Business Before the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, all week, as we all know, Senators have worked together to move forward on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Since the text of the bipartisan proposal was finalized on Sunday, both sides have had extensive opportunities to offer amendments. Senators have certainly taken advantage.

So far, the Senate has considered 22 amendments on this bipartisan piece of legislation. We considered 14 amendments yesterday alone. Of the 22 total amendments, more than half have been offered by our Republican colleagues. Clearly, the Democratic majority has given Members who were not part of the bipartisan group a chance to make their mark on this important bill.

Taking a step back, this Senate has operated much differently under Democratic leadership this year than it did under Republican leadership over the past 6. We have had bipartisan bills on the floor, open for amendment, and all 100 Senators are participating in the legislative process. The anti-Asian hate crimes bill and the USICA bill were both major bills that worked in a bipartisan way with amendments, as is this bill.

We have taken more amendment votes this year than nearly any year in recent memory. In fact, we have had more rollcall votes on amendments this year, only halfway through, than during the past 2 years, where the Republicans were in charge, combined. In other words, in one-half of the year in 2021, where Democrats got in charge, we have had more amendments than in all of 2019 and 2020. So any talk that we are not working the Senate, whenever we can, in a fair, bipartisan way is just wrong--just wrong.

Consider this: At this point in the calendar year in 2017, the first year of a Republican President and a Republican Senate majority--a one- to-one comparison to our current political configuration--the Senate held rollcall votes on 10 amendments--10--at this point in the first year of the Trump Presidency. On this bipartisan infrastructure bill alone, the Senate has held rollcall votes on 17 amendments. In 7 months, the 2017 Republican majority allowed rollcall votes on only 10 amendments, and we have done almost double that number in the past 7 days alone.

This is how I promised the Chamber would function under a Democratic majority. I promised it while we were fighting to get that majority, and we are fulfilling that promise now that we have it Legislators should actually have a chance to legislate. No one can deny that we kept our word here in the Democratic majority.

Today, we will consider even more amendments, and then, hopefully, we can bring this bill to a close very shortly. Our goal is to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget resolution during this work period, and we will stay here to get both done.

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