Newsletter: 08/03/2014
Statement
Friends,
What a hectic month it's been in Washington! I'm pleased that we got some important things accomplished, such as securing $300 million in funding for Great Lakes restoration, passing the SKILLS Act to connect workers with good jobs, increasing access to health care for our veterans, and securing our southern border.
But now it's August, and that means I have the opportunity to come home to Northeast Ohio and visit with you. I'll be at events and meetings all around the district, so I hope if you see me you'll say hi and let me know what's on your mind.
Here's a quick rundown of the highlights from this past week:
1. Securing our borders
The House stayed in session this week until we got our job done on addressing the crisis at the southern border. The legislation passed late Friday night provides needed resources to secure the border while preventing President Obama from acting unilaterally to grant amnesty against the American people's wishes. It also closes the loophole that incentivized individuals to make the dangerous journey from Central America and escalated this crisis. As opposed to the president's $3.7 billion request, the $694 million in this bill is fully offset so that it will not intensify another crisis: our national debt.
When our nation is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, we need to act. I'm pleased Members of the House stayed in Washington to work out the solution our constituents depended on us to provide.
2. Caring for our veterans
Making sure our veterans have access to high-quality care is a bipartisan issue that everyone should be able to get behind. With the 420-5 passage of the conference report to the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, veterans who have been suffering long wait times or live too far from a VA facility will now have the ability to see private sector doctors. In an area like Northeast Ohio, where we have some of the top medical facilities in the nation, this is a common sense solution that we can implement right now. The bill also makes needed fixes to the VA itself, such as cutting through red tape that keeps poor-performing senior staff from being disciplined or fired.
While VA medical centers are seeing 700,000 more unique patients because of Iraq and Afghanistan, there are hundreds of VA doctor vacancies that have gone unfilled. This bill provides needed resources to hire more doctors and medical staff to make sure all of our servicemen and women coming home receive the care they need and deserve.
3. Protecting our kids on campus
As a former prosecutor and the father of two daughters in college, I want to do all I can to stop the sexual assault epidemic on our campuses. This week, I joined a bipartisan coalition of 18 House members to introduce the House version of the Campus Accountability and Safety Act. The legislation mirrors a bill introduced in the Senate, which takes aim at sexual assaults on college and university campuses by protecting and empowering students, strengthening accountability and transparency for institutions and establishing stiff penalties for non-compliance with the legislation's new standards for training, data and best practices.
This bill makes it in the schools' immediate best interest to take proactive steps to protect their students and rid their campuses of sexual predators. It's time to protect our kids by ensuring that these crimes are not only fully prosecuted but prevented.
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