{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://lipinski.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=91&itemid=6571", "Rep. Lipinski Farewell Speech", "2020-12-08", "2020", "2020-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "IL", "Daniel Lipinski", "L000563", "lipinski.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "When I was a professor teaching American government before I was elected to Congress, the first thing I would do when beginning to teach a class about Congress and the legislative process would be to show this video; the three minute Schoolhouse Rock! cartoon video from the 1970s, I'm Just a Bill. The cartoon begins with a group of constituents calling their congressman with an idea for a new law. The congressman introduces a bill which goes through House committee debate and amendment before a vote to report the bill favorably to the House floor. On the House floor the bill goes through debate and amendment before a majority vote that sends bill over to the Senate where the process continues. This is what we call regular order, a standard way of legislating in the House that facilitates extensive participation of Members in a deliberative, consensus-based decision-making process. More importantly, this is how the framers of the Constitution not only intended the House to work, but believed that the House needed to work if the United States, then it's infancy, was to succeed.\r\n\r\n\tCongress was created in Article I of the Constitution because the legislative branch  being closest to the people - was necessarily the linchpin of American representative democracy. While the framers didn't include in the Constitution the rules by which the House or Senate would operate, they understood that the way in which the lawmaking process was conducted was critical to the creation of laws that were good for the nation as a whole and to the legitimacy of Congress and those laws.\r\n\r\n\tJames Madison, oftentimes called the father of Congress, believed that it was essential that the legislative branch make policy in a manner that well-represented the vast and varied republic and best served the nation as a whole. Remember, our nation began as a unique experiment in self-governance. There was great doubt about whether the views of people so diverse could successfully be forged into good policy that served such a large nation. Madison believed that the way to do this was for Members of Congress to represent the multiple diverse ideas and interests of their constituents in an open marketplace of ideas in Congress. Through the legislative process the peoples' representatives would debate, deliberate, and put together a consensus on legislation that served the common good of the nation.\r\n\r\n\tWhat the Constitution created was not a parliamentary system because the framers did not intend to empower temporary majorities. Instead they wanted to compel compromise in a diverse society. The exercise of power was shared so that all Americans voters had an opportunity to be heard in the lawmaking process and to ensure that only the will of broad, durable majorities could be acted upon. Especially because America was a large and diverse country whose unity needed to be nurtured, it was critical that the legislative process worked this way so that the American people saw Congress as an institution that truly represented them and thus saw American law as legitimate.\r\n\r\n\tBut today, the House doesn't often work this way, especially when we deal with issues that are the greatest importance to our nation. Those bills, when they get considered, don't get shaped through an open process in committee and on the floor. Each member doesn't have the opportunity to represent their constituents by bringing their ideas and interests to the legislative process where debate, deliberation, and compromise produce the best policy for our nation. Instead, the process runs through the Speaker's office, where the content of legislation is shaped to get enough votes - just out of the majority  to pass something that pleases various partisans. Now, before I go any further I want to make clear that this is not a criticism of the current Speaker or any past Speaker. It's a problem of this institution.\r\n\r\n\tHow did we get here? Well there has been a big change in the way Washington reacts every two years after a congressional election. It used to be the case that when election results came in, everyone would look to see which party had the majority in the House, which party had the majority in the Senate - and whether it had the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, and which party held the White House. Understanding the balance of power and issues facing the nation over the next two years, Members of Congress would get to work figuring out what issues they may be able to come to an agreement on and get passed into law over the next 20 months or so before the next campaign cycle kicked off. Now, after understanding the balance of power in Washington, each party retreats to its corner and begins plotting what their party is going to do over the next two years to create party-preferred laws and keep that majority. If there is unified government  that is one party has majorities in both chambers of Congress and the presidency  here in the House the Speaker will consider the priorities of the party and decide what issues to make their legislative priorities over the next two years. Ideally, but oftentimes not, this is done with party counterparts in the Senate and - if the same party  the White House. If there is divided government, which is the norm having occurred 30 out of the last 40 years, and 39 out of forty considering the filibuster in the Senate, the Speaker plans what the party can do over the next two years to help the party gain unified control of the government with the hope of then passing all of the party's preferred policies. In order to help their party carry out the biennial plan, Members of Congress have given much of their power to represent their constituents in the legislative process to their party leaders.\r\n\r\n\tSo what has this led to? Gridlock. There are so many issues that need to be addressed that we have failed to act on. Healthcare costs. The federal debt. Immigration. Climate change. The economic and military threat of China. Social Security and Medicare finances. Transportation infrastructure. The continuing decline of good working class jobs. Reforming the War Powers Act. These are just some of the major issues which Congress has been failing to address and I'm sure that are other major ones I just missed. And the one obligation Congress has each year, passing appropriations bills to fund the government, is almost never accomplished on time.