Providing for Consideration of H.R. Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, let me say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania that nobody has been tougher on China than yours truly here. I take a back seat to no one, and I don't want to be lectured.

Madam Speaker, I wasn't going to speak on this rule today, but I feel compelled to say something because I see a pattern developing that I think needs to be called out. It needs to be called out, plain and simple.

They are taking their awful appropriations bills on agriculture and foreign policy, and now energy and water and the legislative branch, and as the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania pointed out, they all have these deep cuts, and then they are loading them up with MAGA culture war crap. I think people ought to understand in plain terms what they are doing.

Let's focus on some specifics.

They say it is about woke Democrats this and woke Democrats that. I mean, give me a break. They want to get rid of an office here on Capitol Hill that promotes staff diversity and inclusion. Who wants less diversity? If you want everyone here to look the same, just say so.

They want to make it illegal to put up a Pride flag next to a U.S. flag, by the way, at an embassy during Pride Month. That is woke? What is wrong with them?

In one of these bills, they want to make it so that you can use taxpayer money to fire people for being gay. I mean, really? I mean, with all the problems in the world, this is what they focus on? This is what keeps them awake at night?

This is nuts. This isn't about religious freedom. This is about giving people freedom to discriminate. If they want to be bigoted, so be it, but don't use the United States Government and taxpayer dollars to reinforce and spread your backward views.

The reason I wanted to come down here is that this isn't just about politics. Hate crimes against the LGBTQ community are going up. My colleagues come to the floor not only failing to denounce that but advancing ideas which signal to people that it is okay to discriminate, that it is okay to hate. It is sick.

I get it. This is popular in the extreme MAGA world, but I thought there were some moderate voices on the other side that might find this as offensive as I do. I guess I am wrong because Republicans continue to blindly come down here and support these hateful policies and vote for them time after time.

I hope that the next Speaker, whoever that may be--maybe we will find out today--will do a better job of preventing this garbage from coming to the floor, but looking at the Republican Party in 2023, I won't hold my breath.

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