From the Office of:

Representative S. Jones Zecher

Maryland 8

House Committee on Homeland Security

To the Great Eighth District of Maryland,

As your representative to the 116th Congress, I am writing this letter to update you on all of our
successes during this legislative session. I am happy to report that we have had very few
changes during this session.

My primary goal during the session was to start a conversation about the Coronavirus.
Something that over the last few weeks has shown to be a very serious matter. The virus is not
as prevalent in our state yet but it is continuously growing and will very soon be a problem for
my constituents as well. I helped work on an omnibus bill that provided funding for additional
testing upon arrival in the U.S., set up modular housing units on available land for people who
have contracted the virus. Another part of the bill was to educate schools and prepare for
precautionary measures.

A bill that I supported and fought for was the PREVENT Bill. This wasa bill focused on fighting
the opioid epidemic currently important in our nation. Too many people are dying each day from
opioid overdose. Doctors tend to over prescribe these highly addictive painkillers and that
needs to stop. This state is rated top 5 for opioid-related deaths. Since 1999 the amount of
overdoses has been growing. This bill was received well by my fellow representatives and,
when another amendment tried to override this provision, I quickly Struck it down. This bill was
eventually combined with another, similar opioid bill and it created an Omnibus Bill, taking
provisions from both of the bills to make it better. This Omnibus Bill was signed by the president
on March 6th, 2020. A veto override was not necessary. I am happy to announce that anybody
in our community will soon have access to help and a support system.

The Higher Education Child Care Act was introduced to the House of Representatives. This Bill
provided all public high schools and Community Colleges to have daycare for students with
children. There was a lot of debate on this bill, because it was clear that the bill was still in
rough draft form. This bill needed to be reviewed more or sent back to committee. When
questions were about the bill's funding and its impact on our nation's fiscal policy, the
representative sponsoring the bill could not answer. I know education is important to all of my
constituents, I found that I could not support a bill that was not clearly thought out.

Lastly, a bill that I was opposed to was the IRAN bill. This was a bill that would give the power to
the president to use armed forces in Iran to take out the nuclear arsenal. If the president were
to activate these powers, this would cause another endless war in the Middle East.This isn't
needed because the president already has many of these powers due to the War Powers Act.
Although I supported the Feingold-Black Amendment to change this bill to say that Congress
should be the ones who are able to send the troops, I voted no for the entire bill. This bill would
send aggressive messages to a foreign military power and I can’t support that. Congress
already has the power to declare war or send troops, whenever we see fit. All this bill would be
doing would be declaring our aggression and trying to intimidate a foreign power. Along with the
majority of the House of Representatives, I found that this bill did not hold enough positives.

During this legislative session we accomplished many things together we passed the permit
Bill, stopped the Iran Bill, and began the process of getting the CARE Act, along with many
other things. While my bill is not officially brought to the floor, if you continue to elect me, I will
continue to fight for it and many others like it.

Respectfully,

Sierra Jones Zecher