Sen. Ben Ray Luján’s bill to fund SNAP and WIC would pose a problem for Republicans. SNAP has become the centerpiece of the shutdown as Republicans plan to starve 42 million Americans in an effort to raise health insurance premiums for 23 million Americans.
Luján introduced his bill to fund SNAP to the Senate, where he requested unanimous consent, meaning the Senate votes unanimously to pass legislation without debate or a recorded vote. By unanimous consent, the bill passes as long as no senator stands up and objects to it.
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The idea that any Republican would object to children, seniors, and disabled Americans who are already in poverty objecting to their receiving nutritional assistance was dangerous enough, but Republicans decided to further damage the damage by asking the majority leader to stand up and claim that Democrats are to blame because they won’t trade food aid for more expensive health care for 23 million people.
After Thune complained that Democrats weren’t giving Republicans what they wanted and asked Luján to amend his request so the Senate could pass the House CR, Luján spoke up and dismantled the Republican argument.
In the Senate, there is decorum and rules, so the language will seem more formal and polite. Senators are also not allowed to address each other directly or engage in personal attacks, but Luján got his message across to Thune and Republicans.
Lujan said:
I respect the majority leader, the Republican leader. I also see some members of his team in the room. The people I’ve worked with know when I work with them and when others don’t. But I understand. These are words that are used today to justify that 40 million people suffer from hunger.
You know, Mr. President, I sometimes get in trouble for using the language of this little farm that I still call home, but I learned the rules of decorum in the Senate, so I won’t use them here.
But some of the lessons my father taught me early in life, even after I was elected to the United States House of Representatives, when he would leave a shovel by the front door, when I would come home on a weekend and he would leave my rubber boots there to make sure I put them on because we were going to clean out the barn.
We’ve raised cattle, we’ve raised sheep, we’ve raised all kinds of animals, and after those animals eat, they make something. Some of us use it to fertilize our land. So people call it manure. I won’t call him in the language I usually use when I’m not in the Senate. I also taught that it is important to tell people the truth and be honest with the American people.
What the good leader left out when he talked about how many votes Republicans voted on under a Democratic president, under a Democratic majority in the Senate and the House, is that there was no closure. We negotiated. People came to the means. In fact, many of my Democratic constituents told me that Democrats gave in too much to Republicans when you were in the majority.
Well, when you have to negotiate, when you have power, when you’re in the majority, you meet people, you attract them, you know, that’s how it is, people, you know where my office is. You’ve all heard me talk about the late Governor Bruce King’s Cattle farm in New Mexico. He told us that when people don’t understand what’s going on, we lock them in a barn and don’t let them out until they figure out how to get along.
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