[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 195 (Wednesday, November 19, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4790-H4794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPEAL OF SENATE NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO LEGAL PROCESS ON
DISCLOSURES OF SENATE DATA
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 6019) to repeal certain provisions relating to notification to
Senate offices regarding legal process on disclosure of Senate data,
and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 6019
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. REPEAL OF SENATE NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
RELATING TO LEGAL PROCESS ON DISCLOSURES OF
SENATE DATA.
Section 213 of title II of division C of the Continuing
Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military
Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026,
and the amendments made by such section, are hereby repealed
and shall have no force or effect.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Steil) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Morelle)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
General Leave
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on this bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6019, introduced by my
colleague, Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia.
Before I dive into the substance of this bill, let me highlight some
good news. The government is open and funded. SNAP benefits are being
funded. Air traffic controllers, TSA agents, and hardworking people are
getting paid.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, if the Democrats had their way, the Federal
Government would still be shut down. People wouldn't be receiving their
SNAP benefits. Law enforcement officials at the Federal level wouldn't
be receiving payments. Air traffic controllers and TSA agents also
wouldn't be paid.
[[Page H4791]]
The good news is, Mr. Speaker, by passage of the underlying
legislation that we are going to be discussing today, the government is
open and operational for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, no bill is perfect, and the bill we passed to reopen the
government is just that. It had a provision that needs repair, which we
need to go in and remove out from that bill. The legislation by my
colleague, Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia, does just that.
The troubling provision grants Senators a private cause of action
against the United States. If a Senator's data, either official or
personal, is retrieved without their knowledge, they can sue the
government. It also included a provision to allow Senators to receive a
minimum of $500,000 per instance of data retrieval. That policy, in my
opinion and in the opinion, I think, of all the Members of this
institution, is unacceptable.
No one should be able to enrich themselves because the Federal
Government wronged them--no elected official should be able to.
Without question, there are far better ways to handle this. The
legislative branch should correctly address the Biden administration's
weaponization of the FBI to spy on United States Senators in its
operation, Arctic Frost. The abuses, Mr. Speaker, by the Biden
administration are completely unacceptable, and I am committed to
holding those involved accountable.
No one benefited from the failures of the Biden administration.
However, that does not mean that elected officials should be
financially benefiting from those failures now.
These provisions are not the right path to address the concerns, true
concerns, over the separation of powers. Remember, Congress serves the
American people, not the other way around.
Today, we have an opportunity to take a good bill that reopened the
Federal Government and make it better by repealing the provisions that
were slid into the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2026.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support H.R. 6019
to repeal this legislation. I thank my colleague, Congressman Austin
Scott, for bringing this legislation forward.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1310
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 6019.
Last week's bill to fund the government included a provision, added
quietly in the dead of night, that facilitates the transfer of millions
of taxpayer dollars from the United States Treasury to the personal
bank accounts of eight Republican Senators, and not just any Senators.
They were Senators who may have had knowledge of or even participated
in efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, efforts that
culminated in a violent attack on this very institution.
Since many of my Republican colleagues seem determined to forget the
reality of that day, allow me to remind you that, during this attack,
Capitol Police officers were maimed while protecting the lives of the
very Senators now seeking to enrich themselves at the taxpayers'
expense.
Officers lost eyes. They lost fingers. They suffered traumatic brain
injuries and had their spinal disks smashed. One was stabbed with a
metal fence stake. Another suffered a heart attack after being
repeatedly tased. Some tragically lost their lives. Others were so
severely injured that they could no longer continue to serve in law
enforcement.
The plot to overturn the 2020 Presidential election led multiple
grand juries, both State and Federal, to bring felony charges against
its organizers and participants. These charges were based on actions
like promoting fake elector slates, urging State officials to find
votes to change the election outcome, and urging Vice President Pence
to stand just a few feet from here behind that very dais and violate
the United States Constitution.
