Lujan Grisham Votes Against Funding Bill that Pays Members of Congress Before Investing in Communities

Press Release

Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham voted today against Republican efforts to put themselves ahead of American families by prioritizing a budget to fund Congress.

"We shouldn't be voting on legislation to fund our own salaries before voting on legislation to address issues of hard-working American families, including investing in our infrastructure, creating jobs, combatting Zika, and reducing health care and prescription drug costs," Rep. Lujan Grisham said. "We should be putting those investments in working families first."

Rep. Lujan Grisham also spoke out against Republican efforts to insert anti-immigrant language into the Congressional appropriations bill. Republicans want to force the Library of Congress to continue using the pejorative term "Illegal Aliens" in its subject headings. Democrats tried unsuccessfully to reject the hateful language.

"I am disappointed that Republican leaders in the House are using the budget process to advance an agenda that is meant to dehumanize immigrants," Rep. Lujan Grisham said. "Americans expect their elected leaders to focus on issues, like creating jobs, that are important to them."

After being petitioned by the American Library Association, the Library of Congress decided in March to use "noncitizen" and "unauthorized immigration," rather than "illegal aliens," as subject headings in its cataloguing of information. In deciding to make this change, the Library used a well-documented process that is used three to four thousand times a year to select headings for cataloguing.

The Library of Congress uses subject headings that reflect current day uses of words. There was a time when the Library used the subject heading "Insanity;" today it uses "Mental Illness." The Library once had the subject heading "Negro, and now uses "African American." Similarly, now the Library has determined that "Illegal Aliens" is a pejorative term.

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