Fleming Blasts Leadership for Blocking his Amendment to Puerto Rico Bill

Statement

Congressman John Fleming, M.D. released the following statement after the House Rules Committee blocked his amendment that would have prevented union pensions from being paid ahead of bondholders.

"It's clear now that the intention of the PROMESA legislation is to bail out the government unions and their pensions at the expense of senior citizens in Puerto Rico and America who purchased "full-faith-and-credit" bonds as part of their retirement savings.

"The bill asks the Oversight Board to merely "respect' the order of creditors. Democrats interpret "respect' as giving them wiggle room to change the priority order, so I attempted to clarify the intent by requiring the Board to "comply' with the lawful order. The Democrats have been making it clear that they intend to use PROMESA to bail out government unions, just like they did with General Motors. Now, Republican Leadership is complicit in their scheme.

"Let every Republican be on notice: if you vote for this bill, you are voting to bail out the unions and 40 years of liberal policies in Puerto Rico."

Background: The Fleming Amendment would have required the Oversight Board to comply with the lawful priority order of creditors, which would have ensured that owners of constitutional debt were paid before other claims, as they were promised by law. PROMESA changes the rules and the law on these investors.

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