CONYERS & BLUMENTHAL File Amicus Brief Supporting Citizens For Responsibility And Ethics In Washington

Conyers and Blumenthal are the lead plaintiffs in Congressional action to hold President Trump accountable for violations of the Constitution’s anti-corruption Foreign Emoluments Clause

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and U.S. Representative John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) filed an amicus brief today in support of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s (CREW) effort to hold President Trump accountable for his ongoing violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Blumenthal and Conyers are the lead plaintiffs in a separate effort to compel the President to comply with the Constitution’ critically important anti-corruption measure.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Trump International Hotel has already turned a $1.97 million profit in 2017. Those profits include payments from foreign governments which have housed their officials in rooms or hosted events at the hotel.

Dean of the U.S.
House of
Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“The Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause is clear. Federal officials, including the President, cannot accept benefits of any kind from foreign states unless Congress consents.  President Trump, however, continues to violate this key anti-corruption provision, which was meant to ensure that the Nation’s leaders put the national interest above their personal interests,” said Conyers.

“The payments from foreign governments that President Trump’s hotel is raking in are just one example of how President Trump is thumbing his nose at the Constitution and the American people. The immense magnitude of President Trump's vast business empire is no excuse for his disregard for the Constitution and disrespect for the American people. No one – not even the President – is above the law,” said Blumenthal.

The full text of the lawmakers’ amicus brief is below.

Blumenthal and Conyers are the lead plaintiffs in Blumenthal, Conyers, et al. v. Trump, the lawsuit brought by nearly 200 members of Congress against President Trump for his violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause requires that all elected officials, including the president, seek the “Consent of the Congress” before receiving any gifts, payments, or benefits from foreign governments. The Constitution’s Framers included such a requirement to protect against foreign influence on U.S. officials, and to ensure that those officials act in the national interest, instead of their own.

Because President Trump has refused to disclose his business dealings abroad, the full scope of his potential Constitutional violations is unknown. Independent reporting has shown that President Trump has received the following foreign emoluments during his presidency among others:

·         Payments from foreign governments housing their officials in rooms or hosting events at Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel after Inauguration Day;

·         Entities owned by foreign states paying rent at Trump Tower in New York City; and

·         The Chinese government granting forty trademarks to the Trump Organization.

While President Trump continues to accept benefits from foreign governments, Congress has no choice but to seek a remedy through the courts.

A Congressional Research Service analysis of suits by members of Congress found no larger action.

Conyers & Blumenthal Amicus Brief Supporting Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Washington by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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CONYERS: Statement for the Markup of H.R. 469, the “Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2017”

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

H.R. 469, the “Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2017,” has a simple goal:  to discourage the use of settlement agreements and consent decrees.

Here are just a few reasons why this is problematic.

To begin with, this bill, by delaying regulatory protections, jeopardizes public health and safety.  This explains why the Administration issued a veto threat against a very similar version included in legislation considered last Congress. 

It also explains why a broad consortium of more than 150 organizations strenuously oppose this bill. 

These organizations include the National Resources Defense Council, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the Sierra Club, and EarthJustice, among other groups.

Simply put, this bill could be used to prevent critical, life-saving federal regulatory actions from being implemented.

For example, the bill gives opponents of regulation multiple opportunities to stifle agency regulatory actions by allowing essentially any third party who is affected by such actions to:

•                     intervene, subject to rebuttal;

•                     participate in settlement negotiations; and

•                     submit public comments about a proposed consent decree or settlement agreement that agencies would then be required to respond to.

In the case of consent decrees concerning a rulemaking, an agency would be forced to go through two public comment periods:  one for the consent decree and one for the rulemaking that results from the consent decree, doubling the agency’s effort.

Take, for example, a consent decree resolving a dispute under the Clean Air Act.  The bill would allow any private party whose rights are affected by such decree a right to intervene, which could conceivably include anyone who breathes air. 

Like nearly all of the anti-regulatory bills we have considered to date over the last three Congresses, H.R. 469 piles on unnecessary procedural requirements for agencies and courts.

Another concern is that this bill threatens to undermine a critical tool that Americans use to guarantee their Congressionally-mandated protections, including civil rights laws. 

By reducing costly and time-consuming litigation, consent decrees and settlement agreements benefit both plaintiffs and defendants. 

They ensure that federal protections are enforced, while giving state and local governments flexibility as to how they meet their federal obligations.

