Senate Accomplishments

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Just a few moments ago, the Senate passed a piece of legislation that some might ask: Well, what is the big deal? The Water Resources Development Act--what we call around here WRDA by the acronym--this bill is enormously important for States like North Dakota, places like Texas that have experienced flooding, in particular, but this bill will help us maintain and expand our infrastructure related to our most precious natural resource, and that is water.

Like I said, that might sound a little boring, not particularly interesting, but it actually has a lot of relevance to every American. Like I said last week, this legislation includes provisions that will help my constituents in Texas in a number of ways, from drought and flood protection to carving out deeper ports to enhance our ability to do international trade, but the passage of this bill serves as another example of what can happen when the Senate is actually working the way it is supposed to.

I am not going to suggest to you that just because the 2014 election gave Republicans the majority in the U.S. Senate that automatically made it possible for the Senate to begin functioning again, but the fact is, leadership does make a difference. I know it was absolutely key to Majority Leader McConnell's agenda that we would actually work in the committees to build consensus on legislation, and then they would come to the floor and people would have an opportunity to offer amendments and other constructive suggestions and we would work until we built that consensus and accomplished our goal of passing legislation.

It is worth reminding our colleagues that the Senate, under Senator McConnell's leadership, passed the first bicameral budget that we have passed since 2009 and the first balanced budget since 2001. Under a Republican-led Senate, all 12 appropriations bills were approved by their respective subcommittees and by the Appropriations Committee itself. As the Presiding Officer knows, the only way that happens is for the chair and the ranking member of the appropriate Appropriations subcommittee to work together on a bipartisan basis and then work with colleagues on the whole Appropriations Committee to come up with legislation they will support or that an overwhelming majority--in some cases unanimously--of the committee supports.

This is the first time since 2009 that we have actually seen all 12 appropriations bills approved by the subcommittees and then by the entire Appropriations Committee. That is the good news.

The bad news is, our Democratic colleagues wouldn't let us proceed with actually voting on those appropriations bills to get them done one at a time, in a transparent sort of way, where we would be held accountable for what we did, and it would be open to the American people to see exactly what we were doing.

The reason we are talking about a continuing resolution this week and next is because of the filibuster of the appropriations process. It didn't have to be that way. In fact, we were on track to funding the government the way we were supposed to, bill by bill. In spite of the filibuster on the appropriations bill, we have been able to find consensus on a number of other important pieces of legislation. This is legislation that will help American families, strengthen our economy, and help keep the American people secure. Importantly, these were bills that furthered what I believe to be the appropriate philosophy of the government; that is, Washington does not always know best, and that power needs to be devolved from the Federal Government in Washington back down to the States and back down to individual citizens.

For example, we passed the first major education reform bill since No Child Left Behind, a piece of legislation called the Every Student Succeeds Act. This bill does exactly what I just described. Under the chairmanship and the leadership of Senator Alexander and Ranking Member Murray, what this legislation did was it transferred more power with regard to public education, K-12, from Washington back to the States and back to parents and teachers--people who actually understand best what the educational needs of their students are and how to make sure they achieve their potential.

We also passed the first multiyear highway bill since 2005. Why is that important? Well, if you come from a fast-growing State like mine, a big State, the quality of highways and bridges are pretty darn important--not only important to public safety, they are important to the environment and they are important for the economy. But this is the first time we passed a multiyear highway bill since 2005. As I said, this legislation will help us maintain and build our infrastructure so we can keep up with economic and population growth and make the most of it. It will also provide certainty to our States and communities so they can actually plan for the future. As long as we were passing 6- month or yearlong Transportation bills, there was no way they could do long-term planning, which is more efficient and more cost-effective.

We also have done other important things. We passed trade promotion authority--working with the President--that defines the parameters of what Congress and the White House would agree to when it comes to trade agreements. I know ``trade'' has kind of become a little bit of a dirty word lately in Presidential politics, but I can tell you, in my State we see the benefits of our international trading ability every day. Six million jobs depend on binational trade with Mexico alone, and NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which basically tied together Canada, Mexico, and the United States, has been seen as a very positive move and has created a lot of jobs and economic growth.

We also reauthorized the Federal Aviation Administration--pretty darn important if you happen to fly.

We passed another piece of important legislation called the POLICE Act to support our local law enforcement officials and to make sure they get the training they need to respond to an active shooter situation--something that, sadly, more and more police find themselves confronted with these days.

We also had a tremendous vote--99 to 0--in the Senate on a bill called Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. I have said many times that sadly the profile of a victim of human trafficking is a girl between the ages of 12 and 14 years old, many of whom run away from home, only to find themselves living a life of literally modern-day slavery. This legislation was designed to make sure there were more resources available to help rescue those victims of human trafficking and to better equip law enforcement to track down their captors.

We also passed legislation that promotes a more transparent and open government and protects intellectual property rights, just to name a few.

Again, these may seem like small things in isolation, but they represent a major change in the way we do business here in the Senate-- actually working together on a bipartisan basis to solve problems and to get legislation on the President's desk and have him sign it. Now, you won't read very much about that because the news covers conflict. That is just the nature of the beast. When we fight like cats and dogs, it is all over the newspapers and on the Internet and on TV, but when we actually appear to be doing the work the American people sent us here to do, frankly, it is not particularly newsworthy, sadly enough.

We have other important work that is still outstanding as the Senate continues to make progress on a conference report on the Energy Policy Modernization Act, a bill this Chamber passed months ago thanks to the leadership of Senator Murkowski of Alaska and Ranking Member Cantwell. We also are close to finishing up our work on the National Defense Authorization Act. This is the major defense authorization bill that has been passed out of the Senate every year for more years than we can remember. Then the work we have to complete this week and next is to find a way to keep the government up and running and provide resources to communities to fight the Zika virus and to prevent the horrific birth defects that unfortunately are part of that disease.

I point out these accomplishments in an effort to just remind our colleagues and anybody who happens to be listening that we do try--not all the time but most of the time--to put politics aside, to focus on results, and to try to do things that benefit the American people.

I am thankful for the leadership of the majority leader. As I said earlier, leadership matters. Senator McConnell has worked hard to try to bring bills to the floor that did enjoy bipartisan support and, to the extent possible, to make sure everybody had a chance to participate in the process. It is that sort of vision and that sort of pragmatism which has brought us this record of success. I hope we continue to do that in the time we have left between now and the election and then when we return after the election to work together. I know it is tough work. It is frustrating. But it is worthwhile, and it is worth doing.

I don't see anybody ready to speak.

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