Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for A Lasting Democracy Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LOUDERMILK. Mr. Chair, I thank my good friend, colleague, and the ranking member for yielding this time.

I also want to say how thankful I am that we are in this body, in public, in front of the American people debating something that is very important to this Nation, that at least this process isn't held in the basement of this building, behind closed doors, away from the American people like some other issues are being held right now. I am at least still thankful for that.

But here we go again. It is another attempt by our friends on the other side to bring a bad idea to fix a bad situation. This is the third attempt for a Federal takeover of our election system.

It kind of reminds me of a popular commercial that is on television right now about these young people in a horror show. There is something evil after them, and they are outside of this spooky, old house and are like: ``We have to go somewhere to hide.''

One of the young people says: ``Why don't we get in the running car?''

The others say: ``That is a dumb idea. Let's go hide in the spooky shed behind the chainsaws.''

Here we go, running to chainsaws again, running to chainsaws, getting ourselves in a worse situation. This would have done nothing to prohibit the Russian meddling in the 2016 election--nothing.

What would have made a difference is the Obama administration, which was advised that the Russians were attempting to hack into our system, that they were meddling. The Obama cybersecurity czar, he brought it to their attention and proposed countermeasures, and he was told to stand down.

We did nothing within the power that we already have to try to stop foreign influence in our elections. That is where we need to be focused.

This goes further than needs to happen by giving the Federal Government more power, more authority to take away the authority that has been given to the States to oversee their elections.

If these weren't enough concerns, this thing has been rushed to the floor with zero hearings. Let me repeat that: There have been no hearings, no fact-findings to get to the bottom of what would be the best solution to this problem. None.

It was a quickly scheduled markup that was rushed to the floor. And here we are again, working on a piece of legislation that would do nothing to fix the problem and has no chance of going anywhere in the Senate.

I suggest that we work together on a bipartisan basis to actually come up with a solution that works for the American people.

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