Rep. Roy issues statement on H.R. 5

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chip Roy issued the following statement after votes on Friday:

 

I voted Yes on H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights Act.

There was one question before the U.S. House today: if the federal government is going to continue its unconstitutional foray into the education of children, then should parents at least have a right to know what the schools taking federal money are doing with that money? 

For me, the answer is yes.  

Parents should know if extreme leftists are working to indoctrinate their children with books, curriculum, and programming advancing radical and graphic sexual material, promoting gender confusion, and purposeful marxist CRT ideology.

I fully support eliminating the federal Department of Education, and I voted in favor of my friend Rep. Massie’s amendment that said Congress should do so. Moreover, in the absence of doing so, Congress should either hand over full control of federal dollars to the States or empower parents to take their tax dollars to the school that best fits their children’s needs and abilities. I offered two amendments to this bill, one for each of those objectives. Unfortunately they were both were rejected by the chamber. 

Therefore, we were left to decide whether or not to bolster fundamental parental rights in connection with the spending of federal dollars — the very same education dollars that Democrats have used to demand all sorts of requirements already. 

If those dollars are going to be disbursed and conditioned at the federal level anyway, we have a duty not to unilaterally disarm and, instead, to make it clear that a free people do not co-parent with the government.

Therefore I voted yes, but will continue to work to stop laundering your tax dollars through Washington and leave the matter where it belongs — with states and parents.

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