Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet on Monday next, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Madam Speaker, I move that the message of the President be referred to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered printed.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 36 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 6, 2019, at 10 a.m., for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Chair, I am, of course, not shocked that those who wanted to shut down the government and keep it shut had Federal employees making nothing. I am not shocked that they don't want to give Federal employees a cost-of-living adjustment.

Now, I could spend a lot of time responding to my friend from Ohio about the qualifications necessary to run NASA and to work at NASA, or the FBI, or the CDC, or the other agencies that require high levels of skill to work.

I am sure my friend from Ohio has read the government reports from the council that is charged with the responsibility of determining whether we are paying comparable wages who say, no, we are not. As a matter of fact, we are substantially under, if you compare apples to apples, educational requirements, and skills requirements to the private sector, similar requirements.

He doesn't mention that because the averages, they sound just much better.

Now, of course, the average salary on the Washington National's team is a little higher than that. Why, because their skill levels are higher than almost anybody else in the country.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank Representative Connolly and Representative Wexton for their hard work, and I want to thank my friend, the chairman of the committee. Representative Connolly, of course, has been a long- time advocate of the pay and benefits, and retaining, and being able to recruit people who have those kinds of skill levels.

You better be careful; some 30 to 40 percent of our people are getting pretty close or are at retirement age, and they are going to say, you keep shutting them down and not keeping their salary level, unlike our salary, which has deteriorated now for 10 years in terms of its purchasing value. But averages are averages.

I want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Connolly in particular. He has been an outstanding advocate for many Federal civilian employees living and working in northern Virginia and across the national capital region, and, indeed, around the country.

Let me disclose, I represent 62,000 Federal employees. You are not shocked that I am for Federal employees. But when I was in the State Senate, I represented a miniscule amount of State employees, and I was for paying them comparable wages so that we could hire competent, capable, committed people to serve my constituents.

This shutdown just showed what kind of pain it has caused. Do you think those high-price people were in food lines because they wanted to say: I am in a food line? No, sir. They were there because they were not making enough in the Washington metropolitan area and in other areas around the country, because less than 20 percent of the Federal employees live in this Washington metropolitan area.

The pay freeze President Trump imposed on Federal workers has been detrimental to our ability as a nation to recruit and retain the best and brightest citizens to serve in government.

Now, very frankly, Abe Pollin, a very good friend of mine, owned the Washington Wizards. He never asked me to play center because I have a disability. I am 6-feet tall, not 7-feet tall. That is all. And the people he asked, he had to pay a lot of money to them because he wouldn't get them if he didn't.

The people who were running our space program, or running NIH, they are just not run-of-the-mill people, frankly, like me. They have got extraordinary skills. If we keep shutting them down and we keep not paying them, you are going to have a second-rate government. That is where you are going

You are going to have another opportunity to say shutdown is stupid. I hope you join us on that because it is stupid. It cost us $11 billion according to CBO. After 5 weeks of an unnecessary, costly, and painful shutdown, the American people have been reminded how critical the work our Federal employees perform is to our national security and economic security.

Americans were horrified to learn that many civilian Federal employees live paycheck to paycheck, as they do. Even a single month's delay of income sent many of them to food pantries and in search of emergency loans.

That isn't right. We had, for a long time, an agreement. We do parity for our military personnel. Now we pay our military, who we put at the point of the spear, hazardous duty pay, as we should. But our agreement was we are going to make sure that everybody keeps their pay at pretty much a stable level of purchasing power. That is the key.

Very frankly, some people in this House are not for raising the minimum wage. The minimum wage has eroded 40 percent in purchasing power since 1968. The Federal employee pay will erode in purchasing power if we don't pass this legislation.

Let's not forget that 85 percent of Federal employees live outside the Washington area in some of your districts; even in North Carolina.

Those who work hard to keep our country and its people safe deserve to be paid competitively. This does not bring them to competitive pay with the private sector, I tell my friends.

I am proud to represent, as I said, 62,000 of them. I have met many of them over the years. They are wonderful people dedicated to serving the Nation and the people of our country. They deserve better than to be treated like pawns in political games with shutdowns and pay freezes.

Now, the Senate included 1.9 percent. We included zero over here, of course, not surprising. When you don't respect people, you don't necessarily have to treat them as you would treat an employee in your own firm.

