[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 183 (Friday, November 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13287-H13288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         A CONGRESS THAT PRAYS TOGETHER CAN FINISH ITS BUSINESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker knows and, I think, the 
American people know, we are not here doing actual business tonight. 
This is a time after our colleagues have gone home where those of us 
who want to stay until 11 or midnight can stand here and kind of pop 
off, and speak our minds, and I do not usually do that, but I did want 
to do it tonight because I feel strongly about something.
  Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the civic lessons from the gentleman 
from Maine [Mr. Longley] on how we got here, and I think it is 
important that we did that because the public, they do not know what a 
CR is, and most people do not, and I did not before I got elected and 
took office this year. But he stopped short of the civic lesson because 
the real reason why we need this emergency measure to keep the 
Government open is the fact that we have not done our job. We have to 
pass 13 appropriations bills, and we have only gotten three to the 
President's desk, and because of what we have to have these emergency 
measures.
  Now I think it was my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Doyle], who mentioned that there are very serious disagreements on what 
we should do in this budget. I think there is general agreement that we 
need to have a balanced budget. There is very strong disagreement over 
how we should do that, what the spending priorities should be, whether 
it should be 7 years or 10 years. All of those things need to be 
resolved, and we should have debates over them, but they should not in 
my opinion be resolved in a crisis mode. We should do that in the 
ordinary budget process, and that is why I came here at a quarter to 11 
tonight, to pop off because I think that we ought to stay through the 
weekend and keep working.
  Now I remember when the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], the 
majority leader, mentioned this. He was asked about this a few days 
ago, and he said, well, Sunday is the Sabbath, and we need to go to 
church, and I looked up, and there was our Chaplain, Reverend Ford, and 
I thought we got a chaplain. Maybe we should take our chaplain and go 
out on the front lawn of the Capitol and have our service, put on our 
coats and have our service out there, and maybe, if we prayed together, 
we would have an easier time of coming to grips with the disagreements 
that we have.
  I would like to say another thing. For some of our Members the 
Sabbath is Saturday, and there has been very little concern given to 
those individuals, and their religious beliefs, and their sacred day, 
and I think that that is a problem as well.
  As my colleagues know, I have a 10-year-old son, and a couple days 
ago he said, ``Now, Mommy, I do not understand this. Two weeks ago you 
didn't work on the--the Congress did not meet on Monday, and you didn't 
meet on Tuesday, and you started at 5 o'clock on Wednesday, and then 
you were out on Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday, and then you started 
in at 5 on Monday, and now the government shut down,'' and, you know, I 
did not quite know what to tell my 10-year-old son because he knows 
when he has not done his homework he does not get to go to the movies, 
when he has not cleaned up his room, he does not get to turn on the TV 
set. You keep working until you get your task done.

[[Page H 13288]]


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  We have not done that. So I am here today, popping off at this 
special order time, because the Democrat freshman class had what we 
thought could be a privileged resolution. We are newcomers, we did not 
know you could not set the schedule with a privileged resolution, but 
we wanted to ask this House to go ahead and say, ``Let's just meet. 
Let's start early tomorrow. Let's not give up at 1, like we said. Let's 
go to 8 or 9 or 10 at night and let's start again. Let's meet out in 
the front lawn with our chaplain at 8, let us pray together, and then 
let us come back in here and let's work all day Sunday until we get the 
job down, and Monday,'' Because we have got thousands and thousands of 
Americans who are waiting for this crisis to be resolved, waiting for 
us to pass these appropriations bills. We have got thousands of 
Americans who may not get a veterans check soon.
  My father, who is a disabled veteran from World War II, is one of 
those people. Now, luckily, my fathers life is not gong to crumble if 
his disability check does not come, but he has friends from World War 
II, and if their check does not come, they are in tough shape, so I 
think we need to resolve this issue. We need to keep working.
  I know that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are diligent 
people. They do not want to goof off, either. But I think we just ought 
to insist that we stay here, and we keep working until we have all 13 
appropriations bills passed.

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