WASHINGTON, DC — Rules Committee Chairman James P. McGovern (D-MA) advanced the bipartisan Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Financial Services-General Government, and Interior-Environment Appropriations bills to the House Floor to end the Trump Shutdown ahead of the president’s address Tuesday night.
The legislation is virtually identical to the four appropriations bills that passed the Senate 92 to 6 in August. The rule allowing for consideration of these bills will be debated on the House Floor today.
McGovern made the following remarks in the Rules Committee meeting Tuesday, “I was hoping to start this meeting of the Rules Committee talking about the future. Instead, we’re dealing with the past. We’re cleaning up the mess created by the previous majority. They enabled the president’s shutdown by refusing to take up Senate-passed bills to reopen this government. Instead, they passed a bill with money for a border wall that had no chance of passing the Senate.
He said he was on the floor multiple times pleading with the Republican Majority in the waning days of the last Congress to let it consider the bipartisan spending bills, and they refused.
But it’s a new Congress and a new Majority, he said. One that will act responsibly to end this Trump shutdown.
McGovern said the president’s temper tantrum over his stupid wall should never have led to any part of this government being closed for business. “And certainly not agencies like the Agriculture Department or the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which are totally unrelated to border security.”
He said food access for nearly 40 million Americans shouldn’t be at risk, FHA’s ability to help families achieve the dream of homeownership shouldn’t be at risk and the safety of Americans visiting national parks shouldn’t be at risk.
“So we are here to do the responsible thing,” he said. “To take up a series of four appropriations bills that recently passed the Senate …”
This president may be totally comfortable keeping this government closed for years, as he suggested recently at his press conference, but Democrats are not, McGovern said.
He said the shutdown shouldn’t last another minute, and it wouldn’t need to if the House and Senate pass these bills, and that Congress is giving members the chance to vote again on these measures, this time individually.
“And let me remind my colleagues that Congress is a co-equal branch of government,” he said. “If the president doesn’t want to sign these bills, both chambers could pass them with veto-proof margins and reopen the government without the president’s signature.
He said Tuesday evening the country is 17 days into this Trump shutdown. “Enough is enough.”