Federal civilian employees, unlike their counterparts in the military, have been asked to contribute $182 billion over the last 10 years in reduced benefits and pay. $182 billion they have contributed to try to bring down our debt, which is sort of a drop in the bucket when you give yourself $1.5 trillion for some of the wealthiest people in America.

You give yourself headroom to create $1.5 trillion to $2.5 trillion of additional debt to give some of the wealthiest people in America a huge tax cut, but not 2.6 percent for Federal employees. My no.

That scientist at NASA or the FBI agent who has maybe a college degree, maybe a law degree, who has to figure out what some of the most dangerous people in America and around the world are doing, no, not 2.6 percent for them.

Mr. Chair, we need to make sure pay is keeping pace with the rising cost of living for those who serve this country in civilian roles, as well as those in military roles. They are no less deserving of our gratitude and fair compensation. This bill would ensure that civilian Federal employees receive the same 2.6 percent that all of you voted for on that side of the aisle for our military personnel.

I honor our military personnel. We should give them that. We should make sure their purchasing power doesn't erode. And by the way, you can talk to military families who also from time to time are in food lines. Is that the right way to treat our people who work for our country and our constituents?

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in supporting this bill. In doing so, we can show the hardworking men and women--unlike we showed them for 35 days--that we do have respect for them; that we do care about their morale; and that we do care about their ability to support themselves and their families. We can show them that we value their contributions and thank them for their important service.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues, at a time of extraordinary trauma among our Federal employees, to show them the gratitude and respect that they have earned and that they deserve.

Will the gentleman yield on the point he just made?

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman very much because he makes a good point. When President Obama became President, of course, we were in a deep trough as the gentleman remembers.

It was January of 2009, and we sat around the Cabinet table. I was the majority leader then as well, and I said:

Federal employees ought to get no cost-of-living

adjustment, Mr. President. The country is in a deep trough.

Many people are hurting in this country, and we should not

have a COLA adjustment this year.

I supported the second year of not having a COLA adjustment because we were still in a problem. Mr. Chairman, you will not find any record of my standing on this floor saying that we ought to give Federal employees a COLA while so many people in the country were struggling without a job and losing their homes. So I just wanted to tell the gentleman that when a Democrat was President of the United States, I told the Federal unions--all of whom supported me--Look, the country is in trouble.

But we are not in trouble now. The President talks about what a great economy we have and what low unemployment we have. So now is the time to give them that raise.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

I didn't support him, however, when he did those zeros in those years when we were doing well.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to respond to that last speech.

A bill came from the Senate unanimously, Republicans and Democrats, that would have opened the government. We would have voted for that bill, all of us, but after not moving on Department of Homeland Security for 11-2/3 of a year, the then-majority party added into that bill a piece of legislation they knew would not pass in the United States Senate. Democrats would not be for it. The gentleman is correct.

The gentleman knew they wouldn't be for it, and the gentleman knew they couldn't get 60 votes. Notwithstanding that, they passed a piece of legislation that directly resulted in the shutdown of government.

I say that those are the facts.

As a matter of fact, we thought the President of the United States agreed with that bill, but somehow, in the some 900 feet of there to here, he changed his mind.

Maybe he talked to Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity. I don't know who the operative adviser was, but he changed his mind.

As a result, we had the longest shutdown in history.

The CBO says it cost at least $11 billion. The economic adviser at the White House said that it was costing at least one-tenth of a point a week.

This resolution says: Shutdown is stupid.

I am sure some don't agree with that, because I have been in this Chamber when you have voted to keep the government shut down. And you don't like me saying that.

Your Speaker asked you to open up the government and 144 of you--your Speaker, Mr. Boehner, not a Democrat, said: Look, this is stupid. We need to open up the government--voted no. Now, it passed because all of us voted with 87 Republicans, including your present leader, who voted yes to open up the government.

This resolution is so simple. A shutdown is stupid. That is all it says. We will see how you vote. And I am going to say something about some people who think it is stupid.

I want to thank my friend from Virginia, Ms. Wexton, for her leadership on this issue. She represents a district, as I do, where there are many hardworking Federal employees, who were negatively affected.

We had an argument here about whether we ought to give people a 2.6 percent raise, a COLA adjustment, to keep them even with the economy. And we voted to give them nothing--zero, zip. Not a cost-of-living adjustment. No pay at all.

