Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut, The Nutmeg State, The Constitution State, for all her work and for yielding this time.

Mr. Chair, a budget is a reflection of our values, and what a low value the majority places on women and children in these bills.

In the 2 minutes allotted to me, 40 Americans will be physically abused by a partner, but instead of standing with those survivors, MAGA Republicans are defunding the Violence Against Women Act and they are taking away survivors' access to legal counsel. Those are the GOP's values.

MAGA ideology is about controlling people--their health, their lives, their bodies, and in these bills, they are continuing their march toward a national abortion ban, defunding family planning programs, banning providers from talking to patients about abortion care, and banning medical students from even learning how to provide safe abortions. Those are their values.

Millions of parents sent their kids to school today not knowing if they will come home safe. The Republicans' response? Unleash more guns onto the streets, including untraceable ghost guns. Those are their values.

In these bills, they are gutting public education and childcare. They are even defunding programs for missing and exploited children.

We see the extreme values of the GOP in these bills. These values are not shared by the American people. We are here to serve people. These bills work against them.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question on the motion.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Chair, we are 10 days from a GOP shutdown, and instead of finding a bipartisan way forward, instead of working with us to lower costs for families at home, instead of honoring the budget deal that we already agreed to, Republicans have turned around and become a pro-lead poisoning caucus.

Really. Read the bill. They have written a housing and transportation budget that defunds lead removal in low-income housing, lead removal in the homes of 46,000 children.

That is not all. This bill cuts affordable housing construction by two-thirds. It guts transit funding, leaving parents with longer, more dangerous, less reliable commutes.

News flash. Nobody's gas prices were ever lowered by banning Pride flags, but the open discrimination against the LGBTQ+ Americans in this bill will hurt communities in every single one of our districts.

This bill is more of the same from the MAGA Republican majority: Unserious, heartless extremism.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to put children over politics and vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker pro tempore, 212, it is a New York area code, and it is our call for a Speaker of integrity, intelligence, and inclusion; 212 is our call for a Speaker who will protect our children, our veterans, our planet; 212 is our call for a Speaker who will grow the middle class, lower costs, create good-paying jobs, and make healthcare affordable; 212 is our call for a Speaker who will secure liberty, justice, and opportunity for everyone.

Well, the unanimous call of 212 House Democrats has been answered by our nominee for Speaker, the gentleman from Brooklyn, the leader of our House Democratic Caucus, the Honorable Hakeem Jeffries.

Leader Jeffries has answered our call, but the majority's nominee is disconnected. He is disconnected from the American people and their values. MAGA extremism is designed to divide, and it has broken the Republican Party. Their nominee's vision is a direct attack on the freedom and the rights of the American people, and he has got the record to prove it.

The Republican nominee has voted against healthcare for children, for veterans, even for 9/11 survivors. He has opposed lowering the cost of insulin repeatedly. He wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. Don't take it from me, it was raised on the other side of the aisle just this week as a selling point to make him Speaker.

Over his 16 years in the House, the Republican nominee has never supported a farm bill. What does that mean?

It means he has turned his back on farmers, on rural communities, and the 11 million children who go to bed hungry in this country.

The Republican nominee wants a national abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of a mother. We want to make our own healthcare decisions in consultation with our families, our doctors, and our faith--not with Jim Jordan.

The Republican nominee plotted to overturn the 2020 election, traffics in misinformation, and is a true threat to our democracy and our Constitution.

I have had the privilege of working here in the people's House for almost 10 years. I have gotten to know many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I know that they hear the same thing that I do, which is that the American people expect us to work together on their behalf.

Well, it is not too late for the majority to choose a bipartisan path forward to reopen the House. Take ``yes'' for an answer.

Every day the majority chooses to engage in a Republican civil war that is threatening their own members instead of engaging with us in the work of the American people, is a day that weakens this institution and the standing of our country.

We need a Speaker who will govern through consensus, not conflict. We need a Speaker worthy of wielding that gavel. We need a leader who will defend democracy, not degrade it. More than ever, we need proven, patriotic, people-first leadership.

Mr. Speaker pro tempore, I am proud to nominate Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, we have just received a 71- page bill that is about keeping open our Federal Government, something that Democrats have been pushing for months.

