Bradley Byrne: Much to do
Congress returns to Washington this week after a six-week hiatus for the election. Since the end of July, we have only met for a few weeks, and the work we need to complete has piled up. This Congress ends at noon on Sunday, January 3, when the new Congress will be sworn in and start all over again as any bills pending from the old Congress die. Let’s look at what needs to be done between now and then. Every year since the Kennedy Administration, Congress passes a National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which authorizes the operations of the U.S. military and our national defense, an obligation of Congress under Article One of the Constitution. This year’s bill passed out of the House Armed Services Committee on which I sit by a unanimous vote and out of the full House by a huge bipartisan vote. A Conference Committee will iron out our differences with the Senate bill, and I hope we will vote on the Committee’s report in the next few weeks. The NDAA is one of the few examples of this Congress when we have come together to meet our Constitutional duties. I also anticipate that we will vote on the Water Resources Development Act, another bill we regularly pass and which authorizes much of what the Corps of Engineers does for navigation, flood protection, and the like. But the big two are the funding of the government and a new COVID bill. Back in September, Congress passed a bill continuing government spending for the fiscal year that began on October 1 but using the numbers from the previous year. I wasn’t present for the vote on the bill as I was in the district working on our response to Hurricane Sally. Had I been there, I would have voted against it because these continuing resolutions are punts as we fail to meet our Constitutional requirement to fund the government. That bill only runs through December 11, however, and there will be substantial pressure to pass something funding the government beyond that date. This has been a source of failure in the past. You may remember it happened at the end of 2017. Will we produce an actual appropriations bill, or will we pass another continuing resolution taking us into 2021 and the new Congress? Or, will we have a shutdown? The appropriations process, like virtually every other legislative endeavor this Congress, is badly broken because Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to let it work. There is little effort to work across the aisle or the Capitol, despite good people on both sides and both houses being involved, as the Speaker insists on calling the shots and bypassing the capable leadership on the Appropriations Committee. I am pessimistic that we can get a true appropriations bill this Congress and anticipate another continuing resolution will be proposed on or shortly before December 11. The question is whether that will pass and whether President Donald Trump would sign it if it does. It’s likely to go down to the wire that week. And the outlook for another COVID response bill this Congress looks even worse. You would think that with the elections out of the way and having suffered significant election losses among her membership, the Speaker would settle into serious negotiations. Not so. In fact, after pushing a $2 trillion bill this summer and fall, even as the Senate told her that figure was far too high, she has now come back post-election with a bill for spending over $3 trillion. She is effectively expecting Senator Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate, which seems to be retaining their majority, to bid against themselves. I don’t know what about Senator McConnell’s leadership of the Senate these last six years would give anyone the thought he would cave into that. Indeed, the Speaker’s COVID proposal is really just her way of postponing the discussion until after Inauguration Day when she expects to have a President Joe Biden to help her instead of President Trump. Once again, her goal is less about helping the American people and more about her own power. Here we are at the beginning of the worst part of the year for viral diseases, and she is punting the passage of a much-needed bill for at least two more months. I hope I’m wrong about the Speaker’s posture on these bills, but her performance as Speaker so far has been depressingly consistent. When the choice is between the needs of the country and her own power, she always chooses the latter. We have much to do this Congress and not much time to do it. I wish we’d break the mold of this Congress, learn from the election results, and actually do the jobs we are required to do under the Constitution. It just doesn’t look like the Speaker wants us to fulfill our responsibilities under the Constitution. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
Bradley Byrne: What America said
Election Day has come and gone. Despite the fact that multiple national news sites have “called” the presidential election, court cases and recounts are going forward in several states where the margin is less than 1%, and we don’t yet “know” who was elected president. By Federal law, all election disputes must be resolved by December 8 and presidential electors must meet and cast their votes for president on December 14. The ballots will be counted in Congress on January 6. These are the key dates when we will “know” who will become president on Inauguration Day, January 20. So, let’s not jump to a conclusion about who won this very close presidential election just yet. But, we already know some important things about America from the votes last week. Perhaps the most important thing we witnessed was a free and open democracy working. We take for granted our system for choosing our leaders, but if you look around the world, we shouldn’t. Even in a very politically divided nation, we held peaceful elections, and even where there are election disputes, we have legal processes for resolving them. For the most part, things have been handled peacefully, except