According to public reports, one of the eight Republican Senators now
eligible for this taxpayer-funded windfall testified before one of
those grand juries. At the conclusion of the testimony, that Republican
Senator reportedly embraced the prosecutor and lauded the work of the
grand jurors as cathartic. That same Senator announced just yesterday
that he intends to seek his payout of tens of millions of dollars from
Federal taxpayers.
It should be clear to everyone here: Under no circumstances should
the power entrusted to us as Members of Congress be used to line your
own pockets, period, full stop. Anyone who voted for this appalling
provision, including all but two House Republicans just last week,
should feel ashamed of themselves.
As these Republican Senators and House Members know, phone records
are among the most routine tools used in criminal investigations. They
do not reveal the content of any conversations. They simply show which
numbers were called, which numbers called them, and when those calls
were made.
They are essentially phone bills. If these Republican Senators
genuinely believe that their civil liberties were violated or if they
are interested in changing the law relating to subpoenas, then they are
better positioned than literally anyone on planet Earth to hold
hearings, draft legislation, and debate proposed changes in the open.
That is not what this is all about. This is about ensuring the law
applies to every other American, just not to them.
Let me repeat that: This law applies only to them, not even Members
of the House of Representatives, nor should it--not to every other
American citizen; just them. This kind of self-serving, self-dealing,
one-sided get-rich-quick scheme at the expense of taxpayers is why
Americans are so disgusted with this Congress, and it is why I expect
that many of those who supported this provision will be dismissed next
November.
This lucrative carve-out masquerading as legislation isn't an
isolated occurrence. It is part of a broader pattern: the weaponization
of the Department of Justice and the United States Treasury to reward
allies and to punish perceived enemies.
Let me briefly highlight just a few other examples.
Earlier this year, the Trump Department of Justice agreed to a $5
million settlement with an estate of a January 6 rioter who was killed
while attempting to violently breach this Chamber just outside those
doors. As the chief of police of the Capitol Police said at the time:
``This settlement sends a chilling message to law enforcement
nationwide, especially to those with a protective mission like ours.''
According to public reporting, Department of Justice is also
negotiating a settlement of up to $50 million to disgraced former
General Michael Flynn over the purported wrongful prosecution, even
though he confessed to the crimes for which, incredibly, he now says
that he was wrongly prosecuted. You can't make this up.
Other reports indicate that President Trump is seeking $230 million
from taxpayers for himself personally for prior investigations into his
conduct. Let's not forget on day one of this administration when
President Trump issued blanket pardons to over 1,000 criminals
convicted of January 6 crimes, including members of the Oath Keepers
and Proud Boys, who assaulted Capitol Police officers. Just last week,
a militia member who participated in the riot was re-pardoned for a
completely unrelated gun charge--pardoned twice.
What have we heard from congressional Republicans about all of this:
about legalized payoffs to Republican Senators, about get-rich-quick
schemes unfolding within the Federal Government, and about rewards for
friends and retribution against opponents? We have heard absolutely
nothing. The silence is deafening.
Last I checked, this is the United States Congress, not the Russian
Duma. We do not create a protected class of elites who can siphon off
public money, reward their friends, punish their political opponents,
and insulate themselves from accountability. That is not what we are,
or at least we weren't until last week, when nearly every single House
Republican voted for this disgraceful provision of law after rejecting
Democratic amendments to strip it from the bill.
My Republican colleagues had every opportunity to stop this provision
from ever becoming law, but they voted for it anyway, and now they just
want to turn around and say: Just kidding. We didn't mean it.
[[Page H4792]]
What are we doing here? Let's review the sequence of events.
Senate Republicans snuck this outrageous provision into a bill to
reopen the Federal Government after months of Republicans insisting
that they would only accept a clean funding bill. I can't tell you the
number of times, with all due respect, that I heard Speaker Johnson say
it over and over again. House Republicans went right along with this.
Now, straight-faced, worthy of an Academy Award, they want to pretend
that the Senate may repeal the payoff they just made law? As we head
into the fourth and, I pray, final year of this majority, I didn't
think anything could shock me more. I was wrong.
