mr. connolly of virginia and misfranl of georgia.

mr. connolly, each will control 20 minutes. mr. roe: i askthat members have add and revise their remarks. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. roe: i rise today in support of h.r. 2007, ensuring v.a. employee accountability act. one of my top priorities as the new chairman of the house committee of veteran affairs to ensure the next secretary to give the tools he or she will need to swiftly and effectively poor performing employees at v.a. i believe all other needed reforms are destined to fail if we don't help them those that are trapped, do their job. mr. speaker, currently if a v.a. employee is reprimanded or admonished for their performance, all records of those administrative performance are removed from the employee personnel in three years and two years for admonishment. the removal of these personnel actions, there is no record of their poor performance or acts regardless of how many different jobs they hold in the v.a. or how long they remain a v.a. employee.

mr. connolly of virginia, mr. cummings, the ranking member out of maryland, all four have come together as original co-sponsors here in the 115th congress. i'd urge its passage and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 69. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte, seek recognition? mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on h.r. 21. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. for what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition? mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i ask general leave to call up

mr. connolly and mr. engel. the amendment like h.res. 11 objects to the u.n. security council resolution 2334 which i believe was an unfair and unsided resolution that placed undue blame upon the state of israel for the impasse on peace negotiations. like the obama administration, i'm frustrated by the lack of progress in recent years to achieving a two-state solution to the israeli-palestinian cry sifments however do i not believe the resolution passed by the security council contributes in any way to positively moving this process along. let's not mistake the fact that the palestinian government which currently includes the terrorist faction hamas, has done little to support peace negotiations. by refusing to publicly recognize israel's right to exist as a jewish state, condoning terrorist activity, in violation of the oslo acorkts the palestinians have placed roadblocks to achieving peace. let me be clear, the june going settlement activity sanctioned by the israeli government is also counterproductive to the peace process. if the israeli government wants t

mr. connolly: did you appoint an emergency manager? governor snyder: yes. mr. connolly: that means the mayor cannot exercise powers mr. your hand-picked emergency manager let him, correct? governor snyder: initially, yes. mr. connolly: master, we travel to flint and conducted a transcribing to of the last emergency manager appointed, you appointed, gerald ambroise. you appointed, not miss mccarthy. we asked if he considered the city council impotent during his tenure. his answer on the record was "absolutely." you know how many pages of edicts were issued by your appointed emergency managers in this tragic time period, governor? governor snyder: no, but let me respond to your comment. mr. connolly: hold on because let me show you. i have only five minutes. ladies and gentlemen, hold them up. these are the stacks of edicts issued by your emergency managers, not by the city council oakland. -- not by the city council of flint. do you know how many of those 8000 pages built with meaningful steps to protect the citizens of flint from lead? your appointees? governor

mr. connolly: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record at this point my statement opposing this rule because of what it does to federal employees and the rights of the elected members of this body. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. slaughter: i ask unanimous consent to insert in the record a description of the many troubling republican rules changes in h.res. 5. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. slaughter: let me continue to close, we will continue to fight as our leader said, with all the tools we have. we will not be silenced, we may not be able to do much in congress until we get to court, but we will not be silenced. we invite you to bring regular order back to this house and to bring back the value of ideas. always remember that because you shut out a number of congresspersons from being part of what is happening here, that you are shutting out the voices of over half the american public. remember too that we did get a million more votes in the election prev

mr. connolly: the president-elect and i had a good meeting with the senate agenda which, of course, includes confirming the cabinet appointments, getting further down the road toward repealing and replacing obamacare. mr. mcconnell: we talked about how we're agenda and ready to get going once he gets down there. reporter: -- [inaudible] -- process of vetting -- mr. mcconnell: everyone will be properly vetted as they have in the past. i'm hopeful we'll get up to six or seven, particularly the national security team in place on day one. [inaudible] [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. 2017] >> and again, senator jeff sessions, the nominee for attorney general. that confirmation hearing beginning tomorrow in front of the senate judiciary committee, . ve coverage on c-span3 also our website, cspan.org. and our free c-span radio app. american federation of teachers president randy winegarden talked today about the future of public education. let's

mr. connolly of virginia and misfranl of georgia. the speaker pro tempore: the speaker announces the speaker's appointment and the order of the house january 3, 2017 of the following members on the part of the house with the commission on security and cooperation in europe. the clerk: mr. hastings of florida and mr. cohen of tennessee. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to 29 usc 2903 and the order of the house january 3, 2017 of the following member on the part of the house to the japan-united states friendship commission. the clerk: mr. takano of california. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a, rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 6:30 p.m. today.

