Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Providing An Update On Bipartisan Appropriations Legislation

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the Senate’s good progress over the last few weeks on bipartisan appropriations legislation and the need to stop Republicans’ poison-pill amendments. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Over the course of this week, I’ve worked closely with Democratic and Republican appropriators to move forward on the bipartisan Senate appropriations process.

We’ve made a lot of progress this week trying to reach an agreement on amendments. We’re getting close to an agreement, but we’re not there yet so we’ll keep working today.

Here in the Senate, unlike the chaos of the House, most members on both sides want to see bipartisanship, because that is the only way things move forward in a divided government. And the Appropriations Committee, under leadership of Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins, have done a very good job passing out all the bills with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, many of them unanimously.

But there’s one crucial point missing: when we came to agreement to move these bills, both sides committed to stopping poison pill amendments, because that would risk upending this process.

Sadly, a small group on the other side have tried adding poison pills and we’ve been dealing with them over the last few weeks.

I am optimistic that we will work through these poison pills and pass these bipartisan bills soon.

Democrats made a commitment to our Republican colleagues to pursue regular order as much as possible, because we want to get these appropriations bills done.

We have committed to having debates and votes on relevant, non-poison pill amendments. I think there are thirty-nine or so lined up.

But, while we are getting close, the work is not done.

We’re going to keep working today. If people want to know why it’s moving slowly, it’s because of Republican insistence on poison pill amendments. But that’s not going to stop us. We're going to keep moving forward and we're going to try to vote on amendments soon.

So, once again, thank you to the whole Appropriations Committee on both sides. I am optimistic we can get this done.

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