The First Days of the Dem Majority

Press Release

Dear Friend,

What a week. Yesterday I was sworn in as a member of the 116th Congress, the most diverse Congress in the history of our nation with record numbers of women, minorities and many firsts -- the first native American women, the first Muslim women, the youngest woman ever elected and more. I am humbled and honored to be part of this Congress and the new Democratic House Majority. We wasted no time getting to work for the people we are so privileged to represent.

After welcoming visitors to my office's open house, I went to the floor and proudly cast my vote in support of Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House. A few hours later, I voted to reopen the federal government, which has been partially shutdown for more than two weeks after President Trump changed his mind, had a tantrum over funding for his outrageous border wall vanity project, and refused to support a bipartisan bill to keep the federal government fully running. The bills I supported yesterday passed the House on a bipartisan basis and it is now up to the Senate to act. This shutdown should have never happened in the first place. It has gone on far too long, needlessly inflicting pain on hundreds of thousands of federal employees who do not know when they will be receiving a paycheck. We must reopen the federal government.

Yesterday I also cosponsored H.R. 1, The For The People Act of 2019, landmark legislation to clean up corruption and return integrity to Washington, so that we can restore the people's faith that government works for the public interest, not the special interests. Here's what this important new bill will do:

Make it easier, not harder, to vote by implementing automatic voter registration, requiring early voting and vote by mail, committing Congress to reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act and ensuring the integrity of our elections by modernizing and strengthening our voting systems and ending partisan redistricting.Yesterday I also cosponsored H.R. 1, The For The People Act of 2019, landmark legislation to clean up corruption and return integrity to Washington, so that we can restore the people's faith that government works for the public interest, not the special interests.
Reform big money politics by requiring all political organizations to disclose large donors, updating political advertisement laws for the digital age, establishing a public matching system for citizen-owned elections and revamping the Federal Election Commission to ensure there's a cop on the campaign finance beat.
Strengthen ethics laws to ensure that public officials work in the public interest, including by extending conflict of interest laws to the President and Vice President and requiring the release of their tax returns, closing loopholes that allow former members of Congress to avoid cooling-off periods for lobbying, breaking the revolving door between industry and the federal government and establishing a code of conduct for the Supreme Court.
There's more to do, but I'm proud of our work in these first few days of the new Congress and looking forward to the days and weeks ahead. If there are any federal issues that I can assist you with, please don't hesitate to contact me at one of my offices below.

For more photos from yesterday, visit my facebook page.

Sincerely,

Carolyn B. Maloney

Member of Congress

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