Washington D.C. (August 2, 2024) | This week, Reps. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11), Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), Marc Molinaro (NY-19), and Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-04) introduced dual resolutions calling on legislative branch entities to increase purchases of goods and services from the procurement list maintained by the AbilityOne Commission by employing procurement practices that ensure each legislative entity is not only meeting its statutory obligation, which does not always happen today, but is also taking additional steps to maximize employment opportunities for Americans with disabilities. Established by the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act (JWOD), the AbilityOne Commission maintains the procurement list that records the products and services available for government purchase provided by Americans with disabilities, including many individuals living with blindness and a growing number of returning Veterans. This follows letters sent by Reps. Crockett and Molinaro in December 2023 inquiring into legislative entities’ AbilityOne procurement practices, and a subsequent letter to the Committee on House Administration presenting those findings and calling on the Committee to take action to increase procurement from AbilityOne vendors. 

“As a U.S. Air Force veteran, I understand the critical importance of keeping our commitment to those who serve. Congress has the responsibility to help support employment opportunities for Americans with significant disabilities, including our nation’s heroes," said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11). "Ensuring all federal agencies and congressional offices purchase and utilize AbilityOne products and services is a critical step in helping disabled Americans enjoy full participation in our economy and our communities."

"In 1971, Congress established the AbilityOne Program in its current form. But 53 years later, this very same body is falling behind on fulfilling the promise it made all those years ago," said Rep. Crockett. "As members of the People's House, we have a responsibility and a duty to honor that promise and support employment opportunities for Americans with disabilities. By requiring each legislative entity to take concerted, ongoing steps to increase engagement with AbilityOne, we ensure that this vital program receives the attention it is due, so that roadblocks do not fester, and Congress can redouble its commitment to Americans with disabilities. I'm grateful to Reps. Molinaro, Thompson, and Loudermilk for joining me in leading these bipartisan resolutions to push the House and Senate in the right direction." 

"The percentage of the disability community not working is still at nearly 80%. In order for the AbilityOne Program to reach its full potential, every legislative office must understand its resources," said Rep. Molinaro. "I'm proud to lead the bipartisan push to support the use of AbilityOne in Congress. It's vital to understand and participate in the program to ensure individuals of every ability have the opportunity to succeed."

“The AbilityOne Program is one of the largest sources of employment in the United States for people who are blind or have significant disabilities, including disabled veterans," said Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-04). "It just makes sense to ensure Congress continues supporting AbilityOne’s vendors whenever and wherever possible. Thank you to my colleagues, Reps. Crockett, Molinaro, and Loudermilk for helping lead this initiative." 

“SourceAmerica supports these resolutions that will increase the awareness and utilization of the AbilityOne Program in Congress and throughout the Legislative Branch Agencies," said Richard Belden, President & CEO of SourceAmerica. "Through the program nearly 36,000 individuals with disabilities are employed providing critical products and services to the federal government. Ensuring that the Legislative Branch is more aware of the program and provided opportunities to participate will help create more jobs and opportunities for people with disabilities.”

The first of the two resolutions, which pertains exclusively to legislative entities entirely within the House of Representatives (e.g. the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer), would only need to be passed by the House to take effect. As a Resolution referred to the Committee on House Administration, if passed, practices in the House would change going into the 119th Congress. The second, concurrent resolution would need to be passed by both the House and Senate as it affects legislative entities that serve both Chambers. To view both resolutions, click here and here.

In case you missed it, this week, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) sat down with John Solomon on his podcast John Solomon Reports, to break down recently discovered evidence showing that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's top aides were involved in U.S. Capitol security planning (or lack thereof) on January 6 the night before that fateful day. It also appears that the Democrats' former Select Committee covered up vital video and text message evidence of their culpability.

Rep. Loudermilk told Solomon that there are still many questions about what happened on January 6, and that he would be demanding answers from Pelosi's team. 

Click here or below to tune in. 

This week, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) joined House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (NC-10) and all Committee Republicans in a letter to U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The lawmakers demand that the Fed withdraw and re-propose the misguided Basel III Endgame bank capital reforms in its entirety, given the substantial changes to its original form. This letter follows Chairman Powell's testimony before the House Financial Services Committee in support of re-proposal. 

Read key excerpts from the letter below: 

“We write to underscore the importance of withdrawing the current Basel III Endgame proposal and submitting any new change through a new notice of proposed rulemaking.  As we have stated for the past year, the July 27, 2023 proposal lacks the necessary evidence and analysis to completely overturn the current methods used for calculating risk-based capital requirements. If finalized in its current form, the proposal would represent the most significant changes to the bank regulatory framework since the Dodd-Frank Act.  

“To be sure, the vast majority of comment letters on the current proposal, sent by stakeholders from across the ideological spectrum and sectors of the economy, support a withdrawal, re-proposal, or otherwise express significant concerns with the proposal.  We are concerned by ongoing reports that the Federal Reserve will seek an as-yet undefined ‘partial preproposal,’ and that ‘[t]here will be additional changes that will be made that won’t be re-proposed.’ Let us be clear, the current proposal contains such widespread structural and fatal flaws that a complete withdrawal and re-proposal in its entirety is the only solution.

