District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Speaker, Free D.C.

To my colleagues across the aisle, I appreciate the debate, but I have to say I thought we were going to try to fix healthcare, to address costs, try to fix the economy, and get the country back on track. Isn't that what the promise at the end of the shutdown was when we came back into session?

Yet, here we are, 1 week after the end of the shutdown, after a truly harrowing several days dealing with the Epstein petition, and what are you guys putting on the floor to eat up precious floor time as we are headed into the holidays? We are debating bills to micromanage D.C. affairs, bills to open public land and Tribal sacred sites to oil and gas drilling, and a ridiculous political resolution that I heard your own Members last night on the floor talking about. They called it stupid and kind of crazy. Those are their words, not mine, but I don't disagree, so don't get me wrong.

After 54 days of the House of Representatives being shut down, all you guys really seem to have time to do is run bills like this?

What I find particularly offensive is that in a week that we should be working to address the healthcare crisis in a bipartisan manner, you are trying to pass bills today that would undo local police reforms that our Nation's Capital put into place after George Floyd's murder to ensure that the people of this city are safe and that the justice system is fair for them.

If it is not clear, I am a hard ``no'' on these bills, not just because I believe they represent congressional overreach and abuse of power, but because they will harm the people of our Nation's Capital.

Also, and I think this is where the conversation needs to be had, if we actually want to address public safety and help communities across this country that elected us to do this work, we need to be addressing real solutions. We need to be addressing the addiction crisis; investing in behavioral health and addiction recovery programs; investing in diversion and community-based programs that help people who are hurting and living on the edge get back on their feet; investing in our children and pipelines for young people to have lives that they can only dream of; fixing a broken system that makes it difficult for people who are living on the edge to survive; raising wages; lowering the costs of housing, food, energy, and healthcare; and, yes, fixing the broken healthcare system that you all said you were going to come back to address.

These are the systems that are broken and that are hurting our people, especially in New Mexico. It is not just the cost of healthcare that is going up, but our hospitals, clinics, and providers who are struggling to make sure that they can stay afloat, especially after the big, ugly bill gutted and promised to take $1.5 trillion out of the public healthcare system.

It is why I have been working to champion bipartisan healthcare and health solutions, like bills to invest in urban, rural, and Tribal healthcare; to invest congressional funds into building clinics; to sponsor legislation to address the fentanyl crisis; to recruit and train more nurses and healthcare professionals; to recruit more counselors to fix the Medicaid and Medicare system; to expand telehealth and broadband; and, yes, to finally put this country on a track to universal healthcare.

I believe that healthcare is a human right. I believe that access to food, water, shelter, and safety is a human right. I believe that justice, freedom, and access to the criminal justice system are human rights. I believe that basic dignity is a human right. That is why I implore my colleagues to stop with these divisive political tactics every day and these bills attacking our communities and focus on the issues that matter and that the American people are asking us to do. That is why we were elected.

Real lives are on the line, so let's get back to work on real issues. Stop attacking Washington, D.C. Stop attacking our public lands. Stop attacking the basic dignity and human decency of our communities.

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