Dear John,

Well, we are now into week two of a government shutdown, and House Republicans are still not in DC and are still refusing to negotiate a bill that addresses the health care crisis in our country. They have the House, the Senate and the White House – but are still somehow trying to blame the minority for this chaotic government shutdown.

Seriously, they're not even here! The Republican Speaker told them not to come back! House Republicans are treating the shutdown as their own personal vacation – and they’re getting paid for it. I’ve been in DC all week, meeting with constituents and ready to vote.

To top it off, Speaker Mike Johnson is even refusing to bring the House back into session so that we can vote on critical bills to ensure our servicemembers get their paychecks during this shutdown.  I’m a proud cosponsor of both the Pay Our Troops Act and the Pay Our Military Act – bipartisan bills to make sure servicemembers as well as civilian employees and contractors are paid during the shutdown.

Speaker Johnson refusing to bring House Republicans back to Washington is also preventing us from passing any bill to ensure essential workers, like TSA agents and air traffic controllers, are paid. I can’t stress enough how wrong this is. The ball is in Speaker Johnson’s court. If he really cared about helping folks during the shutdown, he would ask my colleagues to come back to work.

And just to note – I believe it’s wrong Members of Congress get paid during a shutdown while many federal workers are hung out to dry. That’s why I also introduced my No Pay for Disarray Act, which suspends all pay for Members of Congress during the shutdown. I’m waiting on Mike Johnson to bring that one to the floor too. If he did, I’m sure quite a few Republicans would come straight back to Washington to end this shutdown...

Here’s what else I've been up to this week:

Meeting with state education leaders

It was great to meet with Education Minnesota NEA Directors Judy Rhode and Jasman Myers.

As the wife of an educator and the daughter of a teacher, I know firsthand how important teachers are to our school systems. That’s why I’ll always fight for robust public education in Minnesota.

Hearing from Minnesota Farmers

As this Administration’s shortsighted tariffs decimate the markets that Minnesota farmers rely on, I talked to farmers from across the state about how I’m standing up for our rural communities and family farmers

Behind the Scenes:

After the farmers stopped by this week, we got to talking about our favorite wrestling moves. Some things can’t just be said, they need to be shown!

You know, you have to find a few minutes of laughter each week in DC!

Until next time,
 

Angie Craig

Member of Congress