in a few places like Oregon where they apparently don’t need an excuse to riot. And, while we are divided for sure, there are some things we have agreement on. Despite the now predictable assurances from media “analysts” and other so-called “experts,” there was no Blue wave, no generational realignment of our body politic. The media discovered what the rest of us knew: America is not a left-leaning nation. And demographics aren’t destiny. That’s why an increasing proportion of Blacks and Hispanics are voting their relatively conservative beliefs. As a nation, we don’t want a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, or defunded law enforcement agencies. We aren’t socialists or even socialist leaning. The elections for the two houses of Congress showed a narrowing majority in each. With two special elections for Senate pending in Georgia on January 5, it looks likely that Republicans will hold a very narrow majority in the upper body. That alone guarantees that tax increases, court packing, climate change, government ordered health care, and other far-left proposals of a potential Biden-Harris Administration would go nowhere, an accurate reflection of the national mood. In the House, the Democrats apparently held their majority, but it will be much reduced as Republicans flipped as many as 15 seats and have net gains of 8 to 12. During a post-election conference call last week with her members, Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed that the shrunken Democrat conference had a “mandate” even as Democrats on the call excoriated their party’s policies and messages of the last two years. Don’t let the national media fool you. This isn’t a struggle between moderate Democrats and liberals because there aren’t any moderate Democrats left in Congress after this year’s primaries. This is a fight between liberals and socialists, the two groups that now make up Congressional Democrats. The Republican side is a very different story. Though disappointed that we didn’t retake the majority, we are heartened by our gains and believe we will succeed in the 2022 midterms. Many governorships and statehouses were also elected last week, and they will reapportion their states next year with the census numbers from this year, thus determining the makeup of House districts for a decade. Even though President Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, spent enormous amounts of money to get Democrat control of these state houses nationally, his effort failed and Republicans will be in control of states with far more House seats than the Democrats will. By Election Day 2022, the map for House elections will be more favorable to Republican candidates than was the case last week. That Blue wave is actually a firmly rising Red sea in the House. I woke up the day after the election both pleased and disappointed. I wish Republicans had taken the House and had a larger majority in the Senate. And I truly wish we had a clear victory for President Donald Trump, who may still win in the states with recounts and lawsuits. But, America once again proved the experts wrong by saying loudly who we are and who we aren’t. We aren’t socialists or even liberals. We don’t want massive change to our Republic. We won’t let gender, race, religion, or any other demographic category define us, because we are a people free to decide for ourselves what we believe and who we will vote for. We have spoken as a people and we don’t need the news media and entertainment industry to act as if they speak for us. And it’s the job of those who are elected to listen to the people of this country and not the out of touch elites on TV and the internet. Once again, they were wrong. By their votes, the people of America said so. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
Bradley Byrne: After the election: One nation under God
I’ll never forget sitting in the US House Chamber in January of 2017, watching the counting of the Electoral College votes from the 2016 presidential election. Under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, the sitting Vice President opens and counts the votes as submitted and certified by the electors chosen from each state, and the Vice President must do so “in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives.” Because Inauguration Day was still several days away, the sitting Vice President was Joe Biden, and as a member of the House, I was entitled to be there. Procedurally, any Representative or Senator can object to any state’s electoral college votes, but at least one member from the other house must agree with the objection before it can be considered. Alabama was the first state up, and Jim McGovern, a very liberal Democrat member from Massachusetts who served on the Rules Committee with me, stood up and objected because the Russians supposedly interfered with our vote for Donald Trump. He also made a blatantly false allegation that our state violated the Voting Rights Act and suppressed thousands of votes. No Senator agreed with him, and Vice President Biden ruled the objections out of order, which kept me from having to argue against McGovern’s silly and frankly slanderous objections. The count went on, and as every Trump state’s votes came up, a Democrat House member would stand up and object, but because no senator agreed with the objections, Biden would rule them out of order. Finally, after several of these, Biden leaned into the microphone and said firmly to his fellow Democrats, “it’s over.” Though they hated the result, he was saying, the Constitution calls for the person with the most electoral votes to be President. And that person was Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton. This has been an extraordinary year, with the pandemic, a record economic downturn and recovery, riots and violence, and an unprecedented number of hurricanes. It will be an extraordinary election, too, as record numbers of people have already voted in many states, but their votes can’t be