After news broke that a House GOP conservative blocked a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill on Friday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called for the House to reconvene to vote on the matter.
"Thanks to President Trump and the Georgia delegation, Hurricane Michael victims will finally receive the resources and relief that they so desperately need to rebuild, replant, and prosper. Yesterday, the U.S Senate finally put thousands of hardworking Americans ahead of partisan politics. It’s time for the House to cut their vacation short, return to Washington next week, and do the same," Kemp said in a statement.
Texas Republican Chip Roy, a former aide to Texas firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz, objected to speeding the measure through a nearly empty chamber, also complaining that it does not contain any of President Donald Trump's $4.5 billion request for dealing with a migrant refugee crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a statement on his website, Roy said he blocked the bill because Speaker Nancy Pelosi would "rather play politics on impeachment than do the work of the people."
“Today I stood to object to the Unanimous Consent of a $19.1 billion dollar emergency supplemental bill that has been languishing for over 8 months because Speaker Pelosi would rather play politics on impeachment than do the work of the people:
“I objected primarily because had I not, Congress would have passed into law a bill that spends a significant amount of tax payer money without members of Congress even being present in our nation's capitol to vote on it. Speaker Pelosi knew full well that a disaster bill may be coming from the Senate and yet chose to recess the House and then brought this forward for consent. I stayed in D.C. to object because this kind of swampy practice is what Texans elected me to stand against.
“Secondly, the bill includes nothing to address the clear national emergency and humanitarian crisis we face at our southern border. While Speaker Pelosi has consistently denied the crisis at our border, and thus has denied the humanity of the victims of cartels and other traffickers, she has been insisting that there is no money to satisfy the good faith compromise emergency funding requests from the White House. There is no reason this disaster supplemental should not include the quite modest $4.4 billion request from OMB Director Russ Vought to ensure DHS and HHS do not run out of money while managing the over 100,000 illegal aliens being apprehended and the Unaccompanied Alien Minor Children being unable to be housed appropriately.
“The Speaker however, continues not to care about these children while empowering cartels and lawlessness at the expense of our national sovereignty and the migrants who seek to come here. Democrats should step up and provide the White House the funds it needs to make sure that the migrants coming north can be properly housed, cared for, and processed, and that the cartels who are abusing migrants are no longer allowed to profit so extravagantly off of them.
“Thirdly, on the substance of the bill, I am troubled by the fact it spends over $19 billion that is not paid for when we are racking up approximately $100 million an hour in national debt. This is a bipartisan problem that we should solve in Congress rather than ignore. That is why I am calling for Congress to hold to the spending caps under current law this year.
“Our nation is strong enough and compassionate enough to have a responsive and fiscally responsive approach to help people who are hurting in the wake of natural disasters. We have had months to figure this out and also to do our job to secure our border, but now we are expected to let the swamp continue to mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren – making it less likely they will inherent a stronger and better country with a government capable of defending the nation and responding to disasters such as these.
“I object.”
Other House members from Georgia have chimed in on Twitter, expressing their frustration that the bill has not been passed.
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