Newsroom

While I am relieved the unemployment rate fell slightly in July, there is little to celebrate.  At 10.2%, it is still above the worst month of the Great Recession, and the pace of job gains slowed again last month.

Fifty-five years ago today, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, bringing to fruition the goals of those who courageously marched with John Lewis in Selma and with Dr. King and so many others to Montgomery earlier that year. 

Wanted to be sure you saw this op-ed by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) published by TIME Ideas today reflecting on his friendship with his beloved colleague Congressman John Lewis.

Dear Colleague:
 
After eleven weeks of pushing Senate Republicans to take up the Heroes Act, they have left town without reaching agreement on COVID-19 legislation.  As I said on the Floor today, we will not start the August District Work Period until the Senate agrees to necessary COVID-19 relief to meet the health and economic challenges confronting our people that we can then send to the President. I am hopeful that Senate Republicans will reverse course soon and we can reach an agreement that can be quickly enacted.
 

Eleven weeks since the House passed the Heroes Act, deeply divided Congressional Republicans continue to dissemble and delay in providing coronavirus relief to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, last week, I shared with the house that my office had launched a website where Americans could learn about the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, weigh in with their opinion on the bill, and list themselves as ‘citizen cosponsors’ if they support it.

We are facing a deeply divided and dysfunctional Republican party, which, frankly, is not new. 

It is inconceivable that President Trump and Republicans would want to kick more than 23 million Americans off their health coverage and take away protections for those with pre-existing conditions in the middle of a deadly pandemic, yet that is exactly what they have been doing with their lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act.  Thankfully, House Democrats have been defending the Affordable Care Act for as long as Republicans have attempted to dismantle it.  During the first week of our Majority last year, we voted to commit House resources to the defense of the law in court, and since then, we have passed legislation to strengthen the ACA, expand access to affordable health care, and bring down costs. Tonight, we took action once more and adopted an amendment introduced by Rep. Lauren Underwood to block the Trump Administration from using taxpayer funds to prosecute the case against affordable health care access.
 

As we celebrate fifty-five years since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, we do so at a moment when making affordable health care accessible to more Americans is paramount in our thoughts.

“The second quarter GDP report released this morning by the Bureau of Economic Analysis ought to alarm every American.  GDP contracted at an unprecedented 33% annual rate, revealing the historic scale of the economic fallout from this crisis.  There should now be no question that Congress and the President must come together and pass a relief package large enough to meet this moment.