Congressional Progressive Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. TAKANO. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin.

I rise today to object to this government shutdown that has been orchestrated and carried out by the House Republicans and the Tea Party.

Before I came to Congress, yes, as the gentleman has said, I worked for over 20 years as a high school teacher; and I have to say, during these last few days, I've begun to wonder if my students in Riverside County had a better understanding of how our government works and how it should function than the House Republicans.

It is 46 times that the House Republicans have voted to repeal or to defund the Affordable Care Act. They are doing this as if they believe the majority in the Senate, which fought to create the Affordable Care Act, would vote for its repeal. They are doing this as if they believe the President would actually sign legislation reversing his crowning achievement. That's not how our government works. There are three branches of government in this country, and any high school senior can tell you that the only way a bill can become a law is if it is passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and signed into law by the President.

So now the Republican Party has resorted to hurting everyday Americans by forcing the government to shut down and furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers so they can get what they want. It is 18 times the Senate attempted to send negotiators to the House to get an agreement on a budget; and now, because of the House Republican delay tactics, we have run out of time and have passed the date to keep the government open. They have taken this moment of crisis to exercise political leverage in the most irresponsible manner.

I can appreciate my Republican colleagues' passions and their world views on government, but their passions are misplaced, ill-timed, and inappropriate. They want to display those passions and undo a law at a time when Americans will be harmed by their tactics. What makes Americans so angry is when they see Members of Congress so eager to hurt our country to achieve their political ends.

Let's say that our positions were flipped, that the Republicans had the Senate and the Presidency and the Democrats had the House. What if the Democrats said, Well, we don't want a government shutdown, but unless the Senate passes and the President signs immigration reform into law, that's what we will do? Or how about if we were to say, We are against furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers, but unless the Senate passes and the President signs an assault weapons ban, we will do just that?

You know, we could say unless the Senate passes and the President signs into law, the option will be to shut down the government.

I know our friends on the other side of the aisle would never allow such tactics to stand. Now the House Republicans are trying a piecemeal approach, attempting to fund the government one agency at a time. This is no way to run a government either. This is just legislative public relations. This is Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans reacting to the bad headlines they've received in the last few days. The press has been criticizing this shutdown for how it's harmed our veterans.

What's the answer for the Republicans? Introduce a bill that funds only veterans programs. The press has exposed the tragedy of this shutdown, ending clinical trials for kids with cancer. What's their solution? Introduce a bill that funds only clinical trials.

The press has shown how insulting it is to our Greatest Generation when they have been locked out of the Washington, D.C., World War II Memorial. What do Republicans do? Introduce a bill that funds only parks and monuments. This is not governing. This is damage control.

The actions by the House Republicans are absurd and reprehensible. The House Republicans are pitting American against American for political gain. Do they think that a veteran would want his benefits at the expense of his grandchild's education? Do they think that poor children should go to sleep hungry so the national park in their district can open?

One-half of one House of Congress of one branch of government should not get to make such outrageous demands. To make things worse, there are reasonable Republicans, as the gentleman from Wisconsin has just demonstrated, Republicans who know this is wrong, Republicans that have stopped me in the hall and told me how Ted Cruz has put them into a political conundrum. Even Grover Norquist has said Ted Cruz has ``pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away.''

Eighteen House Republicans have publicly stated they would support a clean CR. Let's end the GOP shutdown. Let's bring sanity back to Congress and pass a clean CR that will put Americans back to work and restore funding to the countless programs that they rely on.

Mr. POCAN. If I could ask a question of the gentleman. You mentioned that the Senate 18 times has tried to find a resolution to having a budget in this country. There are a number of us who serve on the Budget Committee, including Representative Jeffries from New York State, who is going to speak in a little bit, who for 6 months have been asking for the Republican leadership to appoint conferees so that we could actually do exactly that. Do you remember when the Republicans finally proposed a conference committee?

Mr. TAKANO. The gentleman is going to have to help me. I'm not aware of when this happened.

Mr. POCAN. I believe it was between 11:40 and 15 minutes to midnight on the deadline before we had to shut down government.

Mr. TAKANO. Was that literally the 11th hour, 59th minute before they--that's right. I do remember this now because I was here that time of night. I do remember that because we were wondering what the Republican Caucus was going to do next, and the last thing of the evening on Saturday was to propose a conference.

Look, the Senate Democrats passed a budget after much complaining by the House Republicans that the Senate had not passed a budget, and I believe this was way back in the spring.

Mr. POCAN. March 23.

Mr. TAKANO. We had plenty of time to try and hash all of this out, but let's remember the original pretext for this shutdown. What I kept hearing from our Republican colleagues was they wanted to delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That seemed to be the crux of their objectives.

Mr. POCAN. In the last 48 hours, how many votes have we had on the Affordable Care Act?

Mr. TAKANO. The last 48 hours, we've voted on a lot of things since then. As I pointed out in my remarks, every headline that looks bad for them, they come up with a bill, and they try to fund that headline away.

Again, they're embarrassing votes for many people on our side, having to answer, Why are you voting against the National Institutes of Health? Why are you voting against veterans? Of course we're not voting against them. We're saying that you can't pit one group of Americans against another group of Americans, and that there are literally many Americans who depend on many of the programs. When people really understand what our government does for them and when it's taken away, then it comes home.

Mr. POCAN. Thank you so much, Representative Takano. You did a great job pointing out every time a press release came out and they realized one of the impacts of shutting down the government, they tried to put a little chewing gum in the crack in the dam rather than actually addressing the problem. They've done that multiple times. They have done it through what we call around here ``gotcha votes'' to try to make a point, but they have not provide the solution we need, which is what we're demanding and 18 Members on the other side are demanding, which is a vote on a clean continuing resolution so that government can continue.

Mr. TAKANO. I don't know if you spoke about this earlier, but in just this past series of votes, there was what is called in technical language here in the House, a motion to recommit, otherwise known as an MTR. The Democrats used that opportunity to propose a motion to recommit, which was essentially that motion. We were trying to bring to the floor a clean CR, the exact Senate language for the continuing resolution.

The number that we would have funded the government at would have been at the Republican's own number. It's a number that many of us feel is too low. I bet you most of our caucuses would've supported it. But what happened? There was a motion on the Republican side to table our motion. Why table it? Why were they scared? They were scared to bring it to the floor. Instead of a procedural motion that the Republicans could have voted ``no'' on, they would have been faced with voting up or down and those 18 Members would have had to make a decision to go against what they publicly stated. They could have done that today. They had an opportunity today, and let it be said right now that we missed an opportunity to fund this government and to move on. It passed away today. All I can say is this motion to table was nothing less than, I think, a motion out of fear. Fear of what? That there would be a reasonable majority that would come together.

I asked earlier today a question that was rhetorical. I asked as a point of information, Who is the Speaker of this House? Is it John Boehner or is it Ted Cruz? In order to get to this vote, we have to take this Congress back from a phantom Speaker because I can't believe that--you read out the names of 18 people who are willing to go on record publicly. How many do you and I suspect of Republicans that privately feel these things, but are too afraid to move forward because of this phantom Speaker?

Mr. POCAN. Absolutely. Thank you again for your leadership, Representative Takano. I appreciate it.

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