Motion To Instruct Conferees on H.R. 240, Department Of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I commend her and Congresswoman Lowey for their very important motion to instruct conferees to accept the Senate language.

Madam Speaker, I want to address some of what a previous speaker had mentioned, but I am going to go to the most recent previous speaker.

If you feel so strongly--because I don't know if this is about thinking or feeling--about the immigration issue and the executive actions taken by the President, I respect that; but why are you jeopardizing the homeland security of the United States of America by attaching your emotions to this bill?

That is what this is about. If you have an argument about immigration, have an immigration bill come to the floor, and let's have that debate. You did say that we have given up the opportunity to act responsibly. That is exactly what you are doing today. Policy differences about immigration or the rest are a legitimate debate in this great marketplace of ideas that is called the House of Representatives; but it is not for you to hold hostage the homeland security of our country, to jeopardize the opportunity to prepare, to have what is current and necessary for the realities of the threats that we are facing now instead of--3 months since December until, it would be, March 19--3-month-old funding carried over from last year. A lot has happened since then in Paris, in the Middle East, with threats in our own country.

Get a grip on our responsibility. Get a grip, Madam Speaker. Give us a chance to vote on a bill that passed by more than two-thirds in the United States Senate with strong bipartisan support.

As far as your criticisms of President Obama, nobody said ``boo'' over there when President Reagan used--justifiably so, rightfully so--his executive orders on protecting immigrants in our country. George Herbert Walker Bush, the same. President Clinton. George W. Bush, who was one of the best Presidents on immigration in our country, wasn't able to convince his Republican colleagues to respect immigration as the invigoration of our country. But, nonetheless, he led on that subject.

So you have made a mess. We have so many bills, counter bills, CRs, all the rest of it coming back, forward, and all the rest, and every time I ask all of you what is happening, everybody says: I don't know.

It is only 8 hours until the government will shut down. That can't possibly happen. And I want to address that point. Someone has said to me, Well, the President said he won't let the government shut down--that he would sign this 3-week option. That is a bad choice that we have given the President--to shut the government down or extend it for 3 weeks--when that 3-week extension is as undermining to our national security as a shutdown in government. That is just not right. It is not responsible on our part.

So I say to our colleagues, if they want to go down that path of poor choices, let the Republicans do that. If they have got multiagendas here, anti-Obama agendas here about immigration and the rest, let them go down that path. Let them put their 218 votes on the board without our associating ourselves with it.

And just because the President's person says of the two bad choices he would choose the 3 weeks if it came to his desk, don't let that deter you from voting ``no'' on that and ``yes'' on what Congresswoman Roybal-Allard and Congresswoman Lowey are putting forth as well.

Yes, we do take that oath, as the gentleman said, whether you are a judge, whether you are in the military, whether you are in Congress, or the President of the United States, to protect and support the Constitution of the United States. We are not protecting anything with what you are doing here. We are not protecting anything. We are dragging it out.

We are sending a message that, for some historic reason, we are now taking it out on Barack Obama because we are angry about what the gentleman on the Republican side said that Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush have done. Bring it up under another circumstance. Keep it off the protection of our country.

Your chairman, Mr. Rogers, working with our ranking member, Congresswoman Lowey, was able to put together 12 bills which were a compromise--bills that everyone was prepared to support--until you decided you were going to use immigration to hold hostage the national homeland security of our country.

And so kick the can to here. Now you have kicked the can to here, and now you are going to kick the can to March 19. What do you think is going to happen on March 19? We have already had two recesses today in this very day of congressional deliberation. What do you think you are going to accomplish later if you are not willing to grow up, bite the bullet? You made your point.

Your colleagues, the Republican Senators, do not agree to drag this out. They have given you a face-saving path. The judge in Texas gave you a face-saving path. ``I am Charlie''--``Je suis Charlie''--gave you a face-saving path.

The urgency is very, very clear--well, clear to everyone except if you happen to exist in this Chamber--when your negative attitudes toward President Obama have so overwhelmed you that you are willing to jeopardize the homeland security of our country. So whether it is firefighters, the SAFER Act, FEMA, or anything where the Federal Government comes in contact with people, you are standing in the way and using immigration as the excuse. For some of you, it may be a reason. Maybe it is for some of you, but for some of you it is an excuse. And for all of you it is a shame. It is a shame.

One gentleman said: If we accept the Senate language, we are not living up to our responsibility to have a bill in the House. And then you expect them to accept your language. Doesn't it hold true both ways? If you don't want to accept their language, why do you expect them to accept your 3-week language?

Do you not understand the legislative process? This Constitution, which we value, has the legislative branch. The first article of government is the legislature, preeminent. The President can't sign what we don't send him, in terms of making the law. He can take executive action, but the law is stronger.

Let us honor our responsibilities and stop standing in the way of protecting the American people. It is about the security of the American people versus the philosophy that you have going over there, which is perfectly to be respected in another piece of legislation. Let's have that debate separate from protecting.

It is about time for us to come together to get the job done. The Senate did it. We can. Please support Congresswoman Roybal-Allard's and Congresswoman Lowey's motion to instruct the conferees to accept the Senate bill.

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