Chris Van Hollen: “I thank the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Smith, for organizing this discussion on the Senate floor today to bring…”

“I thank the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Smith, for organizing this discussion on the Senate floor today to bring attention to the plight of the Federal contract employees who were locked out of their jobs for 35 days and, therefore, didn't get paychecks for 35 days, even though the bills kept coming in. I hope that we will avoid another government shutdown in the coming weeks. We should also use this time to make sure that we repair some of the damage that was caused by the unnecessary and really shameful record- long 35-day government shutdown. It should never have happened. It caused disruption throughout the country. Small businesses, in many cases, were unable to get loans. We know that we had 800,000 Federal employees who didn't get paychecks and that Federal service contract employees went without work in many of our Agencies. I was pleased that this body, on a bipartisan basis, adopted a measure to make sure that Federal employees receive backpay. I was pleased to work with Senator Cardin, Senator Smith, and others on the Republican side to get that done. That was really important. We provided Federal employees with the certainty that, at the end of the shutdown, they would all receive backpay, but we have not done anything similar for Federal contract employees, and we need to do that.…”