Consent decrees, in particular, have been instrumental in enforcing various civil rights statutes in a wide variety cases, ranging from those involving voting rights -- to reform of mental health institutions -- to law enforcement misconduct.  Indeed, they are at the heart of civil rights enforcement.

           

Because of H.R. 469’s a chilling effect on the use of consent decrees and settlement agreements, civil rights enforcement will be undermined. 

Given this concern, I intend to offer an amendment addressing at least this one shortcoming of the bill.

Finally, H.R. 469 will inevitably generate more litigation that will result in millions of dollars of additional transactional costs, all of which will be borne by the American taxpayer. 

For example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in its analysis of the bill’s predecessor from the last Congress, concluded the measure would impose millions of dollars in additional costs, most of which would be “incurred because litigation involving consent decrees and settlement agreements would probably take longer under the bill and agencies would face additional administrative requirements.”

           

For all of these reasons, I must accordingly oppose H.R. 469 and I yield back the balance of my time.

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CONYERS: President Trump, follow the Constitution

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

My colleagues and I have taken the extraordinary step of filing a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump for his violations of the U.S. Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution forbids federal officeholders, including the President, from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state” without the consent of Congress.

The Framers included the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution because they were deeply concerned about foreign powers gaining influence over our leaders through the promise of personal financial gain. They feared that our experiment in self-government would fail if the American people could not be assured that their elected officials made decisions based on the best interests of the nation rather than the best interests of their pocketbooks. “[I]f we do not provide against corruption, our government will soon be at an end,” George Mason of Virginia warned in 1787. 

At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the Framers debated for days how best to ensure the undivided loyalty of elected officials. “[N]othing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption,” Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers.  They eventually settled on the Emoluments Clause, which by its broad terms assumes that a financial benefit provided to a federal officeholder by a foreign power should be suspect and therefore subject to Congressional approval.

Since taking office, however, President Trump has&nbsp' refused to divest his business empire and has financially benefited from the actions of foreign powers that may be attempting to curry favor. To name but a few examples:  The governments of China, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia lease properties in Trump office buildings; China swiftly granted President Trump’s businesses 38 trademarks following the election, after the Trump Organization spent a decade litigating the issue in court to no avail.  Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. actively courts foreign diplomats, some of whom have hosted events or stayed at his hotel since the Inauguration.  In January 2017, a lobbying firm working for Saudi Arabia spent $270,000 on rooms and other expenses at President Trump’s Washington hotel after Inauguration Day.

As one Asian diplomat boasted to the Washington Post for a November article, “Why wouldn’t I stay at [Trump’s] Hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel,’” and another Middle Eastern diplomat acknowledged, “Believe me, all the delegations will go there.”

In January, President Trump’s attorney Sheri Dillon assured Americans that President Trump would “donate all profits from foreign government payments made to his hotels to the United States Treasury.” Nevertheless, in response to a request from the House Oversight Committee for documentation identifying foreign profits, the Trump Organization refused via  a single glossy brochure to “fully and completely identify all patronage” because it would be “impractical.”  Compounding the problem is the complete lack of transparency by the Administration or any form of oversight by the Majority in Congress. We learned that the “White House is telling federal agencies to blow off Democratic lawmakers oversight requests,” as Politico reported last month. 

President Trump’s actions demonstrate that he has no plans to voluntarily submit to Congressional approval of his financial benefits derived from foreign governments. By failing to do this, the President violates one of the Constitution’s most critical anti-corruption commands, and deprives Congress of its constitutionally assigned role in assessing what financial benefits from foreign states the president may accept.

No elected officeholder may be above the law, especially if he or she claims to be the sole judge of his or her own integrity. The Framers reasoned that if Congress were to decide which financial benefits a president may receive, the chances of corruption and foreign influence would be diminished because each transaction would be open to public examination. 

In deciding for himself what constitutes an emolument, President Trump is denying Congress its constitutional authority to grant – or withhold – its consent. And in our system of government, the judicial branch has the ultimate responsibility to interpret the Constitution, not the executive.   

Congress alone cannot force President Trump to comply with the Constitution. In the face of his continued defiance, therefore, we and our colleagues must ask the courts to help enforce this critical anti-corruption provision in the Constitution and direct President Trump to do what the Constitution requires. 

Our lawsuit is not just about protecting our institutional prerogative, but also to ensure that the Office of the President is not under any undue foreign influence. We owe this duty to uphold the Constitution to all Americans.