counted until election day, and many of those states’ election processes require days to count all those votes. There will also be challenges to the counting of some, perhaps many, ballots because they weren’t filled in or submitted properly. So, we aren’t likely to know the result on Election Day. We didn’t know the result of the 2000 election until December, weeks after the election, and that took an extraordinary decision by the Supreme Court to resolve it in favor of George W. Bush. The Twelfth Amendment was passed and ratified because the 1800 presidential election resulted in an electoral college tie between Thomas Jefferson and his supposed running mate Aaron Burr. That threw the election into the House of Representatives which took 36 ballots to finally make Jefferson the president, three months after the election. In both cases, the nation moved on and accomplished great things. Though this year’s election isn’t likely to be over as quickly as we are used to, all of us should be patient and trust in our Constitution and the institutions which have served us so well for over 230 years. There will be plenty of eyes on the process, and nothing inappropriate is going to go unnoticed. Our intelligence and law enforcement communities have been closely monitoring foreign actors and will continue to do so after the election. Be careful of the information you receive during and after the election because we know there’s a lot of truly fake “news” out there, designed to divide us as a nation. And when we have a result, if your candidate doesn’t win, let’s not have a replay of 2016 when Democrats refused to accept the result, who wouldn’t let it be “over” and shamefully called themselves the “resistance,” a slap in the face of the Constitution and our tradition of peaceful transfer of power. We’ve wasted too much time in Washington over the Mueller report and a failed impeachment effort, attempting to reverse the 2016 election. And we’ve had too much violence this year – we don’t need more due to the election. If your candidate loses, the appropriate response is to be the loyal opposition – loyal to our nation and its Constitution but opposed to the policies of the victorious party. Remember, in American politics, today’s loser is often tomorrow’s winner. Our greatest enemy isn’t a foreign nation but our internal division, driven by a hyper-partisan news media and entertainment industry ready to exploit every fault line in our country and craven before the far worse fault lines of countries where that industry makes a lot of money. Let’s ignore the media and entertainment industry and return to what we learned in school about the traditional values which make us great. As a unified nation there is nothing we can’t do, no problem or issue we can’t solve. We are one nation under God. Let’s keep it that way. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
Senate race between Jones, Tuberville tops Alabama ballot
In addition to voting for president, Alabama voters will also decide a U.S. Senate race and multiple other offices and issues on Tuesday. Here is a look at Election Day in Alabama: PRESIDENT Very popular among the conservatives who dominate Alabama politics, Republicans are hopeful President Donald Trump will carry the state against Democrat Joe Biden. Trump carried 62% of the roughly 2.1 million votes cast in Alabama in his race against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and there’s little indication Trump’s popularity has waned in the deep-red state despite problems including impeachment and the coronavirus pandemic. But while some GOP candidates in Alabama have staked their campaigns on aggressively supporting Trump for a second term, increased Democratic turnout could narrow the president’s margin against Biden. While Alabama Democrats are more energized and organized than they were four years ago, the number of yard signs and roadside shops selling Trump paraphernalia across Alabama are visible proof of Biden’s uphill battle in reclaiming a state that a Democratic last carried in a presidential election in 1976, when Jimmy Carter from neighboring Georgia was on the ballot. U.S. SENATE Republicans trying to maintain control of the U.S. Senate are staking their hopes on former college football coach Tommy Tuberville defeating first-term Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who won the seat in a special election in 2017. Tuberville, who has never held public office and last coached four years ago, is among the candidates who’ve aligned themselves most closely with Trump, even declaring in the primary campaign: “God sent us Donald Trump.” Viewed as an underdog in a Republican-controlled state, Jones mocked Tuberville as “Coach Clueless” and chided him for his refusal to debate. Jones won the seat previously held by Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore was publicly accused of sexual misconduct involving young women decades ago. With GOP incumbents in danger elsewhere, Republicans hope Tuberville can knock off Jones. U.S. HOUSE The state will have at least two new members of Congress after voters pick winners in races for two open U.S. House seats in south Alabama. The Republican chairman of the Mobile County Commission, Jerry Carl, is trying to keep GOP control in the southwest Alabama seat now held by Rep. Bradley Byrne. Carl is facing Democrat James Averhart, a retired Marine who runs a nonprofit group and directs the Mobile-area office of the NAACP. In southeast Alabama’s 2nd District, Republican Barry Moore of Enterprise and Democrat Phyllis Harvey-Hall are vying for the job of GOP Rep. Martha Roby, who didn’t seek reelection. Moore is a former state representative and business owner, while Harvey-Hall is an educator from Montgomery. Two Republican House members are also hoping to win reelection. Rep. Mike Rogers of Saks is seeking a 10th term in east Alabama’s 3rd District against Democrat Adia Winfrey, while Rep. Robert Aderholt of Haleyville is seeking a 13th term in office against Democrat Rick Neighbors in the 4th District, which includes much of north Alabama. Reps. Mo Brooks of Huntsville; Gary Palmer of Hoover; and Terri Sewell of Selma were unopposed in the general election. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS Six statewide constitutional amendments are on the ballot, including one that would remove racist language from the state’s 1901 constitution, which was passed to ensure white supremacy in Alabama. Sponsored by Rep. Merika Coleman of Birmingham, Amendment 4 would allow a recompilation of the state constitution to remove wording that prohibited mixed-race marriage and mandated racially segregated schools. While no longer in effect, supporters of the amendment say the prohibitions are an embarrassment and should be removed. Recommended changes to the constitution would be submitted to lawmakers in 2022 for approval, and voters would again be asked to approve the stripped-down document. Voters defeated similar measures twice before, most recently in 2012. Amendment 1 is a mostly symbolic measure pushed by Republicans that says only U.S. citizens have the right to vote, which already is the law nationally. The Alabama Constitution currently states that every male citizen can vote, although the 19th Amendment provided women’s suffrage in 1920. Amendment 2 would allow the full Alabama Supreme Court to appoint the director of the state’s court system, a task now performed solely by the chief justice, and make other changes to the judicial system. Amendment 3 would extend the amount of time that appointed district and circuit judges can serve. Amendments 5 and 6 would protect anyone who kills someone in self-defense in a church in Franklin and Lauderdale counties. Alabama’s “stand your ground” law already applies inside churches, the attorney general’s office has said, but backers support more specific provisions. PSC PRESIDENT Republican Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh is seeking reelection as president of the utility-regulating Alabama Public Service Commission against Democrat Laura Casey. Cavanaugh, seeking her third term, was the first woman to serve as chair of the Alabama Republican Party and has closely aligned herself with President Trump while espousing conservative orthodoxy. She says keeping power rates low helps families and business development. Casey contends the three-member PSC, all Republicans, is more interested in protecting the state’s largest electrical utility, Alabama Power Co., than consumers. She recently lost an appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, which rejected her right to videotape a hearing held before the PSC about solar energy fees. STATE SCHOOL BOARD The ballot on Tuesday includes three contested seats on the Alabama State Board of Education. In the District 1 race in southwest Alabama, Republican board vice president Jackie Zeigler, a retired principal, is opposed by Democratic nominee Tom Holmes, a retired state employee who also led a disabilities advocacy program. Republican Stephanie Bell is touting her experience supporting programs, including the Alabama Reading Initiative, as she seeks an eighth term representing the 3rd District of central Alabama. She is opposed by Jarralynne Agee, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Miles College in Birmingham. In the 5th District, which includes much of Alabama’s Black Belt region, Democrat Tonya Smith Chestnut and Republican Lesa
Bradley Byrne: FEMA’s Hurricane Sally response
Most people in Alabama have heard of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Its name is a little misleading because emergencies by their nature aren’t so much managed as responded to, often after the fact. You can’t manage a tornado or an earthquake, for example, but you can and should respond to it. Hurricanes are facts of life down here and nearly every part of our state, not just the coast, have been affected in some way by at least one. We can prepare for hurricanes and guard against the worst consequences and that starts with each of us as individuals, family members, and citizens doing our part to be prepared to protect and take care of ourselves, family members, and neighbors. Alabamians are actually pretty good at doing that. But, there is also a role for governments at all levels. Local governments actually play the most important public role because they are closest to the people of their areas and have the first responders already employed and trained to take care of the needs of local residents during the period running up to, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the storm. State governments manage the preparations before the storm and provide the support local governments need afterward to do their jobs. The federal government supports the state and local efforts, which typically means providing the lion’s share of the money needed, anywhere from 75% to 90% of the costs. So there’s not one emergency management agency involved in responding to hurricanes but three, corresponding to each level of government. The day before Hurricane Sally hit, I was individually briefed by the Director of the National Hurricane Center Ken Graham, FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, and Coast Guard officials. That same day I went to the White House and made sure we had a good line of communication in case we needed help, which looked likely at the time. I have to say, the White House was immediately responsive and has continued to be so. How has FEMA handled the federal response to Hurricane Sally? When the state of Alabama requested a pre-storm disaster declaration, which triggers federal financial support for preparations and response during the storm, FEMA and the White House gave the okay in just a few hours. On that day before when I spoke with the White House, I asked them to send FEMA Administrator Gaynor to my district as soon as possible once the storm cleared to see the damage and meet with local