Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, during the early morning hours of December 24, 2012, the town of West Webster, New York, suffered a horrible tragedy as a troubled individual set his sister on fire, along with her house, and then lay in wait until the firefighters arrived. He shot and killed two firemen and wounded two more. In the days and weeks that followed, the town of West Webster, the city of Rochester, and our entire region responded with an outpouring of support for the families whose lives had been irrevocably changed because of the attack. Donations poured into the nonprofit, volunteer West Webster Fire Department in hopes that they would reach the families whose loved ones had been killed. Unfortunately, the fire department was in no position to deal with the complex legalities of delivering these donations to the intended families. As a result, the majority of that money has still not been able to reach the families. For almost a year now, I have worked with the people of West Webster, particularly West Webster Fire Chief Ken Smith, to finally deliver the charitable donations. And thanks to the generous efforts of Chairman Camp and our allies in the Senate, we will finally be able to help these families today. The assistance of Chairman Camp and his staff, in particular, has been vital to resolving this issue once and for all. His commitment over the recent months to helping West Webster firefighters and their loved ones is a testament to his dedication to public service. Today's vote is terribly important to the recipients. There are no words that can heal the wounds that were suffered by Ted Scardino and Joe Hofstetter, and nothing we can do will ever bring back Mike ``Chip'' Chipparini and Tomasz Kaczowka. But passing today's legislation can help to lessen their burden, hopefully to ease their pain, and to prove that even in our darkest hours, our country will be there to support our public servants, their families, and communities in need.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, it is my esteemed honor to recognize the ten-year anniversary of the non-profit organization, Water for South Sudan, and commend this Rochester-based organization for its tireless efforts in the fight against contaminated water use in the South Sudan region. I also want to recognize and congratulate the founder of Water for South Sudan, Salva Dut, and his staff for drilling 177 wells in the South Sudan since October 2003. It is an honor to represent the district in which Water for South Sudan was founded. Water for South Sudan has exhibited immense devotion to the Sudanese population over its ten-year history, and has served 400,000 people to date. Not only does Water for South Sudan provide clean water to the world's youngest nation, the organization also works to alleviate poverty and rebuild communities in one of the most economically depressed nations in the world. Following a devastating twenty-year civil war, the South Sudanese were left without clean water and protection from deadly diseases, including malaria. With child mortality rates, poverty, and starvation at extreme highs, and educational levels and social and gender equality at extreme lows, there was a need for global action to help the South Sudanese people recover. When many only saw hopelessness in South Sudan, Salva Dut saw promise and stepped in to help lead his nation forward. At the young age of 11, Salva Dut was forced to leave his family and flee South Sudan in an effort to escape the outbreak of violence and destruction resulting from the civil war. Facing rapidly spreading diseases, hunger, and the threat of attack, Dut's strength led himself and others away from imminent danger. During this time Dut showed admirable leadership by helping 1,500 ``Lost Boys'' like himself reach a United Nations-regulated camp. After more than half a decade living there, he was finally able, along with 3,800 other Lost Boys, to come to America. Dut settled in the welcoming community of Rochester, NY and established the roots that would become Water for South Sudan. After being separated for 16 years, Dut was able to finally reconnect with his father in South Sudan in 2002. During that trip, he witnessed the devastating effects of parasite and disease-ridden water, as it took hold of his ill father. Dut then decided that he would dedicate his life to bringing clean water to the South Sudan region. This young man, who came to the United States with very little education and a language barrier, went on to become a college student, an American citizen, and the founder of one of the most respected charity organizations to date. I am very proud of Water for South Sudan, its founder Salva Dut, his dedicated staff, and the supportive residents of the 25th Congressional district. Instead of walking away, Salva Dut and Water for South Sudan have marched forward, meeting the dire need for sustainable and safe water for the South Sudanese. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating, honoring, and thanking Water for South Sudan for its work. I am honored to represent an organization that inspires change on a global level.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, in 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that some school districts had unknowingly hired sex offenders due to inconsistent state laws that do not require comprehensive background checks for all adults who have contact with children in schools. In other cases, the GAO found that districts knowingly passed a potential predator to another school district by allowing the offender to resign instead of reporting him. Significant differences in the ways schools screen prospective employees lead to gaps in student protection. A child's safety should not depend on where that child resides. The 2010 GAO report investigated a number of cases across the country, including one in my home state of New York. In this case, a public school employed a maintenance worker for five months until the results of a criminal history check conducted after he had already reported to work revealed that he had been convicted of raping a 21- year-old woman at knifepoint behind a school. In 1982, the offender had been sentenced to 12 to 25 years in