WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) criticized the Majority Leader for holding election-year show votes on broadly supported issues instead of using the Senate’s time to advance legislation like Sen. Cornyn’s bipartisan Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act, which Sen. Schumer has refused to bring to the floor for a vote despite it passing the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously 16 months ago. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.  

“The Senate has its first vote of the week coming up in a few minutes, and I’m experiencing a sense of déjà vu…This week, the Majority Leader has teed up three votes on President Biden’s nominees, followed by another partisan show vote on in vitro fertilization—another made-up controversy.”

“In vitro fertilization provides hope for couples across the United States who are struggling to grow their families, and it’s helped millions of babies enter this world.”

“I support IVF, which has been a solution for millions of families struggling with infertility. But, Mr. President, there’s no nationwide threat to the availability of in vitro fertilization, and I’m deeply disappointed—but not surprised—that Democrats are trying to politicize something that enjoys such widespread support.”

“After all, this is a third partisan show vote that we’ve had recently. Last week, the Senate voted on a handful of nominees and held another show vote on a nonexistent threat to contraception access.”

“The previous week included votes on several nominees and, this time, another show vote on a partisan border bill that the Majority Leader knew would fail, but decided to have a show vote anyway.”

“Including this week, we’re scheduled to be in session for five weeks—five weeks—before adjourning for the August recess. In total, we’re only scheduled to be in session eight weeks before the November election, which is almost five months away.”

“There are countless bipartisan bills that deserve a vote by the Senate, but the Majority Leader is simply disinterested.”

“The American people deserve better. This is supposed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body but, lately, we haven’t had the opportunity to deliberate on anything really of substance.”