Equality

Today, Congressman Gerry Connolly, Chairman of the Government Operations subcommittee, released the following statement in advance of today’s House Oversight hearing “Reaching Hard-to-Count Communities in the 2020 Census:” Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney, for calling this important hearing. Census Day is less than three months away, and I am concerned that the Census Bureau is not prepared to conduct a complete and accurate count of our nation’s population, particularly among hard-to-count communi... Read more

Today, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) joined Reps. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), J. Luis Correa (D-CA), Veronica Escobar (D-TX), and more than 50 House Members in calling on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to open an investigation into recent reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials are issuing fake court notices and barring refugees from entering the United States after being granted asylum. In a letter to the DHS OIG, the congressio... Read more

Greg Iacurci More than 2 million Americans could soon have access to mandatory paid parental leave. Senior congressional members have reached a bipartisan deal that would provide federal workers with 12 weeks of guaranteed paid time off for parents following the birth, adoption or fostering of a child. The proposed policy, which would apply to the 2.1 million civilian workers employed by the federal government, is part of a broader $738 billion legislative package on defense spending for the go... Read more

Today, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) joined Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and more than 100 House Democrats in introducing the Protect SNAP Act, legislation to prevent the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from implementing stricter work requirements under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The bill follows USDA’s final rule restricting hundreds of thousands of Americans’ acce... Read more

Today, the House of Representatives adopted the conference report for the FY20 National Defense Authorization Act, which included amendments offered by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) regarding the proposed elimination of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government-wide backlog of security clearance adjudications, and the loopholes that still allow servicemembers who have been convicted in domestic violence cases to purchase firearms. The report also included a provision, backed b... Read more

Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11), and Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL), John Sarbanes (MD-03), Don Beyer (VA-08), Anthony Brown (MD-04), Jamie Raskin (MD-08), David Trone (MD-06), and Jennifer Wexton (VA-10) sent a letter to the Chairs of the Armed Services Committees, who are leading the conference committee working to reconcile the House- and Senate-passed versions of the... Read more

Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) joined Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ), Norma J. Torres (D-CA), Bill Foster (D-IL), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), and a group of 107 Members of Congress in demanding that the White House fire Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller. Their letter quoted from emails Miller wrote, which were recently published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They connected the white nationali... Read more

By Rep. Gerald E. Connolly Connolly is a Democrat in his sixth term representing some of the Virginia suburbs of Washington in the House of Representatives. For the first time in more than two decades, the House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing last month to examine the potential admission of Washington, D.C., as our 51st state. But at its core, I believe that hearing examined whether we are truly a democratic republic. Do we as a nation want to continue the disenfranchisement of t... Read more

Congressman Gerry Connolly, Chairman of the Government Operations subcommittee, released the following statement in advance of today’s House Oversight hearing on “H.R. 51: Making D.C. the 51st State.” Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing on H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. As a longtime supporter of D.C. statehood, I commend Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for introducing this bill and for her tireless efforts to fight for the rights of District residents. Today’s ... Read more

Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Chairman of the House Government Operations subcommittee, released the following statement on today’s Supreme Court census decision: “Shortly before the Administration announced its plan to add a citizenship question to the decennial census, I spoke personally with Secretary Wilbur Ross to share my deep concerns about the harm such a question would do to the integrity and accuracy of the Census. What was clear at the time of the phone call, and has now been con... Read more