prison and classified as a level 3 sex offender, meaning that the offender is at high risk for repeat offenses and is a threat to public safety. In 2008, the school hired him ``conditionally,'' meaning he was allowed to report to work prior to the completion of a state criminal history check. School officials told GAO investigators they do not always perform these checks prior to employment because they considered the process both cost and time prohibitive. The school fired the offender in November 2008 when the state criminal history check was completed; within two years he was incarcerated for failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements. The Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act would have prevented this potentially disastrous hiring from ever taking place thanks to its prohibition of hiring or retaining anyone who has been convicted of certain violent crimes, including crimes against children, crimes involving rape or sexual assault and child pornography. In many of the cases GAO investigated, previously convicted sex offenders working in schools eventually used their access to children in school to once again commit crimes against children. Although the New York maintenance worker was terminated after five months and did not abuse children in the school during that time, there is no acceptable amount of time for our children to be exposed to such horrific risk. Children have the right to a safe school environment where they can learn and thrive. There is so much more that this body must do to ensure this right--most importantly the enactment of legislation to prevent gun violence--but passage of the Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act is a necessary step towards securing students' safety in school. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Reserving the right to object, Madam Speaker, I wanted to advise my colleagues that we support this request on this side of the aisle. With that, I withdraw my reservation.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, after two weeks of anguish, the American people can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Thanks to bipartisan efforts in the Senate, my Democratic colleagues and I stand ready to support the responsible legislation before us and bring this self-inflicted crisis to an end. From the efforts of the Minority Leader Pelosi to the work of the minority on the Rules Committee, House Democrats have been committed to finding a responsible resolution to the GOP's crisis. When it was apparent that Democrats would not be able to stop the House Majority from shutting down the government, the Minority Leader and House Democrats began making extraordinary efforts to achieve a swift and responsible end to the Majority's shameful example of legislative malfeasance. For example, during Rules Debates on both October 2nd and October 4th, I came to the floor and proposed a way to bring an immediate end to the government shutdown. Each time not a single member of the Majority voted for the proposal. In addition, House Democrats launched a discharge petition to force a vote on the clean Senate Continuing Resolution--an effort that the Majority also refused to support. Fortunately, House Democrats were not alone in seeking a responsible and bipartisan solution to the crisis. With the proposal being offered today, the leadership in the Senate--both the Majority and the Minority leaders--have demonstrated how to legislate for the American People. We also owe a debt of gratitude to the talented and intelligent women from both sides of the aisle who have shown us that when the going gets tough, you can always count on women to come together and get to work. Madam Speaker, we have a lot to do in the days and months ahead. As we speak, there is an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella that is threatening public health. Unfortunately, this outbreak of antibiotic-resistant bacteria surely won't be the last. There is a bill, H.R. 1150, that deserves an immediate vote in Congress so that we can stop the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and address the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant disease. Furthermore, there is an urgent need in our country to rebuild our infrastructure, create millions of jobs and fix our schools so that our nation remains a global superpower in the century to come. We must not fool ourselves. The self-inflicted wound that the GOP inflicted upon this nation has done real damage to millions of Americans and to our role in the world. Just last night, the Chinese government declared that it was time for the world to ``de-Americanise,'' and governments around the world have taken note of the shameful display that has occurred in this chamber over the last two weeks. It is my sincere hope that this has been the last time our economy and our democracy will be subjected to such reckless and irresponsible governing. It is imperative that in the days to come the Majority finally allows bipartisanship and responsible governance to take hold in the House of Representatives. It is time to sit down together and start solving the most urgent issues of our time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank my friend for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, it is really getting more and more difficult for us to get out here and act as though we're really having a serious debate about something, and I just want to start off by saying that I don't want anybody in the country to forget--as they're trying to do things with a Federal Government that's shut down as the VA service centers did, and their phones are now inoperative as we've all learned to our great dismay--the deceased soldiers and their families have not been able to be compensated in any way to make it possible for them to pay for funerals or even go to them. I'm sure that will be something we're going to come up and deal with as they're doing with this part-time ``let's build ourselves a new government.'' Don't forget that this was about health care. That's all there is to it. Service people can't get the benefits that they need. Nobody can get anything from the government. Mortgages are on hold because Republicans didn't like health