WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) called out the Democratic Majority Leader for refusing to bring appropriations bills to the floor on a timely basis and warned he would be to blame should the government shut down. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“Earlier this week the Majority Leader, the Senator from New York, spoke about the Senate appropriations process thus far, and he referred to it as the ‘gold standard in good governance.’”

“Given the fact that we’re 16 days from a government shutdown, unless the House and the Senate can agree on a continuing resolution, I would say this is far from the gold standard.”

“Senator Murray, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Collins, the ranking member… all 28 Senators on a bipartisan basis did their job.”

“This whole process was designed to fail because the Majority Leader refused to bring those bills to the floor on a timely basis.”

“While the Majority Leader has preached the virtues of regular order, he’s refused to actually engage in a process where we can be successful.”

“If the government shuts down at the end of the month, the Majority Leader won’t be able to escape the blame for what will be a ‘Schumer shutdown.’”