The American people are sick and tired of this. They are sick and
tired of watching politicians come to Washington to get rich while
everyday Americans suffer through an affordability crisis that
Republicans don't appear interested in confronting.
They are sick and tired of watching Republicans block a tax credit
that will lower health insurance costs for millions of Americans after
passing a partisan budget that will throw millions more off of
Medicaid, only to turn around and create a slush fund for themselves.
I represent Rochester, New York, the city that Frederick Douglass
chose to make his home and to publish The North Star. Douglass reminded
us: ``The life of a nation is secure only when the nation is honest,
truthful, and virtuous.''
Ask yourselves: Is sneaking this self-enriching provision into what
was supposedly a clean funding bill honest, truthful, or virtuous? I
think we all know the answer.
In fact, I am so opposed to this corrupt provision that I actually
voted against it last week. I look forward to hearing my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle try to explain why they did not.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) to speak on his bill.
Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, wow. There has been a lot
said in the last few minutes.
Let's be clear: Senate Democratic leadership knew about the language,
as well as Senate Republican leadership. Both sides knew about this
language.
Nobody in the House supported this language. This language did not go
through any committee in the Senate, did not go through any committee
in the House, and could never be passed and signed into law if it was
discussed openly where the American citizens could actually see and
understand what was happening.
{time} 1320
We were given a choice the other day, open the government or keep the
government closed.
The people on my side of the aisle, almost unanimously, voted to open
the government. I am glad that we ended the chaos, Mr. Speaker. I want
you to know that because if the Democrats had had their way, the chaos
would be ensuing today.
There is a provision in this bill that I believe is probably the most
self-centered, self-serving piece of language that I have ever seen in
my time in office in any piece of legislation. For the people who are
saying it is $500,000, I want the American citizens to know this: It is
not $500,000. It is $500,000 per account, per occurrence.
We have one Senator, one, who maintains that this provision is good
and is currently saying that he is going to sue for tens of millions of
dollars. I believe my side did the right thing in voting to open up the
government. There are a select few people that did the wrong thing in
putting language in the bill that would make themselves individually
wealthy.
All this language does is repeals that. All this does is repeals that
one provision of the law that would enrich what is now down to one
individual Member saying they are going to sue for tens of millions of
dollars.
There is not a whole lot to debate here. I hope all of the House will
vote unanimously to do it. Then I hope that, like yesterday, Senator
Thune will immediately put the bill on the floor, so we can immediately
get this to the President's desk and get back to doing the business of
the people now that the government is open.
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I need to say, as someone who served on the
House Rules Committee for 4 years, that we clearly could have put on
the floor and made in order an amendment to strike this provision from
the bill that had been passed by the Senate.
Most people who took social studies in elementary school understand
the bill has to pass the Senate and the House before it is sent to the
President. Had we had the opportunity, we would have voted on an
amendment. I guarantee it would have passed this House and you would
have had the full support of Democrats to strike that provision, and
then we could have sent it back to the Senate.
We weren't forced to do this last week. There was an amendment made
in the Rules Committee that the Rules Committee Republicans rejected,
which would have made in order an amendment that would have stripped
this provision from the bill.
That should have been done and could have been done. People made a
conscious decision, on the other side of the aisle, not to include that
amendment and make it in order. We shouldn't have to be here today
trying to mop up the mess that has been created.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Walkinshaw).
Mr. WALKINSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation
to repeal a last-minute, dead-of-night provision added to the
Legislative Branch Appropriations Act that green-lights eight
Republican Senators to raid the Treasury and reward themselves with
millions of taxpayer dollars because they were investigated for their
involvement in the 2021 insurrection.
These eight Senators provided support to President Trump's attempt to
overturn the results of a free and fair election. It is a brazen
attempt by Republicans to further whitewash a conspiracy and a violent
insurrection while lining their own pockets with taxpayer dollars.
