WASHINGTON, D.C. – For weeks, the Speaker of the House has canceled votes in the House as a way to pressure Senate Democrats to pass their continuing resolution. It has essentially kept the House out of legislative session. There’s been some outspoken Republican voices criticizing this move, but do our local congressional members agree? We asked them.
“I don’t know if it’s so much his decision to be out of session the question is what would we do,” asked Rep. Mike Kelly (R- PA). “Now that everyone is gone and the Senate is still working everyday, we passed that continuing resolution on September 19th out of the House and that was as much as we could do and it went onto the Senate and it’s been kind of a lockdown state.”
We asked New York Rep. Nick Langworthy (R- NY) the same question: “Well, what it’s done is put emphasis on the Senate- that’s who has to do their work still,” said Rep. Langworthy. “We passed a continuing resolution that took us through November 21st, they have now made this shutdown the longest shutdown in American history.”
Rep. Langworthy adds he’s been coming to Washington for weeks to keep his normal schedule. “Because we have meetings, we have people visiting Capitol Hill, we have a lot of things going on behind the scenes but we’re not voting and that time is coming upon us and we will have to start to – we’re still waiting for the Senate,” said Rep. Langworthy.
A few House Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R- GA) and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R- CA) have disagreed with keeping the House out of session. Some said it’s delaying their normal work and legislative duties. The members we heard from said while they are not voting on the floor, they are staying busy with other duties.
“We have meetings and speaking appearances, things that have been planned for months,” said Rep. Langworthy. “I’ve been keeping up with my schedule in district and its important to be here and also important to be here in the event something happens. I don’t want to be somewhere else or differently obligated if the Senate does come to their senses. We need to immediately get to work and get prepared to cast the votes necessary. We’re keeping the work up. Our staff is helping people navigate the uncertainty in this shutdown.”
“We do the same things we always do when we are not in session: we’re back home, we’re meeting with people about concerns about different issues,” said Rep. Kelly. “We’ve never taken a day off. We’ve been open the whole time. I’m not in every office everyday, but I spread my time between the northern part, the central part and the southern part and that’s what we should do: meeting people. We are meeting people face to face talking about what’s most important to them as opposed to being in Washington debating legislation.”
We also reached out to Rep. Jack Bergman (R- MI) and Rep. Dan Meuser (R- PA) but did not get a comment.
Renee Gamela, a spokeswoman for Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R- PA) sent us this statement: ““The House will return to session when Senate Democrats vote to reopen the government. Americans are feeling the pain of this crisis, which has been manufactured by Washington’s Democrats. They need to start putting people over politics and end this shutdown.”