care. If you would have asked them why in the world do you object to 30 million Americans who have not been able to afford health insurance having an opportunity to get it, they don't give you any answer. It's more obfuscation. If we talk about negotiations, let me tell you the negotiation that is really critical that is not taking place at all, and we're doing an example of that right now. There is no negotiation in the committee process. The only committee that has been putting anything up to the floor of the House has been the Rules Committee. Somebody writes a bill in the afternoon, and either that evening or early the next day, the Rules Committee goes in, and it goes right to the floor. There is no amendment chance, there's no discussion chance, and we don't know what they're doing. The discussion and the amendments and the negotiation, yes, that's supposed to go on between the two parties in the committees, and it is nowhere to be seen and hasn't been for ages. We've been down this road before, again with the supercommittee idea, which was such a glaring disaster and only ended up in sequestration, and the whole idea of sequestration was so, with all of that, none of us ever thought we'd get there, but now we're pretending that's what it is. Now it's, Let's have another supercommittee. I will tell you that was so awful, and it set us back so much in this country not only with scientific research and national security and public safety being compromised, but now they want to do it again. I think it's just another delaying tactic because I'm persuaded today, as I stand here, that the Republican Party in this House does not want to open the government. The opportunities they've had over and over again have been absolutely quashed. There's a lot of talk in the media about, Oh, if only I had a chance to vote for a clean resolution, I would do it in just a moment. Well, let me tell you that it has been turned down twice before in the House of Representatives on the rule when we got to the part about the previous question. We always say just vote ``no'' and you will then have your opportunity to vote on the clean bill from the Senate, which already passed there, and would go directly to the President. We never got a single Republican vote. Draw your own conclusions about the 25 Republicans who stated if only they were given that opportunity. Now the sequestration, as my colleague has pointed out, we accepted as part of a deal on our behalf between Speaker Boehner and Senator Reid. As awful as it is--and most of us did not like that--nonetheless, for the short-term CR, we were willing to take it, but now the majority, again, refuses to let us vote on a CR which was agreed on. This irresponsible governance has continued in the days since the majority shut the government down; and over this last week--or last several weeks, actually--the majority has abandoned any semblance of regular order and just turned the Rules Committee, as I've said, into the committee of jurisdiction. Now, where does all this come from? I think most Americans were surprised. Let me express my concern. I recall that, just after Senator Obama was elected President in 2008, we all heard about the great dinner that took place on inaugural night, declaring, among Republican elected officials, that they would not allow Senator Obama--now President Obama--to get anything done. Well, we thought after 4 years, maybe that was over with, and we did get the health care bill passed. Now we learned on Sunday morning that that is taking place again, which again says, you know, I'm not sure that this party could put the government back into business or not because they would have to get the permission, apparently, from the Heritage Foundation's Heritage Action for America, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, and David Koch, because they wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and they engineered this whole thing. That appeared on Sunday. This is Tuesday. Not a single refutation has taken place.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. So it's time for this game to come to an end, but it won't because it's not part of the plan. I am really tired, on behalf of the American people, of watching them being fooled; and I think that we are more than disgusted and tired with the process by which this legislation comes to us. The four of us on the Rules Committee are calling for you to open up this process so that the other members of our party--as well as yours who, I am confident, know nothing more about these bills than we do--have an opportunity to really do our jobs as we were sent here to do.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Unless the silent Members of the majority speak up, today's debate is a fait accompli. For the last 2 days, Members of the majority have said publicly that they wish this government shutdown would end. In fact, a coalition of more than 218 Democrats and Republicans has publicly declared that it is ready to vote on the clean Senate CR. This 218 would be the majority, and we would pass it; and that's why the powerful minority, who has taken the government hostage, is doing all it can again today to prevent the Senate CR from coming to the House floor. It doesn't make any sense. Not only doesn't it make any sense; but, actually, were we to do that, we wouldn't have to be here today, trying to do these piecemeal pieces. Last night, the Rules Committee proposed a rule for these 11 piecemeal funding bills before us today. They didn't go through a single meeting of a committee. At least, in the committee process, the subcommittees and committees would have given both Republicans and Democrats an opportunity to weigh in on these measures. Remember that half the population of the United States is represented by Democrats and that, in the last election, Democrat candidates for Congress achieved a million more votes than our Republican friends, but we are shut out of the process. Indeed, these bills were written yesterday afternoon and were brought straight to the Rules Committee, as so many are lately, in order to be rushed to the floor. During our hearing, a colleague promised that the reckless approach would continue, even suggesting that we could see 150 more of