Post Office Namings

Actor Bill Murray on Friday said he believes Americans need to be more personally responsible for their well-being.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) this week charged Republicans with trying to gut the U.S. Postal Service in order to hand off a large chunk of the mail delivery industry to the private sector.

"What we have here is people who want to kill it off, cream off the profitable stuff for the private sector," DeFazio told KMTR in Oregon.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has introduced a resolution calling for a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to be placed in the U.S. Capitol, and the House is expected to approve the resolution on Monday.

If passed, the resolution would once again return Churchill to a prime spot in the nation's capitol. President Obama in 2009 famously returned a bust of Churchill that was in the White House back to Britain, sparking complaints that Obama seemed to be diminishing the primacy of the U.S.-British relationship.

Just after passing the rule for the payroll tax holiday bill in a partisan vote, members of the House quickly approved two non-controversial bills:

H.R. 3246, naming a post office in Missouri. Passed 415-0.

S. 384, extending the authority of the U.S. Postal Service to raise funds for breast cancer research. Passed 417-1.

"I guess we'll become the first developed nation on earth without a postal service," Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said.

The House next week will approve a resolution that names a room on the House side of the Capitol Visitor Center after Gabriel Zimmerman, the staffer for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) who died in the Jan. 8 attacks that nearly cost Giffords her life.

The resolution, H.Res. 364, is co-sponsored by 367 members and sponsored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), one of Giffords's closest friends in the House.

The House voted Monday night to name three more post offices, one in Massachusetts, one in Texas, and one in New York.

By a 385-0 vote, the House approved S. 1412, which names a post office in Woburn, Massachusetts after Office John Maguire. Members also approved H.R. 298 in a 391-0 vote; that bill names a post office in Cedar Park, Texas after Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris.

And by a 390-0 vote, the House passed H.R. 2422, which names a post office in State Island, New York, after Sergeant Angel Mendez.

These votes ended legislative work in the House for Monday, and members started evening speeches soon afterwards.

The House adjourned just before 6 p.m., and will return at 6:30 p.m. for eight votes on bills naming post offices and one courthouse.

Before adjourning, members approved H.R. 588 by voice vote. That bill redesignates the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge as the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuse.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Tuesday introduced legislation that would allow federal block grants that states now use to subsidize child-care services to also allow for the purchase of diapers and "diapering supplies."

The bill, S. 1778, would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to allow diapers and related supplies to be bought with grant money provided to states. Under current law, the money is meant to subsidize child-care services to parents who are entering the labor force or are in job training and education programs. It also helps subsidize child-care services for certain eligible families.

The two parties sparred over the proliferation of voter identification laws across the country.