WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) blasted the Democrat Majority Leader for refusing to allow the Senate to debate, amend, and vote on the individual spending bills passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee last summer. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“For the fourth time since last September, Congress is rushing to avert a government shutdown.”

“Responsibility for where we are today lies at the feet of the Majority Leader of the United States Senate.”

“The entire Appropriations Committee [has] produced bipartisan – in some cases, unanimous – appropriations bills that Senator Schumer has simply refused to put on the floor.”

“It’s just another example of how the Senate is broken.” 

“If we weren’t lurching from one crisis to the next, what other things might we do to benefit the American people?”

“Members of this body are charged to do the hard work of negotiating, debating, and passing bills to provide government agencies with on-time funding. It’s hard to do when Senator Schumer has us in session two-and-a-half days a week.” 

“When the Senate is dealing with overdue assignments, we don’t have the time to work on other critical issues that deserve our attention on behalf of the American people. We don’t have the ability to work on legislation to address the border crisis, the fentanyl epidemic, public safety concerns, or other issues that are top-of-mind for the American people.” 

“This is regrettably what we’ve come to expect under Democratic leadership.”