114th Congress

“The important highway funding measure guarantees funding for five years, and finally moves us away from repeated short term extensions that continually kicked our national infrastructure needs down the road,” Representative Courtney said. “I strongly supported this funding bill as a first step, but our urgent national needs to rebuild our crumbling system of roads and bridges outstrips even the amount funded in this bill. We must continue to push for an adequately robust funding level that meets our infrastructure needs and provides a catalyst for jobs and economic growth.”

“There is no excuse for allowing suspected terrorists to purchase firearms,” said the delegation. “For the third time this week, House Republicans blocked a commonsense measure to keep those on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist from legally obtaining deadly weapons. This is unconscionable. For the safety of the American people, Congress must hold a vote to close this dangerous loophole.”

“Today’s 90-10 vote on the Heller Amendment in the Senate to repeal the Cadillac Tax demonstrates the overwhelming bipartisan support of our repeal efforts in both Houses of Congress,” said Representative Joe Courtney (CT-2). “I applaud Senators Heller, Heinrich, and Brown, as well as my otherSenate colleagues on joining the strong majority of the House, and the diverse group of stakeholders from every corner of our society in this fight. The overwhelming majority vote today reinforces that we can join together to improve the Affordable Care Act to keep health insurance affordable for every working family.”

“It has been 13 long years since ESEA has been rewritten, and I am proud to support this bipartisan effort to reform and update this law,” Courtney said. “The world has changed dramatically since No Child Left Behind was passed, and the needs of our children, our educators, and our workforce have evolved significantly in this time. I am particularly pleased that measure will upgrade our efforts to align K-12 education with the in-demand skills in science, technology engineering and math that is needed to keep pace with the needs of our country. This agreement also meets the needs of states, communities and educators in providing new and more flexible accountability systems. Bipartisan passage of this agreement reflects months – and years – of hard work dating back to my first days in Congress, and I am pleased to support it.”