Dusty Johnson: “I came to the floor 2 weeks ago with a completely nonpartisan, very sincere attempt with a bill that we call the…”

“I came to the floor 2 weeks ago with a completely nonpartisan, very sincere attempt with a bill that we call the Shutdown Fairness Act to simply pay the Federal workers whom we were requiring to work, the finest among us: the members of our military, people in Federal law enforcement, TSA, and air traffic controllers to keep our skies safe. Now, when I was asking the Senate to proceed to that bill, the Senator from Maryland offered an alternative. He called it the True Shutdown Fairness Act. The main difference is that his was only going to be for 1 year. My bill is permanent--permanently stops using Federal employees and the American public as pawns in these sick partisan games. The other difference was my bill is focusing on the people we are forcing to work. His bill added furloughed workers. So on the floor 2 weeks ago, I said if you are serious about passing this bill, if you are serious about stopping--he said, he can't punish Federal employees for our dysfunction. If you are serious about that, I told the Senator from Maryland, vote to get on the bill. I will include that; I will convince our conference to include furloughed workers. Get on the bill. We will amend it. We will get this passed, and we will start paying people. He rejected that offer.”