Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, Madam Speaker, I will support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. While this is not the most expeditious manner to get this vital program reauthorized, it is the one that our Democratic majority has put before us. I am not in the habit of holding rape victims and survivors hostage to play political games, and it really deeply saddens me that it appears that our majority may be doing this. We had the opportunity to pass the Senate bill, and it has been sitting here for 5 months. We had the opportunity to show rape victims and survivors that we care about their plight. We had the opportunity to send the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act of 2019 to the President's desk today. Instead, our majority has decided to squander these opportunities. It was bad enough that the Democratic majority allowed this authorization to elapse last month. It is even worse that we are placing this reauthorization into the realm of uncertainty. There is no timetable or guarantee that the Senate will act on this bill. The one thing we know is that if we were voting on the Senate bill, it would pass today. It could have been signed by the President immediately. Unfortunately, we are now only marginally better off than we were this morning with regards to this reauthorization. In the rush to impeach our President, our majority appears to have forgotten what we were sent here to do.…”