It is a trifecta of the type of corruption that shakes Americans'
faith in Congress: contempt for the rule of law, a secret backroom
deal, and self-enrichment.
This Republican Senator slush fund is yet another example of the
corruption that has taken hold here.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Roy) to speak on this bill.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his
leadership here and managing this bill on the floor on behalf of my
friend from Georgia, who rightfully raised this issue in the Rules
Committee on which he and I both serve. We both immediately raised this
issue in front of the Rules Committee and for the entire body.
There is nobody, to the best of my knowledge, in this body who
supports this language that was inserted in the end of the funding bill
that we passed last week. I don't know anybody. I have yet to meet one
person who supports it.
Mr. Speaker, rather than my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
coming together in a bipartisan agreement that we are going to, as the
House, hip-check the Senate for having put a provision in there that we
disagree with, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to try
to make this a partisan issue when, in fact, Senate Democrats were
equally involved in making sure that this provision got inserted. In
fact, they were very specific about only wanting a provision if it was
only focused on the Senate.
They didn't want it to be used, for example, to help J6ers or FACE
Act individuals who were abused by the Department of Justice under
President Biden. They didn't want it to be a more expansive private
right of action. Instead, they wanted it to be narrow and narrow for
the Senate.
Rather than the House being in a bipartisan agreement, my colleagues
on the other side of the aisle want to make it partisan. If we are
going to make it partisan, let's be very clear: The reason we were in
the position that we were in last week was that we had been shut down
for 43 days. Why? Because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
have literally nothing to run on.
The only thing my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can run
on is
[[Page H4793]]
shutting down the government, making up nonsense about health in which
they are going to enrich insurance companies in the process, and have
nothing to take to the American people other than trying to create
division.
The fact of the matter is, we are going to pass this legislation
within days. We are going to send it to the Senate. We are going to
make clear to the Senate that they need to correct this issue because
the American people rightly are with us. The House of Representatives,
Republican and Democrats, are rightly checking the Senate.
There is one last really important piece to this which is the Arctic
Frost investigation itself, which specifically targeted United States
Senators in an egregious abuse of power. It was targeting those
Senators for their information and their records. That is something
that is an absolute affront to separation of powers and to our
constitutional order to have the Department of Justice targeting those
Senators.
Those Senators were rightly wanting to find ways to stop Jack Smith
and the abuses of the Department of Justice. We in this Chamber just
simply believe that if you are going to do something like that, it
should apply to all Americans and not be something specific to the
United States Senate.
We are correcting this now. We should pass it immediately. The Senate
should take it up and pass it. Also, a little personal message to the
Senate: Take this up and pass it, or you are not getting any support
from this Member for any of your measures that come over to this body.
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I have enormous respect for my colleagues
and particularly those that serve on the Rules Committee, but this
could have been dealt with last week.
There was no reason to pass this. By the way, Democrats were fighting
for tax breaks and subsidies that makes health insurance more
affordable for millions of Americans who go to work every day. We
couldn't do that because the Speaker and Senator Thune, the majority
leader, insisted it had to be a clean CR. It had to be a clean
continuing resolution with no other provisions, yet somehow this got in
there.
This wasn't clean. There is nothing clean about this. By the way,
last week when we were considering this, had we made the amendment in
order that we seem to be considering right now, it would have passed,
presumably overwhelmingly, if what I am hearing from my colleagues is
true. We could have sent the bill back to the Senate. I am sorry. I
know we didn't want to impose on them and their time to take this out.
By the way, what these Republican Senators are saying was such an
egregious abuse is something that every American is subject to, every
single one of the 340 million Americans blessed to call this country
our home have to go through, except these Senators because they think
it is outrageous.
By the way, if you took this to its logical conclusion, a Senator
that might participate in the overthrow of the United States
Government, let's just say hypothetically was coordinating to do that,
could not have the Department of Justice look at their phone records.