…

“Courts have repeatedly made clear that an agency’s final rules must be a ‘logical outgrowth’ of the rules as proposed. Fixing each of the current proposal’s flaws will require ‘broad and material changes’ that go well beyond a ‘logical outgrowth’ of the proposal, thereby requiring re-proposal. To be sure, there may be minor recalibrations that are logical outgrowths of the proposal. However, given the interconnectedness of risk-based capital requirements, even recalibrations must be part of any re-proposal.

“We appreciate the Federal Reserve Board’s efforts to meaningfully engage with the public in its rulemaking process. We strongly encourage the Board to avoid potential litigation and reputational risks by withdrawing and re-proposing in the entirety.”

To read the full text of the letter, click here. 

This week, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) joined Reps. Steve Womack (AR-3) and Jim Costa (CA-21) on a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting an 180-day extension to the comment periods for the "Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems" and "Fair and Competitive Livestock and Poultry Markets" proposed rules.

These rules would fundamentally change how integrators and contract farmers interact by imposing one-size-fits-all requirements on growing contracts that will harm competition and increase consumer costs. An extension of this comment period would enable USDA to receive well-informed comments from affected integrators and producers. 

To read the full text of the letter, click here.

Just The News:

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Just The News:

As Congress turns its attention to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life, a key House investigator vowed Monday to issue a subpoena to force the disclosure of a long-delayed report on an earlier Secret Service failure to detect a bomb that could have jeopardized Kamala Harris’ life the morning of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general has completed a report on Secret Service missteps during the Capitol crisis 3 ½ years ago but is refusing to release it even though footage Just the News published a year ago shows Secret Service agents took then Vice President-elect Harris within 10 yards of an undetected explosive device planted at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, Rep.  Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said.

“We need to get this ... report. We need to see it,” Loudermilk told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “And it needs to happen soon because we just created a task force to look at it. And ... I think there's important information there.”

Asked whether he was prepared to issue a subpoena, Loudermilk answered: “Absolutely.” He said he could like to coordinate the records demand with the new task force appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson to probe the July 13 Trump assassination attempt.

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Real Clear Investigations:

After the evasive House testimony of now-former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray’s shortlived suggestion that Donald Trump may not have been hit by a bullet, one man alone may help allay Republican fears that the Biden administration will not conduct a forthright investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump last month: Joseph Cuffari.

The Trump-appointed inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security has already opened two investigations into the U.S. Secret Service, which is under the purview of the DHS, related to the agency’s handling of the July 13 shooting.

But some Republicans are concerned because, they say, Cuffari has been stonewalled by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on other internal examinations – including one that might have revealed Secret Service lapses that might have prevented the attempt on Trump’s life.

....

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of a House subcommittee tasked with a separate investigation into Jan. 6 as well as the now-defunct J6 committee, recently accused Mayorkas of intentionally holding the release of the report. The Georgia Republican told Mayorkas in a letter that “the failure to provide an in-depth review of the department’s security planning and operational failures related to January 6 not only raises concerns about the department’s botched planning for former president Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, but it is quite possible that such reports could have prevented the security breakdown that resulted in the near assassination of a former president and presidential candidate.”

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Roll Call: 

Thanks to a conservative Supreme Court, Congress may do something it hasn’t done in living memory: dramatically increase the size of the legislative branch.

A handful of recent decisions — most notably Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which ended the Chevron doctrine of judges deferring to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutes — have set the stage for a tsunami of litigation challenging regulations and administrative rulings in the coming years.

At a House Administration hearing last week exploring how Congress could react to the end of Chevron deference, a panel of conservative and liberal experts all advocated more staff.

While adding lawmaking capacity has long been a no-brainer on the left, small-government conservatives have come around to the idea that the way to shrink the overall size of government is to make the legislative branch a little bigger first. “We were designed to be slow and methodical, not responsive, right?” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a conservative Georgia Republican. “So, the fallback was let’s just empower the agencies, but that hasn’t worked out so well, as we’ve seen.”

During the hearing last week, Loudermilk recalled asking the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia how Congress could rein in both the executive branch and the judicial branch. “Do your job,” he said, meaning Congress needed to write more specific legislation and spend more time on oversight. “We’ve got to have the ability to do that,” Loudermilk told Roll Call.

Loudermilk said it’s time to make the case to the American people that Congress needs to hire some more help. 

“It is worth us making the case that it’s an investment to the American people, because the more that we can be decisive here, the less bureaucracy we have out there,” he said. “And the cost of bureaucracy is a whole lot more expensive than the cost of Congress.”

Loudermilk acknowledged that can be a hard sell, especially to voters struggling to get by who earn way less than aides in Washington, but he noted how the high cost of living in D.C. is driving experienced staff away. “The concern here is that we’re going to lose a lot of good people that just can’t afford to be here anymore,” he said.

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Just The News: 

The Secret Service developed intelligence that there was a “high potential for violence” before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but failed to share that information with its agents guarding Donald Trump, Mike Pence or Kamala Harris that fateful day, according to a bombshell report delivered to Congress on Thursday that exposed a fresh round of failures by the presidential protection agency.

Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari's report was forced into the public by pressure from House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and it confirmed earlier Just the News reporting, including that the Secret Service whisked Harris, then the Vice President-elect, within 20 feet of an undetected pipe bomb at Democrat National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington because it failed to employ its normal explosive detection tools.

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