Congressman Sires Urges Senator McConnell to Take Action

(Washington, D.C.) – Congressman Sires released the following statement urging Senator McConnell to consider legislation in the Senate that could end the partial government shutdown:

“Today is the 26th day of the partial government shutdown and it is long past time for the Senate to vote on reasonable legislation.  Since the start of the 116th Congress, the House of Representatives has passed numerous bills that would end the government shutdown while the Senate has not voted on a single bill to reopen shuttered agencies.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claims none of the House’s resolutions are workable, yet a set of these resolutions, reopening six of the nine impacted agencies, passed in the Senate last year by a vote of 92-6.   Another resolution that the House voted on, funding the Department of Homeland Security through February 8, 2019, passed the Senate just days before the shutdown began.  To date,the House of Representatives has sent six shutdown related bills to the Senate and none of them have been taken up.

The House of Representatives is working every day to reopen the government because it is our duty to return stability to the 800,000 impacted federal employees, their children, their parents, their friends, and their communities.  I remind Senate Majority Leader McConnell that Congress is a separate and co-equal branch of government and therefore our actions should be based on the will of the American people, not just the will of one man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”