I see my friend, the minority leader, on the floor. He said, not paying 800,000 people was unacceptable. I agree with him. I think it is unacceptable. I think asking people to work and then not paying them is not a moral thing to do.

This resolution, as I said, is simple. It is one I believe nearly every Member of this House ought to support, unless you support shutting down the government of the United States of America. It says, a shutdown should never be a strategy in negotiations over funding, period, full stop.

We just endured 35 days of a dangerous and unnecessary partial government shutdown that cost 800,000 American workers to be denied their paychecks and that the CBO says, as I just said, $11 billion was the cost. Those are the direct costs.

Our resolution makes it clear that such a use of shutdowns, or the threat of shutdowns, ought not to be tolerated in our political system. Now, this resolution says that, but I am going to have some other people who are going to say that as well.

No other country has this phenomena. I can't find another country that shuts its government down. In Australia, if you shut the government down, the government falls, so you have to form a new government.

There is no reason why Americans should have to live under the threat of being taken hostage, yet again, the next time there is an unresolved debate over an issue, whatever the issue might be.

Even many Republican leaders agree that using a shutdown is wrong. I think most leaders, as a matter of fact, not everyone.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell very definitively called shutdowns ``a failed policy.''

And Senator Susan Collins, rightfully, said, just a few days ago that: ``Shutdowns represent the ultimate failure to govern and should never be used as a weapon''--let me repeat that--``and should never be used as a weapon to achieve an outcome.''

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleagues all know Lamar Alexander, the former Governor of Tennessee, former Secretary of Education, a Member of the United States Senate, and someone who was prominently mentioned and regularly mentioned as a candidate for President of the United States on the Republican ticket. Here is what he said: ``It is always wrong for either side to use shutting down the government as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations.''

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want my colleagues to hear this, Senator Alexander: ``It should be as off-limits as chemical weapons are to warfare.'' Could Senator Alexander have said it any more powerfully that shutdowns are not an option? That is all this resolution says.

Sadly, I think a lot of you are going to vote no, I suppose, on the theory that you think: No, if we don't get our way, shutting down the government is our option. That is certainly what you told Mr. Boehner and then Leader McCarthy.

This resolution says, let's not allow that to happen again. We now have 3 weeks to avert the next shutdown. I am hopeful that the Appropriations Committee will present us with a bipartisan agreement on how best to invest in border security. We all need to do our job.

Mr. Speaker, I call on my colleagues to join us on this resolution to make it clear to our Federal employees, to our contractors, to the American people, and, yes, to the rest of the world that we don't believe shutting down the government of the United States of America is an option in negotiations. Vote for this resolution. You know that shutting down government is not a positive result of our failures.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business following 1 minutes. The House will recess to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber prior to the President's State of the Union Address. The House will meet again at approximately 8:35 p.m. in a joint session with the Senate for the purpose of receiving an address from the President of the United States. Members are advised that there will be no votes in the House on Tuesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for legislative business.

On Friday, Madam Speaker, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of those suspensions will be announced by close of business Friday.

In addition, Madam Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 840, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act, introduced by Representatives Brownley and Higgins. This bill would make permanent the VA's childcare pilot program and expand it so that veterans across the Nation who are parents or grandparents have a convenient, cost-free option for childcare when they have VA medical appointments.

Madam Speaker, as I pointed out, additional items are possible to be added. We said that last week. We did add one. It was noticed on Monday, and we voted on it today. In effect, we met the 3- day rule, not the 72-hour rule, but that was a suspension. There may be others that we will add.

Madam Speaker, we want to move on a bipartisan basis. The good news was that this resolution, although it failed to have a two- thirds vote, did have a bipartisan vote with more than 20 Republicans voting for it, which I appreciate. Of course, the balance voted against the resolution, which said that shutdowns were bad.

But we will certainly try to give as much notice as possible to the gentleman and to his party.

Will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, as the gentleman knows, the conference committee has either met or is meeting. It is my understanding that Chairwoman Lowey is going to have a press conference after the first initial meeting, so that we are in a conference. That is good news. I am sure the conferees are going to talk about proposals that they have to reach border security.

I might say that, although it appears to be the central part, in terms of our perspective, a shutdown is not about border security or any other particular issue. It is that it is a bad policy to shut down the Government of the United States. Notwithstanding that, I expect that Chairwoman Lowey will be explaining our position in the conference.

