Martin Heinrich Quotes
We've clearly seen that Tea Party Republicans are willing to take our economy hostage just to score political points, but I'm not willing to do that.
Heinrich, Martin. "Statement on the Debt Ceiling Vote." Representative Martin Heinrich, U.S. House of Representatives, 1 Aug. 2011.
The Republicans had, in the view of most Americans at the time, refused to pass the legislation to provide money for the government to function unless President Obama would cancel the Health Care Reform that was his major legislative achievement of his first term, and passed over the objections of most Republicans who claimed it was unconstitutional. Then the Supreme Court upheld the Constitutionality of Obamacare, and the Tea Party Republicans pressured the regular republicans to shut down the entire government until the President relented and cancelled his own legislation. The American people resented this unprecedented of interfering with the Constitutional methods by which laws are passed, and after over a week of taxpayer additional costs for less service, the regular Republicans made a deal with the Democrats and produced a majority to reopen the Government.
The Republicans who had control of the House of Representatives were reaching the end of the fiscal year and had not yet passed a budget nor expanded the debt ceiling so the government would have to shut down in a few days and a little later America could not pay any of its bills. They had a very strong position if they willing to blackmail the Democratically controlled Senate and the Democratic President. But the last time the Republicans had ever tried this before was the Republican House when Gingrich was speaker and they shut down the government for almost 3 weeks. It cost the Republicans the next election’s majority in the House. President Obama decided that he would not set a precedent of negotiating with a house of Congress that was threatening to shut down the government or threatening not to pay the nation’s bills which Congress had already authorized the purchase of.
The government was reopened when the more rational Republicans combined with the Democrats and voted the appropriations necessary to reopen the government.
Martin Trevor Heinrich is an American politician and businessman serving as the senior United States Senator from New Mexico, a seat he has held since 2013. A native of Fallon, Nevada, Heinrich has lived much of his adulthood in New Mexico, specifically Albuquerque. As a member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. Representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 2009 to 2013. He then won the Senate seat vacated by retiring Senator Jeff Bingaman in 2012. Heinrich was mentioned as a possible nominee for Vice President of the United States in 2016 under Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. He is the dean of New Mexico's congressional delegation.