It is the same thing they can do to every other one of the 340 million
Americans, but not these Senators. God, no. They can't have that if
there is some reason to suggest that they might have information that
the Justice Department can't do it.
By the way, that wasn't the rule back when this happened in 2022.
They are doing it retroactively. They are changing the law and going
back 3 years and allowing them to sue the United States taxpayers for
millions and millions of dollars.
Last night, a United States Senator said he intends to sue for tens
of millions of dollars under this provision.
I can't imagine anything that would cause more anxiety to American
taxpayers than to see this debate and understand what happened.
Respectfully, I appreciate it, but we could have dealt with this last
week. We should have dealt with this last week. We shouldn't be here.
I will support the bill, but by the way, there is no guarantee that
the United States Senate is going to take this up. This may all be for
show just to make people feel guilty about having voted for this or
wanting to convince voters back home that they really weren't complicit
in giving this extraordinary bonanza to a handful of elitists who feel
somehow aggrieved by the fact that they had information that might have
actually been really helpful about looking at the potential overthrow
of the 2020 Presidential election.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1330
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Wyoming (Ms. Hageman).
Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6019.
Included in the Senate amendment to H.R. 5371 was a section providing
for a private right of action for those Senators who were targeted by
the Biden administration to access their cell phone data.
I support repealing this particular provision, not because I think
that these Senators and others should not be able to sue the Federal
Government for these acts, but because they already have the ability to
do so.
The Senators, similar to any other citizen who was wrongfully
targeted by the Biden administration, already have a private right of
action to sue the Federal Government, including the FBI and other
agencies that may have been involved, for violation of their Fourth
Amendment rights and other statutory provisions that govern privacy
rights and/or that limit Federal law enforcement from pursuing
political witch hunts.
I guess I am just absolutely shocked by my colleague on the other
side who believes that the Federal Government has the right to invade
the privacy and violate the Fourth Amendment rights not only of sitting
U.S. Senators but the 340 million people in this country. He apparently
believes that the Federal Government has the right to access their
phone data at any time, which is absolutely untrue.
My message to those individuals who were involved in violating the
constitutional rights of American citizens is very simple. You are the
very type of tyrants that our Founders fought against and the reason as
to why they drafted the Bill of Rights. You will be exposed. You will
be held accountable. You should never be allowed near the levers of
power again.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 6019.
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Rose).
Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6019, a bill
that I am proud to be an original cosponsor of. It would repeal the
indefensible Senate payday provision that was snuck into the critical
funding legislation to reopen the government last week.
With the goal of ending the suffering caused by the Schumer shutdown
top of mind, I voted yes on the CR. It was the right thing to do. I
hope the American people are never again used as ``leverage.''
However, what the Senate sent us contained a poison pill, a provision
to give certain Senators the ability to sue the Federal Government for
$500,000, or perhaps millions of dollars, for alleged illegal
surveillance conducted by the Biden DOJ. I remain convinced the last
administration conducted a large number of politically motivated
investigations. However, the solution isn't for aggrieved lawmakers to
get a payday at taxpayer expense.
As Members of Congress, the people have entrusted us to be a check on
the executive branch. They didn't send us here to collect checks when
the executive oversteps.
All Members of the House should take issue with Senate leadership for
secretly slipping in this provision. In fact, whoever carefully crafted
this scheme failed to tell their Senate colleagues. I agree with
Senator John Kennedy, who said: ``Whoever put this in had an obligation
to tell us about it, and they didn't.''
The consensus of many legal experts is that this provision amounts to
a pay increase. To me, the provision reads like a Christmas bonus, and
that is blatantly unconstitutional. It defies the 27th Amendment, which
says no law can change a lawmaker's compensation until a new Congress
is sworn in.
[[Page H4794]]
If the House legislation we are debating today does not receive a
vote in the Senate, I want to make it clear that I am taking action.
Today, I have introduced H. Res. 892, a House resolution that
empowers Speaker Johnson to bring this issue before the courts and
challenge the so-called Senate payday provision as blatantly
unconstitutional.
