[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 34 (Friday, February 27, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1187-S1188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mr. REID. Madam President, we are about 14 hours away from a shutdown 
of the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate will do its part 
this morning and send the House a clean Homeland Security bill that 
fully funds the Department through the end of the year. It will stop a 
government shutdown. Then the House must act, and it must act 
responsibly. They must pass the Senate bill. We will not go to 
conference on some jerry-rigged situation they send back dealing with 
something they do not like about the President for whatever reason. We 
will not pass any rider-laden monstrosity they send back to us.
  The Senate is proving that there is broad bipartisan support for a 
good, clean bill that will fund Homeland Security and keep that 
government agency running. It would pass this House--this legislation 
we are going to pass here in an hour or so--with broad bipartisan 
support if Speaker Boehner would simply allow a vote on it. If he 
allowed Democrats and Republicans to vote in the House, as has been 
done for centuries, it would pass overwhelmingly. The only point of his 
wanting a conference would be to take a clean bill that would pass both 
Houses and turn it into something that can't pass anything.
  This bill we will pass today is not just the Senate's product, it is 
a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation. Last December the House 
and the Senate, in some very difficult negotiations, worked out an 
agreement where we would pass 13 funding bills as part of an omnibus 
spending bill. The House Republicans refused to pass the Homeland 
Security funding. We now have 12

[[Page S1188]]

of the 13 we agreed to done. They now have reneged on the deal to do 
the 13th. This bicameral, bipartisan bill deserves a vote in the House. 
It would pass, I repeat.
  The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said this:

       There's a clear majority in the Senate and the House to 
     pass this legislation.

  You cannot govern by shutting down essential lifesaving departments 
of the Federal Government.
  The junior Senator from Illinois said yesterday:

       As a governing party, we've got to fund DHS and say to the 
     House, ``Here's a straw so you can suck it up.'' . . . this 
     battle should be the end of the strategy of attaching 
     whatever you're upset at the president [about] to a vital 
     piece of government.

  Yesterday Congressman Peter King of New York put it more bluntly when 
he said:

       We can't allow DHS not [to] be funded. People think we're 
     crazy. There're terrorist attacks all over the world, and 
     we're talking about closing down Homeland Security. This is 
     like living in the world of the crazy people.

  Congressman King went on to say:

       I've had it with this self-righteous, delusional wing of 
     the party that leads us over the cliff. . . . It says a lot 
     about the party. It means trouble. How many times can we go 
     over the cliff and survive?

  I agree with his sentiments. This isn't just about the Republican 
Party, this is about our country. How many times can House Republicans 
send our Nation hurtling toward a cliff?
  I listen very closely to the prayer virtually every day. Among other 
things, the Senate Chaplain, Dr. Barry Black, said, in speaking to our 
Heavenly Father, ``Remind them that lawmakers can work miracles with 
cooperation but accomplish little with legislative brinksmanship.'' 
That was in the prayer offered here this morning.
  How many times can we narrowly avert catastrophe just so Republicans 
get a gold star from radical pundits? They need to do the right thing 
and pass the Senate's clean bill--pass it today and quickly.

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