We're nearing the halfway point of the 117th Congress, and it’s time to look back and see what our Democratic colleagues, now in the majority, have accomplished.
Unfortunately, we've seen a lot of wasted valuable time, the ignoring of critical tasks, and failing to meet some of the most basic requirements of governing.
Presented with this reality of an evenly-split Congress, our colleagues can make a choice whether to try to work together and build consensus and do things that can actually pass, or continue down this pathway of purely partisan attempts to legislate. The choice is theirs.
WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed Senate Democrats’ lack of progress on some of the chamber’s most important functions and misguided focus on messaging instead of legislating. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.
“We’re nearing the halfway point of the 117th Congress, and it’s time to look back and see what our Democratic colleagues, now in the majority, have accomplished. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of wasted valuable time, the ignoring of critical tasks, and failing to meet some of the most basic requirements of governing.”
“Our colleagues used the first few months of the year to ram through a partisan $2 trillion spending bill, and then they wasted the summer on the Majority Leader’s designed-to-fail agenda. It wasn’t about actually getting anything done. It was about messaging.”
“Then they threw it in cruise control this fall, refusing to let the Senate vote on anything other than low-level nominees and, again, those messaging bills.”
“Well, unsurprisingly, this partisan approach to governing – despite the fact that we have an evenly-divided Senate and perhaps even an evenly-divided government – this partisan approach, unsurprisingly, did not lead to great results.”
“Our colleagues, though, do control the Senate, the House, and the White House, and every aspect of the legislative process is under their control. So they bear responsibility for the delay in the defense authorization bill, they bear responsibility for not passing regular appropriations, and they bear responsibility for these concerns that have been expressed by reaching the debt limit.”
“Presented with this reality of an evenly-split Congress, our colleagues can make a choice whether to try to work together and build consensus and do things that can actually pass, or continue down this pathway of purely partisan attempts to legislate. The choice is theirs.”