Importantly, because my resolution is a House resolution, it does not
require the consent or cooperation of the Senate, which has shamefully
shown no willingness to undo this egregious policy. The House does not
have to wait for the Senate to act and watch idly while this payday
stands.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support Representative Scott's
legislation and to support my resolution so we can stand up for the
integrity of Congress, uphold the Constitution, and restore public
trust in this institution.
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York has 6\1/2\
minutes remaining.
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on
the majority.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 7\1/2\
minutes remaining.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Kiley).
Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, this who-wants-to-be-a-
millionaire provision created by U.S. Senators for themselves, and
themselves alone, is outrageous. I will, of course, be voting to repeal
it today.
We also need to ask how this was allowed to happen, and I have to
tell you, it doesn't help that the House wasn't even here. For 6
straight weeks, House leadership decided to cancel our sessions, every
oversight hearing, every markup of legislation, everything. Why? To
this day, there has been no coherent rationale offered.
Throughout this time, I warned that this was not only holding back
our own legislative priorities but was also making the House irrelevant
in any deal to reopen the government. Of course, that is what ended up
happening. The Senate never passed our CR. They negotiated their own
deal. After 50 days away, the House was brought back for one fly-by
vote to ratify what the Senate had come up with as our only opportunity
to reopen the government.
The Senate was so thoroughly convinced of the House's irrelevance
that they thought that they could literally insert a self-enrichment
scheme into the legislation and get away with it. By the way, they
still might get away with it because while we are passing a bill to
repeal it today, that still has to pass the Senate.
We need to pass this in the House today. We need to insist that this
provision be included in a must-pass bill going forward so that it
cannot actually be utilized. More than that, we need to start
reasserting ourselves as a House, reclaiming our authority under
Article I and giving the American people the representation they
deserve.
Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I hope today's debate was about more than simply a press
release, about people trying to absolve themselves, and not just
another waste of taxpayer time and money misleading the American people
about the intentions of Senate Republicans.
The Senate should act on this measure. They should act on it today.
Rarely in life is there a second chance to do the right thing.
I urge my colleagues here to do the right thing, and I certainly urge
Members of the Senate to do the right thing, as well.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, before we close, I just want to wrap up a few things
that have been discussed today.
We were closed as a Federal Government for 43 days because Democrats
in the House of Representatives voted against a clean CR and then
cheered on their Democratic colleagues in the United States Senate to
keep the government closed as people suffered, as individuals who were
showing up to work weren't receiving payment, including law enforcement
officers and Border Patrol officers. SNAP benefits weren't being paid,
and that pain was getting quite real.
Finally, after 43 days, eight Democratic Senators came to the table
and said we should reopen the government. Those eight voted for this
bill. I didn't hear my colleagues critique those eight Democrats in the
United States Senate who were involved in drafting the final
legislation. In fact, my suggestion the whole time was that the Senate
should have passed the clean CR the House sent to them.
{time} 1340
If we look at the record, time after time after time, Democrats in
the United States Senate refused to pass the clean CR, which would have
avoided this mess in the first place.
If we are curious as to who caused this problem, I think the answer,
Mr. Speaker, is quite clear. Democrats in the House of Representatives
voted against the clean CR and then cheered on their Democratic
colleagues in the United States Senate to keep this government closed.
As this came to the House, this provision was buried in it, but we
had an obligation to reopen the Federal Government to make sure that
law enforcement officers were getting paid, air traffic controllers
were getting paid, and SNAP benefits were flowing once again, so we
voted for it. Today is the opportunity to clean up this provision.
There are far better ways to address the abuses of the Biden
administration, and those abuses do need to be addressed, just not in
this mechanism.
I encourage all my colleagues in the House of Representatives to vote
``aye.'' I hope we have a unanimous vote tonight, as we pass H.R. 6019.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Steil) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 6019.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.
____________________