Hoyer Discusses the Urgent Need for Congress to Protect DREAMers, Funding the Government, and the 2018 Midterm Elections on CSPAN's "Newsmakers"
Press Types
Press Release
For Immediate Release:
January 12, 2018
Contact Info:
Mariel Saez 202-225-3130
WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined CSPAN's Newsmakers to discuss how Congress must take action now to protect DREAMers and address other priorities, including funding the government, as well as the 2018 midterm elections. Below are excerpts from the interview and a link to the video:
On the Urgent Need to Protect DREAMers
“I hope the Senate has reached some agreement, I don’t know what’s in the agreement. I know that Senator Durbin and Senator Graham had been working very hard, along with a number of their colleagues, on trying to reach an agreement to protect the DREAMers. Once I see it, we’ll review it and hopefully it achieves that objective in a way that can be supported by us in the House. We’ll see. We’re also… working, in the House, subsequent to the meeting we had with President Trump to see if whether or not we can get agreement ourselves, and whether that can be, of course, compatible with what Senator Durbin and Senator Graham have done. Senator Durbin, as you know is part of the four of us who have been meeting.”
“There was a unanimous view among the 24 or 25 Members that were meeting with the President on [Tuesday] that we needed to protect the DREAMers, that we needed to pass legislation that would lift this pall over them, which risks sending them to places they do not know and is not their home. Now that is our principal objective. Now clearly the President and other Members have said they want to discuss other things within that context of protecting the DREAMers. We believe there are many things that need to be discussed, but we believe most of them should be discussed within the ambit of comprehensive immigration reform. And one of the things the President was emphatic on and he agreed on was that we were really talking about two phases on immigration reform. The first phase would deal with protecting the DREAMers, the second phase would deal with a much broader, comprehensive immigration reform… Everybody in the Congress that I’ve talked to thinks the immigration system is broken and that we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform. But it was clear that everybody also agreed that, without getting into the comprehensive immigration reform, we need to protect the DREAMers.”
On the Need to Fund Government
“…We need to come to an agreement on caps… We had, for the last four years, a caps agreement, which was reached by Speaker Ryan and Senator Murray, and what it said was the increase in domestic spending and defense spending would have parity, the increases would be the same. That’s all we’re asking for, the agreement we’ve had for the last four years. Republicans have refused to make that agreement. We think that’s not reasonable and not fair, so we’ll see if we can get to caps but frankly, we’re four legislative days away from shutting down government and Republicans have not yet agreed to what we think is just a replication of what was done for the last four years that Speaker Ryan made the deal on, and he’s now Speaker of the House. So we don’t know why that hasn’t happened. Then we need to pass appropriations bills and an omnibus of some type to fund the various agencies of government to protect our people and to serve our people.”
“We’ve given three extensions. To keep simply kicking the can down the road doesn’t seem to me to make any sense. We have to come to grips with decisions. We have to come to grips with compromises that will move us forward. We need to pass, for instance, something we need to pass immediately is reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. We should have done that prior to September 30th of last year. What we need to come to grips with and my handicapping will be is to the willingness of Republicans to make compromises. For instance on the caps, as I told you, all that we’re asking for is exactly what they agreed to over the last four years. It seems to me it shouldn’t be difficult to do that, so I’m hopeful that we’re going to be successful between now and next Friday in coming to an agreement on some very important things, caps, a supplemental for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and Florida and Texas, to make sure our friends and fellow citizens who were hurt very badly by the storms are given assistance. And [we need to] make sure that we pass CHIP and make sure we pass protections for the DREAMers.”
On Democrats Taking Back the House in 2018
“Look, I expect us to retake the House, the majority, and I do so because the environment is such that the American people are looking for some stability, some focus on the issues that they care about, in terms of jobs, in terms of education, in terms of health care, in terms of the environment, and in terms of our national security. I think they view Democrats as being able to provide some stability to our country, and very frankly also a check and balance in our system when we see a President who is, who has trouble creating stability in the White House, much less in our government. So I’m very positive, I think we’re going to take back the House. We see all over the country, we see real enthusiasm and energy in the Democratic base and we see a Republican party that, in many respects, expects to lose control of the House of Representatives. I don’t think any of them would say that, but in private conversations with my Republican colleagues and Republican friends, they say, boy, you guys are going to take back the House.”
