WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) joined a press conference with Senate GOP leadership to discuss his work in spearheading the rules change to address Democrats’ historic obstruction of President Trump’s nominees and announce his intent to offer a resolution to pass via unanimous consent later today that was previously introduced by Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) and would allow for a group of nominees advanced out of the same Senate committee to be considered en bloc. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“Last November the 5th, President Trump won a historic second term of office, and the Democrats still haven’t gotten over that yet, and they have resisted each and every one of President Trump’s nominees, forcing us to eat up invaluable floor time where we could actually be doing other things on a bipartisan basis to advance the interests of the American people.” 

“The blockade ends today.”

“We will no longer tolerate Democrats’ efforts to blockade President Trump’s nominees and his agenda.” 

“This afternoon, I will offer for unanimous consent a bill that was authored by Amy Klobuchar, who was Chairman of the Rules Committee in the Senate, that would provide a process to vote for a number of nominees en bloc, or together.” 

“I predict, here and now, that they will block that effort to a bipartisan solution to confirm nominees on a reasonable basis.”

“We’re going to start the process, as Senator Thune said today. And by next Monday, I’m optimistic we’re going to be able to confirm a large portion of the backlog of President Trump’s nominees.”