Doing the Work of the American People

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, normally, I would be having a colloquy with the majority leader about the schedule for the week to come, but there is no schedule for the week to come, and there is no schedule for 6 weeks thereafter. We were scheduled to meet tomorrow to do the business of the American people. We will not meet that schedule, and we will not meet the schedule of doing the business of America for those who are concerned about the epidemic of gun violence in America, not even the small but meaningful and important steps of making sure that, if you can't fly, you can't buy a gun, to make sure that the background checks are universal and comprehensive so that dangerous people do not get guns.

We will not do the business of those who are confronting being bitten by a mosquito and having the risk of having a child who is deeply disabled, nor will we do the business of those thousands of children in Flint, Michigan, and of the people in Flint, Michigan, who still, 2 years later, do not have clean water to drink.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I sit here, ready to do the business of our country. We sit here, ready to address those critical public health issues that confront our country--of gun violence, of Zika, of Flint, and of water that is not drinkable and that will damage our children.

Mr. Speaker, the American people will see that there is a party here that is willing to work and protect them every day; so my colleagues will, one after another, express their own views as to what this House ought to be doing.

We ought not to have taken a walk on the American people. We ought to be sitting here, doing the work of the American people. Yes, we will go to a convention, and we will tell them that we are going to protect them, that we are going to make their lives better. We can do so right here, right now.

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