Shutdown Is 'A Nightmare,' Katherine Clark Says

Elijah Cummings, John Sarbanes, Katherine Clark — In this Jan. 12, 2017, file photo, Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Clark is helping lead the Democrats' effort to pick up the 23 seats needed to regain control of the House in the 2018 midterm election.

Arjun Singh is a producer for Boston Public Radio. A California native, Arjun moved to Boston to study international relations at Boston University. Prior to working at WGBH, Arjun worked at a tech company and for a political campaign.

January 24, 2019

Thirty-four days into the longest running government shutdown in American history, Rep. Katherine Clark has had enough.

“This is a nightmare,” Clark said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Thursday. “It has quickly moved from just fundamentally wrong — from asking workers to come to work and not be paid, and that ripple effect across our economy — to very real national security threats as this drags on.”

Clark, who’s also the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, accused Republican senators like Mitch McConnell of obstructionism for continuing to enable President Donald Trump’s fight for $5.7 billion of taxpayer money to fund the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and questioned their loyalty to their constituents.

“It is my fervent prayer every single day that Mitch McConnell will find his spine,” Clark said. “They know better. They know this is not about real security, and at what point to remind themselves that they work for the people of this country, and the states they come from, and not as a PR firm for the president.”

With gridlock in the Senate and the inevitable failure of two spending bills sponsored by each party to end the shutdown, House Democrats announced they would unveil a new spending bill that will not provide funding for a border wall, but will provide more funding for infrastructure, technology (which Clark said could include drones to be deployed on the border), and to hire more personnel such as Customs and Border Security agents.

“We will meet or any even exceed the dollar amount, but we are focused on what we have been talking about,” Clark said of the new bill proposal. “You’re going to see a combination of more personnel, specifically more immigration judges and customs personnel, new technology, and really securing our ports of entry.”

Though Clark said she is unsure if Trump, who she described as “chaotic and unstable,” will be open to the new proposal, she said she was heartened by a positive meeting she had with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson Thursday morning where he voiced his support for several measures included in the new bill.

Without a resolution, however, Clark has also urged her fellow lawmakers to support the Federal Employee Civil Relief Act, a bill she’s co-sponsoring that would prevent federal employees from being evicted, foreclosed or having their property repossessed, and allow them to suspend student loan payments. Though the bill has yet to pass, Clark said she is not aware of any opposition to it.