Pay Our Homeland Defenders Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1131, I call up the bill (H.R. 8029) making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, last year, Democrats initiated the longest full government shutdown in American history. It severely impacted families, agencies, personnel, and services across the Nation.

What should have been a lesson on how not to treat hardworking Americans has instead become routine for Senator Schumer and Senate Democrats.

Today marks day 41 of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, already the longest partial shutdown on record. In just 3 days, it will surpass even last year's historic lapse, further compounding the harm to our national security and the workforce charged with protecting it.

There are many ways to measure the damage, yet every metric reflects a burden on our citizens.

We can look at time. DHS has been comprehensively shut down for close to 50 percent of the fiscal year. That is nearly 100 days of dysfunction and counting.

We can look at personnel. More than 100,000 employees have missed paychecks.

We can look at travel. Airports across the Nation are experiencing severe lines and delays as TSA callout rates soar.

We can look at contingency funds. FEMA's disaster relief fund is nearly empty.

The list doesn't end there, yet it makes clear exactly what Senate Democrats have chosen.

But today, we are once again providing our colleagues across the aisle an opportunity to stop the chaos. Life doesn't offer many second chances, but here on the House floor this afternoon offers many Democrats a third chance to get it right.

I am proud to say my friend and fellow appropriator, Mr. Ciscomani from Arizona, has introduced a Pay Our Homeland Defenders Act. This legislation comprehensively funds DHS.

It resources critical security efforts, pays personnel, and gets our front line back to operational strength. It doesn't just pick and choose which parts of Homeland Security matter. It ensures that missions and personnel are supported across the board for the rest of the fiscal year.

Representative Ciscomani put it plainly in a recent piece that he wrote, saying: ``This should not be a partisan issue. Paying the people who protect our country should be the bare minimum expectation of a functioning government. It is about respect. It is about responsibility. And most importantly, it is about safety.'' Mr. Ciscomani got it exactly right.

This isn't a game. We are dealing with real security objectives, real community impacts, and real livelihoods.

Congress has a basic responsibility: fund the government, pay the workforce, and protect the homeland.

Republicans have consistently voted to meet that duty, and I urge Senate Democrats to follow our example.

I call on everyone to vote ``yes.'' End this shutdown, and keep our Nation safe.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, before I yield to my next Speaker, I want to associate myself with the remarks of my good friend, the ranking member, in terms of her retiring staff, Jocelyn Hunn. I join my friend in congratulating her on her distinguished service and wishing her well in the next chapter of her life.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Amodei), the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee and my very good friend.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Ciscomani), my good friend and the vice chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona.

I begin by thanking my friend for a spirited debate. We have certainly had one today. But to me the facts of this situation seem pretty clear.

The House has done its job twice already. It has fully funded the Department of Homeland Security, and if we are fortunate, we will fully fund it again in a few minutes with I hope a bipartisan vote, but we will see about that.

Frankly, we sent that legislation over to the Senate, and to be fair, a majority of the United States Senate has multiple times voted to keep the government open. A majority, a bipartisan majority, of the United States Senate has voted to keep the government open.

Now, the Senate operates differently from us, Mr. Speaker. As most Americans know, they have a rule that is not in the Constitution. It is not in law. It is just simply a Senate rule that says they have to reach 60. So what we have is a situation where a minority of Senate Democrats have repeatedly voted to shut down the government.

That is even though we sent them a bill that they agreed to vote for before we sent it over there in the first place. Then, they changed their mind and broke their word. They have done that repeatedly in the Senate, not in the House. That is in the Senate.

We now have a situation where a majority of both Chambers have repeatedly said that we would like to open the government. I know my friends would like to open parts of the government. I heard that argument, and I didn't agree with it back when we were in the majority during the ObamaCare debates. We brought measure after measure on the floor to open part of the government. Surely we can vote for defense. Surely we can vote for this or that. Our Democrat friends said, no, we should vote to fund all the government. I actually agree with that, and we compromised there.

There seems to be, on this floor, a belief that the President has not been willing to compromise. That is not the case. The President, Mr. Speaker, has changed leadership at the Department of Homeland Security. The President, in negotiation with the Democrats in the Senate, has repeatedly made concessions.

Frankly, it is the Democrats in the Senate who keep moving the goalposts. They just like the fight. They don't care who is not getting a paycheck. They don't care who is not meeting a mortgage payment. They don't care who is not meeting a car payment. They don't care who is sleeping in a car. They just want to score a political point.

They want to score it even though the majority of both Chambers have passed legislation to keep the government open and even though the President of the United States has made considerable concessions in their direction.

That is stupidity. That is irresponsibility. It is reckless, and it is dangerous. To do it at a time when the country is engaged in military operations overseas with an adversary that is the largest sponsor of state terrorism and that would do anything it could to hurt Americans is the height of irresponsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I just simply hope that in this Chamber today we do what we have done twice more and give the Senate another opportunity. I know there are negotiations going on over there. Let's just do the right thing: Fund the government.

The President has shown my friends that he is willing to make changes. He did that in Minnesota in terms of leadership, and he has done it in terms of the Department itself. That normally would be enough.

I would ask my colleagues to look within themselves to see if this is really worth it, if running this risk for 330 million Americans is really worth it, if making 100,000 people miss another paycheck is really worth it.

I don't know what political gain my friends think they might be getting out of this. I don't think it is worth it, so I would just ask us to do the responsible thing, to pass what was a bipartisan, negotiated product, yet again, in this House, send it over to the Senate, point out the concessions that the President has made in good faith, finally get the government up and operational, and making changes in leadership. My goodness, what more do you want?

That is because it doesn't matter what he does, they want something else. That tells me that we are dealing with somebody who doesn't want to be dealt with in a rational and fair manner.

I think we have done that in this body in the entire appropriations process. That is why most of these bills have passed this Chamber, most of them with strong bipartisan support. That is why, in the United States Senate, we thought we had a deal, but the Democrats in the Senate changed it. That is why the President, I think, probably has tried multiple times to move in the direction of his critics, yet they still won't accept it.

Again, I would just ask to do the right thing. Let's fund the Government of the United States. Let's get about our business. Let's make sure that, in a very dangerous moment in our history, our people have every protection that we can provide them. Let's not wait for something bad to happen so that we can come to our senses. Let's do it today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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