these piecemeal bills before the majority agrees to end the government shutdown. That should take us to, maybe, October of next year. Yet, while they're willing to take 150 votes on bills the President would veto--and everybody knows the President would veto them--and the Senate would reject, they haven't allowed a single vote on the cure to the problem: bring up the CR, and put the government back to work. Fortunately for the American people, no minority--no matter how powerful--can stop the will of the House if we exercise it. Unlike the Senate, a majority in the House can only be held back for so long. Thanks to the democratic spirit baked into our Chamber's rules, the majority will always succeed. For the more than 218 Members--a majority who has expressed a desire to vote on the clean CR--our most powerful tool is voting down the previous question and bringing the clean Senate CR to the floor to vote on. Now, earlier this week, my Democrat colleagues and I urged the Chamber to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we could bring the Senate bill to the floor. Not a single Republican joined our cause. Today, we are going to give you another chance. Following the debate on the rule, we will have a chance to vote down the previous question. While that may simply be legislative language to most people, what that will do is give us an opportunity--those of us who very strongly believe this government should work--to bring the CR, bring the shutdown to a close and put everybody back to work. I want to see by the end of this day that we can accomplish that, because words are no longer enough. Those Members of the majority who claim that they want to end the government shutdown get the opportunity today to stand up and vote. As I said the other day when we had the same opportunity, I would like them to put their voting cards where their mouths are. Over the next hour, I encourage every Member of this Chamber to reflect on the damage that has already been wrought on our Nation because of the shutdown and on the damage that will ensue if we wait another day. The shutdown is costing the Nation $300 million a day, and more than 800,000 workers are furloughed without pay. Today, we are going to vote--and, I think, almost unanimously--to pay them when the shutdown ends. A logical person would say, Why don't you bring them back to work? If they're going to be paid anyway, let them work. There is no answer for that. There must be some reason here that is available to only a few people as to why the majority wants to keep the government shut down. We have to also end this because our State Department and intelligence employees need to go back on the job. A hurricane is bearing down right now on the State of Louisiana while 80 percent of the FEMA workers are furloughed. NASA had to turn off the Mars Rover, which was giving us so much information about the universe--stopping all the space exploration in its tracks. I think one of the best things I've read to describe what we are doing in this House was said by a Republican. Because there is no plan here--there is no end game here--he is saying that what they are doing is laying the track ahead of the speeding train as it bears down on them. The majority started the shutdown because they were dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act; and I think, by doing this piecemeal, they think they can still do that. Throughout the process, they have issued dire predictions about the health care law and have warned that the law would hurt American workers. It is absolutely turning out not to be true. In the last week, two of our Nation's biggest companies have responded to the Affordable Care Act by giving tens of thousands of their part-time employees full-time jobs. Guess who they are? One is the largest employer in the United States--Walmart. They are raising 35,000 of their part-time employees to become full-time employees in order to make them eligible for health insurance. Walt Disney announced that 427 employees at Disney World who have been hired as full-time employees will be given access to the health insurance plan. We also hear all the time--and I've really got to research this--that Delta Air Lines has said, they tell me, that the affordable care plan would cost them $100 million a year. I surely would like to know how that's possible unless they plan to hire 70 million new employees, which would certainly be good for employment, but I see no earthly reason for them to do that. We need to know whether that's true or not since all of the rest of the dire predictions have turned out not to be. The Affordable Care Act is working; but because of the majority, the government is not, and it's time for the majority to give up this losing game. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the underlying legislation; and, so importantly, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. Then, Mr. Speaker, we can bring the clean Senate CR to the House floor, as we should have done weeks ago, and end this government shutdown today. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm so pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), our incredible member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm delighted to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds. My colleagues have confused the fact that they have gone around saying how, indeed, throughout August and all the rest of this time, that they don't want to shut down the House, in some hope, I guess, that nobody would understand that when they shut down the House, that they had actually done it. Now what my colleague is talking about from the Democrat side, what they are saying, let's do what we agree with, they are taking their word for it that you didn't want to shut down the House. So let's not do it. You cannot superimpose that notion onto the idea of setting up this government by dribs and drabs. None of us are for that. The Senate won't do it. You know this is an exercise in futility. But pretty soon, the previous question is coming up. You are going to have a chance to do what you said you didn't want to do, shut down the House. But I understand from what you have said that because of health care, because of health care and what you think it has done to people in your district, you are holding this country hostage.