U.S. Rep. Womack wants votes on border security, foreign aid measures

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, said if he were in charge, he would allow votes on bills dealing with immigration and foreign aid to be conducted on the House of Representatives floor.

Appearing on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics, Womack said border security is too important to play partisan politics and that voters from both sides of the aisle want action.

“You don’t have to be right-leaning or left-leaning to understand the complexities of a failed immigration policy in a broken border system, but I think people understand that,” he said. “We have been dealing with border security issues for decades, and I think at this stage of the game, what I would take would be some incremental progress, whether it’s a ‘remain in Mexico’ policy only. To me, that would be a first down if you’re going to do some asylum reforms or hire more judges and put more CBP border agents on the border. All of those things require funding, which illustrates the need for us to be able to pass appropriation bills and quit relying on continuing resolutions and threatening shutdown.”

When asked about House bills not being considered in the Senate and Senate bills not being considered in the House, Womack said he takes issue with the process that allows for these types of stalemates to occur.

“If I were in charge, a lot of these bills that address some of the more important topics facing our country today, I would want to get on the floor just to be able to find where the Congress is on a lot of these up or down votes, but that’s not the way it works in our Congress. You’re not going to put something on the floor unless you can guarantee that it’s going to pass if it’s something that you support. But I think those are leadership decisions. I’m not terribly engaged in those. But to answer your question, it’s members like me that have to go to leadership and say, ‘Hey, we need to be dealing with this.’ And I’ve expressed some of those feelings,” Womack said.

UKRAINE AID
The Third District Congressman, who won his GOP primary challenge this past week, said it’s time for Congress to commit or de-commit support for Ukraine. He is a supporter.

“The way I see it is pretty simple. We need to either help ’em or not help ’em. And if what’s standing in the way is that the Senate package of $90 billion is too much for what we’re trying to do for all considerations, then we need to decide where’s the sweet spot in Congress. And there is a bipartisan bill that’s kind of floating around right now that does military aid only,” he said.

“I’ve got a background of 30 years in uniform. For most of my career. I trained to stop Russia in the Fulda Gap. And so if back in those days when we were training, somebody said, ‘Hey, you have an opportunity to help another country execute a conflict against an invading Russia and take them out without committing any U.S. forces, and all they need is a few bullets and some weapons’ and those kinds of defensive weapons and offensive weapons. We would’ve taken that deal and never looked back. But times have changed a little bit. These are now political pinatas. People are beating them up every day, they’re political footballs. At the end of the discussion, I will tell you that what happens in Eastern Europe is a vital importance to the United States of America,” he added.

You can view Womack’s full interview in the video below.