Schumer Floor Remarks: Until We See The Real Bill, Democrats Will Offer No Further Amendments

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks on the Senate floor announcing Senate Democrats will offer no further amendments until Senate Republicans offer their final piece of legislation. Below are his remarks:

Mr. President, I rise this evening to announce that Democrats will offer no further amendments to the pending legislation until the Republican Leader shows us what the final legislation will be.

Clearly the Senate Republican bill – repeal and replace – has failed. Sen. Paul’s bill – repeal without replace – has failed. We know the Republicans are not going to take a final vote on the underlying House bill, which is still the pending legislation.

And now the Republican leadership team, unmistakably at the direction of the Leader, has been telling the press about a yet-to-be-disclosed final bill.                                            

If the reports are true, the Republicans will offer a “skinny” repeal plan. We just heard from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that under such a plan, as reported in the press, 16 million Americans would lose their health insurance and millions more would pay a 20% increase in their premiums. At least 20%

And I want to thank Senators Murray and Wyden for working with the CBO so that we could figure out what is exactly going on if this skinny bill is the bill that’s brought to the floor.

My Republican friends come to the floor every day to assail the problem of high premiums. If the reporting is accurate, and skinny repeal is their plan, it actually makes premiums far higher than they are today.

We don’t know if skinny repeal is going to be their final bill, but if it is, the CBO says it would cause costs to go up, and tens of millions would lose insurance.

In the meantime, Democrats are not going to continue trying to amend the House plan that is already dead. Certainly we’re not going to do that while there is some secret legislation –skinny repeal, its reported -- waiting to emerge from the Leader’s office.

The Republican Leader has said that this is a robust amendment process. No it isn’t. Far from it. We don’t even know what bill to direct our amendments to. Certainly, a process that bypassed the committees and public hearings was never an open and transparent process. There was never a robust amendment process to this bill, but now it’s gotten even worse. Since the beginning of debate, we’ve just been taking votes on amendments to a piece of dead legislation.

What kind of process is this? Anyone who listened, as we all did so intently to Sen. McCain’s wonderful speech yesterday and applauded the sentiment about getting back to regular order and proper procedure should blush at this sham of an amendment process so far. We don’t even have a final bill to amend!

The idea that this is a robust amendment process, I would say to my dear friend the Leader, defies credulity. No one believes it. I’ll be not a single person on either side of the aisle believes it. So Democrats are not going to participate in this one-sided and broken process.

Once the Majority Leader shows his hand, reveals what his bill will actually be, Democrats will use our opportunity to try to amend the bill. But we have to see it first. And we ought to see it soon, in broad daylight, not at the 11th hour.

Until we see the real bill, Democrats will offer no further amendments.

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