power, because they can all hold 10 proxies and they have to pretell you how they're going to vote, what if an amendment is changed, what if a motion to recommit comes up? how can that person that already gave a letter that is supposed to be across the desk able to vote for the other? in this country, we believe trees don't vote. people vote. right? so it's equal every 10 years in a census, the constituents lone their power to that individual for two years to hold she or he accountable. well, that person just lent it to somebody else. 19 million people in california believe they have a member of congress that they're going to be able to uphold. how they-- and accountable what they did. no. they gave that vote to somebody else.

somebody from another state, somebody from another district. that goes clearly against the process and the constitution what says we're able to do. yes. reporter: follow-up on that and ask another question. is it your view that anything that passed under proxy would be unconstitutional? mr. mccarthy: yes. reporter: as a follow-up, can you clarify the-- what you said about fisa. is it your view it isn't pass until something is fixed itself? or unspecified investigations are completed. you're satisfied the 2016 related investigations are done to -- mr. mccarthy: i think there is a combination of things why fisa should take a pause. just, for instance, i'm interested in making law. i'm interested in making sure the fisa court has reform and able to sustain itself. that it's looking at foreigners, not americans. well, in moving forward today, it won't be signed into law. the president has gets. -- questions, the attorney general has questions. the senators themselves disagree with it. in these moments of times, i

take a deep breath. let's go back, work together. when the first bill in the house passed, republicans and democrats worked together. had a majority on both sides. e able to move it forward. we should do that same thing now. if the democrats bring this bill up, they're just playing politics and this is not something to play politics with and we haven't done it all the way through. i called leader steny hoyer last night, told him i thought-- just wanted to tell him where republicans are, because we had worked very closely on this bill together, and i think we should take a deep breath, let's work through the differences, let's work with the administration,let's work with other house members and the senate and make sure we make law. since the time we passed the law in the house, there has been more information coming forward with the fisa court being used in processes it shouldn't have been on americans as well. we should get that information as well if we think we are going to reform this. yes, ma'am. reporter: just a quick change of gears in a moment. in one of your last press conferences you touted california 25 as an indication

of how republicans are going to be doing in the upcoming house races. but still historically speaking, the party that's in the minority, that just lost the minority, it's more than likely not going to take back the house. how can you account for that? mr. mccarthy: ok, let me account for that. if you want to take a fact that someone has lost the majority, we won it back in four queers last time we lost the majority. i look to, what has the majority done with it? majorities aren't given. majorities are earned. first of all, let's see what they've done. they wasted their time. they promised the american public they would be different. they said they would act different. well, they spent a year and a half investigating something even their own intelligent committee knew was a lie. so they spent all their time on impeachment. political. now, they change the rules, challenged the constitution just to empower a speaker. which i don't think the american public wants. they have taken the voice away from their constituents and has given it to somebody else.

i think all those reasons is why they should not be given the power to govern again, because they wasted it and they lied to the american public. now, what are the early indications? if you want to go with historical facts, they give you many historical facts. i give you a special election each time prior was an early indication. may, 2010, special election in hawaii. people didn't think we had a chance to win. republican won. 63 democrats lost majority. same thing happened in 2018. a republican seat in pennsylvania went to a democrat, connor lamb. lo and behold, they won the majority. yeah, i think 25 is an indicator of the election coming forward. if you don't want to take that one, let's look at north carolina nine. let's look at the election was a bigger win for republicans than it was just a few short months prior. yes, i think that's an early indication. also in california 25, they changed the election law. they just won that seat by nine points less than a year and a half ago and they changed it where it was only a mail-in

ballot but they didn't hold it there. friday before the election, they put an in-person ballot. where did this put it? throughout the district? no. they put it-- their own democrats-- they were concerned democrats weren't turning out. more indication that are more democrats than republicans. it's the only seat inside congress that a republican will hold that hillary clinton carried by a majority. so if you want to go by facts, yes. it's an early indication, but elections are in november. and i think majorities are won and are not given. i'm not sure why the american people will give the democrats another majority if they lied to them and didn't follow out and carry what they promised and what did they even achieve. name me one problem they have solved since they've become a majority? you don't have to take that from a republican. you can take it from the most popular freshman in the democratic party's former chief of staff. said the exact same thing about his own party and his own leadership. yes, sir.

