Chrissy Houlahan

“I want the House to pass this bill. Military members get paid parental leave, but officers in the Public Health Service do not. These officers serve our country during disasters and health crises, and they deserve the same family leave as the rest of the military.”

“Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my bipartisan and bicameral U.S. Public Health Service parity act, H.R. 2846. This bill is about keeping a promise Congress already has made to the people who serve our country. You should not have to choose between your service and your family. I know something about that choice because, when I served in the Air Force, there was a 6-month waiting list for on-base childcare, but I only had 6 weeks of personal leave after the birth of my child. It was, in many ways, a choice that I needed to make between my family and my service. If we value service and we value families, which we do, no one who raises their hand to serve this country should have to make that choice. My own experience is just one reason why I was so proud to help secure 12 weeks of paid parental leave in the past for our military servicemembers in the fiscal year 2021 NDAA. That was good for military families. It was really good for retention and, it is very, very good for readiness. However, we unintentionally left one of our uniformed services behind, the commissioned officers of the United States Public Health Service. Today, with this bill, we can fix that. More than 6,000 Public Health Service officers serve our country. They are ready to deploy wherever and whenever they are needed. They have responded to hurricanes and oil spills. They helped lead our Nation’s response to COVID. They have deployed to confront infectious disease outbreaks around the world, natural disasters, and public health emergencies. They wear the uniform of our Nation. They leave their families when duty calls, and they serve alongside other uniformed services when our country needs them. However, when they become parents, right now, we don’t give them the same parental leave benefits that we provide their counterparts in the armed services. There is not a very good reason-- indeed, there is no reason for that distinction. If we value their service when a hurricane strikes, when a disease spreads, or when another emergency threatens the American people, then we should value their families, too. That is the simple principle behind this bill: same commitment to service, same sacrifice, same support for their families. I am really grateful that this has been a bipartisan and bicameral effort from the very beginning. I thank Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone for bringing this legislation to the floor. I thank my Republican co-lead, Representative Bacon, and our Senate partners, Senators Duckworth and Murkowski, for working on this to get this here. The Senate has, indeed, already acted. Today, the House has the opportunity to finish the job and to ensure that every uniformed service receives the same benefits and the same basic support when its servicemembers welcome a child into their families. We ask a great deal of the men and women who serve this country, and they should never have to wonder whether serving their Nation means shortchanging their family. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the U.S. Public Health Service parity act, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

• Reasons given
  ?

  Speech on a bill

  Reasoning 100 of 100

  This statement drew 4 conclusions and gave a reason for each one.

  See full analysis →

“I am honoring Jack Perme, a man from my district who died at age 28 from a brain disease. He rode thousands of miles on a special bike to raise money and help other people with the same illness.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of my constituent Jack Perme. I first met Jack several years ago in Westchester, where he was volunteering to help bring clean water to people in need, and that generosity would come to define his life. Jack began experiencing symptoms of spinocerebellar ataxia as a child. This progressive neurodegenerative disease impaired his coordination, his balance, his speech, and his ability to swallow. It ultimately took his life at just 28 years old. As the ataxia progressed, Jack had to give up driving and the many hobbies that he loved, including blacksmithing, woodworking, and 3D modeling. Yet, when Jack discovered that he could ride a recumbent bike, he regained a sense of freedom and independence. He immediately set out to share it. In 2024, Jack founded Moving Forward for Ataxia. He rode thousands of miles, raised more than $55,000, and provided 17 recumbent bikes to people across the country. My heart is with Jack’s parents, Monica and David; his stepmother, Leslie; his siblings, Grant and Ricky; and everyone who loved him and was touched by his bravery and his generosity. Jack’s message to all of us was very simple: Build connections, be kind, and whatever struggle you face, keep moving forward. That is exactly what his legacy will help others to do.”

“I want the House to vote against this bill. It does not truly ban lawmakers from trading stocks because it lets them keep the stocks they already own. It also makes it too hard for people to vote by mail.”

