Heidi Alexander: “U.S. Senators shouldn't get an award for restoring the appropriations process any more than Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts…”

“U.S. Senators shouldn't get an award for restoring the appropriations process any more than Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts should get a merit badge for telling the truth because that is what we are supposed to do, but the fact is, last week and tonight we have taken an appropriations process, which has been incomplete and broken for the last several years, and we have done what we are supposed to do. Sometimes the U.S. Senate has been like joining the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. Senator McConnell said before he became majority leader in 2015 that his goal was to follow the example of the Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield, who was the leader when Mitch McConnell was a young legislative intern. Mitch McConnell said he wanted to open up the Senate, and for quite a while, that turned out to be the case. As Senator McConnell has said: In the last year of the Democratic majority in 2014, there were only 15 rollcall votes on amendments the entire year. In the first year of the Republican majority--that is 2015--there were over 200. One example from the committee of which I chair--the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--was the bill fixing No Child Left Behind. Working with Senator Murray, on the floor we considered 81 amendments. We had rollcall votes on 24, and we adopted 11. We had voice votes to accept 28, and we agreed to 27 amendments by unanimous consent. That was the bill to fix No Child Left Behind.…”