mr. connolly: who are we kidding. everyone is trashing president obama. if you want to condemn the u.n. resolution, let's do so, i'll join you, but that isn't what this is about. this is about kicking a president on the way out one more time and enhancing a false narrative about his lack of support for our ally israel. and it agreeses the skid to defund the united nations while they're at it. and i say to my friends on my side of the aisle, don't be fooled or enablelers. there was a viable alternative. we could have had on the floor and we were denied that right. we were even denied the motion to recommit for a reason, because they don't want to risk that. they want to control a platform that is negative and insidious and a resolution filt with insinuations and distortions of fact. vote no on h.r. 11. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. royce: what this resolution attempts to do is to rescrect the u.n. resolution that calls for a palestinian state but not a jewish state. a resolution that opens the door fo

mr. connolly for being quote condescending to members. what do you think?he's condescending. he has an ongoing investigation. remember when he reported on hillary clinton's investigation it was over. that's an appropriate time to do that. he has a pending investigation may be of the association -- arthel: i'm sorry mr. colson i'm not sure you heard my question. the question was is okay to make repeated disclosures during the campaign about the investigation into hillary clinton's e-mails but to this day refuse to say if the fbi is investigating links between the trump campaign and russia lacks that's what i want you to react to. >> if you let me continue i will tell you that. the answer to that is the investigation of hillary clinton was over. he had a duty to report that in a duty for her to report it which essentially he decided not to prosecute her. that's an over investigation. the investigation if there is one of donald trump is pending and he probably shouldn't comment on that. think we are talking about apples and oranges here and the focus here is w

democrat jerry connolly described mr. obama's marching orders. make sure every american who loses his or her health care knows that the republican repeal vote did that. >> reporter: president-elect trump pushed back on twitter, writing -- the dems own the failed obamacare disaster with its poor coverage and massive premium increases. >> the simple fact is the american people know who owns obamacare. it's the first half of the title. >> reporter: pence promised repeal would be followed by a grace period until his party can craft a new law, but house speaker paul ryan was short on specifics. >> we have plenty of ideas to replace it. you'll see as the weeks and months unfold what we're talking about replacing it. >> reporter: democratic leader nancy pelosi -- >> to repeal and then delay is an act of cowardice. that means we don't really know what we're doing. >> reporter: new york governor andrew cuomo entered the fray, announcing that 2.7 million of his state's residents were at risk of losing coverage. he even broke them down by >> the ayes have 5

democrat jerry connolly described mr. obama's marching orders. >> make sure they own it. make sure every american who loses his or her health care knows that the republican repeal vote did that. >> reporter: president-elect trump pushed back on twitter, writing, "the dems own the failed obamacare disaster with its poor coverage and massive premium increases." >> the simple fact is the american people know who owns obamacare. it's the first half of the title. >> reporter: since promised, repeal would be followed by a grace period until his party can craft a new law, but house speaker paul ryan was short on details. >> we have plenty of ideas to replace it. you'll see as the weeks and months unfold what we're talking about replacing it. >> reporter: democratic leader nancy pelosi. >> to repeal and then delay is an act of cowardice. that means we don't really know what we're doing. >> reporter: new york governor andrew cuomo entered the fray, announcing that 2.7 million of his state's residents were at risk of losing coverage. he even broke them down by county. >> the ayes h

mr. johnson: i rise for purposes of submitting for the record, the statement of my friend, congressman gerald connolly from irginia who if he were here -- the chair: request will be covered under general leave. mr. johnson: and i will read a bit of the statement. for the record he wanted to be known that agency employees are barred under appropriations bills from engaging in publicity or propaganda. agency employees are specifically barred from engaging in substantial grassroots lobbying campaigns when those campaigns are encouraging the public to pressure members of congress an administration or department or legislative proposals. and with that, i submit that for the record. and i reserve. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from minnesota for three minutes. mr. peterson: do you have further speakers? i have no further speakers and i just want to say that some of this has been passed legislation around here. sometimes what comes back, you don't recognize what you have passed legislatively. this bill and this amendment will help solve that pro