Collins statement on member day hearing

WASHINGTON — Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, released the following statement regarding today’s member day hearing. Ranking Member Collins: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to be here today. I’m looking forward to hearing from our colleagues about issues and legislation the committee should consider. I welcome this because I have consistently asked why you and our other Democratic colleagues insist on ignoring real issues and conducting a “do-over” of the Mueller investigation. We should be fixing the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. We should be ensuring there is a long-term workforce for the agriculture industry. We should be protecting our intellectual property from China’s theft. We should be leading the legislative response to other foreign threats, such as malicious cyber-attacks from bad actors and nation-states. We should fix the Supreme Court’s flawed test for determining patent eligibility since the experts who apply it — including the Patent and Trademark Office director — have said it must be replaced. We should be acting to secure our elections against foreign interference, which I thought was a central priority for Democrats. I’ve written the chairman twice to schedule hearings on that topic, and Republican members have introduced bills the majority has ignored. We should work to find bipartisan ways to lower the cost of regulation without compromising public health and safety. We should be addressing the scourge of synthetic drugs in our country — on average, 130 people die every day from an opioid overdose. We should conduct meaningful, bipartisan oversight of the Bureau of Prisons and the implementation of the First Step Act — the most significant reform to the criminal justice system in a generation. We should reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act — which expires in 10 days — to address the rape kit backlog. My Democrat friends are holding that hostage to their very partisan and very flawed Violence Against Women Act reauthorization. We should be pressing leadership to pass our bipartisan drug pricing bills, which could help millions of Americans. The president could sign these bills into law immediately, but the speaker refuses to help people because it might be seen as a win for the president. We should be investigating why Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to take his own life on his own terms instead of having to face his many accusers and possibly live the rest of his life behind bars. We should be working on legislation to address mass violence, rather than the old, tired and ineffective legislation proposed by Democrats. We could be providing the Justice Department with better enforcement resources, protecting people’s homes and property from government abuse, protecting religious liberty, fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of religious bigotry and doing more to protect the most innocent among us. These are all things committee Democrats, despite our repeated entreaties, have declined to address this Congress. None of these are minor issues, but none of these are apparently priorities for the chairman. Instead, we’ve spent our valuable time dragging witnesses in front of this committee to give the same testimony they’ve already given to other congressional committees, and this is all part of an “impeachment inquiry” the chairman knows we are not actually conducting. I hope today’s hearing is a signal we will recommit ourselves to the issues that matter to the American people, not the radical left — but I won’t hold my breath. I thank my colleagues for being here today.