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I don't have the time. My time has been given out. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am feeling quite badly. I didn't know how much time I had remaining. I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), if he would like. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis) a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that regular order has not been the order of business in this House for a long time. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I believe I've only got one more speaker in the room, so I wanted to inform my colleague that, after Mr. Andrews, I may be prepared to close. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am absolutely going to vote to retroactively fund the Federal employees because that's the best I can do, on that one issue. It is a matter of basic fairness, but it is not good enough. The fact is that the Federal employees will not get paid their retroactive money until after all this charade is over. We have no idea when that's going to be. Let me reiterate again what all my colleagues have said: we can do it right now, put them back to work and let them get their paycheck. I'm embarrassed every time I pass the Capitol Police at what's happening to them. It bothers me terribly to hear my friends at the State Department say that they're working on fumes. We cannot run the Government of the United States, which is the beacon of democracy, has been the pattern for countries all over the world, by saying we're going to fund this piece over there and that piece over there, and we don't care what happens to the rest of it. That's not what we are here for. Certainly, we will fund that one piece; but I can tell you right now, the Democrats are not going to do any of the rest of it because the Senate is not going to take it up and the President is not going to sign it. We are simply wasting time, and we're taking up valuable time, and we are worrying the country half to death. For heaven's sake, when we do this previous question, let us do the right thing. Vote ``no'' and get all these folks back to work. Does it literally make sense to anybody who either manages a household or their own business that we would say to everybody, go home and rest around here or there; we'll pay you later when we decide you can come back, for not being here. That makes absolutely no sense. Let them go back to work. We're going to pay them. Pay them now for the work they're doing. Pay concurrently with work. Doesn't that make more sense? Does it really make any sense at all that we're saying to them, we have no idea what the end game is here. You may be sitting around for a very long time, while the country pays $300 million a day of the cost of the shutdown. For heaven's sake, I would say once again that we have to do this previous question today. We have to stop this nonsense. It is humiliating us. We cannot go on with this another week. We're only here today to try to make it look like we're doing something because the government's shut down, and we know it. Those bills that we're voting on today had no committee action, nothing. The Senate has made perfectly clear they're not going to take them up. They will not become law, as every school child knows. Now, those who vote ``no'' on ordering the previous question will be giving this Chamber what the leadership of the majority has not, and that will be the real chance to vote this down so that we can put the CR on the calendar and stop the shutdown now, today. It doesn't have to go back to the Senate. The President's waiting for it. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, I beg my colleagues, I do implore my colleagues, for goodness sakes, come to the floor, defeat the previous question. Vote ``no.'' Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, good day to you. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think if Edmund Burke were alive today he would say that what we're really doing is so very little it's shameful, when we could do so much. I want to say this, and I want to say it about every chance I get. We could stop this today. We have just come from a 3-hour Rules meeting and hearing people on the floor and a lot of my colleagues, I have the sense that they don't have any idea what a government shutdown was. All of a sudden it's starting to hurt. Let's pick this piece over here, that one over there, and we can fix that. 800,000 people who work for the United States Government are being used as pawns. We are hurting all of the citizens of the United States who need the services that those 800,000 people provide. We have one thing to do, Mr. Speaker, one thing: we can take from this desk and concur with the Senate CR. That's it. It doesn't have to go back to the Senate. It can go directly to the President of the United States, maybe even before the big meeting today. Sign it and it's over with. But no, we're not going to do that. Now, don't believe that this bill was written today because there is a particularly sympathy for patients at NIH or the visitors to the national parks or the citizens of the District of Columbia. These proposals are cynical attempts to make these things pinch just a little bit less. