Scalise Highlights Early Republican Wins

Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Conference Vice Chair Blake Moore (R-Utah), and Congressman Riley Moore (R-W Va.) discussed how House Republicans are already bringing bills to the Floor to implement President Trump’s agenda. Leader Scalise highlighted how House Republicans are reintroducing and sending the Senate key bills that Senate Democrats in the 118th Congress shamefully rejected, including the Protection of Women & Girls in Sports Act and Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. He also laid out an aggressive timeline on moving forward with an ambitious reconciliation bill.
  
On preparing to send the Laken Riley Act to President Trump's desk: 

“Once again, we have an agenda that's bringing bills to the floor to follow through on things we talked about during the campaign. These aren't just bills we're seeing for the first time. Some of them are bills we brought up last Congress. But as Whip [Emmer] pointed out, as we would pass a lot of these bills, the Senate under Chuck Schumer refused to take any of them up, refused common sense policies because they just wanted to continue bowing to the radical left. You saw it with the Laken Riley Act. I remember back last Congress when we had the Laken Riley Act, there were some, even some in this room that would question, ‘Well, why are you bringing a bill like that if you know the Senate's not going to bring it up? Isn't that just a messaging bill?’ We said no. It's smart policy. It's the right policy. We're going to stand up for what's right, whether the Senate will do the right thing or not. 

“Ultimately, if you look at what happened with the Laken Riley Act, [Congressman] Mike Collins' bill not only passed again this time with more Democrat support, so very bipartisan out of the House, as it was last Congress, but now we have a willing Senate, with Senator Thune as the majority leader willing to bring the bill up. That bill will likely be the very first bill that President Donald Trump gets to sign when he becomes the 47th President of the United States.”

On House Republicans’ bills on the floor this week to protect women:

“Just like with some of the other bills, we're going to continue to stand up for what's right. This week, you're seeing a few of those. One of the most common sense bills that we've had is the bill that says men cannot play in women's sports. I traveled all across the country during the election cycle, and this came up everywhere you went. People don't understand why it's even an issue that Congress won't resolve. When you tell them, well, we passed a bill out of the House, but the Senate wouldn't even take it up. Believe me, it was a factor in a lot of those races. When you talk to most people in America, common sense tells you that men shouldn't be playing in women's sports just because some on the far-left want to continue to jam their ideology and whatever other things they want to achieve and upset what Title IX is all about, upset women's sports, and take away opportunities for so many young women across America. It's just not right.

“We're going to stand up for what's right. Again, we're going to bring that bill to the floor, just as we're going to bring [Congresswoman] Nancy Mace's bill that says, if somebody is here illegally, and they're also committing assault and violence against women, that that's a deportable offense. Again, similar bill that we brought last time, passed out of the House. [Senator] Chuck Schumer refused to bring it up in the Senate. I think we're going to see a different approach from this new Senate.”

On the America First policies within reconciliation: 

“When people say elections have consequences, the consequences are already being seen and felt in the terms of actual good policy, not only making it through the House but actually coming up on the Senate floor for real votes now. When you see President Trump get sworn in next week, it's going to be an exciting day, but it's going to be an exciting time for the country because it marks a new beginning for America. Now, we've been preparing for this moment for a long time. 

“One of the biggest preparations is budget reconciliation, a bill we've been working with President Trump on for months now and working with our committee chairs on, but now it's about to get real. We're talking about bringing a budget by February in Congress, in the House, and then ultimately setting up the opportunity to create a budget reconciliation bill that's going to be focused on getting our country back on track, on securing America's border, on producing more American energy, on lowering costs for families who are struggling on addressing these radical rules and regulations that add more cost to the inflation that's already driving people to the point where they can't even afford to put food on the table. We're going to be addressing those problems that we talked about during the campaign, and we're going to be bringing one big, beautiful bill, as Speaker [Johnson] talks about, and the President does, to address those problems and move that bill quickly.”

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