We are asking for 90 minutes to be able to read this bill and come to the floor with an informed vote. That has been denied. We have serious trust issues.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, a handful of issues have always transcended politics. Our troops, the guardians of our freedom, have always been one of them, but in the MAGA Republican Party, nothing is off the table. Nothing takes priority over their goal of a nationwide abortion ban.

Military promotions, troops' paychecks, our national defense bill: all held hostage because extremists want to tear away the reproductive freedom of the very people fighting for our freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues: Put our country first and instruct the conferees to deliver a defense bill that puts freedom over fascism.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leader for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I think we have very different definitions of success for the American people. As Democrats, we have been focused and have been successful in growing our economy by growing the middle class, lowering healthcare costs, making sure that we are addressing climate change, and having safer communities.

Now the Republican Conference is saying they are sending us home for 6

weeks without funding the government?

We have 1 bill out of 12 completed because extremists are holding your Conference hostage. That is not the full story. The extremists are holding the American people hostage.

We will have 12 days when we return to fund the government and to live up to the job the American people sent us here to do.

This is a reckless march to a MAGA shutdown, and for what? In pursuit of a national abortion ban?

Is that what we are doing here?

The American people see through this. They know who is fighting for them and fighting for solutions.

Your time is coming, Mr. Speaker. The American people are watching, and they are going to demand accountability.

We should be staying here, completing these appropriation bills, stripping out the toxic, divisive, and bigoted riders that have been put on these bills and getting back to work for freedom, for our economy, and the American family.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to continue to stand in this country for some basic principles that we are sent here for the American people, that we are sent here to defend their freedom, and that we are sent here to work an economy that isn't just for the wealthy and well connected but that is for the American family.

That is the work we are doing. That is the basis of the great economic news coming out, and we are going to continue that fight.

We hope that Republicans will say no to extremism, to hatred, and to bigotry that is put into these appropriation bills and say yes to solutions and fairness for the American people and to build an economy where they can see themselves.

Funding our government is our basic job. The comments from the GOP Conference about how we could go into a MAGA shutdown and it wouldn't matter are outrageous. The last time we had a shutdown, it was $11 billion out of this economy.

Don't talk to us about standing for our veterans when the GOP was the one that has cut veterans housing, has cut their healthcare, and has said to our women, our Active-Duty military women, that it is okay to fight for freedom for our country, but we are going to take your freedom away. That is not okay.

Mr. Chair, ever since the minutemen gathered in Lexington, America's Armed Forces have been guardians of freedom.

Generations of heroes have signed up for a singular cause: preserving liberty for all. Regardless of party or politics, the House has come together every year to put our national security and our military families first--until now.

This year, the MAGA majority is using our national defense bill to get one step closer to the only thing they really care about, a nationwide abortion ban.

Mr. Chair, Americans are already paying the price for Republicans' extremism; Americans like Amanda Zarowski who rushed to the hospital last year after suffering a miscarriage.

Amanda needed an abortion procedure to prevent a deadly infection, but her doctor sent her home, banned under Texas law from providing the care she needed.

So she waited, mourning her daughter that she had lost, until she went into septic shock, ended up in the ICU for 3 days, and almost lost her life.

Now MAGA Republicans are aiming the same dangerous extremism at our troops. They want the same control over the health, body, and lives of America's servicemembers and their families.

That is not freedom. That is not patriotism. That is not national security. That is tyranny.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I am joined by over 80 of my Democratic colleagues to say the quiet part out loud: MAGA Republicans want us to default. They want to run out the clock. They want to lead our government by chaos.

By sending us home, by refusing to do their jobs, they are making that crystal clear.

Unless we give in to devastating cuts, they will push us into a devastating default.

It is the American people who will suffer--teachers, seniors, kids, families, veterans, the hungry, and the sick.

To my Republican colleagues this Memorial Day weekend: It is time to be a patriot. Now is the time to sign our discharge petition and end this catastrophe in the making.

Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago today, the American people were reeling from a white supremacist terror attack in Buffalo, New York.

Families were grieving 10 Black Americans who had been targeted by an ethno-nationalist and murdered for the color of their skin.

Loved ones were still organizing funerals for the victims of America's latest mass shooting, and then we saw the breaking news from Uvalde, Texas--another active mass murder; another crowd of desperate, panicked parents surrounding a school under siege; another statistic, 21 shot and killed.