Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which is unnecessary and failed on a bipartisan vote during the Committee on Homeland Security's markup of this bill. Law enforcement across Federal Government, as well as State and local, have benefited from collective bargaining representation without any harm to national security. This amendment seeks to have TSA treated differently from other Department of Homeland Security components with union representation, like U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This amendment is inconsistent with the goal of the underlying bill, which is to ensure that TSA workforce is treated like all other Federal employees--equally. Further, this amendment is unnecessary because under section 7106 of title 5, the Administrator is already granted this power to, ``take whatever actions may be necessary to carry out the agency mission during emergencies.'' The same provision would preserve TSA's authority to hire, remove, or to assign work employees to fulfill an agency's mission. So if the law is clear, why is this amendment being offered? The answer is simple. Many here want to avoid talking about the real issue, which is the need to improve compensation and benefits for frontline TSA workers. I would propose that an untrained, inexperienced frontline TSA worker is not good for our national security. Collective bargaining adds to our national security.…”