Pelosi Remarks at Enrollment Ceremony for Conference Committee Bill to Prevent Government Shutdown

Contact: Speaker's Press Office, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined House Democrats for an enrollment ceremony for the Conference Committee bill to prevent another government shutdown. Below are the Speaker's remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Oh boy. Oh my God. What a beautiful sight to behold.

It's pretty exciting to be here at the moment of a bill that has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate and now will go over to the Senate to be signed by the Vice President of the United States or his designee.

But it is my honor to sign this as the Speaker of the House. But, I sign it in honor of our Conferees. They did a spectacular job. And I'm very proud.

And Mr. Hoyer and the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, the Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of Appropriations, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Henry Cuellar from Texas – where is Henry?

Rep. Cuellar. Right Here. Henry Cuellar of Texas, of the Rio Grande Valley.

Pete Aguilar from California, a Member of the Committee – all Members of the Committee.

Barbara Lee, Leadership Member of the Conferees.

David Price – I'm not quite sure where David is. David had quite a day because he had to go to North Carolina earlier today, but he was a former top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee and was a very strong force for doing the right thing.

Steny, Mr. Clyburn and I are appropriators so we have confidence in the appropriators. As I've said over and over, left to their own devices, working in a bipartisan and a bicameral way, they can come up with a compromise that is acceptable and that is bipartisan — as I said — and, that we can all support. Three hundred votes on the Floor of the House. It was quite a remarkable show.

And I, just for my own part, I just want to say that I thank our Conferees for having us honor our oath of office to protect our country by securing our border and protecting our values. And, where we go from here, for us all to honor the Constitution, especially Article I, especially the system of checks and balances. We will not have an end-run around the Congress of the United States.

And, with that, I am delighted to use many pens to sign this important legislation.

I think I will sit down. Okay.

Mr. Clyburn, Mr. Hoyer do you have some comments? Comments?

Leader Hoyer. Give it to the Chairs, of the Committee and the Subcommittee.

Speaker Pelosi. Here you go, Madam Chair, Madam Chair. Leadership, Member of the Committee.

Did you want to say something while we're –

Leader Hoyer. Well, I'm very pleased at this point in time. But, we all ought to remind ourselves that this is last year's work and it didn't get done.

But I want to congratulate the Chair of the Committee and the Chair of the Subcommittee and the Conferees for getting this work done.

My objective would be, and I've talked to the Chairwoman Lowey about this, my objective would be, as the Majority Leader, to make every effort to get our appropriations bills done in a timely fashion so that we do not confront, again, the threat of or the actual shutdown of the government of the United States. That is not a policy that ought to be repeated and we will certainly try not to do that.

But, congratulations to the Committee and the Conferees and, very frankly, the Republican and Democratic Conferees who all stood on the Floor in support of the passage of this, knowing that we needed to get our work done. Thank you.

Speaker Pelosi. Mr. Clyburn any comments?

And, Assistant Speaker, Mr. Ben Ray Lujan.

Whip Clyburn. I'll certainly associate myself with the comments you just heard from our Leader and I want to add my congratulations to you, Nita. Thank you so much for this and my classmate, Lucille.

I was so proud of her on the Floor tonight. I just want to say how much I appreciate the work we did on this.

You know, this afternoon, I've spent a lot of time on the phone with a lot of people.

[Laughter]

As the Leader said, I had a few telephone conversations with the Minority Whip, Mr. Scalise, and we were bargaining for 70 votes. And we came up with 85, 87, so we thank him as well for making this deal a genuine bipartisan effort.

That's what the country wants from us. We can work together and get deals that work done and I want to thank these Conferees for the work they did, creating an atmosphere where we can get the people's work done.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you. Mr. Ben Ray Lujan.

Assistant Speaker Lujan. Just again, simply, the effort of our Conferees, the guidance of our Speaker, and the work that was absolutely needed to ensure that this could get done – as Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Hoyer clearly laid out, the importance of the bipartisan work to get everything done for the good of the country.

Also looking at important modern investments when it comes to border security, but the work of the Conferees also built on the humanitarian responsibilities that we have to make a difference with these important, critical infrastructure investments across the country.

So, again, Nita and Lucille, our two Chairs, the work of Pete and Henry and Barbara and David. I couldn't thank you all enough.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you. Madam Chair?

Chairwoman Lowey. Well, I just want to add to what my colleagues said because, at a time like this, where public political discourse has been so crude, I was so proud as the Chair of this Committee, working with outstanding Conferees, to be able to work in a bipartisan way and really accomplish our goals, serve the people of the United States.

So, let's hope, because I'm always an optimist, that we can continue this tone because we have a lot of work to do. As we complete this bill, we have to begin on 2020, where we have twelve new bills that we have to work on and I really hope that we can work together in a civil way to accomplish our goals and serve the people of the United States of America. That is the way this process should work.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you, Madam Chair, for chairing the conference in such a joint, bicameral conference in such a distinguished and effective way.

