Rep. Kiley Denounces Governors Appointing Senators Before Sen. Feinstein's Replacement Sworn In

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to first again extend my wishes and prayers to the family of Senator Feinstein. Dianne Feinstein dedicated her life to public service, and her passing is a profound loss for our state and country. I'd also like to congratulate LaFonza Butler on her appointment to the Senate by Governor Newsom, and I say that with all sincerity. I have harbored no ill will in any form against Ms. Butler. She apparently wasn't even expecting this appointment and only learned about it when she got a call from the Governor, and she agreed to serve, and should be commended for that. I should say that there has been raised a question concerning whether she meets the requirements to hold this office and to represent California, given that apparently she's a registered voter in Maryland, but I trust that the Senate, which is responsible for judging the qualifications of its members, is taking that inquiry seriously. I will say, however, that we need to at this point just kind of pause to reflect on the fact that if Ms. Butler is sworn in, which I believe she's supposed to be sworn in today, that California will now have two Senators who gained their office not by the authority of voters, but rather by the whim of a single individual, Governor Gavin Newsom. We will have two Senators who gained their office via appointment, and we also, by the way, have a Senator from New Jersey whose own conference is calling on him to resign, which could create another appointed Senator in the United States Senate. This is very much contrary to the spirit of the 17th Amendment, which called for the direct election of Senators. When this amendment was adopted, it was put in place, according to one scholarly article, to replace a distrusted aristocratic regime of appointed Senators with one of popular enfranchisement. And indeed, since the 17th Amendment, which provided for the direct election of Senators, but allowed that Governors could appoint Senators still to fill vacancies, these appointments have been subject to all manner of abuses. You've had instances of nepotism. Governors have appointed their children. They've appointed their spouses. Some have even appointed themselves to the U.S. Senate. And indeed, the appointment that Governor Newsom has just made demonstrates the risks that are inherent in an appointment system. As one column in today's San Francisco Chronicle's headline reads, Newsom's handling of Feinstein's appointment was a highlight reel of his political flaws. The writer says that he twisted himself into rhetorical pretzels over the last two years because he looked at this appointment through the lens of what is going to help his presidential aspirations as opposed to what is going to be best for the state of California. As long as two years ago, Governor Newsom made statements about who he might appoint in the event of a vacancy. And then just a few weeks ago, he said he was going to appoint an interim Senator. And then a couple of days ago, he walked back that statement and said, no, the person would be free to run for re-election. So this is just not the sort of dynamic that ought to influence who is going to hold a position as important as being the United States Senator from California. And I should also add that it's quite unfair to the candidates who have been running to hold this position in 2024, three of whom currently serve in the House who have been very actively campaigning and now face the prospect of running against an incumbent who didn't actually have to get to that office and face voters in order to get there. So for this House, the House of Representatives, every single person who walks under the floor of this House is there by the authority of voters, is there having been elected. And there's no reason why it shouldn't be the same in the United States Senate. So I've introduced H House Resolution 57. This is a constitutional amendment that will simply say that in order to be a United States Senator, just as to be a United States Representative, you have to get there by an election of the people. If this really is a government of, by, and for the people, as Lincoln put it, then we should make sure that those who are here at this Capitol making important decisions on behalf of the people are there because the people chose them to be so. Thank you, and I yield back. One yields back. The Chair recognizes a gentleman from California, Mr. LaMalfa, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're in perilous times as a nation due to the weakness we've been projecting the last two and a half years from our leadership. So what do we see? Well, when you, when you have a vacuum like that, we know the terminology, nature abhors a vacuum, China is all too eager to move, to step in and move in and replace us in that regard. We're seeing that with the undermining of our currency around the world. We see that with the BRICS group trying to go on its own, where the American currency had always, for many, many years, has been the standard. Now, we don't have a birthright to that. We don't have a birthright as the United States for being number one in anything, but I think we can agree that we would be stronger as a country, as well as with our good intentions as a people. The United States is well positioned to continue to be the light of the world that it's capable of being, but with bad leadership, with poor leadership, we allow others to come in and replace us in that role. China is seeking to do so on so many things, manufacturing, food, and that's what I'd like to talk about today is food production. At the same time as Western countries are saying we need to blame agriculture for climate change, which basically means CO2 production. I'll remind you once again carbon dioxide is only 0.04 percent of our atmosphere, and all hysteria over that is that it's somehow going to be the end of us as a people, the end of the earth. It's only grown a minute amount, but if they would have us cut one-third of agriculture in this country, John Kerry, the so-called czar, as he flies in his private jets to yet another fancy event in Davos to talk about climate change along with hundreds of other private jets, would have us cut one-third of our agriculture in this country. You see it happening in Europe. You see the Dutch farmers valiantly fighting back against their oppressive government where they want to put a bunch of their land out of business. Holland reclaimed a bunch of land from the ocean via the polders, via those levees they used to push back the ocean and make prime farmland out of that. You have extremists trying to push them out. You've seen where Ireland, a while back, has decided we need to cull I think about 30 percent, maybe a third of their dairy herd, because you know dairies make CO2 and methane gas and such. Well there was a time in this country where we had way, way more buffalo on the plains than we do have currently with beef and dairy cattle. That's an interesting stat. So it isn't about the animals burping or whatever. So as we see the U.S. due to bad policy, to poor leadership, being displaced in that area, do we really want to become dependent even more so on China and a cartel they might be in with Russia and other alliances they have with Iran? To have to be more and more dependent on them. We're already dependent on them for 90 percent of our pharmaceuticals, so much of our manufactured products. You want to do that to agriculture too? It makes no sense. Yet I see happening in my home state of California, where California produces so many of these great crops here. 90 plus percent that Americans rely on comes from California. We saw just last year in 2022 that due to the decisions made by Bureau of Reclamation and others and environmental groups, that the water got cut off from Shasta Dam and other federal project water to much of agriculture. We saw just an example of rice, for example, that normally about a half a million acres