>> last question. reporter: do you agree with "the wall street journal" editorial board in which they basically said the president's-- his comments toward this family and joe scarborough are sort of beneath the office, beneath the dignity? mr. mccarthy: i haven't read that editorial. i wasn't here with joe scarborough. i don't know about the subject itself. i don't know the subject ell. whoever is on the phone for calling the temperature-- reporter: you brought up the fact you may be open to alternatives that would still be remote voting but wouldn't be proxy, i'm wondering if somebody can elaborate what those alternatives might be? second one was just more generally some of you are very active on twitter. the fact that twitter decided to add that addendum to two of the president's tweets, sort of doing a fact check, just your reaction? mr. mccarthy: it would be concerned of who is doing the fact check.

i think it would be pretty possible to find somebody who is nonpartisan. i think if you run a company like twitter, you probably first look at what that individual would put out on twitter themselves. i do not think somebody who would think republicans are racists, label those who are in the republican party equal to people who is in the nazi party, talk about states that are in the united states in a manner that's not appropriate simply because a republican carried it. i'm not quite sure that's the person i would have of being the individual in charge of twitter determining whether the facts are correct or not. because i think he already is biased in that opinion. i think twitter should actually change that person. liz, do you want to address the question? ms. cheney: thank you. listen, i think we all, as i mentioned, we all looked at different ways that we could operate. and in fact, there could be circumstances-- you could imagine a mass casualty attack, you can imagine any sort of a national security crisis where it might not be possible for members to assemble here in the

chamber, and so i think looking at what presence means is a legal question. i would note, however, this lawsuit does not get to that issue. this lawsuit does not get to the issue whether remote voting is constitutional. this issue in the lawsuit is proxy voting. and the point that we are making is, you know, we all have an interest in joining together in a bipartisan fashion to make sure that the people's house can operate and that the people's voice can be heard. unfortunately in this case, the democrats simply ram through a change which they themselves said in their own report was questionable constitutionally. and they rammed it through on a partisan basis in a way that absolutely takes away the voice of many of the constituents, the people who are not represented. i think with respect to the issue of the constitutionality of proxy voting, we're absolutely unified on that. i think these require deep research, study, attention to what the constitution says to what the framers intended.

also a recognition of the most important thing for this body to be able to operate. if we create a situation where the speaker of the house for weeks and weeks and weeks refuse to deal with remote voting, refuse to brings us together to operate, you create a situation where the body doesn't operate. i can't imagine anybody who has the interest of the american people at the forefront of their mind is going to think in a national crisis we ought to have only the president of the united states operating. the people's house have got to be here and we got to be working. there is no question -- mr. mccarthy: thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> house republican leadership briefing from this morning touching on a couple issues. one, their opposition to and their lawsuit against the proxy voting approved by the house a couple weeks ago. if they vote, when they vote today, it will be the first time in history that proxy voting would be used. also, the issue of the re-authorization of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. republicans are actively whipping their members against that. the president has expressed his opposition to the re-authorization. "politico" saying that now speaker pelosi and her top deputies will whip their members with a growing number of democratic progressives privately saying they would oppose the bill. the measure is sell in the rules committee. our capitol hill producer pointing out that the majority leader's office saying they are expecting a fisa floor vote

today. when that happens, when they gavel back in, we'll have live coverage here on c-span for that. in the meantime, we'll take you live to a committee hearing under way, remote hearing with members of the ways and means committee, looking at the issue of the impact of the coronavirus on communities of color. >> structurally we are in a better position than we were before. it seems toe moo, and i would like to hear from our witnesses, certainly, that as we look at this, especially having been through another crisis back during the great recession, that we found ourselves in a situation where people's 401-k'sback 101-k's. in this instance, as the doctor pointed out, listen, the health of the nation anti-health of the economy are inextricably tied and linked. we are not going to have one without the other. inasmuch as 70% of g.d.p. comes from consumer confidence.

but one thing that occurs to me, this virus has attacked the elderly specifically. amongst the elderly, minorities and women specifically, especially as all of our witnesses have testified, of people of color. it would seem to me one of the things to address this is when we come out on the other side of this we have done something that will help and assist. why not make sure that we do our job as members of congress and fix the social security program, something that hasn't been touched in 37 years, or addressed, enhanced in the last 50 years. do so in a way knowing that for example, currently, more than five million fellow americans who have paid all their quarters into social security, worked all of their lives and retired, will get