Congresswoman Roybal-Allard?

Let's just hear it for Lucille.

[Applause]

Rep. Roybal-Allard. I just think this is an example of how we can all come together and work as a team. And, I was very very fortunate to have Conferees that were committed to making sure that this whole process was one in which we could be proud of.

They were totally committed. We worked together. And we had as our focus, to make sure that the security of our nation was a priority, coupled with the fact that we make sure it also represented our American values and we were able to do that in a bipartisan way, in a way that respected differences of opinion not only within our own Democratic Caucus, but also our Republican counterparts and because we worked in this bipartisan way, respecting each other with the focus on getting something done to make sure the government was not shut down, but that our product was one we could all feel good about, this is the result and I can't say enough about the Conferees.

They were absolutely incredible. And in the end, when we reached about as far as we could go, the four corners met and it was Nita who hit that home run.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you so much, Lucille. Before I yield to our distinguished Member of the Leadership, who was a conferee, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, I want to acknowledge Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Congressman Paul Tonko from New York. Thank you for helping us in our efforts. I yield to Congresswoman Barbara Lee, thank you for your leadership.

Congresswoman Lee. Thank you very much. First, I have to thank you, Speaker Pelosi for putting together such a –

Speaker Pelosi. I did.

[Laughter]

Congresswoman Lee. For putting together such a great team first of all. Congratulations to Chairwoman Lowey and Roybal-Allard for your tremendous leadership and your attention to all of the Members of the Democratic Caucus and for working in a bipartisan way. These leaders championed the views and the ideas and the input of our entire Caucus. That is quite a testament to their leadership, but also to the diversity of our Caucus and to the willingness to make sure that all of our voices were heard For The People.

I just have to thank you once again. It was an honor to serve as the leadership representative on this Conference Committee. And we have a lot more to do, but we came a long way and we did that because of how you worked collaboratively in a bipartisan way with all of our Caucus to make sure that all of the views were championed and fought for. Thank you very much.

Speaker Pelosi. Mr. Cuellar.

Congressman Cuellar. Madam Speaker, thank you again for your leadership, for putting this very diverse but very united Conferees Committee together. We want to thank you and of course Steny and Mr. Clyburn and some of the other folks who worked to make sure we got over 300 votes today. A strong, bipartisan vote.

What we did in this Committee was very simple. It was a matter of how we see the border. Unfortunately, there are some people that see the border as a crisis, as a place that is out of control. For us that live on the border, that spend time at the border, we see the border as opportunity and community, a place where we see trade, where we see tourism, where we want to raise our families and send our kids to school and start our businesses. From there, we were able to put those visions together and find a balance.

We don't believe in open borders. We want to see smart border security, not a 14th Century wall that the President believes in, but we want to find the balance between security and legitimate trade and tourism. This is what the Committee was able to do. By getting together we were able to find that balance. People have asked me, who won on this one? The American public won in this one.

Speaker Pelosi. Mr. Cuellar?

Congressman Aguilar. I just wanted to thank –

Speaker Pelosi. Excuse me.

Congressman Cuellar. That's my twin!

[Laughter]

Congressman Aguilar. I can yield back. If you give Henry more time he will use it, that's what we've learned in this Conference Committee.

[Laughter]

Thank you so much, Speaker, for placing me on this. This is such a distinguished group and I was just honored to learn from the Chairwoman [Nita Lowey] and Chair [Lucille] Roybal-Allard throughout this process. This was a collaborative process. We worked well together. We had each other's backs. We knew we were fighting for the values of our caucus and the values of the American people, securing our borders, honoring our values, and ensuring we were that we avoided another senseless shutdown.

That was our North Star moving through this caucus and I was honored to be on the team. Thank you.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you so much. We also had six other bills and we were proud of the work our Chairs of Subcommittees did, many of them spoke on the Floor during the debate. So it was a major accomplishment, six bills that dealt with other departments of government and, then the one with most attention, Homeland Security.

So thank you to all of you for protecting our borders, honoring our values, keeping our government open, and strengthening the institution in which we serve the Congress of the United States.

So thank all of you. Happy Valentine's Day. We saluted our victory, or the victory for the American people earlier with chocolate – chocolate from California – I call it the Champagne of chocolate. So again, happy [Valentine's], you should go home now and see your loved ones.

Q: What's your [plan] for getting others bills done in a bipartisan fashion for the rest of the Congress? Had this bill gone south that might have been it for the Congress –

Speaker Pelosi. Well, it didn't! Chad, you're always saying ‘had this bill' – it didn't go south. Good night, God bless you, pleasant dreams!

[Laughter]

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