The Amendment Process

Floor Speech

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, before I came to the Senate, I read in the history and civics books that the Senate was called the world's greatest deliberative body, where anybody with a good idea or even a bad idea at least had an opportunity to talk about it, offer an amendment or legislation, and get a vote. That is what was meant by ``the world's greatest deliberative body.''

Unfortunately, the Senate has become virtually unrecognizable to those of us who began our tenure under the previous leadership of the Senate.

Simply put, we have gone from an institution that legislates, that debates the great ideas to solve the problems and challenges of this great democracy to one that has become a killing floor for good ideas.

We have had at least three bipartisan bills in the last few weeks the majority leader has stopped because he has refused the opportunity for Republicans in the minority and the Democrats in the majority to offer any amendments and to get votes.

I think about the Shaheen-Portman bill, the energy conservation bill, the tax extenders bill for the expiring 50 or so tax provisions, and the appropriations bill that recently was on the Senate floor. All of these pieces of legislation enjoy bipartisan support. So one would think, in a dysfunctional Senate, at least those kinds of bills would have the opportunity to get debate, amendment, and passage.

That is not the case because the majority leader insists on a ``my way or the highway'' mentality. In essence, he wants to be the traffic cop who decides whose ideas get to be debated, what amendments get to be offered, and what votes get to occur.

As one Senator from a State that represents 26 million constituents, I refuse to participate in a process where the majority leader from Nevada gets to tell my constituents what kind of amendments I get to offer on their behalf. It is unacceptable. This is not the Senate I joined when I got here nor a Senate any of us should be proud of.

Shortly after I got to the Senate, Republicans became the majority party. I always tell my friends and constituents back home, being in the majority is a lot more fun than being in the minority. But back then it was understood by both parties that the price of being in the majority, and recognizing and respecting the minority did have rights, is that you had to take some tough votes on amendments, but after all that is why we are here. That is part of the price we pay for serving in the Senate--to vote sometimes on things we would prefer not to vote on and sometimes we have to take tough votes.

Like it or not, that is how the Senate used to operate. Both Republicans and Democrats alike recognized that allowing an open amendment process was about guaranteeing that all Americans--all Americans--those represented by Senators in the majority and those represented by Senators in the minority--that all Americans acting through their elected representatives had a voice and a vote on the Senate floor.

Sadly, under the current majority leader, the amendment process has become a distant memory. Again, this is not just about a Senator's prerogative. This isn't about just the process or procedure. This is about our constitutional form of governance, where every State has two Senators and every Senator has the prerogative to represent their constituents to the best of their ability.

Here is a sad statistic: Since last July, nearly 1 year ago, we have had rollcall votes on a mere nine minority amendments; that is, among the 45 of us who sit on this side of the Chamber, we have only had a chance for nine rollcall votes on amendments.

Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, our friends in the House held rollcall votes on more than 160 minority amendments.

In other words, Republicans control the House; Democrats control the Senate. But in the Democratic-controlled Senate, the minority had nine votes on amendments. In the Republican-controlled House, the minority got 160 votes on amendments.

So this isn't just about our being denied amendments. The fact is and what I can't understand is why majority party Democrats are willing to stand by and allow the majority leader to deny their rights and to deny their constituents a voice and a vote on the important work done in the Senate.

Since July, we have actually had fewer rollcall votes on Democratic amendments than on Republican amendments. Imagine. I understand being in the minority--and being in the minority means not often getting your way, but if I was in the majority and the majority leader was shutting me out and my constituents out and denying us a chance to have votes on amendments--and I am a Member of the majority party--I think I would have some tough explanations to give to my constituents about why I was not allowed to be effective as their representative in the Senate.

But here is an even more shocking scenario. For freshman Democrats--people newly elected to the Senate--this is what Politico said yesterday:

Since joining the Senate in January 2013, the 12 freshmen Democrats have not had a single vote on the floor on any amendment bearing any of their names as the lead sponsor.

That is shocking to me. So none of the 12 freshman Democrats--Members of the majority party--have had a single vote on any of their amendments that bear their name as the lead sponsor since 2013--not a single vote.

Their constituents, the majority party, completely shut out of the process because of the dictatorship on the floor of the Senate of the majority leader.

Over that same period, during the 113th Congress, for example, the junior the Senator from Alaska, the senior Senator from Arkansas, the senior Senator from Colorado, the senior Senator from New Mexico, and the junior Senator from Montana have not had a single rollcall vote on an amendment that bears their name as the lead sponsor.

For that matter, according to The Hill, the junior Senator from Alaska ``has never received a roll-call vote on an amendment he's offered on the Senate floor ever.'' Shocking. So not one time in his Senate career has the junior Senator from Alaska received a rollcall vote on the Senate floor because of the way the majority leader has run the Senate. He has been denied the opportunity to be effective on behalf of the people he represents in the Senate--and he is a Member of the majority party.

It has gotten so bad, according to the same Politico article I cited a moment ago, that the junior Senator from New Jersey recently asked one of his Democratic colleagues whether voting on Presidential nominees was all the Senate did. He could be forgiven for thinking that because that seems like all we do these days.

In addition, the junior Senator from Connecticut said: ``I got more substance on the floor of the House in the minority than I've gotten as a member of the Senate majority.''

Again--I repeat myself--these are Democrats, Members of the majority party who have been shut out of the process. Their party controls the Chamber, yet this debate is obviously not about party control or individual Members, but it is about making sure that millions upon millions of Americans should have their voices heard in the Senate. It is about giving us a chance on their behalf to represent them in this body.

I am encouraged to read that some of my colleagues across the aisle are starting to push back against the majority leader's tyranny. I would urge them to continue pushing back and to continue to remind the majority leader that putting up a legislative blockade is not only bad for the minority party and the Republicans, it is bad for the majority party and the people they represent, too.

In conclusion, I would say that in addition to the amendment issue I have spoken about for the last 10 minutes or so, there are no fewer than 284--284--House-passed bills that are awaiting consideration here in the Senate--284. Do you not think that among those 284 bills there is just one or two or three decent ideas that might be debated, perhaps improved upon, by an open amendment process in the Senate that we should take up and consider?

Many of these are jobs bills, the type of legislation that would help promote economic growth and, boy, we sure could use some economic growth because the economy is contracting, not growing, which means that jobs are scarce and people are hurting. There are bills that would expand opportunity and increase family income. At a time of mass unemployment and stagnant wages, where the median household income has gone down by nearly $2,300 since June of 2009, it is simply outrageous that the majority leader has refused to take up any one of those 284 bills that have passed the House, most of which had bipartisan support. It is outrageous he has refused to let us take up those bills, many of which would help the millions of Americans who are currently looking for a job who cannot find a job. The American people, after all, are the reason why we are here, and they are the ones who are suffering the most from the majority leader's autocratic rule. They deserve better, and it is time all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, demanded that.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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