{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://mccollum.house.gov/media/press-releases/ranking-member-mccollum-opening-remarks-rule-debate-ukraine-security", "Ranking Member McCollum Opening Remarks for Rule Debate on Ukraine Security Assistance Supplemental", "2023-09-28", "2023", "2023-09", "Democrat", "House", "MN", "Betty McCollum", "M001143", "mccollum.house.gov", "mccollum", "https://mccollum.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "[Remarks as prepared]\n\nMr. Speaker, Republicans spent three weeks\n\ntrying to bring the Defense Appropriations Act to the floor.\n\nThree times, they went to the Rules Committee.\n\nThe first two times, the rule failed on the floor.\n\nIt failed because a small minority of Republicans do not support\n\nany Ukraine assistance, including support for Ukraine that has been\n\nin the base Defense bill for 9 years.\n\nThe Republican conference knew for weeks that this was a problem for them.\n\nThat\u2019s why they created a pseudo minibus\n\nloaded with extreme social policy riders\n\nto appease the far right of their party to advance the Defense bill.\n\nEarlier this week, Republicans could have used the Rules Committee\n\nto strip out Ukraine funding from the Defense bill.\n\nThey chose not to.\n\nInstead, the Rules Committee made two Republican amendments\n\nin order to strike Ukraine funding.\n\nThen they came to the floor and asked the House to work its will. The Biggs Amendment was rejected by the House in a vote of 104 to 330. The Gaetz Amendment was also rejected 93 to 339.\n\nIn a closely divided Congress, this is about as clear a bipartisan vote as you can get.\n\nIn both cases, Republicans and Democrats stood with Ukraine.\n\nBut Republicans found out they still had a problem with the extreme right of their party.\n\nEven after the votes, a vocal Republican minority threatened the Speaker by threatening to take down the Defense bill again.\n\nAll because the votes didn\u2019t go their way.\n\nSo here we are today.\n\nThe Speaker has sent the Defense bill back to the Rules Committee to override the will of the House, and its most basic democratic process of amending bills.\n\nIt is ironic that the Speaker is so focused on passing the Defense bill in such an undemocratic way.\n\nHe has wasted weeks letting the far right abuse the Republican majority\n\nwhile at the same time failing to address the impending government shutdown.\n\nToday these extreme members are abusing the entire House of Representatives.\n\nMr. Speaker, Members, the lesson from the last three weeks could not be more clear.\n\nWhen you don\u2019t stand up to bullies \u2013 they continue to bully you.\n\nThat\u2019s what is happening here.\n\nThe bullies in the Republican conference have won once again, at the expense of this institution.\n\nAnd that is why I would ask my colleagues to defeat the previous question.\n\nLet\u2019s stand up to the bullies in this chamber, strip this outrageous provision from the rule, and return this House to regular order.\n\nWhere every vote matters, and when the majority of the House speaks \u2013 it is respected.\n\nI yield back.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T00:37:48Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://mccollum.house.gov/media/press-releases/ranking-member-mccollum-opening-remarks-rule-debate-ukraine-security"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.725813839584589, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}