To learn about the history of Conyers enacting the constitutional mechanism of the Emoluments Clause, follow this link or just keep coming back.

Congress Emoluments Clause suit by New Mexico Political Report on Scribd

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CONYERS: Floor Statement on H.R. 1215, the so-called “Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017”

H.R. 1215, the “Protecting Access to Care Act of 2017,” will do little to protect Americans’ access to safe and affordable health care.  Instead, it will deny victims of medical malpractice and defective medical products the opportunity to be fully compensated for their injuries and to hold wrongdoers accountable.

This legislation imposes various restrictions on lawsuits against health care providers concerning their provision of health care goods or services that would apply regardless of the merits of a case, the misconduct at issue, or the severity of the victim’s injury. 

There are so many problems with this bill that I would need 5 hours to discuss them all, but here are just a few.

To begin with, H.R. 1215 deeply intrudes on state sovereignty.

In particular, H.R. 1215 preempts state law governing joint and several liability, the availability of damages, the ability to introduce evidence of collateral source benefits, attorneys’ fees, and periodic payments of future damages. 

Members should not be fooled by assertions that the bill preserves state law. In fact, the rule of construction contained in the bill expressly states that it preempts state law except in very limited circumstances where state law is more favorable to defendants. 

And a number of so-called “state flexibility” provisions simply reinforce one-way preemption where the bill mostly supersedes state laws that are more favorable to victims, while leaving intact State laws that are more favorable to defendants.

In truth, H.R. 1215 does nothing to address the fundamental concerns about states’ rights previously raised by Members on both sides of the aisle.  In fact, just yesterday the House Liberty Caucus, a group of conservative libertarian members, registered their strong opposition to this bill stating that it “unconstitutionally voids state laws governing health care lawsuits.”

Further yet, this bill would cause real harm by severely limiting the ability of victims to be made whole.

For instance, the bill’s $250,000 aggregate limit for noneconomic damages -- an amount established more than 40 years ago pursuant to a California statute -- would have a particularly adverse impact on women, children, the poor, and other vulnerable members of society.

These groups are more likely to receive noneconomic damages in health care cases because they are less able to establish lost wages and other economic losses. 

Women, for example, are often paid at a lower rate than men, even for the same job, and are also more likely to suffer noneconomic loss, such as disfigurement or loss of fertility.

Imposing a severe limit on noneconomic damages, therefore, hurts them disproportionately.

Finally, this bill is particularly harmful for veterans, members of the military, and their families.  Because the bill preempts state tort law in any health care related lawsuit that includes any coverage provided by a federal health program, all cases arising from substandard care received in a Veterans Administration facility or a military hospital would be subject to the bill’s restrictions.

As a diverse coalition of veterans organizations noted in their letter of opposition, H.R. 1215 would limit the ability of veterans and military families to “hold health care providers, drug manufacturers and medical products providers accountable for pain and suffering, and death that result from substandard care, preventable medical errors, and defective drugs and devices.” 

For these and many other reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 1215 and I reserve the balance of my time.

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CONYERS & BLUMENTHAL Lay Out The Constitutional Case For Complelling President Trump To Obey Anti-Corruption Foreign Emoluments Clause

In the week since nearly 200 Members of Congress filed a lawsuit to compel President Trump to comply with the Constitution, public reporting has revealed new evidence of foreign benefits

[WASHINGTON, DC] – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) held a press conference at 12:30 PM in the Capitol Visitors Center (SVC-215) to outline the Constitutional case for compelling President Trump to obtain the consent of Congress before accepting payments, benefits, or gifts from foreign states. 

Last week, nearly 200 Members of Congress filed a complaint, below, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against President Trump, whose ongoing failure to disclose his foreign business dealings violates one of the Constitution’s critical anti-corruption provisions: the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

In the week since the lawsuit was filed, public reporting has revealed that President Trump has received additional foreign benefits – including new trademarks in China– and is brokering business deals in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf while regional tensions escalate.

“We are joining in this action to prevent Donald Trump from thumbing his nose at the Constitution and the American people. The Constitution clearly states that no elected official - including the President - may receive gifts, payments, or benefits from foreign governments without disclosing them to Congress and seeking our consent,” Senator Blumenthal said. “The immense magnitude of President Trump's vast business empire is no excuse for his disregard of the Constitution and disrespect for the American people.”

