John Cornyn: “as the Senate's schedule for this calendar year begins to wind down, hopefully with the anticipation of spending time…”

“as the Senate's schedule for this calendar year begins to wind down, hopefully with the anticipation of spending time with our friends and families during this holiday season, I want to look back over some of the deadlines that the majority leader, the Senator from New York, has set for Senate action and to ask whether these sort of arbitrary deadlines and attempts to do legislation essentially along party lines is the right way to actually get things done in the Senate. We have excellent examples of how to get things done. Today, we passed the Defense authorization bill with a strong bipartisan vote. But we know that when either political party decides to do things unilaterally, especially in a 50-50 Senate, it makes the work immeasurably harder, and that is for a good reason. The Founders of this country and our Constitution and the creators of this Senate looked to the Senate to be a deliberative body and looked for us to do what sometimes doesn't come naturally, which is to work together to build consensus. But, as I said, when one party or the other attempts to do things unilaterally, it usually means what you see here, which is one blown self-imposed deadline after another. First of all, the majority leader set a July 21 target for Senate action on a budget resolution.…”