Barbara Boxer: “I will vote against the combined legislative branch and Treasury-Postal Service appropriations bills. While the…”

“I will vote against the combined legislative branch and Treasury-Postal Service appropriations bills. While the administration has identified a couple of funding shortfalls in the bill, that is not my primary concern here, and it is not the reason I am opposing this legislation. I am voting against the bill because the Senate has never considered the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. Let me repeat that: the Senate is being asked to vote on a conference report on a bill that never passed the Senate. This is a complete distortion of the legislative process. We are not potted plants. The people of the state of California elected me to represent them. That means debating bills, offering amendments that are important to the people of my state, and casting votes. It does not mean giving a rubber stamp to whatever conference report comes before us when we have not even debated the bill in the first place.”