“For generations,” Representative Conyers said, “presidents of both parties have complied with the Foreign Emoluments Clause by either divesting their business and financial holdings, or coming to Congress to seek approval prior to receiving any foreign government payment or other benefits. Our current President has done neither. This course of conduct is keeping Americans in the dark – leaving us to speculate if he’s acting on behalf of the American people or for his own financial benefit. Today’s legal action is designed to help lift our Nation out of this morass of conflicts and restore faith in our government, just as the founders intended.”

Because President Trump has refused to disclose his business dealings abroad, the full scope of his potential Constitutional violations is unknown. Independent reporting has shown that President Trump has received the following foreign emoluments during his presidency among others:

·         Payments from foreign governments housing their officials in rooms or hosting events at Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel after Inauguration Day;

·         Entities owned by foreign states paying rent at Trump World Tower in New York City; and

·         The Chinese government granting thirty-nine trademarks to the Trump Organization.

U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Tom Udall (D-NM), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Steve Cohen (D-TN) will also attend Tuesday’s press conference. They will be joined by Elizabeth Wydra, President of the Constitutional Accountability Center, the public interest organization whose attorneys are representing Members of Congress.

U.S. Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, (D-CT)
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM)
U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
U.S. Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA)
U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Elizabeth Wydra, President, Constitutional Accountability Center

Congress v. Donald Trump Lawsuit in Violation of the Constitution’s anti-corruption Foreign Emoluments Clau... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Trump, Donald J 2017 Financial Disclosure Report by Neetzan on Scribd

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CONYERS: Why I Am Suing President Trump

AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now back to Capitol Hill, which remains in shock after House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and four other people were wounded Wednesday when a gunman opened fire at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, the lawmakers practicing for a charity congressional game that will take place tonight.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We’re joined by the longest-serving member of Congress, Democrat John Conyers of Michigan. He’s served in Congress since 1965.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Conyers, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you back with us, but on a very sad day. Right now your fellow congressman, Steve Scalise, is in critical condition as a result of this shooting. The game will go on tonight, with Republicans and Democrats standing together. But your thoughts today?

REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, I am deeply disturbed by Steve Scalise’s problems. And we are all praying for his speedy recovery and hope that this will all soon be past.

We’ve got an important commitment here, and I think it’s very important that emoluments are prevented from spoiling what should be an important consideration. The Constitution says no emoluments, gifts.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Conyers, let’s explain what it is that you’re talking about, since no one knew what the word "emoluments" was anyway. But it involves this lawsuit that you’re involved with against President Trump. You and nearly 200 congressmembers—

REP. JOHN CONYERS: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: —from the Senate and the Congress, 196 overall, are suing President Trump, accusing him of violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by accepting millions of dollars in payments from foreign governments to Trump’s companies while serving as U.S. president, the lawsuit alleging Trump has accepted foreign emoluments, payments, which benefit him directly, without going to Congress first to get its consent. I want to turn to Elizabeth Wydra, who is president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of you and the 195 other members of Congress. This is what she says.

ELIZABETH WYDRA: President Trump has received billions of dollars from foreign governments leasing space in his properties, placing diplomats in his hotels. He has received very valuable trademarks from foreign governments. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, the benefits that we know that he’s received from foreign governments in violation of the Constitution. So what we need to do is have a transparent process. That’s what the Constitution envisions. That’s what it requires. And we’re going into court today to make sure that the president abides by the Constitution.

AMY GOODMAN: Among the violations cited in the lawsuit, Trump accepting intellectual property rights when he was granted trademarks by the Chinese government, and accepted payments from foreign governments by leasing space in his properties and placing diplomats in his hotels—representatives of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait have all stayed at Trump International Hotel in D.C., which is located right near the White House—the lawsuit involving more congressional plaintiffs than any legal action ever taken against a president. Congressmember John Conyers, you are one of the leaders in this lawsuit. Why?

REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, because it’s simply a constitutional violation that’s pure and simple, Amy. This is something that we can’t sit by and let happen as if it doesn’t matter. It does matter. And it’s not complicated or complex or anything else. And that’s why we have so many congressmen and senators working with us on it.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Congressman Conyers, can you explain why it’s so significant that you say that Trump has violated the Emoluments Clause? Why is that so important?

REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, it says that emoluments are money, benefits or other awards that can’t be used in the legislative process. Without the Emoluments Clause, Amy, the government and the lawmakers are subject to all kinds of offers, bribes, inducements. And so it’s really a waste of the democratic process if we don’t do something about it. And so, that’s why we are. We’ve got 160 congressmen and 30 senators, as well, all joined with us.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, so far, the 196 of you—you and Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut are leading the charge here in this lawsuit—are all Democrats. Among others, the president’s spokesperson, Sean Spicer, has said that these attacks on Trump around the Emoluments Clause are all partisan. Will any Republicans be joining your ranks in this lawsuit?

