Further Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, what we ought to have the courage to do is to tell all our Homeland Security personnel, We are going to fund you through the end of this year, as we have told every other employee in the Federal Government that is protecting us and serving us on a day-to-day basis.

Mr. Speaker, the majority party said to the American people in a pledge to America:

We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with ``must-pass'' legislation.

The funding of the Department of Homeland Security is a must-pass piece of legislation, legislation to circumvent the will of the American people.

Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time.

Mr. Speaker, they are breaking that pledge today.

Peter King, the former Republican chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said this: ``If a clean bill comes here, as we expect to happen in just a few hours, we have to accept and vote on it.'' He then said, in reference to this cul-de-sac strategy that the majority party is following of continuing to go into a dead end, he said this, Peter King: ``I think up to this point, we've engaged in an exercise of tactical malpractice. Self-delusion is self-destructive.''

There is not a Republican in this House who believes this strategy will do anything but run them back into that cul-de-sac that they went into in December, at the expense of the confidence of Americans that their Department of Homeland Security, tasked to make them safe, tasked to provide for the security of this Nation, will, in fact, be operating on a full basis.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter dated yesterday from Secretary Jeh Johnson and read this key excerpt from it. Secretary Johnson said: ``Finally, as I have noted many times, mere extension of a continuing resolution has many of the same negative impacts''--outlined in this letter. ``A short-term continuing resolution exacerbates the uncertainty for my workforce and puts us back in the same position, on the brink of a shutdown.''

For those Republicans who believe that we ought to do the responsible thing, as Peter King has said, vote against the previous question. Vote for a rule that provides for the consideration of the Senate-passed bill, which they, 98-2, decided to put on the floor because they thought it was good policy.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I join her in thanking Mr. Carter and Mr. Rogers for bringing to the floor in December a Homeland Security bill that was appropriate and that funded at the levels that were agreed upon by both parties. All we are asking is that we pass Mr. Carter's and Mr. Rogers' bill.

The Republicans pledged to not mingle controversial issues and allow each issue to stand on its own merits or demerits. That was their pledge to America in 2010. This action is inconsistent with that pledge.

The Senate has just voted, Madam Speaker, 68-31 to pass the Rogers-Lowey-Mikulski-Shelby bill. This is not a partisan bill that we are arguing about. This is the bill that we have agreed upon, Republicans and Democrats--and we can't even pass that--with the knowledge that if we do not, the future funding of America's homeland security will still be in question.

Yes, we can do it for 3 weeks. I call it our cul-de-sac strategy, going into a cul-de-sac over and over and over again and feeling somehow a pathway is

going to open. The Senate is now voting on the Collins amendment. Now, as I understand the strategy of the Republican Party in the House, Madam Speaker, it is to add the bill that has been rejected four times on the floor of the United States Senate. They went in the cul-de-sac once, it didn't open up. They went in the cul-de-sac twice, it didn't open up. They went in the cul-de-sac a third, fourth time, it didn't open up. And now the proposal is to go into that cul-de-sac a fifth time while we focus on whether or not we are going to fund Homeland Security, not on the objectives of homeland security.

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I urge Republicans and Democrats who have all said not funding the Homeland Security Department now for the balance of the year is--Mr. Rogers didn't quote this, he was talking about sequester--is ill-conceived and wrong. I therefore, Madam Speaker, urge my colleagues to vote against this short-term CR and to vote for the Senate bill that will be sent to us in just a short period of time, today, which passed the United States Senate with over a two-thirds vote. Democrats only have 46 Members, so almost a majority of the Republicans are voting for it as well.

Madam Speaker, that is the responsible thing to do. That is the right thing to do. That is the regular order to do. Let's do it. Let's put aside our partisan differences and our partisan strategies and vote as Americans to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the balance of the year.

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