Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. You had 240-plus.

Mr. HOYER. That bill passed, did it not?

Mr. HOYER. Was that bill brought up in the House?

Mr. HOYER. The gentleman has a different concept of negotiating than I do. If somebody takes somebody that I care about hostage and says now I want to negotiate with you, it is not a negotiation. That is a demand. That is a ``if you don't do it, I am going to harm people.'' When you said the President of the United States said: This is the last time I am going to open up government, I am going to sign an almost overwhelmingly supported piece of legislation by Republicans and Democrats--George Bush never did that. I don't ever remember Ronald Reagan doing that or George H.W. Bush doing that or Bill Clinton doing that. They did it when it was a close vote, but not when it was overwhelming that we ought to open up the government. As long as hostages are held by your opponent, you are not negotiating. You are subject to being demanded, ``Do what I say.'' That is not the democratic process, and it is harming, literally, millions, tens of millions of people in the process in order to get his way. I have not seen that before. The other two shutdowns were legislative shutdowns. There is no doubt this is an executive shutdown, and you just said it: I will never sign something like this again unless it gives me what I want. Frankly, that is what we saw in the negotiations over the 3 days we were there. The last day, of course, was about a 10-minute day because the President stomped out. Mr. Scalise, all I can tell you is I share your view of the objective, but because we don't agree with the same ways and means to accomplish that objective, shutting down government ought not to be the alternative. The alternative ought to be to keep talking and getting to a place where I think you and I both want to get, where these borders are secure, where people are not being transported across it for human trafficking purposes, where murderers don't come across the border. But there is a surge right now across our border, and that surge is of mostly mothers and children seeking asylum, coming to ports of entry--not across any fences or borders, coming to ports of entry. The border guards are telling us they are turning themselves in. They want to, because they are seeking refuge from a country that has purported to be a country of refuge, that raises a statue in New York Harbor to send that message. But we need to make them known to us when they come into the country. We agree on that. So, rather than all this rhetoric back and forth, Mr. Speaker, it is a simple proposition. Senator McConnell has said, unless the President says he will sign on opening up the government, he won't put it on the floor. That is the only person who is stopping you, because we have sent bills. Mr. Cole of your side said: I don't like the bills because they are only Senate bills. We don't like them either, but we like, less, government being shut down. We like, less, 800,000 people being put at risk. We like, less, the anxiety that we are causing our Federal employees in terms of the financial stability of their homes and their ability to put food on their tables and pay their mortgage and pay their rent. Surely--surely--we ought to be able to come to agreement that that is not what we ought to inflict to get our way. I hope we open up our government.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet on Monday, January 14, 2019, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule to come. Mr. Speaker, let me just preface it: I know all of our Members are concerned. I know the majority leader, having spoken to him, is very concerned about what we are doing and when we are doing it. Members, obviously, Christmas is coming, and they want to know what they can do. I am pleased that the majority leader agreed to have this colloquy to give us a sense of the schedule as he sees it. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), my friend, the majority leader.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the majority leader agreed to have a colloquy on the schedule. He has given us the schedule. Obviously, there are still a lot of questions, but I understand, and I appreciate the majority leader bringing us as much up to date as he can. Will the flood vote later this afternoon or this evening be the last vote that the gentleman would perceive?

Mr. HOYER. I think the Senate vote is still open. Is that accurate?

Mr. HOYER. Well, I hope that can happen. We certainly, on this side-- I am sure on your side--hope that can happen as well so that we can get home to our families and celebrate Christmas. The gentleman does not expect any further votes after the flood vote; is that correct?

Mr. HOYER. I understand the angst continues. We all have that. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. What a sad day. Chairman Frelinghuysen, I feel badly that you are leaving on this note. I know it is not your wish. I know that, if you were in charge, we would have reached agreement. I know, under your leadership, we passed--we didn't pass them. Six bills were forged in a bipartisan way, not our bills, your bills. Mr. Speaker, the seventh bill is also agreed to, save one item, so that approximately 96 percent of the legislation has been agreed to by both sides, and the United States Senate has passed a continuing resolution based upon those bills by voice vote. Yet here we are, twisting in the wind at 7 p.m. on the day before the government shuts down. What a sad performance. What a regrettable lack of responsibility, how we have undermined the faith of our people, treated the Federal employee terribly, and given cause for the rest of the world to think: What are they doing? There is not one person on the Republican side of the aisle who believes that, if they pass this bill, it will be accepted by the Senate. Not one of you believes that. So we are playing political games here to pander to the President of the United States, who sadly rejected a compromise that was reached by all of us. The majority leader of your party and the Speaker were for this compromise. We were for this compromise and the Senate was for this compromise. One person, why are we here? I will shut down the government, absolutely. I am proud to shut down the government. That is what the President of the United States said just a few days ago. And today, he put the entire Congress in a tizzy. How sad it is that the Republican leadership of this Congress and the last Congress have consistently been unable to meet their fiscal responsibilities.