REP. JOHN CONYERS: We’ll find out today, because we’re inviting them to come in. We didn’t want to get in—we didn’t want to start off with a debate about what provisions should be allowed, what emphasis and how this should be written. We decided to just start with the people that we knew would join immediately. And now we’ll be working on Republicans. And we want them to come in. We hope that they—that some of them do. And I think a few of them will.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s an honor to have you with us, Congressman John Conyers, representing Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, which includes Detroit, the current ranking member and former chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Thank you so much for joining us from the Capitol.

Congress v. Donald Trump Lawsuit in Violation of the Constitution’s anti-corruption Foreign Emoluments Clau... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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CONYERS: 200 members Of Congress File Complaint Against Trump In Violation Of The Foreign Emolument Clause

Dean of the U.S. House
of Resprentatives
John Conyers, Jr.

Nearly 200 Members of Congress filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against President Trump. President Trump’s ongoing failure to obtain the consent of Congress before accepting payments, benefits, or gifts from foreign states violates one of the Constitution’s critical anti-corruption provisions: the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

Congress v. Donald Trump Lawsuit in Violation of the Constitution’s anti-corruption Foreign Emoluments Clau... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member, for the Markup of H.R. 1669, the “Judgment Fund Transparency Act of 2016,”by the Committee on the Judiciary

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

While the purpose of H.R. 1669, the “Judgment Fund Transparency Act of 2016,” is ostensibly to promote greater transparency in government, I fear that its real purpose is to once again attack the Obama Administration’s integrity.While the purpose of H.R. 1669, the “Judgment Fund Transparency Act of 2016,” is ostensibly to promote greater transparency in government, I fear that its real purpose is to once again attack the Obama Administration’s integrity.

The bill would require the Treasury Department to publicly disclose via the Internet various details about payments it makes on claims paid out of the Judgment Fund, most of which is already available on the Department’s website. 

I question the impetus for this bill, which seems to be assertions by some that the Obama Administration’s payment of money to Iran to settle longstanding pre-revolutionary legal claims was somehow illegitimate.  

If that is the case, I reject such a premise.

To begin with, no one can dispute that the Administration’s use of the Judgment Fund to settle Iranian claims against the U.S. earlier this year was perfectly legal.

The State Department negotiated a $1.7 billion deal to settle claims between the U.S. and pre-revolutionary Iran, which included $1.3 billion in interest paid out of the Judgment Fund.

A 1989 Justice Department opinion makes clear that the State Department may seek payment from the Judgment Fund to pay claims or settlements stemming from matters before the U.S.-Iran Claims Tribunal, as was the case here.

Indeed, Professor Paul Figley, the Majority’s own witness, acknowledged that “the Obama Administration had the authority under the Judgment Fund statute to pay and settle the Iranian claim with interest.”

In addition to being perfectly legal, the Obama Administration’s action actually saved American taxpayers billions of dollars.

I know that $1.3 billion sounds like a large sum for interest payments.

The U.S., however, could have owed Iran billions more for over 30 years’ worth of interest on the principal owed to Iran if we had not settled those claims.

The Iran payments demonstrate that the Obama Administration acted prudentially to protect American taxpayers.  

Finally, contrary to what critics claim, the Administration has been fully transparent.

The Iran payments were disclosed to the public at the time they were made.

The Obama Administration announced the Iran payments when they were made in January 2016, and there is no doubt that the Administration made no effort to hide them.

And there is no support for characterizing these payments as “ransom.”

While the Obama Administration has acknowledged that it withheld payments to ensure the Iranians followed through on the release of 4 American prisoners, these negotiations were carried out by separate teams and were unrelated. 

In short, the Obama Administration’s actions regarding the Iran payments, by themselves, do not justify additional scrutiny of the Judgment Fund. 

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Michigan Congressional Democrats Call On DOJ To Review Decision To Block Flint From Suing The State

Michigan – U.S. House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13) and Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05) today led a letter signed by every Democratic House member of Michigan’s congressional delegation, calling for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to review the State of Michigan’s actions to block the City of Flint from suing the State in connection with the Flint Water Crisis.

