Civil Rights & Justice

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 5912. This is a misguided bill that repeals public financing of our national political conventions and allows moneyed special-interests to complete their corporate buyout of America’s electoral process.

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As you’ve already heard here today, H.R. 5544 is missing an awful lot of important detail & taxpayer protections -- creating major problems with its vague and unusual language. One major omission in this bill is its failure to acknowledge the treaty rights of Minnesota’s tribal nations. Treaty rights are a prominent concern in this land exchange because the unspecified lands under consideration in H.R. 5544 are all within the Superior National Forest, which is governed by the 1854 Treaty between the Chippewa nations and the United States Government.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 683, expressing the regret of the House of Representatives for the passage of laws that adversely affected the Chinese in the United States, including the Chinese Exclusion Act.

In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to prohibit people of Chinese descent from immigrating to the U.S. and becoming naturalized citizens. While the Chinese Exclusion Act was finally repealed in 1943, severe restrictions on Chinese immigration continued until the Immigration Act of 1965.