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that 30 sick children, most with cancer, were turned away from NIH clinical trials because of the government shutdown. Should they be pawns in this political, cynical game to hurt the health care bill? This morning, the majority proposes to reopen NIH, or part of it. Yesterday, the TV cameras were dispatched around the country to capture the footage of museums and monuments closed. This morning the majority proposes they're going to open those sites. The majority's making itself clear: anytime they see a bad headline, they're going to bring a bill to the floor to make it go away. At this rate, it could be a year from now before we ever finally come to some conclusion thereon, because nobody has said anything about what the end game is here. How long are you going to hold the government, the country hostage? Surely it doesn't have anything to do with health care anymore, after yesterday. Now, if the majority really cared, we'd reopen the entire government, all of NIH, national parks right here, right now on this floor in this action we're taking today. If the majority held a simple vote on a clean version of the Senate CR, the government shutdown would be closed upon the President's signature. This afternoon I will give every Member of this Chamber a chance to do just that, as I did just in the Rules Committee. I want you to know that the opportunity to vote for the CR, end the government shutdown, failed 9-4 on a party-line vote. That tells us something about why we're here today and what the purpose is for all of this. Let me be clear. This amendment is the only chance that this Chamber may ever have to end the government shutdown. If this Chamber supports my amendment, we will pass a clean CR this afternoon. Now, if the majority really cared about helping those cancer patients' access to health care or letting the World War II veterans visit the monuments and reopening the doors of the Nation's parks and museums, they will vote for my amendment. The VA, by the way, has announced today that they are running out of money. Furthermore, passing a clean CR would actually do more to help the Nation's veterans than the majority's proposal to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs. Under the majority's proposal, the VA would receive $6 billion less than if we simply passed the CR which, in other words, has $6 billion more for the veterans than what you're proposing today. So for all the cries of concern, the majority's desire to shortchange the veterans by $6 billion tells you all that you need to know. And the veterans understand that. They know that they're being used as a pawn in this cynical, political game, and they resent it. Far from honest policy, today's proposals are more cynical politics. For almost a week, the majority has found itself in a legislative box, or at least I thought so until a little while ago, and the Rules Committee vote, and when they voted 9-4 not to open up the government, I realized that that was the aim all along. Now, because the Senate voted for cloture on a clean funding bill, a simple majority of Senators have been able to put an end to the repeated attempts to dismantle the Affordable Health Care Bill. Now, under these circumstances, the majority knows they can't keep proposing ransom demands, so they've broken cloture and returned to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. The need to break cloture is why they tried to go to conference 15 minutes before the government shutdown, and that's why they are continuing to avoid a clean vote on the Senate CR today. Mr. Speaker, two paragraphs in The Washington Post this morning sum up what this fight always has been and continues to be about: defunding the Affordable Care Act and taking health care away from 300 million Americans who have no insurance. Referring to yesterday's events, Ezra Klein of The Washington Post wrote: The top story all day was that Republicans had shut down the Federal Government because President Obama would not defund or delay the Affordable Care Act. The other major story was that the government servers were crashing because so many people were trying to see if they could get the insurance through ObamaCare. On the one hand, Washington was shut down because Republicans don't want citizens to have ObamaCare. On the other hand, ObamaCare was shut down because so many Americans did want that insurance. Yesterday was, indeed, a historic day for our Nation and for every American who's ever been denied access to health care. In my home State of New York, there were more than 2 million visits to our online exchange in less than 90 minutes. And by later in the day, the last number that I have, just for yesterday, 10 million people had visited the Web site at the end of the day. That is about 12 percent of the entire population of the State of New York, yesterday. Meanwhile, 4.7 million people visited healthcare.gov yesterday-- that's the national database--while almost 100,000 more visited online exchanges in Illinois, in Colorado. Most importantly, in States from Kentucky to California, in red States and blue States, thousands of Americans went to sleep last night having purchased health insurance through the newly launched exchanges. Now, while these Americans went to bed realizing their long-awaited dream, the majority woke up this morning realizing that their worst nightmare had come true. Despite their best efforts, the American people were finally given access to safe and affordable health care. Now, the only question that remains is if the majority will finally acknowledge reality, or if they will keep the government closed while they continue their quest to take American's health care away. I'm extremely grateful to the chairman of my committee this morning, when he said, when we called for a vote on funding the government today, he said, and I quote, ``I would say on behalf of the majority, what we think we are doing here today is probably some straight-line Republican viewpoints.'' I strongly urge my colleagues to reject the majority's latest gimmicks by voting ``no'' on the rule and the underlying legislation, and vote ``no'' on the PQ so that we can put our amendment on the floor. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that it would be the best of common sense for us to end this charade today. But I understand now, because I've heard it twice, that the intent really is to wait and whittle down the government. As Grover Norquist, I believe, famously said, he would like to shrink it down to drown it in the bathtub. I think we're in the process of doing that today by funding it a little piece here, a little piece there, and the devil take the hindmost. I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that the three bills that everybody is so proud of that they've put out to try to re-fund the Government have a dagger at the heart of the health care bill and would have destroyed it. I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, just 10 seconds to say let's not do the least we can do. This is the day we can open up the government and serve our people. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).