Certainly.

Madam Speaker, not as far as I know.

Madam Speaker, I share the gentleman's view. I hope the conferees can reach an agreement that will be agreeable to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, both the House and the Senate, and the President.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at noon tomorrow; when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, February 4, 2019; and when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at noon on Tuesday, February 5, 2019, for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

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

Madam Speaker, I offer a privileged concurrent resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Reserving the right to objection, I do not intend to object, Mr. Speaker, but I hope the experience of the last 35 days has taught us that we should never repeat this exercise of shutting down government again.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise) for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour debate. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the

House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for legislative business. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

Members are advised that additional legislative items are possible, including additional legislation related to fiscal year 2019 appropriations.

I want to make it clear to Members that when we leave today or tomorrow, we will leave with the notice to Members that they are subject to being asked to come back Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, or any day thereafter, if there is a possibility of opening up the Government of the United States, so that it can serve the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, let me make very clear that which ought to be very clear: We believe the President of the United States, with the aiding and abetting of the majority leader of the United States Senate, has taken the Government of the United States hostage, and the President of the United States is asking for ransom, and that ransom is to accept his policy or go home and stay shut down.

I will tell the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that I have been in this body for a long time. I am in my fourth decade. I have never supported shutting down the Government of the United States.

Now, the gentleman may point out that I have voted from time to time against bills that would have opened it up because of things that were in the bills and these bills passed the House of Representatives when you were in charge. They did not pass the Senate, of course.

I believe that shutting down the people's government is an unacceptable--unacceptable--tactic in a democracy when one is discussing differences that need to be resolved. Unacceptable.

Furthermore, as I said on the floor the other day, Mr. Speaker, I can find no free government in the world that shuts itself down, other than the United States of America. Now, we have a relatively unique system of government.

But I will tell my friend that we are for border security. We have supported bills that affected border security. During our tenure, there was more border security fencing, I will tell the gentleman, constructed than when they had been in charge over the last 8 years. Look at the record.

But the issue is, we are not going to negotiate at the point of a gun, which is shutting down the Government of the United States, affecting 800,000 of our employees.

Some of you say: I run a business. I am a businessman.

Well, if you are a car company, or you are a real estate company, or you are a contractor, or whatever you may do, can you tell your employees: I am going to have you work, but by the way, I am not going to pay you.

Mr. Speaker, we want to negotiate. We want to get this resolved, but we are not going to pretend this is business as usual. This is the longest shutdown in history, and the other side has consistently voted against every bill that we have offered to open up government.

Now, the other side offered a bill where they want to pay employees while they don't work. I voted against that. I think the taxpayer deserves to have his employees or her employees working, and, yes, he should pay them and she should pay them for working, not some stopgap measure to pretend that somehow we are lessening the consequences of a shutdown, in light of a consistent, overwhelming vote on the other side of the aisle to keep government shut down.

I tell my friend, he voted against Boehner, when he was the Speaker of the House, requesting to open up the government. Maybe he believes, Mr. Speaker, that shutting down the government is good policy, good practice, the way to treat your employees. I emphatically reject such a premise.

When the gentleman asked me if will we negotiate, I am pretty proud of my reputation, having negotiated with George H.W. Bush a major piece of legislation that was very controversial, the Americans with Disabilities Act, negotiating in league with Roy Blunt, one of the gentleman's predecessors on his side of the aisle; and Jay Rockefeller and Senator Kit Bond from Missouri to get FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was a very controversial issue, resolved, with Democratic and Republican support, and President George W. Bush signed that bill.

So anybody who knows my reputation knows that I am prepared to sit down and come to agreement, because that is what you need to do in a democracy. I won't get everything I want; you won't get everything you want.

But the fact of the matter is, as long as government is shut down, we are not going to have business as usual.

I remind the gentleman that his side was in charge last year and went 11 months and 20 days and didn't bring a Homeland Security bill to the floor of this House--11 months and 20 days. It was in the waning 10 days of the year when his majority brought a bill to the floor that they knew wouldn't pass the Senate.

We have passed Senate bills that would open up the government. We have sent simple CRs with no controversy to them that would have opened up the government. We have sent 10 different bills, 11 different bills. The 12th lost on suspension, because their side voted against it.