“Mr. Speaker, two things can be true at the same time. I can support voter ID requirements, which I do, and I can support banning Members of Congress from trading stocks, which I do, and I am in compliance. I can also oppose this bill because it is not an honest attempt to do either. This bill’s stock-trading provisions do not go nearly far enough. In this bill, Members can retain their investments that they already own, preserving the very conflicts of interest that a real ban would eliminate. Instead, also in this bill, Republicans are attaching new barriers for Americans to vote by mail, requiring photocopies of a very narrow set of acceptable IDs, more narrow than those required in the State of Texas. They are so narrow that a very similar bill was vetoed by a Republican Governor in the State of Ohio. They put more burdens upon voters without access to copiers and more strain on election officials. If Republicans really wanted to ban Member stock trading, then bring us a really clean bill, and I will vote for it. In fact, I offered amendments to this bill, and Republicans rejected them all. Additionally, congressional ethics cannot become a Trojan horse for voter suppression. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill.”

“I want the House to vote against this amendment. Military chaplains must care for all service members, no matter their religion. This amendment lets chaplains turn some service members away, which hurts our troops and weakens the military.”

“Mr. Chair, military readiness is not just physical. It is, indeed, mental. It is emotional. It is financial, and it is spiritual. That is why every branch of our Armed Forces maintains a Chaplain Corps. Our chaplains are indispensable. They are counselors, advisers, and trusted members of the units and the families they serve. They strengthen the resilience of our force every single day, but chaplains are also servicemembers themselves. They have assigned duties and responsibilities. Among those responsibilities are two sacred obligations. One is to faithfully practice their own religion and to faithfully protect every servicemembers’ right to practice theirs. A chaplain’s faith belongs to their religion, but their duty belongs to every servicemember. That is how the Chaplain Corps serves the entire force without ever asking a chaplain to violate the tenets of their own faith. A Catholic priest, a Presbyterian minister, or a Jewish rabbi is not expected to lead a Muslim prayer, but they are expected to ensure their Muslim servicemembers have a place to worship and help them identify a lay leader if one is, in fact, needed. That principle has guided our military for generations because it protects every servicemember and because it respects every faith and even those who have none. This amendment abandons that principle. It doesn’t strengthen the religious liberty. It, indeed, narrows it. It transforms a chaplain’s duty to care for every single servicemember into permission to turn some of them away. Under this amendment, a commanding officer who expects a chaplain to carry out that longstanding responsibility could face punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That is, in fact, a profound departure from how our military has always understood religious liberty. The military asks Americans of every faith and those of no faith to serve shoulder to shoulder with one another. Our Chaplain Corps exists to ensure that every one of those servicemembers can freely exercise their beliefs. This amendment weakens that mission. It weakens the trust that holds military units together and ultimately it, therefore, weakens the force itself. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

“I want the House to pass this military bill without adding partisan changes. It raises pay for junior troops to help them handle high food and gas prices. It also improves healthcare, expands childcare, helps families who have to move to new bases, and bans defense workers from insider trading on prediction markets.”

“Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member, Mr. Smith, for yielding me the time. Mr. Chair, today, I have the opportunity to speak briefly with regards to the fiscal year 2027 NDAA. The bipartisan bill that passed out of committee includes many quality-of-life provisions and priorities for our servicemembers and their families. These issues have an immeasurable impact on our recruitment and our retention efforts as well as on readiness. The bill includes a targeted pay raise in which junior servicemembers would get higher pay increases. These improvements to servicemembers’ paychecks should provide welcome relief to military families who are still struggling with ever-increasing gas and food prices caused by the ill-conceived and poorly executed tariffs and the current war with Iran. H.R. 8800 also addresses the growing concerns about medical readiness and access to healthcare by reversing efforts by the Department to limit the scope of services available at military treatment facilities. We need to make sure that military treatment facilities and military health systems can deliver a force that is medically ready to deploy at a moment’s notice and, just as importantly, we must be sure that the medical providers themselves have the requisite skills to address whatever injuries might come their way. The bill expands ongoing efforts to improve access to safe and quality childcare by including au pairs in the Child Care in Your Home pilot program and establishing a student internship program to improve recruitment and staffing of military child development centers. It provides a process by which military families executing a permanent change of station will receive timely and relevant relocation assistance and available childcare and food access services in advance of that military duty station move. Finally, the bill requires the Department to issue regulations banning the Department of Defense personnel from insider trading on prediction markets, a necessary and crucial step in safeguarding our national security. We brought this bill to the floor in a bipartisan fashion, and I urge my colleagues to reject poison pill riders that will destabilize this important work and to not insert bipartisan politics over the well- being of our servicemembers. This NDAA, like many previous defense bills, should continue to be bipartisan.”