Legislative, Constituent update

Dear Friends,

Earlier this week, Speaker Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would initiate an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. The move came after an anonymous person used the whistleblower law to file a complaint with the Inspector General regarding a phone call made by President Trump to the Ukrainian president.

On Wednesday, the White House voluntarily released a memorandum containing a summary of the conversation between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart. After reading the five-page memo, it is not clear to me that President Trump engaged in a “quid-pro-quo,” or that he offered the military aid to Ukraine only in exchange for damaging information on Biden.

I voted this week to allow the whistleblower’s complaint to be sent to Congress because I believe the House of Representatives has a constitutional responsibility to take these allegations seriously.

As everything stands, I find this inquiry a disappointing example of misplaced priorities and misused opportunities from doing the work of representing the American people. As Members of Congress, we are sent here by the American people to deliver real results, from passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which will create 176,000 new job, to working with this administration to solve the crisis on our southern border.

As your U.S. Representative, I am committed to fulfill the mandate you gave me in 2010 and have renewed four times to serve, represent, and fight for you. I will also continue to put people over politics, and I hope that my colleagues will join me in doing just that.

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to discuss the importance of the USMCA and why I feel Speaker Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry is just another political distraction from getting important work done.

I continue to urge Speaker Pelosi to bring the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement up to a vote. This agreement will help put more Americans back to work, create new investments in critical American industries, and continue to drive prices down for consumers.

The USMCA will be good for the agriculture industry, Missouri’s top industry, helping our farmers and ranchers solidify beneficial trade arrangements with Mexico and breaking down current trade barriers with Canada. This will give Missouri exporters more access to these critical markets. For example, Canada will allow more of our milk into their country and begin to fairly price our wheat exports.

Increasing trade with our most important partners will bring millions in new revenue to rural America, creating more well-paying jobs for Missouri and our country. The agreement will deliver an additional $63 billion in economic activity and will add more than 176,000 new jobs to our economy.

This is a good deal for American workers and American families, adding billions to our economy and thousands of new jobs. It is my hope that Congress will work together with President Trump to make sure this deal is passed. I look forward to working expeditiously to secure this new deal for Missouri and all Americans.

On Thursday, I voted against H.R.3525, the U.S. Border Patrol Medical Screening Standards Act. The House Democrats’ bill that would take funds away from the already-underfunded border patrol to give undocumented people illegally crossing the southern border access to taxpayer-funded health care.

Giving illegal aliens free access to health care only further incentivizes illegal immigration, exacerbating our crisis on our southern border. It’s past time for real solutions to this border crisis.

Any comprehensive immigration reform must include building the wall, alleviating the pipelines in the immigration courts, ensuring we know who’s migrating across our border.

Legislative update

On Friday, the House passed H.R. 3722, the Joint Task Force to Combat Opioid Trafficking Act of 2019 with my support.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Jim Langevin, authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to establish a joint task force to enhance border security operations to detect, interdict, disrupt, and prevent opioids from entering our country and be distributed throughout our communities. After a task force is created, the Department will have to report to Congress. on issues such as what additional resources are needed to solve these grave issues.

Additionally, the bill authorizes the Department’s joint task forces to engage with and receive assistance from outside DHS, including private sector organizations and federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial entities.

Constituent update

A large crowd of students considering applying to one of the U.S. Service Academies took part in my recent Academy Information Day open house in Lebanon. Service Academy graduates were on hand to speak to the students about the hard work and great rewards that come from attending one of these fine schools.

If you are interested in learning more about the application process, you can learn about requirements, deadlines, and other information by clicking here. You can also contact Rachel Gilroy in my Harrisonville office at 816-884-3411.

Yours in service,

Vicky Hartzler

Member of Congress