So I tell my friend, I am prepared to negotiate. I am prepared to negotiate in good faith. I will tell the gentleman, the Speaker of this House is prepared to do the same, and our Members are prepared to do the same.

There are significant, strong differences. We differ on whether the wall is an effective way to keep the border secure. But we agree on a number of other things.

When the gentleman and I were down at the White House, for instance, the magnetic resonance of trucks and vehicles that are carrying contraband, drugs, guns, and other material that we don't want to come into the United States, we can agree on that. We can agree on much, I think, of border security.

That was a long answer to the gentleman's question, but until we open up government, it is not going to be business as usual, until we open up government and put those 800,000 people back to work. I represent 62,000 of them.

Now, not all of them are laid off, because we funded some portions of government. But a significant number of them are, and they are hurting.

A TSA agent comes in at $28,000 per year. We make substantially more than that, and they are living paycheck to paycheck. Tomorrow, they are not going to get a paycheck. But they have been told by their government they have to work, and because they are conscientious, patriotic Americans, they are working. But you can't expect them to work much longer. We can't expect people to work when they are not getting paid, when they are not getting respected, when they are not getting treated as we would want to be treated ourselves.

So I say to the gentleman, in answer to his question, we are prepared to discuss and negotiate and compromise, but not in the face of this shutdown.

I would hope that it would end. It is the wrong policy. It is a cruel policy. It is hurting America. It is hurting our economy. It is hurting our reputation around the world. And it is hurting our people who work for us.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

The gentleman, of course, just voted against funding the Department of Homeland Security, as did his colleagues.

The gentleman proudly said that all of his colleagues--and not all of his colleagues voted against it--but he voted against opening up the Department of Homeland Security. He voted against paying the personnel in Department of Homeland Security. Yet, he cites them as experts who have given us advice, and why don't we follow that advice.

But, Mr. Speaker, the minority party doesn't have enough respect for them to open up the government, open up the Department of Homeland Security, pay the people who are protecting our border, pay the people who are processing paperwork for those border security guards, pay the people who are answering the phones, pay the people whom we ask to protect our borders, and then laments that somehow we are not coming up with a number.

Open up this government, Mr. Speaker.

And, yes, I used the word, ``hostage''; and, yes, I used the word, ``ransom.'' And, yes, I believe there are two people, and a lot of complicit people, with this government being shut down and with the pain and suffering that we are imposing on our employees. Anybody who thinks Democrats are responsible for that doesn't know what is happening.

I am very concerned about the President being able to communicate with the American people. The historic, greatest tweeter of all time. You can't get away from hearing what the President has to say, every morning, every afternoon, and every evening. He has plenty of time.

And, by the way, the President said: Yes, I am not going to give the State of the Union until the government is open. He just said that, just a few hours ago.

Open up this government.

And for anybody who watches the votes on this floor, watched that we voted unanimously to open up DHS; we voted unanimously to open up the other departments of government; we voted unanimously to make sure that the people are being served by their government agencies.

And, Mr. Speaker, again, I understand Mr. Scalise and I have a difference. When the Speaker of the House John Boehner brought a bill to the floor when the government was shut down to open it up, Mr. Scalise voted ``no''; and the other person who voted ``no'' is Mr. Mulvaney, who is now the chief of staff.

I get that. They think shutting down the government is not a bad option to try to force the other side to agree with them or to pay their ransom.

Yes, I use those words. And, actually, if either one of us adopts that as an acceptable alternative in the negotiation process, this country is in real trouble--real trouble.

And so we ought to open up the government, and then, yes, we can sit down, and, yes, we will resolve this.

But my friend's great angst--he did not mention why it took them 11- 2/3 months while they were in charge last year. They didn't offer a bill until they were about to walk out the door and be the minority. Mr. Speaker, 11 months and 20 days, no Homeland Security bill was brought to this floor. I don't know why. My supposition is they didn't have the votes, but I wasn't counting on their side.

Mr. Speaker, I have been to probably 37 or 38 States of the Union. Never was the government shut down. This shutdown is not only of historic length, it is of historic irresponsibility and historic danger to our country, to our people, to our national security, and to our economy.

Let's vote to open up this government, and then let's resolve the differences that we have in the way democracies resolve differences: by discussion, by debate, and by votes.

Mr. Speaker, these CRs carry forward the spending in 2018, the CRs the gentleman voted against. They have $1.6 billion in them. He voted ``no.''

