Dusty Johnson: “as my colleague from Louisiana wishes we were all here voting on the deal and that my colleagues on the other side had…”

“as my colleague from Louisiana wishes we were all here voting on the deal and that my colleagues on the other side had taken yes for an answer to open up the government, I wish that is what I was on the floor here today to do. That is not being accomplished. What I was hoping to be able to do is, once again, offer a unanimous consent request to pay the people who are working. I came down to the floor, 2 weeks ago, with the Shutdown Fairness Act to pay the people whom we are forcing to work. It is pretty common sense. It did not include the furloughed workers. The other side objected. I agreed to add furloughed workers. I worked with them over the last couple of weeks, came on the floor yesterday, offered that unanimous consent request, and there were more objections. So we offered a vote, saying: Let's proceed to that bill. Let's work out, literally, clarifications and differences. There is really nothing substantive. We are going to pay all the workers being forced to work. We are going to pay all the furloughed workers. We added contractors. We have done just about everything we could so that we are no longer punishing the people working for our dysfunction, so we are no longer using these individuals as pawns--the American people as pawns in this horrific partisan gamesmanship. Unfortunately, the other side wouldn't agree to get on the bill-- which, by the way, that is how you pass legislation around here. You get on a bill. It may not be perfect.…”