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[Page S115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.J. RES. 1
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 6, H.J.
Res. 1, making further continuing appropriations for the Department of
Homeland Security. I further ask that the joint resolution be
considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or
debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. McCONNELL. I will not prolong this because I know a lot of my
Democratic colleagues on the floor may want to speak, but there are two
shutdowns going on here. The first one related to the government can
only be solved with a Presidential signature, supportive of the Speaker
of the House and supportive of at least 10 of our Democratic
colleagues--or 7 on the other side. In other words, there has to be a
deal, an agreement.
There is a second shutdown going on that, as far as my research can
discover, is rather unprecedented. The Senate itself is being shut down
because of the refusal of our colleagues on the other side to do
business in the Senate during this period. There is no precedent for
that. There is no reason for that. We are all here.
The bill they are refusing to let us get on relates to Israel, our
great friend Israel, and addresses the atrocities that have been
occurring in Syria.
I am having a hard time understanding why the Senate should be shut
down as well as the government. We are all here. In fact, attendance
looks pretty good, and I don't know why we can't process bills that the
vast majority of us support.
I had hoped to pass all of these bills at the end of last session. We
had some last-minute objections--and I will say on our side--and so we
were unable to do it, but the vast majority of the Members of the
Senate do want to process these bills.
So I would hope, no matter how you view the government shutdown, that
there is no real significant reason to shut down the Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. We are clearly not shut down. We are all here.
I would say to the majority leader, if you go to a lot of Federal
Agencies right now, no one is there. They are shut down. They can't do
the work of the American people, which is why the FDA is no longer
doing important food inspections on seafood. It is why the EPA is not
able to inspect major polluters to protect the public health. We are
open.
All we are saying is, we want our first order of business to be to
also open the eight of nine Federal Departments that have nothing to do
with a wall or border security. The EPA's work has nothing to do with a
wall. The work the FDA does on food inspection has nothing to do with a
wall. So pass the measures that have already been agreed to in the U.S.
Senate on a bipartisan basis. Open those eight of nine Departments at
funding levels the Senate supported to the end of the fiscal year.
Then, with the Department of Homeland Security, do exactly what the
majority leader proposed right here and which we supported just a few
weeks ago so we can work with the President. I mean, he walked out the
other day, but we would like to work with the President to resolve
that.
What we are saying is, we are open, and we want to focus on the
urgent business of reopening the rest of the Federal Government, both
to provide the American people with the services they paid for and to
make sure Federal employees don't go without paychecks.
I will tell you, your phones will all be ringing off the hook
tomorrow when Federal employees begin to miss that first paycheck. I
will tell you, GS-2s, GS-3s in the Federal Government, they are one
paycheck away from not being able to pay their bills.
On top of that, you have small businesses all over the country--I
have heard from my Republican colleagues, small businesses that
contract with the Federal Government, they are being squeezed. One in
the State of Maryland, nonprofit small business, laid off 173 people
just yesterday. The Federal contractors' employees? They are not coming
to work. They are shut out, and they are not getting paid.
So this is having an increasingly harmful effect every day on people
throughout the country, and we have it in our power today to vote on
bills we have already voted for in the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan
basis to reopen.
We should not be accomplices to the shutdown the President said he
would be proud of. We should say today, we are proud to cast our first
vote, as the House did, to reopen the Federal Government and get people
back to work.
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