On House Floor, Rep. Summer Lee Condemns GOP Child Care Bill, Calls for Passage of ‘Child Care for Working Families Act’

Floor Speech Video

WASHINGTON, D.C.- JANUARY 13, 2026 - Today, Congresswoman Summer L. Lee (PA-12), a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, delivered a speech on the House Floor highlighting the nation's childcare crisis and opposing Republican legislation that would undermine workers' ability to afford care, particularly those working overtime.

In her remarks, Rep. Lee offered a motion to recommit the GOP bill back to committee and noted that, if House rules permitted it, the motion would include an amendment to replace the bill's text with the Child Care for Working Families Act. In July, Rep. Lee reintroduced the Child Care for Working Families Act alongside Ranking Member Bobby Scott, House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, and Senators Patty Murray, Chuck Schumer, Mazie Hirono, Andy Kim, and Tim Kaine. In her floor speech, Rep. Lee urged her colleagues to pass this bill.

A video of the floor speech can be found here, and a copy of the transcript is below.

TRANSCRIPT: Rep. Summer Lee Condemns GOP Child Care Bill, Calls for Passage of Child Care for Working Families Act

Mr. Speaker,

We have a child care crisis in this country. In my home state of Pennsylvania, infant and toddler care costs an average of fourteen-thousand dollars per year. That's almost half the average annual salary of child care workers in my district.

Child care-if folks can even find it-is pushing families into poverty as they are forced to make impossible choices between paying the rent or paying for care, between staying employed or staying home.

Republicans are doing everything in their power to undermine investments in child care, including with this bill, which will allow employers to exclude child care benefits from overtime pay. Employees working overtime are the ones who need child care the most, and this bill undermines workers' ability to pay for that care.

For this reason, at the appropriate time I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would replace the text of this bill with the "Child Care for Working Families Act."

I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record the text of this amendment.

My legislation with Ranking Member Bobby Scott would make sure families actually have access to child care slots, that no family spends more than seven percent of their income on child care, and that all early childhood educators make a livable wage.

If Republicans actually care about children and families, I encourage them to pass the "Child Care for Working Families Act."

I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit. I yield back.

Congresswoman Summer Lee serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Education and Workforce. Since taking office in January 2023, she has delivered historic levels of federal investment totaling over $2.4 Billion brought back to Western PA, including over $580 million for infrastructure, over $110 million for affordable transit, over $500 million to keep clean energy manufacturing at home in Pennsylvania, and over $55 million on clean energy efforts in and around schools to help keep our kids and communities safe. These investments will help improve Western Pennsylvania's infrastructure and transit, ensure cleaner air and drinking water, lower housing costs, fund research institutions, fuel clean manufacturing, fund STEM innovation and entrepreneurship, boost workforce development, and create thousands of good paying union jobs.  Lee and her team have also delivered casework and constituent services to over 3,000 constituents with issues ranging from helping our seniors and disabled community access Medicare and social security to helping folks secure housing and helping families with immigration support and passports.