The Government Shutdown Experience

I would have written about the government shutdown last weekend, but, I wasn’t able to.  I was on a trip to D.C. on Friday when the government shut down. Everyone was pretty down after that, because our Monday morning lobbying on Capitol Hill could be canceled. But, we did end up lobbying, and it was pretty awesome. More on that later.

The Shutdown

On Friday, January 19, the U.S. Government officially shut down. The government had been funded by short term continuing resolutions (CR). The proposed CR would fund the government through February 16, and then the government would have to decide whether to pass another CR or fully fund the government.

This CR failed to pass on Friday night. One reason it failed to pass was because of its exclusion of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, from the budget. The Democrats in Congress refused to pass a CR that didn’t have a solution for DACA in the budget. But it was also important to remember that a number of Republicans, including Lindsey Graham, voted no to the CR because of the DACA issue.

The CR also planned to fully reauthorize CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Congress let CHIP lapse without funding it earlier in 2017. Republicans put CHIP into the CR in order to gain Democratic votes for the resolution. But Democrats said they were still were not satisfied with the CR until DACA was added.

Many members of Congress were also angry that the government was not being fully funded, and refused to vote for a CR. Due to a failure to make a deal, the government shut down.

The government remained shut down until Monday afternoon, when the Senate passed a CR that kept the federal government open until February 8. This happened because the majority leader in Congress, Mitch McConnell, agreed to hold a vote on DACA before February 8. So in about two weeks, our government will be in the same position as it was last week.

In my opinion, this is a terrible way to run the government. Thankfully, this shutdown was short and had a minimal affect on life. But a longer shutdown would have had a bigger effect. The flu season has been a nasty one, and a government shutdown would have temporarily shut down the CDC’s influenza program. Also many other departments in the federal government would be shut down for a long period of time.

Many on the right are branding the shutdown the Schumer Shutdown. Many on the left are branding it the Trump Shutdown. But in the end, the government still isn’t fully funded, and its everyone’s fault. By February 8, hopefully the Republicans and Democrats can come together to fully fund the government and not kick the can down the road with another CR. But if they do pass another CR, we need to hold them all accountable.

My Experience

On Monday morning, I exited out of my hotel room in Virginia with my suit on to head toward Capitol Hill. The night before, 2 other teens and I had written a speech for a representative and a senator on gun violence prevention. We got on a bus and headed for D.C.

Two other presenters and I headed into the Longworth House office building to lobby a staff member of Rep. Jimmy Gomez. The building was a ghost town. Almost no one occupied the hallways, and the ones we saw looked extremely angry. I could feel the tension in the building. We walked into Gomez’s office, and found out that we had 50 minutes to kill before our meeting.

We headed down to the Dunkin’ Donuts in the basement. I found it amusing that the television was set to HLN. Our chaperone told us that this was because they did not want to anger the conservative members of the House by playing CNN, or anger the liberal members of the House by playing Fox News.

Then, we headed up to Jimmy Gomez’s office one more time to lobby his staff. We gave our speech on the 72 hour loophole. This loophole allows a gun transaction to occur if a background check takes longer than 72 hours to occur. The mass shooter in Charleston was able to purchase his firearm after his background check took more than 72 hours. In our speech, we urged Gomez to co-sponsor the Background Check Completion Act, which would close that loophole.

I realize that not everyone is able to skip work or school and make a trip to Washington, D.C. But every representative has at least 1 office in their district. And every senator has at least 1 office in their state.

A lot of Americans are currently feeling disconnected to the government. These Americans also feel that the government isn’t always acting in their interests. One way to change this is to go to your representative’s office and remind them that they work for you, not the other way around.

One thing that I learned in D.C. is that a constituent can walk into the office of their representative at any time, even without an appointment, and talk to their representative’s staff. This is a right that we should not take for granted.