“We have excellent candidates throughout the country… Not only are we seeing Members retiring in higher numbers on the Republican side than we’ve seen in the past, but we’ve also seen in those districts a tremendous interest by Democratic candidates of running and that means their neighbors and friends in their districts are prepared to vote Democratic, so they’re enthusiastic about running. So I think the 17 points are correct, they’re historically high, the generic numbers, Democrats ahead of Republicans by 17 points, so I think that’s amazing but not necessarily surprising given the environment which has been created in the country.”
On the Urgent Need to Protect DREAMers
“I hope the Senate has reached some agreement, I don’t know what’s in the agreement. I know that Senator Durbin and Senator Graham had been working very hard, along with a number of their colleagues, on trying to reach an agreement to protect the DREAMers. Once I see it, we’ll review it and hopefully it achieves that objective in a way that can be supported by us in the House. We’ll see. We’re also… working, in the House, subsequent to the meeting we had with President Trump to see if whether or not we can get agreement ourselves, and whether that can be, of course, compatible with what Senator Durbin and Senator Graham have done. Senator Durbin, as you know is part of the four of us who have been meeting.”
“There was a unanimous view among the 24 or 25 Members that were meeting with the President on [Tuesday] that we needed to protect the DREAMers, that we needed to pass legislation that would lift this pall over them, which risks sending them to places they do not know and is not their home. Now that is our principal objective. Now clearly the President and other Members have said they want to discuss other things within that context of protecting the DREAMers. We believe there are many things that need to be discussed, but we believe most of them should be discussed within the ambit of comprehensive immigration reform. And one of the things the President was emphatic on and he agreed on was that we were really talking about two phases on immigration reform. The first phase would deal with protecting the DREAMers, the second phase would deal with a much broader, comprehensive immigration reform… Everybody in the Congress that I’ve talked to thinks the immigration system is broken and that we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform. But it was clear that everybody also agreed that, without getting into the comprehensive immigration reform, we need to protect the DREAMers.”
On the Need to Fund Government
“…We need to come to an agreement on caps… We had, for the last four years, a caps agreement, which was reached by Speaker Ryan and Senator Murray, and what it said was the increase in domestic spending and defense spending would have parity, the increases would be the same. That’s all we’re asking for, the agreement we’ve had for the last four years. Republicans have refused to make that agreement. We think that’s not reasonable and not fair, so we’ll see if we can get to caps but frankly, we’re four legislative days away from shutting down government and Republicans have not yet agreed to what we think is just a replication of what was done for the last four years that Speaker Ryan made the deal on, and he’s now Speaker of the House. So we don’t know why that hasn’t happened. Then we need to pass appropriations bills and an omnibus of some type to fund the various agencies of government to protect our people and to serve our people.”
“We’ve given three extensions. To keep simply kicking the can down the road doesn’t seem to me to make any sense. We have to come to grips with decisions. We have to come to grips with compromises that will move us forward. We need to pass, for instance, something we need to pass immediately is reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. We should have done that prior to September 30th of last year. What we need to come to grips with and my handicapping will be is to the willingness of Republicans to make compromises. For instance on the caps, as I told you, all that we’re asking for is exactly what they agreed to over the last four years. It seems to me it shouldn’t be difficult to do that, so I’m hopeful that we’re going to be successful between now and next Friday in coming to an agreement on some very important things, caps, a supplemental for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and Florida and Texas, to make sure our friends and fellow citizens who were hurt very badly by the storms are given assistance. And [we need to] make sure that we pass CHIP and make sure we pass protections for the DREAMers.”
On Democrats Taking Back the House in 2018
“Look, I expect us to retake the House, the majority, and I do so because the environment is such that the American people are looking for some stability, some focus on the issues that they care about, in terms of jobs, in terms of education, in terms of health care, in terms of the environment, and in terms of our national security. I think they view Democrats as being able to provide some stability to our country, and very frankly also a check and balance in our system when we see a President who is, who has trouble creating stability in the White House, much less in our government. So I’m very positive, I think we’re going to take back the House. We see all over the country, we see real enthusiasm and energy in the Democratic base and we see a Republican party that, in many respects, expects to lose control of the House of Representatives. I don’t think any of them would say that, but in private conversations with my Republican colleagues and Republican friends, they say, boy, you guys are going to take back the House.”
“We have excellent candidates throughout the country… Not only are we seeing Members retiring in higher numbers on the Republican side than we’ve seen in the past, but we’ve also seen in those districts a tremendous interest by Democratic candidates of running and that means their neighbors and friends in their districts are prepared to vote Democratic, so they’re enthusiastic about running. So I think the 17 points are correct, they’re historically high, the generic numbers, Democrats ahead of Republicans by 17 points, so I think that’s amazing but not necessarily surprising given the environment which has been created in the country.”