WASHINGTON — This morning, at the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Johnson previewed House Republicans’ consequential week ahead and highlighted Republican efforts to secure American elections and provide for our national defense through the SAVE and Protect America Act. Speaker Johnson also discussed House Republicans taking action to responsibly fund the government, avoid yet another Democrat shutdown, and stop the threat of insider trading in Congress.
“Number one: secure American elections by passing the SAVE America Act into law, as much of that as possible, that’s the objective. Number two: protect and strengthen our homeland. And how do we do that? We’ll be providing supplemental funding in line with the Administration’s request to support our national defense and our farmers,” Speaker Johnson said. “Why is this necessary? Because Democrats have yet again refused to work with Republicans on basic election integrity and strengthening our nation’s defense.”
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.
On Republican efforts to secure American elections and provide for national defense:
On reconciliation this week, of course, we’re going to move the ball forward on Reconciliation 3.0. We’ll pass our budget resolution, send it to the Senate. As a reminder, this legislative vehicle is our best shot at accomplishing two key objectives of the people of this country. These are very popular and important and necessary objectives. Number one: secure American elections by passing the SAVE America Act into law, as much of that as possible, that’s the objective. Number two: protect and strengthen our homeland. And how do we do that? We’ll be providing supplemental funding in line with the Administration’s request to support our national defense and our farmers. Why is this necessary? Because Democrats have yet again refused to work with Republicans on basic election integrity and strengthening our nation’s defense. As always, Republicans support our troops, our farmers and election integrity and we will demonstrate that again this week.
On Republicans preventing yet another Democrat government shutdown:
Later today, House Republicans are going to move closer to responsibly funding the government as well. We’re going to pass a totally clean, very simple continuing resolution that will fund the government through November. The CR is as clean as they come. There are no poison pills. There’s no maneuvers, there’s nothing other than a simple extension of current funding levels. Now this is going to be one to watch. Unfortunately, given the Democrats have already forced the two longest government shutdowns in American history in this Congress – one of them for 78 days – they’ve already demonstrated they don’t care what kind of pain they inflict on the American people.
They do this to try to score political points. I think they’re making the wrong calculation here. Republicans are under no illusions about Democrats’ intentions ahead of a very consequential midterm election. Today’s Democrat Party, I think they have a very false impression. They think that they can score political points by trying to inflict pain. It’s not going to work. They’ve shown there’s nothing they love more than a government shutdown as tens of millions of Americans head to the polls in November. But this clean CR is an opportunity for both sides. They have an opportunity to demonstrate they’re committed to responsibly funding the government through November. And again, I bet you, they don’t help us on it. If the Democrats can’t support that, this basic principle, then they alone are going to own the chaos that ensues if the government shuts down after September 30th.
On the Stop Insider Trading Act plus Voter ID:
This week, House Republicans are going to take an important step to restore Americans’ faith and trust in Congress and in American elections with the Stop Insider Trading Act. As Leader Scalise noted, this is something the American people have been very interested in for a long, long time. We have finally cobbled together what we believe is the vote coalition to make that happen. I want to commend the good work of the House Administration Committee and Chairman Bryan Steil for their quarterbacking of this collaborative effort. And they’ve drafted a bill that I think is really, really well done. Too often, Americans struggling to make ends meet have watched as lawmakers have entered office to leave as multimillionaires. There’s a handful of glaring examples. A couple of those people are still serving, notably on the Democrat side.
The Stop Insider Trading Act does exactly what it says. It bans Members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks from publicly traded companies, and it helps prevent public officials from profiting from inside information. It’s a very logical thing to do. The bill also includes a very common sense and popular provision to ensure that voters must show a valid ID when they go to the polls to vote. Virtually all Republicans support that commonsense measure, and over 70% of Democrats do, as acknowledged most recently by Chuck Schumer himself. And yet, watch, I bet you, not a single Democrat in the House or Senate will support these measures. Democrats only talk about corruption. Republicans are actually delivering real solutions to restore the public’s faith in our institutions because we believe in this country. We believe in our matchless Constitution that is the envy of everybody around the world. And we believe on the 250th anniversary, now is it a very important time to stand on that.
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