\r\n\r\n\tPresidents have stepped in to fill the policymaking void and have wielded power to even address issues that were specifically put in the hands of Congress in the Constitution. Increased presidential exercise of power on policy has resulted in policy whipsawing back and forth depending on the presidential administration. Lawmaking by executive order has become the norm. So much so that Saturday Night Live even did a parody of I'm Just a Bill replacing Bill with an executive order. And this President has taken it to a new level. But no matter who the president has been, few of us stand up for our institution; we only criticize presidential overreach when it's a policy that we don't like. And it is not only the president who has gained power because Congress is failing to act. The courts have also stepped in as activists have turned to the judicial system to settle policy issues in the absence of Congress. So what we have now is an imperial presidency and powerful courts with a Congress that largely sits gridlocked. And what happens when we have unified government? The last two times this occurred major policy changes were passed on completely party-line votes. The minority party then attacked the legitimacy of these laws. I'm not saying they were illegitimate, but the framers knew this kind of attack would resonate. In both cases, the House majority was voted out by the American people in the next election.\r\n\r\n\tToday, Congress is failing in ways that the framers feared. In Sen. Lamar Alexander's farewell address to the Senate, he defended the filibuster, saying that what is needed to make the Senate work better is not a change of rules but a change of behavior. Unfortunately, in the House, I believe that we need some of both.\r\n\r\n\tOver the past four years, I have been a member of the House Problems Solvers Caucus. The caucus is a bipartisan group of about 50 Members, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. We meet every week, to talk policy and build relationships. Our goal is to work together to get to yes on policies that are good for our country. I've greatly enjoyed the caucus because not only have I been able to build friendships, but was able to participate in a microcosm of what Madison envisioned for the House.\r\n\r\n\tThe Problem Solvers Caucus don't always succeed in forging compromise because sometimes it's been out of reach, but we have taken on some big issues. I was part of Problem Solvers Caucus working group that was put together after President Trump said he was going to eliminate DACA and then told Speaker Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Schumer that he would help work out a legislative solution to protect these immigrants who were brought to the United States as children  the Dreamers. The President never followed through on that, but the caucus believed that there was a bipartisan agreement that we could work out that granted the opportunity for citizenship to millions who we argued were deserving while putting in policies to prevent future illegal immigration. Our working group's meetings usually started at 9 pm because that was the time that everyone was free from every other obligation we have around here. We would get together, Democrats and Republicans, learn from each other and from experts about current law, discuss our views and our constituents' views on what should be done, and honestly work through every minute detail of a compromise. We would work late into the night; a few times I had to run out to catch the last metro train of the night at 11:30 so I could get back to my apartment. It was hard work, but enjoyable. And we came up with a compromise that was endorsed by our bipartisan group of 50 Members; just as we had come up with compromise legislation that same summer which would have helped strengthen the Affordable Care Act and made it more affordable. But in the end, despite our agreement, we could not get legislation on either of these issues to the floor. We had good policy for our nation which probably could have gotten a majority of the House to pass it and possibly been able to get through the Senate with bipartisan support. We got there by bringing our constituents' ideas and interests to the table, debating, deliberating, and forging a compromise, but the rules did not give us an avenue to bring this agreement to the House.\r\n\r\n\tIn the summer of 2018, when the Problem Solvers Caucus proposed changes to the House rules I said this: Our Constitution empowered the American people by empowering Congress and their representatives. But congressional rules are now rigged in a way that greatly diminishes our ability to represent our constituents. This has resulted in a Congress that doesn't work and is frozen in partisan gridlock, allowing the president and the courts to grab the power that is supposed to be held by the American people. By instituting these proposed reforms we will begin to restore this power, break partisan gridlock, and facilitate congressional problem solving that will help us build a better America for future generations. We made some progress in changing the rules, but much more is still needed. To make this great institution work as it was intended for the American people.\r\n\r\n\tMr. Speaker, the greatness of our nation springs from the founding principles which sound common to us today but were radical for their time.\r\n\r\n\tWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\r\n\r\n\tI still believe that this is the greatest nation in the history of the world. It's not perfect, because humans aren't perfect and can never be perfected. But we must pray and work every day that each of us and our nation better uphold the principle of equality, and that we better protect life and liberty every day, for all from the very first moment of life to natural death. And with God's grace, we will do that. And we will be that shining city upon the hill for all the world to see and follow.\r\n\r\n\tGod bless this institution and God bless the United States of America.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://lipinski.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=91&itemid=6571"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.2367038764059544, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}