Capitol Hill Buzz: Mosquitoes on the House floor

“I rise with about 100 mosquitoes straight from Florida.mosquitoes capable of carrying the Zika virus”, Jolly said, holding the container.

“Members of Congress would run down the hall to the physician’s office to be tested”, he said.

Jolly said the time for partisan politics is over – although both sides are now arguing that the other side is playing political games. “This is the fear of Floridians, right here”.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a bill to fight Zika that would have also stripped funding for Planned Parenthood.

The larvae were grown at the University of South Florida, where researchers are studying the virus and trying to help find an eventual vaccine.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) criticized Senate Democrats on September 7 for filibustering a bill that would fund Zika virus prevention over a GOP provision that would block funding for Planned Parenthood in Puerto Rico. “Just so you know, the House did its job, and the Senate has been blatantly political with Zika funding”.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., criticized Senate Democrats’ vote Wednesday, calling on them to “drop” the politics. “We now have almost 17,000 Americans infected with Zika and we know that mosquitoes in the continental USA are carrying it, but too many in Washington don’t seem to care”.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans had “loaded it up with poison pill riders to assuage the hard right”. Jolly said he brought the mosquitoes to the House to convey the fear Floridians are feeling.

“People are scared”, Jolly said.

A Florida Republican exhausted of inaction on the Zika crisis attempt to scare his colleagues into passing a bill by bringing a jar of mosquitos from his home state. “The fact that candidates are going to spend money on commercials about Zika instead of responding together in a bipartisan, bicameral way in a divided government to a public health crisis – Americans understand that we are wasting time”.

Most headlines today blame Senate Democrats for the failure to stem the mosquito-borne virus.