As stated in the letter, in March 2016, the City of Flint filed a notice of intent to sue the State. Just a week later, the Governor-appointed Receivership Transition Advisory Board (RTAB) issued a recommendation requiring that it approve the initiation of any litigation by Flint, which was approved by the state treasurer.  The letter raises concerns about the lawfulness of Michigan’s actions and requests the Department of Justice to review whether denying the City of Flint the ability to seek legal redress from the State implicates constitutional due process, equal protection and associated environmental justice issues for the people of Flint.

In their letter, the Members wrote, “First, we are concerned that the state-appointed RTAB’s potentially unauthorized action to restrain Flint’s authority to initiate litigation and its apparent failure to adequately notify the City of the import of its actions may have deprived the City of Flint and its residents of constitutionally protected due process…Given the fact that Flint is a majority African American municipality, the denial of the City’s right to obtain judicial redress may therefore implicate the Equal Protection Clause…Third, we are concerned that the actions of the State may have violated principles of environmental justice, which are premised on notions of Equal Protection.”

 

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“Much remains to be done in the pursuit of justice for Flint residents and to ensure no other community suffers from the actions of unaccountable political appointees that they did not elect,” said Congressman Conyers. “The people of Flint must have their rightfully deserved access to legal redress, due process, equal protection under the law and associated environmental justice. I urge DOJ to thoroughly review actions by Governor Snyder and the Michigan Receivership Transition Advisory Board against the people of Flint. I will continue to monitor the situation in Flint in the months and years ahead.”

“The state of Michigan should focus on bringing clean drinking water to the people of Flint, not maneuvering to prevent them from accessing the judicial system,” said Congressman Kildee. “Our letter asks the Department of Justice to investigate the constitutional and environmental justice issues implicated by the State’s decision to effectively prevent the city of Flint from suing the state. Quite simply, this is wrong.”

The letter to DOJ was signed by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13), Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05), Congressman Sandy Levin (MI-09), Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12) and Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence (MI-14).

In March, Congressman Conyers introduced H.R. 4754, the Emergency Financial Manager Reform Act of 2016, to address unchecked decision-making powers that appointed emergency financial managers have in financially distressed cities which cause situations like the Flint Water Crisis.

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Floor Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr. for the Veto Override Vote on “S. 2040, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act”

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, jr.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States constituted the deadliest foreign attack on American soil in our Nation’s history.

Their impact has been immeasurable as evidenced by the fact that we are still grappling with their cultural and policy implications.

And, 15 years later, their powerful emotional effect on Americans remains as strong as ever.

Those who lost loved ones or were injured as a result of this horrific attack deserve our deepest sympathy and our help.

And, it is in this vein that we consider whether to override the President’s veto of S. 2040, the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” which, among other things, amends the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 to create a new exception to the Act’s general grant of foreign sovereign immunity. 

The bill’s supporters present compelling and sympathetic arguments in favor of insuring that the 9/11 families have access to a well-deserved “day in court.”

In his veto message, however, the President raised a number of serious substantive concerns about the potential unintended consequences of this legislation.

First, the President stated that S. 2040 could undermine the effectiveness of our Nation’s national security and counter-terrorism efforts. 

For instance, other nations may become more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence in light of the greater risk that such information may be revealed in litigation.

Moreover, the President raised the concern that this legislation would effectively allow non-expert private litigants and courts, rather than national security and foreign policy experts, to determine key foreign and national security policy questions like which states are sponsors of terrorism.

Second, the President asserted that enactment of S. 2040 may lead to retaliation by other countries against the United States given the breadth of our interests and the expansive reach of our global activities.

While it seems likely at this juncture that S. 2040 will be enacted over the President’s veto, I remain hopeful that we can continue to work toward the enactment of subsequent legislation to address the President’s concerns.

I understand the moral imperative of enacting legislation in this matter, but I am sensitive to the seriousness of the concerns that the President raised.

I had expressed the hope during the Floor debate on this bill that Congress and the President could work together to find a better balance that would still enable 9/11 victims to seek justice while tempering the President’s concerns.

There is no doubt as to the passion that the bill’s supporters bring to advocating for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a passion that I share.

As legislators, however, we must be driven not only by understandable emotions, but by thoughtful consideration of the long-term interests of our country.  For this reason, the expected outcome of today’s vote should not be the end of this matter.

For the forgoing reasons, and those stated by the President, national security experts, international law scholars, and others, however, I must vote to sustain the President’s veto.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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