House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Martinez, this afternoon issued a scathing news release blasting Republicans for defeating the bipartisan GIVE Act, H.R. 5563, aimed at supporting and increasing the ranks of community service volunteers who perform essential services like mentoring at-risk young people, tutoring schoolchildren, improving public safety, and rebuilding communities devastated by natural disasters.

“The Republican leadership decided to hold community service programs hostage to its petty partisan political agenda,” said Miller. “The GIVE Act would have supported the tens of millions of Americans who improve their communities through community service and volunteerism, but Roadblock Republicans decided to stop the legislation for the sake of simple obstructionism. They should be ashamed of themselves. Democrats acted in a good-faith way to develop this legislation on a bipartisan basis, and Republicans chose to take the low road. This is exactly the kind of obstructionism that led voters to remove Republicans from power in 2006, and it shows that Republicans still aren’t serious about working to find solutions that solve America’s challenges.”

As Miller notes:

Here’s Miller talking up the bill:

Here’s Miller opening a can of whupa– on a Republican opponent:

And here’s the wrap-up: