Ranking Member Morelle's Opening Remarks During Floor Debate on H.R. 1329

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield myself as much time as I may consume. You're recognized. Thank you, sir. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Smithsonian American Women's History Museum is long overdue and it deserves a place on the National Mall. Period. End of sentence. The National Mall is America's front yard, the place we welcome visitors from all over the world. And the Smithsonian is where we gather the stories, ideas, inventions, and memories that make us who we are. It's where we keep what matters to our large and, yes, very diverse American family. It's where our nation tells its story and American women have shaped every chapter of that story, which is why I enthusiastically supported the bipartisan version of H.R. 1329 introduced by my Republican colleague and friend from New York, Representative Nicole Malliotakis, along with her companion bill, H.R. 1330, related to the National Museum of the American Latino. Together, those bills would resolve a statutory anomaly that has stalled both museums and allow them to move forward on the Mall as Congress intended. The bipartisan legislation is a simple, straightforward fix with 231 co-sponsors in this House, including over 100 members from each side of the aisle. But for some reason, that's not the bill we're debating. I'm saddened and disappointed. The Republican majority has needlessly politicized what has for years been a bipartisan priority. The hyper-partisan museum bill we're debating right now differs from the original legislation in four primary and important ways. First, it omits the National Museum of the American Latino, which has been paired with the Women's History Museum since they were both authorized together in 2020. Second, for reasons that pass all understanding, it grants the President of the United States unprecedented, unilateral, unchecked authority to disregard the Smithsonian's recommended site and the Congress's recommended site for any reason or for no reason at all and pick his own. Third, it hands control over design and construction to board stacked with political loyalists who have already shown they will rubber stamp whatever the President wants and to see evidence of that look no further than the pile of rubble that used to be the White House East Wing. And fourth, it inserts an ideological poison pill intended to dictate what the museum can and cannot say about women's history. Mr. Speaker, we deal with a lot of complicated issues around here that require complex solutions. This is not one of them. There is a Republican-led, bipartisan bill just sitting here with 231 co-sponsors, including 104 Republican members. We could pass that bill on suspension right now. The American people will be baffled, as I am, that my Republican colleagues have chosen this route instead, especially since in 2019 Democrats accepted a Republican amendment requiring the museum to reflect, quote, the diversity of the political viewpoint held by women of the United States. Virtually identical language appears in this bill. Ironically, right next to the provision that explicitly excludes political viewpoints held by women of the United States, I guess it should have read, excuse me, could I have order? I guess it should have explicitly read the diversity of political viewpoints held by Republicans alone. If the goal were actually to move this museum forward, we would not be abandoning the years-long bipartisan process that has brought us to the brink of construction. We would not be considering a bill with a cynical, ideological poison pill. We would not exclude the Latino Museum. We would not allow boards filled with Trump loyalists to have final say on the museum's design and construction. And we would certainly not be giving President Donald Trump, of all people, unchecked authority to pick a location for the Women's History Museum. And we would not be spending time debating a bill destined to fail. Ask yourselves, who should decide what appears in a Smithsonian Museum, where it goes, what it looks like? Should it be historians, scholars, and curators who for 180 years have made the Smithsonian the premier museum complex in the world, hosting 15 million visitors per year? Is that who it should be? Or a politician who complains publicly that the Smithsonian focuses too much on, quote, how bad slavery was, and who has taken a literal wrecking ball to some of our most dignified and important landmarks in this country? A politician who uses our cultural institutions to rewrite history and hand out no-bid government contracts to his friends? That's the question before us. If House Republicans want the museum to succeed, the path ahead is straightforward and easy. Bring the clear bipartisan fix with its 231 co-sponsors to the floor. Pair it with the Latino Museum that we have done for years, and let the historians and experts do the work of telling the full and complex story of American women. This legislation does the exact opposite. It takes a bill, the narrow purpose of which is to specify a museum location, and throws even more uncertainty into the very question. It makes literally no sense. Mr. Speaker, I'll conclude where I began. The National Mall is where we welcome visitors from around the world of all types. Everyone comes here. And the Smithsonian is where we mark what makes us who we are. They belong to the American people. And the American people deserve both the Women's History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino on the National Mall that tells their stories without political interference. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, urge the majority to bring the bipartisan bill that 104 of the members of their conference have co-sponsored to the floor, and I reserve the balance of my time.