And would the gentleman tell me why he didn't bring a bill to the floor for 11 months and 20 days that would have done what he says is such important work to be done? Can he tell me why he waited 11 months and 20 days to bring a bill to the floor?

Let me first say that Mr. Scalise and his party over the last 8 years that they were in charge passed bill after bill after bill after bill that they knew without any doubt they had no chance in the United States Senate--none, zero, zip. They passed them for message. They knew that, we knew that, and America knew that. So that is not the reason they didn't bring the bill that they talk now so passionately about to the floor for 11 months and 20 days. They only brought it as they were going out the door.

Let me tell you what they rejected, Mr. Speaker. They rejected a bill from the United States Senate which would have opened up government and paid all 800,000 of the people who are now either furloughed or asked to work without pay. They rejected that bill that passed overwhelmingly and unanimously on voice vote from the United States Senate that the President of the United States was said, by the Vice President of the United States, to support.

But something happened during those 24 hours as it came from the Senate to the House. A bill that passed the Senate, they rejected that bill, the Republicans in this House, and then they, and only then, did they bring a bill which they knew would not pass the Senate. Talk about negotiation and compromise, and you have done that over and over and over, Mr. Speaker--not you but the Republican majority.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me tell you who sent it over here: Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the United States Senate.

Let me quote Senator McConnell in a CNN report:

In his strongest words to date, Senate GOP leader Mitch

McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, tried to quash talk that

he would allow another government shutdown if he becomes

Senate majority leader next year.

What was his response? `` `Of course not. Remember me? I am the guy that gets us out of shutdowns,' McConnell told CNN in an exclusive interview Wednesday.

Then he went on to say: `` `It's a failed policy,' he said of shutdowns.''

Now, sadly, in league with the Republican minority here in the House of Representatives and the President of the United States, he has done exactly the opposite of what he said he would do. He hasn't opened up, he has shut down government.

The minority whip is correct, Mr. Speaker. We are not going to pretend that this is business as usual as long as we have 800,000 of our employees--some working, some not--not being paid and not being treated with respect because it is a tactic that they have adopted. And I tell my friend again: it must be a tactic he believes in because he voted against his own Republican Speaker and the majority leader who is now the Republican leader who voted and urged Members: vote to open up this government.

Now, he was not alone in that vote. There were 143 other Republicans. Only 87 voted to open up the government. So apparently he believes this is a tactic

that is acceptable in a democratic government. We reject that emphatically and proudly.

We have passed bill after bill after bill after bill that would open up this government, and Mr. Scalise, Mr. Speaker, and his colleagues have almost to a person--not always unanimously--rejected that effort.

So I tell my friend: open up the government and we will talk, but we are not going to talk while you hold hostage the employees of this government--not all of them, but 800,000 of them--who are worried about whether they can put food on the table.

There are food lines. Our people at food lines--public employees--do we have no shame?

Do we have no moral commitment to those whom we ask to work to protect this country and to serve these people?

What is it that the President and his party refuse to open up the government?

This is historic. Never in the history--he talked about going back to George Washington in 1799--has this ever happened before that we kept the government shut down. The longest before that, of course, was the Republican shutdown of 2013.

It is not a tactic I tell my friend that we accept. We reject it emphatically, and we are not going to subject ourselves tomorrow to the same kind of blackmail or the day after to the same kind of blackmail or the day after that to the same kind of blackmail.

I will tell my friend: we will have a Democratic President at some point in time. And he ought to reject this tactic as well because it is bad for the government. Much more importantly, it is bad for the people of this country, the economy of our country, and the national security of our country.

Mr. Speaker, I have nothing else to say.

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, is a motion to recess in order or is the Speaker empowered to recess on his own?

Madam Speaker, to all my colleagues, I apologize. I may speak just a little longer than 1 minute--not much.

Madam Speaker, I was sitting in my office just a few minutes ago and Representative Michael Waltz, whom I do not know, from the State of Florida rose and said he was here in an empty Capitol.

Scores of my fellow Democrats are here because they are outraged that we have shut down the people's government, and they are here, Mr. Waltz, to urge the President of the United States and Mitch McConnell to open up the people's government. That is why they are here. They haven't gone home, Congressman Waltz. We are here.

I don't see anybody over here.

