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Lawmaker urges Democrats to accept DHS funding deal as long TSA lines leave travelers stranded
Summary
On the Senate floor a lawmaker said the Department of Homeland Security shutdown has left TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard and cybersecurity personnel unpaid for six weeks, described five‑hour airport lines in New Orleans and urged Democrats to accept a funding compromise.
A lawmaker on the Senate floor urged Democratic colleagues to accept a Department of Homeland Security funding deal, saying the shutdown is harming travelers and leaving federal security and emergency personnel unpaid.
"Ask the American people how frustrated they are," the lawmaker said, arguing the political impasse has produced long lines and staffing shortfalls. He described images from New Orleans in which "it was a 5-hour wait for people to be able to go through the TSA checkpoint," and said some travelers missed flights despite arriving three hours early.
The lawmaker blamed repeated rejections of offers by Senate Democrats and framed the lapse as a broken agreement: Republicans and Democrats had negotiated a DHS funding bill months earlier, he said, but Democrats later refused to fund DHS and the impasse has persisted for six weeks.
He said staffing shortages are acute: "the rate of callouts from TSA staff exceeded 40% over the weekend," and many workers have sought other work to pay bills. He expanded the list of affected personnel to include FEMA claims processors, Coast Guard members and cybersecurity staff tasked with defending against attacks he described as coming from Iran.
The lawmaker noted negotiators have traded proposals, saying Republicans sought funding for body cameras ("I think they wanted $20 million") and that the White House had offered "over $100 million for body cameras." He urged colleagues to consider the concrete harms of continued delay, including the impact on hurricane planning: "Hurricane season starts in 10 weeks" and, he said, essential planning is not taking place because staff cannot work while their departments are shut down.
He closed with an appeal to put "the American people first" and to accept a compromise offer, then yielded the floor. No formal motion or vote was recorded in this speech.
The floor remarks did not identify the lawmaker by name in the transcript. All quotations in this article are attributed to that lawmaker as recorded on the Senate floor.