officials. He came three days after the storm and spent several hours touring the damage with me and meeting with local leaders. When the state of Alabama requested a post-storm declaration, triggering federal financial support for public and individual assistance, FEMA and the White House responded affirmatively in less than 48 hours – record time. Public assistance is federal financial support for the costs to state and local governments as a result of a storm. This includes water bottles and meals ready to eat for locally requested points of distribution, debris removal and cleanup costs (think of the large tandem trucks picking up debris piled up on the right of way), as well as the costs to repair damage to public buildings and infrastructure like roads and bridges, and in the case of Sally damage to the Port of Mobile. Individual assistance, as the label states, goes to individuals affected by the storm. Private assistance won’t pay something you have insurance for, but it does pay for a variety of losses, particularly having to do with an individual’s home. So far 60,000 Alabamans have applied for individual assistance and already FEMA has approved $42 million. If you haven’t applied for individual assistance there’s still time for you to do so online at DisasterAssistance.gov, or if you need help in applying call FEMA’s Helpline at 1-800-621-3362. If you have applied for individual assistance and have been denied, appeal the decision because frequently the denial is simply because the applicant didn’t include all the needed information. Many people were flooded by Sally and over 3,000 of them have made claims to the National Flood Insurance Program. Over $16 million has already been paid out on those claims. The Small Business Administration has approved over a thousand home loans to people with storm losses, totaling over $40 million, and many more loan applications are still pending. So, how has FEMA performed in responding to Hurricane Sally? So far, pretty darn well. I want to thank FEMA Administrator Gaynor for coming down here so quickly after the storm and for FEMA’s quick and positive responses to all our requests. And I want to thank President Trump for his concern and quick response to Alabama’s requests for disaster declarations. Hurricane Sally was a brutal experience for us in Alabama, but FEMA’s response shows that government can do good things, helping people and communities when they really need it. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
Bradley Byrne: A do nothing Congress
“…our calendar doesn’t show us coming back to Washington until November 16.”
Bradley Byrne: A new Supreme Court Justice
Bradley Byrne outlines his reasons for supporting President Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
Bradley Byrne: Help is on the way after Hurricane Sally
Bradley Byrne discusses disaster aid for southwest Alabama in the wake of Hurricane Sally.
Bradley Byrne: A new Middle East?
Congressman Byrne outlines recent developments in the Middle East.
3 members and 2 candidates for Alabama congressional delegation join sign Heritage Action “Police Pledge”
Three current members of the Alabama U.S. House delegation Mo Brooks, Mike Rogers and Bradley Byrne, and both republican candidates for the states two open house races, Jerry Carl and Barry Moore have signed a new pledge by Heritage Action. In addition, Steve McMillan a State House of Representative from District 95 has also signed. As of September 9, 2020, 2 U.S. Senators and 118 House leaders who have signed the“Police Pledge” from Heritage Action. Heritage Action for America is a conservative policy advocacy organization that was founded in 2010. Their lobbying team works directly with lawmakers to push conservative principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. The pledge states: “A lawful society—free from mob rule and violent insurrection—is not possible without Law Enforcement. “Police Officers have chosen a noble profession. They dedicate their lives to upholding the law and protecting the sacred rights of their fellow citizens. As a profession, they deserve support and respect. “I stand with America’s Police and pledge to oppose any bill, resolution, or movement to “Defund the Police.” Congressman Brooks said, “I back the blue. Unfortunately, Socialist Democrat elected officials— beholden to criminal elements who they rely on for votes— undermine law enforcement at every turn. As for me, I support law enforcement in their daily struggle to hold the thin blue line between order and anarchy, peace and violence. By signing the ‘Police Pledge’, I redouble my commitment to stand with law enforcement as they endure dangerous and unwarranted attacks from the left.” In announcing that he signed the pledge Barry Moore, candidate for House District 2 said, “The last few weeks have shown us just how important our police are to our society, and how much we rely on them in times of crisis. The Left has been screaming for months to ‘defund the police’, saying ‘we can defend ourselves’. Then, the minute something happens they scream for the police. Well, by then it’s too late. The hypocrisy of the Left, and the shameless way they try to take both sides of this issue, is mind-blowing. “The Democrat’s refusal to support our police officers has brought us to this point. Our cities are being destroyed, and it’s mainly Democrat-run cities that are suffering the most. I’m saddened that the citizens of those cities have to bear the brunt of failed liberal policies, and pray every day for them and the police who are trying so hard to protect them despite being hamstrung by their leaders. “I always have, and I always will, support law enforcement, and will always resist efforts to defund the police.”
Bradley Byrne: Some good news
Congressman Byrne outlines the progress our country has made over the last several months.
Bradley Byrne: Democrat gridlock shouldn’t be our fate
According to Byrne, Democrats use gridlock as a political tool repeatedly.