Mr. HOYER. John Boehner brought a bill to open up the government and, sadly, only 78 Republicans would follow their leadership--Mr. Boehner, Mr. Cantor, Mr. McCarthy--only 78, and the rest, including the present Director of OMB, voted to keep the government shut down. So I am not surprised that we are here, but it is sad that we are here acting so irresponsibly. If we have one duty as we come here, it is to have our government function effectively for our people. We are failing tonight. This is a pretense. This bill is going nowhere. The Senate won't accept it. Perhaps the Senate will send it back, amended--perhaps. But we are, we think, adults. Let's act responsibly. Defeat this bill.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come. Mr. Speaker, I want to say I yield to my friend, but maybe I had better say it at the end to see how pleasant we are. I yield to the majority leader. (Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to join the leader. It is important for the public to understand that much goes on in which there is agreement. Much goes on in this House between staff and between Members that is a positive and bipartisan result for the American people and for our country. Obviously, the public sees mostly, and the reporters cover, television and print, mostly the confrontation because that is what is newsworthy. A headline saying everybody cooperated and got something done is apparently not a very saleable, marketable headline. But I thank the majority leader. And as the roles shift and I become the majority leader, I continue to intend to work with the majority leader and with the incoming whip on the Republican side to see if we can forge bipartisan agreements on critical issues that clearly the American people want addressed. I thank my friend, Mr. McCarthy, and tell him that I look forward to working with him, as we have in the past, and, hopefully, we can do so constructively on behalf of, not only the House of Representatives, but on behalf of our country. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for that information. I would reiterate what the majority leader has said because I believe this is accurate. There will be no votes before Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. next week--no votes prior to 6:30 p.m. next Wednesday, so that Members are advised that they need to be available. We need to be here Wednesday at 6:30, and we need to be available every day thereafter until we get this government on a solid footing. Is that accurate, Mr. Leader?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, as he points out, these discussions are not just about the schedule for the short term. They are about, however, a schedule as to what policies we are going to address, when we are going to address them, and how we are going to address them. In that context, Mr. Speaker, the majority leader was, I think, rightfully proud of the fact that the committee had reported out all 12 appropriations bills by the August break, and we had passed seven of those appropriations bills on the floor and sent them to the Senate. Sadly, however, Mr. Speaker, we are now 12 days before Christmas. There was a meeting at the White House about 48 hours ago, at which time there was a debate or discussion on TV, which the American people saw, and the President of the United States said: ``I will shut down the government, absolutely.'' And then he said: ``I am proud to shut down the government.'' Mr. Speaker, shutting down the government is stupid. Shutting down the government is costly. Shutting down the government creates great uncertainty, not only among those who work for the Federal Government, but everybody who relies on the daily activities of the Federal Government. We should not shut down the government. My side Mr. Speaker, has offered to the President of the United States, and to all of us, two alternatives. One is that we pass a CR for the balance of the year for all bills. We don't like that alternative, but at least it will provide some certainty for the next 8\1/2\ months until September 30. The second alternative, which I think is the much better alternative, and it comports with the leader's justifiable pride with dealing with the appropriation bills on this side--as I understand, there is only one disagreement of major proportion, and that is whether we build a wall. We think that is bad policy. The President thinks it is good policy. We are having an argument about that, and we don't agree. The Republicans control the House and they control the Senate. They could pass it. They haven't passed it. But we don't control that. That is out of our hands. And our suggestion was we have agreed on five of the bills that have been signed into law. About 76 percent of the government's discretionary funding has already been passed. We have about 25 percent left. That 25 percent is in seven bills. One is the Department of Homeland Security. It is clear that we do not have agreement on the Homeland Security appropriation bills, but on six, it is my understanding, Mr. Leader and Mr. Speaker, that we do have agreement, that the two appropriations committees have worked together, the leaders have worked together, and that we have agreement on those six bills. So our second alternative, the much preferred alternative is to pass those six bills as they have been agreed to, funding those agencies to which those bills apply between now and September 30, the end of the fiscal year, and do a CR for the balance of the year for Homeland Security, or, alternatively, do a CR on Homeland Security at some date next year. Neither of those alternatives apparently has been pursued by the majority party, Mr. Speaker, and the President, as I just quoted, says: ``I am proud to shut down the government.'' Mr. Speaker, the leader has said he doesn't want to shut down government. The whip has said he doesn't want to shut down government. The minority leader in the Senate has said he doesn't want to shut down government. We don't want to shut down government. But we are at an impasse just about one issue, and we suggest we agree with 95 percent. Wouldn't that make sense for the American people, for us to pass the 95 percent on which we have reached agreement after hard work all year? And on that which we can't agree, agree that we can't agree and fight that another day? But here we are, 12 days before Christmas. And I would ask the majority leader: Do we have a plan? Mr. Leader, do we have a plan to fund the government on or before the 21st of this month so that we can do what all of us say we want to do, and, that is, keep the government operating on behalf of the American people? Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let me observe with respect to the gentleman's comment about we did send five bills, 75 percent of government spending, discretionary spending to the President. The President signed it. But when he says it is the best in 25 years, I will remind him that when I was majority leader in 2007, we passed all 12 bills through this House.

Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is correct. We passed all 12 bills. We passed them one by one so that we can consider each one, and they went to the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate didn't act in a fashion that I would hope. I will tell the gentleman, it is my intention, as majority leader, to pass all 12 bills.

Mr. HOYER. Not necessarily one by one. We like his process, perhaps. I hope he likes it as much as he liked it the first time when he got that process, because I may--I have learned from the majority leader's skill and judgment so that we----

Mr. HOYER. We may pursue that process, and I know he is going to support it because it is his process that we are going to pursue, sort of like his schedule. Mr. Speaker, we passed all 12 bills. We sent them to the Senate. Unfortunately, we didn't get them all done. But the fact of the matter is, this is a process called the legislative process, and I just talked at the outset about compromise and working together. We have six of those bills. It so happens we now package everything, and maybe we are going to do that in the future. But the fact of the matter is, we have agreement on six of the seven bills that remain to be signed by the President of the United States. The way this process works is, you have agreement on six separate bills. These are not the homeland security. That is where we have a disagreement. I understand that. We cannot pass homeland security right now. But we have agreement on six bills. Why shouldn't the plan be: We have agreement, in a bipartisan fashion; we can fund those six agencies. There will be no drama, and we will send it. Then we can do a CR on the homeland security, and we can argue about the wall. We can have hearings on the wall. We can have experts come here and say to them: How do we make sure America is secure? Because every Democrat wants to make sure the borders are secure, every Democrat. We want the border secure. There is a substantive disagreement. By the way, there are Republicans who disagree with the wall, as the gentleman surely knows, that it is not the best way to secure the border. By the way, I don't know why we need money for it. The Mexicans surely are going to pay for the wall. That is what the President said. The Mexicans were going to pay for the wall. Now he wants $5 billion to pay for technology we don't think works. So, as a result, we are holding hostage the six bills on which we have agreement. How frustrated the American people must be when they say: You know, they agree on six-sevenths of the bills, and they won't take yes for an answer. The response is: ``I am proud to shut down the government.'' Mr. Leader, I would hope that we could send those six bills on which we have agreement. After hard work in the Appropriations subcommittees, in the Appropriations Committee, both in the House and the Senate, and in communications between the two bodies, they have reached agreement. We ought to be happy about that. We ought to celebrate that. And we ought to send them to the President. There is no indication he would not sign those bills, as far as I know. Then, yes, we have a disagreement, and the American people have come here to have us debate that, have hearings on that, see what experts say on that. Frankly, if the wall is what your side wants, then I say to the leader, put a bill on the floor Wednesday night and pass the wall. You haven't done that.