Madam Speaker, I rise to join with my colleagues in highlighting the absurdity of the Trump-McConnell shutdown and share some of the ways, just some few ways, it is affecting Americans in my district.

Now, you can go to this website, trumpshutdownstories.us, and get scores more stories than I will be able to tell on this floor in this short time I will speak.

Maryland's Fifth District, which I have the great honor of having represented for the last 38 years, has 62,000 Federal employees, tens of thousands of whom are not getting paid, and some who are being forced--no, who are voluntarily working because they love this country and they love their jobs, and they are working without pay.

Is that any way to treat any employee, much less an employee working for their government?

One woman from Prince George's County, Maryland, wrote to tell me that her husband, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, is furloughed. She isn't working because they have an infant, and he, the only source of their income.

Another constituent wrote to tell me that he serves in the Coast Guard. He said:

As I was putting my 9-year-old son to bed last night, he

asked me, ``Dad, how come they are making you work without

pay?''

He went on to say:

I gave him an answer about having taken an oath and that it

is my duty to serve, but he was still confused.

I share that young child's concern and confusion. Why would we do this? What would lead us to show such disrespect for those who carry out our policy?

All Americans should be confused about why our hardworking public servants would be forced to work without pay or be told to go home and wait while a paycheck doesn't come.

It is not just Federal employees and contractors who are affected.

And, by the way, we are going to repay the Federal employees, as we should. But the contractors, the small business people, the small shop owners in my district who have thousands of their customers who aren't being paid and, therefore, are not customers.

One woman from St. Mary's County, the county in which I live, said:

We were scheduled to close on our home on January 11, and

we received a phone call 3 days before that we would not be

going to closing because our loan was on hold due to the

government shutdown. A time that is supposed to be the

happiest, and here we sit with our house in boxes and living

week to week with a landlord. We don't know if we will lose

our home.

Madam Speaker, I would tell President Trump to listen to these stories, listen to the humanity that must be in you, be sympathetic, be empathetic, be caring about these people who are your constituents, whom you are pledged to protect.

Madam Speaker, I would ask the President and Senator McConnell to hear the voices of men and women their shutdown policies are hurting. They are going to hear many more stories.

Democrats have voted now 11 times to end this shutdown, and Republicans and the President have blocked these measures again and again.

Let me say, Madam Speaker, to those who might be listening: We passed Republican bills to open up this government--not our bills, not partisan bills,

but Republican, Senate-passed bills which would have opened up the government.

Madam Speaker, because we care so deeply about our constituents who either work for or are served by our government, we will continue to do everything possible to reopen government and share the stories of those being held hostage by the President and Senator McConnell.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for being on this floor to bring their stories of their constituents, of the President's constituents, to his attention, as well as Senator McConnell.

Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate my good friend Craig W. Floyd on his retirement after thirty-four years of service as the founding Chief Executive Officer of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Craig retired at the end of 2018 and leaves behind a powerful legacy of service to the men and women of law enforcement across our nation. I have been proud to work closely with Craig over the years on a cause about which we both care very deeply: honoring those who have fallen while protecting our communities.

Craig helped launch the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in 1984, partnering with his former boss--and my friend--former Rep. Mario Biaggi of New York and others to establish a permanent memorial in Washington. In 1991, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial was unveiled, and it now preserves the names of 21,541 law enforcement officers who gave their lives in the line of duty. It stands as a powerful reminder to the millions of visitors to the nation's capital of the service and sacrifices of those keeping them safe back home and in every community. In 2018, the National Law Enforcement Museum was opened near the memorial to tell the stories of the men and women whose names are borne upon its walls.

Craig was instrumental in bringing this vision to completion and establishing the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and the National Law Enforcement Museum. Under his guidance, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund launched the world's most comprehensive database of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty; published To Serve and Protect--a Tribute to American Law Enforcement; built partnerships with the Department of Justice and Department of Transportation to promote officers' safety and wellbeing; and inaugurated the tradition of holding annual candlelight vigils during National Police Week in May. In many ways, these all stand not only to pay homage to the men and women of law enforcement but also as a lasting tribute to citizens like Craig W. Floyd who dedicated their careers to honoring and aiding these heroes.

I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking Craig for his service and wishing him well in his retirement. I encourage everyone to visit the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and the National Law Enforcement Museum in our nation's capital to learn about the service of those who put their lives on the line to protect our communities every day.