U.S. House Archives - Missourinet

Four Missouri U.S. House members vote to give $25 billion to help keep Postal Service afloat

September 1, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

The U.S. House recently passed a bill that would give $25 billion in emergency funding to help keep the U.S. Postal Service going through the pandemic and expected surge of mail closer to the General Election. The funding level is the amount the Trump-appointed U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors recommends. Four Missouri members voted in favor of the legislation – Republicans Sam Graves and Ann Wagner and Democrats Emanuel Cleaver and Lacy Clay.

The plan would also reverse recent cost-cutting measures to slow service.

Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver

The Postal Service has been struggling financially due to a decline in mail volume, the pandemic causing costs to climb, among other things. Cleaver, who represents Kansas City and several rural western Missouri counties, has been sounding the alarm for a while about the agency’s money problems. He says talks of privatizing it is an insult to the older.

“I just think that that’s almost mean spirited,” he says. “We don’t even think about the older people in our country who are not online, who still handwrite all their letters and pay their bills by writing out checks.”

Cleaver co-sponsored the bill, H.R. 8015. He tells Missourinet privatization would also hurt rural communities.

“When you privatize it, can you imagine X corporation delivering mail to a little farm outside of Orrick, where they have to drive from Kansas City to Orrick and then drive down a dirt road to put the mail in a mailbox? They are not going to do it. They are going to say it is not cost efficient – it’s cost prohibitive,” says Cleaver.

Cleaver’s district includes rural towns like Marshall, Richmond and Belton.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, represents 36 counties in northern Missouri (file photo courtesy of Congressman Graves’ office)

Graves, of northern Missouri, tells Missourinet affiliate KFEQ the legislation affects almost every part of his district.

“The post office is something that I’ve been looking at and working through for years,” says Graves. “I have a very rural district and a lot of senior citizens in my district that depend on postal and making sure that we keep six-day delivery out there and timely.”

Graves’ district includes Chillicothe and Memphis.

President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the bill – and Graves says he and the president don’t always agree on everything.

“This is one of those issues and that’s been the case with every president that I’ve worked with. Whether that was Bush, I didn’t agree with him on everything. Obama, I didn’t agree with him on everything. And obviously President Trump,” says Graves. “We don’t agree on everything as well and that’s part of what representation is. I have the opportunity to be very parochial with my district and I can look out for, and always have, for the interest of my district.”

Graves says in this election, it’s unfortunate that the Postal Service has become political.

Missouri Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler and Congressmen Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Jason Smith all voted against the plan.

It is expected to have an uphill battle in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has said the delivery of mail-in ballots was a “nonexistent problem.”

Missouri U.S. House members weigh in on stimulus package signed into law

March 27, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

President Donald Trump has signed into law a coronavirus stimulus plan. Under the plan passed today by the U.S. House, Americans who make $75,000 or less a year would get a check for $1,200 – $2,400 for married couples – plus $500 per kid.

U.S. Capitol dome courtesy of the U.S. House

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat of Kansas City, says the pandemic is ravaging the country and the resulting economic downturn.

“It has driven millions of Americans into unemployment,” says Cleaver. “In this legislation, you will find a massive expansion of unemployment insurance to help Americans weather this storm until they can return to work.”

Cleaver says the plan includes $150 billion to address spending shortages the virus has put on state and local governments.

“Even though this bill is the largest stimulus package in the history of our nation, it will not be enough,” says Cleaver. “The pandemic will outlast these funds and we must be unflinching in our commitment to provide relief.”

The package delays student loan payments, gives relief to people with federally backed mortgages, more than $150 billion in protective equipment to healthcare workers, low-interest loans for small businesses and hundreds of millions in food assistance.

On the House floor, West-central Missouri Republican Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler says the legislation gives the nation hope.

“Hope that we will get through this by supporting our healthcare workers, enabling businesses to stay open, and sending Americans funds needed to get them through,” says Hartzler.

Hartzler says the plan will support healthcare workers, help businesses to stay open and help get Americans by.

“While this bill is far from perfect and the price tag is sobering, I believe we are in an unprecedented battle and it is imperative that we win this war,” says Hartzler.

Congressman Lacy Clay, a Democrat from St. Louis, applauds passage of the legislation and says Missouri is estimated to get $2.38 billion in funds to benefit residents.

East-central Missouri Republican Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer supports the bill.

provides the badly-needed resources and supplies for hospitals and the medical community who are working around the clock to keep people safe. It gives relief for families who need help to make ends meet and supports businesses to make sure they can stay afloat and continue to provide their employees with paychecks. As President Trump has said, we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. While far from perfect, this is a good bill and its passage was critical to getting this country the relief it so desperately needs and through this crisis.”

Trump wants to get stimulus checks out by April 6 but be prepared for them to take a few weeks.

House impeaches President Trump, despite protests of Missouri Republicans

December 18, 2019 By Ashley Byrd

In a historic vote, the U.S. House has impeached a sitting president. As expected, Missouri’s delegation voted along party lines in making President Donald Trump the third U.S. president in history to get impeached by the lower chamber.

Some took their turn to speak on the measure to put Trump on trial in the Senate on the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Comments became more contentious as the afternoon wore on.

In defending the case against the president, St. Louis Rep. Lacy Clay told his colleagues, “Our founders feared a lawless, amoral president would willfully put national security at risk for his own personal gain.”

Rep. Long listens to Rep. Smith on House floor December 18, 2019

Six of the eight House members from Missouri are Republicans.

East-central Missouri Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer says the whole process has been political: “Awhile ago the speaker spoke of the Pledge of the Allegiance,” says Luetkemeyer. “The last phrase of the pledge is justice for all. Justice is not something afforded to the president during the investigation. He was denied due process.”

Rep. Jason Smith of southern Missouri said, “I’m from the Show Me State, you have to show me. the only thing that you all have shown is that you are about to impeach a duly-elected president who has done nothing wrong.”

Southwestern Missouri Rep. Billy Long had 30 seconds to speak and said Trump has been a victim since he was sworn in. “He’s had his head held underwater for almost three years now, never coming up for a breath of air, just keep pushing him down. Lowest Black unemployment ever, lowest Hispanic unemployment ever, highest stock market ever, lowest unemployment in years.”

West-central Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler issued a statement before the vote: “Today’s vote is a gross abuse of power by Congress. This entire process to impeach President Trump is nothing more than a political calculation being made to undo the voice of nearly 63 million Americans. House Democrats fear they cannot beat him fairly at the ballot box, so they are intent in removing him at all costs.”

The case against Trump is likely to end in the Senate, Missouri’s senior Sen. Roy Blunt told Missourinet.

“If you can’t convince all of the Democrats in the House to be for the impeachment charges, it is highly unlikely that you’re going to convince any number of the Republicans in the Senate to be for that.”

Blunt says the charges are too weak and vague.