[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15412-15413]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Swalwell) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I came to Congress to help 
people, not to hurt people, and this shutdown is hurting innocent 
Americans.
  This past Sunday, I flew back home because Congress was not in 
session. We were not voting on Sunday, so I took a flight home to 
California to meet with my constituents in my congressional district.
  I held a town hall. I held it at Dublin City Hall. Dublin City Hall 
is where I served as a city council member. Dublin is also home to many 
Federal employers. In my congressional district, we have 4,000 Federal 
employees, plus a number of government contractors who work at Lawrence 
Livermore and

[[Page 15413]]

Sandia National Laboratories. I also held it there because, for 2 years 
as a city council member, I worked in that chamber day in and day out 
to make sure that we provided a balanced budget. We provided a 2-year 
budget.
  It is so frustrating for me here in the Congress that we provide 
budgets that are only 45 or 60 days at a time, and across America our 
city councils are thinking big and thinking forward and balancing their 
budgets while taking measured investments in the future.
  So we gathered the community of California's 15th Congressional 
District at Dublin City Hall, and we had over 150 people attend. The 
room was filled with fear and anxiety. Federal workers were in the 
room, worried about what this was going to mean for the personal 
incomes, for their families, for their household bills. Even though 
Federal workers in my district have been furloughed, their bills have 
not been furloughed. The home lenders are still calling, asking where 
the mortgages are. Their auto loans are still going to be due. Their 
credit card statements will still arrive. If they have kids in college, 
they're still going to have to pay tuition.
  The Federal employees told me about the stress that they're living 
under either by not being able to work or, even worse, by being told 
that they have to work, but they're not going to receive their 
paychecks right now. In fact, we were reminded in this very Chamber 
just last week how stressful that can be, when the Capitol Hill Police, 
who stand guard here at democracy's door, who protect the people's 
House, rushed to aid the Members of Congress and the employees who work 
in this building as an erratic driver drove into a barricaded area just 
outside the Capitol grounds. Those Capitol Hill police are working to 
protect us, but they're doing so without pay.
  So I heard stories just like that in my congressional district from 
the employees in our district, who are very scared about what's going 
to happen next. We learned that this is affecting people who work not 
just inside government, but also outside government.

                              {time}  1130

  Inside government, we have employees at Camp Parks Reserve Forces 
Training Area, the NASA facility in Dublin. We also have a women's 
Federal prison.
  Outside government, we have government contract employees--about 
6,500 of them--at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and about 
1,500 of them at Sandia National Laboratories.
  They told us, if the government shutdown continues, they may be 
furloughed within the next 10 days.
  Most strikingly, the Republicans who attended expressed their 
concern, as we have heard in this Chamber, about the Affordable Care 
Act. I understand that, but not a single Republican who attended told 
me or told our other constituents that they believe their concerns over 
the Affordable Care Act were worth prolonging this government shutdown.
  There are also concerns about, well, why don't we just get some of 
the government up and running like some of the bills that we passed 
last week but that the Senate won't take up? I told my constituents I 
will not support any bill that pits any constituency against each 
other. We saw bills that pitted veterans against seniors, sick children 
against the poor. It is time to get the government up and running for 
everybody. Veterans who attended our town hall agreed. They served this 
country to make sure that the government works for everybody, not just 
for the veterans who served it.
  I am inspired by, and I told my constituents that I have hope in, a 
freshman group that continues to gather a couple times each week and 
that was here during the shutdown crisis, called the United Solutions 
Caucus. It has about 15 Members on the Republican side and 15 on the 
Democratic side. They are freshman Members of Congress who are meeting 
and talking about what we can do to work together.
  Finally, to my colleagues across the aisle, I ask you this 
respectfully: Did you come to Congress to help people or did you come 
to Congress to hurt people? If you came here to help, just like I did, 
then I think you know what to do next. Turn on the lights of the 
government that runs the greatest democracy in the world, and let's get 
America working again.

                          ____________________