Mr. HOYER. We haven't passed the homeland security bill through this House. It got out of committee; you didn't bring it to the floor. We haven't had a vote on it, so there is no consensus on that part of it. So, Mr. Speaker, let's pass those six bills. Let's have a plan that will work to preclude shutting down the people's government. I hope we can do that. I hope we can do it, come back Wednesday night, and I hope, Mr. Leader, you have a plan between now and Wednesday night to get us to the place where we can do what we have agreed upon, and agreed not to agree on something that we can't agree on, or pass it and send it to the President. Mr. Speaker, I hope we can do that. That is our responsibility. That is our duty, the duty to have a plan of how to make sure that government continues to operate, and a plan as to how we can have our Members and their families celebrate one of the highest holy days in Christendom. I yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for his comments, but what is your plan to do that? We have been now here in this Congress, this year, for over 330 days, 340 days. You haven't passed any plan on homeland security. You haven't brought it to the floor. It passed out of the committee. You have not brought it to the floor in 340 days. Here we are, with agreement on six bills, Mr. Leader. We have reached agreement. We have worked hard to get to that agreement. Now, yes, you have a faction of your caucus that has told you from time to time, ``my way or no way,'' even when you had agreement on six- sevenths. Mr. Boehner had the same problem, and he decided he was going to leave here because he had the ``my way or no way,'' ``my way or the highway,'' ``my way or here's your hat and get out.'' Mr. Leader, you have not told us a plan. We have been discussing this for, literally, all year, and we have a very significant, substantive disagreement. And you haven't brought it to the floor to press your view and send it to the Senate. I don't know why you haven't brought it to the floor. We haven't had any debate on the floor on this issue. We are prepared to debate that bill. But what we are not prepared to do is hold hostage six-sevenths of the appropriations bills that remain to be done, which we have agreed upon, worked on, and are ready to go. All you tell me is: We are prepared to do that, but we have got to pass all seven bills. If we don't get everything we want, we are not going to do it. I understand, because you have the President of the United States saying: ``I am proud to shut down the government.'' What kind of irresponsibility is that? He wants the wall. I know he wants the wall. We are a democracy, however, not an autocracy, not a dictatorship. We are a democracy, and the wall has not passed this House. There is no agreement on the wall, and we think the wall is a bad strategy. There are more resources deployed to the South, the southern border, than at any time, I think--I haven't checked this exactly--in my service in the Congress of the United States. So it is not like we have not put a lot of Border Patrol, a lot of technology, a lot of fencing. We have supported substantial security at the border. Now the President wants more. I get that. But we are holding hostage six-sevenths of the appropriations bills, six out of seven, because the President is going to be proud to shut down the government. Now, I don't want to be too painful, but we had an election just a few weeks ago, and the President made it very clear he wanted to build that wall. He sent troops down to the border, at tens of millions of dollars' cost. Of course, under the law, they can't deal with law enforcement. And, yes, there were some people that came at the fence, and they were pushed back. But the fact of the matter is that there is border security. Can we make it better? Yes. Do we want to make it better? Yes. Will we work with you to do that? Yes. But you are not going to get us to believe something is good that we don't think is good. You can pass it. The President can sign it. I get that. And we lose. But you haven't brought it to the floor. You don't have a plan to get that done, 330, I guess, 340 days into the year. So I am, Mr. Speaker, saying, why, when we have agreement--I say six- sevenths. Very frankly, we have agreement on the homeland security bill except for the wall, one item, so, essentially, we have probably 99 percent agreement. But it is my way or the highway, with no plan, as I understand it, to get us from where we are today, where we were 2 weeks ago, and where I am fearful that we will be on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., because we have no plan to get from where we are to where we need to be. We have offered two plans. You don't like either one of them. One was a CR for the rest of the year, for everything, for the remaining. We don't like that. That is not our plan, but it is one option, and we would support that if you bring that to the floor. The other option, of course, is to pass the six bills. We will vote for them, all of them. You can put them in a package. Then do a CR on the homeland security, and we will have further discussions about that, and we will see what the democratic process results in. It hasn't passed the House. We are not for it. We are prepared to debate it. If it passes and the President signs it, it will be law and my friend will do it, but don't hold the rest of government hostage for something on which there is deep disagreement not only by us, but within my friend's own party. I implore my friend, on Wednesday at 6:30, bring those six bills to the floor. We will vote for them. Hopefully, his folks who worked to get them in place will vote for them. We will pass them, and we will avoid another stupid, as I said, shutdown of the government of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, is the gentlemen aware we did not shut down government? Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, not that year.