Capito Discusses Legislative Sprint to the Finish on Capitol Hill & What She’s Hearing from the Folks Back Home
WASHINGTON, DC – The Ripon Society hosted a breakfast discussion yesterday morning with U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who discussed not only the sprint to the finish currently underway on Capitol Hill to wrap up legislative business before the end of the year, but what she’s hearing from the people she represents back home.
The West Virginia lawmaker opened her remarks, however, by talking about another kind of race she recently competed in – the 44th Annual Marine Corps Marathon.
“I’ve run quite a bit over the years and decided that one of the things I wanted to do was run a marathon,” Capito revealed. “I literally ran myself into the ground, because I hurt my knee three weeks before the race while training. And my doctor is John Barrasso. We’re on the Senate floor and he’s feeling my knee, and we decided it was my meniscus. I asked him, ‘What should I do? I really want to run this. I’ve been training. I don’t know what to do.’ And he said, ‘If you can take the pain, you’re not going to hurt yourself anymore. So just go out and do it.’
“Well, at about mile 18, I’m like, ‘What was I thinking?!’ My daughter came down to watch, and I had some family along the route, and if you remember that day it was terrible weather. It was pouring rain and it was chilly. But all I kept telling myself was that all I have to do is finish. And I did – I finished. And I’m never doing it again!”
The Mountain State Senator then turned her attention to the sprint in Congress to finish legislative business before the end of the year. As Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Homeland Security, she is tasked with outlining the funding for some of the United States’ most pressing matters. One such issue is the President’s border wall initiative, which has been a prominent point of division in next year’s budget.
“On the Senate side, we were able to get through our full committee $5 billion for the wall,” she said. “Obviously, this is where the President’s big area of emphasis is for him … So we were able to kind of settle that in the Senate, but the House had zero for the wall. We have been miles apart, but we are getting closer together. The press keeps asking me, ‘Do you think we can get these all done by the end of next week?’ And I said that I still think it’s possible because if my bill settles, everything else settles. The President’s got to be satisfied with the wall number, and that there are no riders on there that would handcuff him in terms of being able to transfer funds.”
“We are getting closer. Lucille Roybal-Allard is my counterpart on the House side. I served with her. We have a great relationship. We’re able to pick up the phone and call one another. And when you get right down to it, there are a lot of decisions that, as they say, have to be bumped upstairs.”
The Senator continued, explaining what she sees as the timeline for getting the funding bills through the Senate and ultimately to the President’s desk.
“We’re working with the President hand-in-glove and also with our counterparts on the House side. I think the theory is there are going to be at least two bills – minibuses – that will go through. We’ll see if we can get that far. Like some of my counterparts on some of the other committees, chairmen are saying that their bills are pretty settled. There are a few little open items, but we’re closing in on it. So that’s good news for our appropriations.”
Capito also discussed the other issue that is consuming so much attention in Washington these days – impeachment.
“I’m very sorry that it’s come to this,” she stated. “I’ve been very vocal in my opposition to the process that’s gone forward on the House side. I don’t think it’s been a fair process. It’s been highly partisan and politicized. It’s not good for the Congress, and it’s not good for the nation. My barometer of what people are worried about is when I go to the grocery store. And everybody in our grocery stores is saying, ‘Can you guys just do what we sent you up there to do?’ I mean, this is just ridiculous. So we’ll see what happens. Because in the end, I’ll be a juror, and I’ll have to judge on the merits.”
To view Capito’s remarks before The Ripon Society, please click on the link below:
The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.