Unanimous Consent Request -- H.R. 3230

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I grew up in an Air Force family. My dad served in World War II in the Army Air Corps, and as I have mentioned on this floor many times, he continued to serve for 31 years in the U.S. Air Force.

As fate would have it, he was transferred to Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan right after my junior year in high school. So I graduated from high school in Japan, and I became acquainted with this 17th century stylized form of drama and dancing called kabuki.

The thing about kabuki is that the audience oohs and aahs as the actors demonstrate their great skill at carrying out this stylized form of drama and dance. What we have seen on this government shutdown, contrived as it is, is a form of kabuki. We know exactly what is happening.

The Senate, under the majority leader, has turned down at least four--and now here today four more--proposals from the House of Representatives to try to mitigate some of the hardship as a result of their determination to protect the special congressional carve-out from ObamaCare--which was tabled the other day at the instance of the majority leader--as well as to deny average Americans the same opportunity the President has unilaterally given to employers to delay the implementation of ObamaCare for 1 year when it comes to the individual mandate.

That is what the majority has objected to. That is what the majority leader in a party-line vote has tabled, and that is the only reason we are engaged in a government shutdown--because of their refusal to accept those reasonable conditions from the House of Representatives.

So this is kabuki as we in America understand it. We all understand the dance. We understand this is a form of drama. But the problem is the American people are suffering either hardship or great inconvenience as a result of the unwillingness of the President of the United States to negotiate and the hard-line ``my way or the highway'' position of the majority party.

I ask my colleagues who are on the floor--both of whom served with great distinction in the House of Representatives--whether they believe the House has acted in good faith, whether they have tried to resolve this impasse by sending over to the Senate reasonable pieces of legislation which, if accepted by the majority, could break this impasse and reopen the Federal Government.

I ask the Senator from Missouri to respond first.

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I heard the assistant leader on the Democratic side, the majority side, yesterday make what I thought was a very impassioned speech on behalf of access to research that is provided by the NIH for children who are suffering from cancer. I ask the Senator from Missouri, would the bill the House has passed and the Senator asked consent the Senate consider address the very same sort of cancer research for children the assistant majority leader was arguing for yesterday?

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Mr. CORNYN. I ask the Senator from South Dakota, I know South Dakota has a lot of uniformed military. The Senator has already addressed a piece of legislation that has passed the House and come over here. Is it the Senator's impression that the House is trying to address some of the hardships--inconvenience in some cases, hardships in others--that are caused by the government shutdown? In his experience, are they being reasonable in demonstrating good faith in trying to break this impasse?

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Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senators from South Dakota and from Missouri for making very important points. I know the leaders--bicameral leadership of the House and the Senate--were called to the White House last night, at which time Senator McConnell, the distinguished Republican leader, reported here on the floor, the President announced he was not going to negotiate. Bizarre. Why would the President call the Republican and the Democratic leadership to the White House to say: I am not going to negotiate. Is it for a photo opportunity? Is it to give sort of some false impression that he is actually rolling up his sleeves and is engaged in the business of government to which he was elected?

I hope the President reconsiders leaving town while the government is shut down, in the words of the majority leader, and leaving for a trip to Asia while, as our distinguished Democratic colleagues just pointed out, many federal employees are furloughed during this government shutdown. My hope would be that the President would cancel his trip and that he would stay here in Washington, as we are, trying to solve this problem and break this impasse.

These proposals we have made here today, many of which have been voted on by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan fashion, are designed to do exactly that--to break this impasse. Yet what is the response of the White House to some earlier proposals? They sent out a Statement of Administration Policy saying: If it is passed, I would veto it. That is President Barack Obama. How is that rolling up your sleeves and being engaged in the job you got elected to? He earned it. He was elected twice as President of the United States. But it is not leadership to convene a meeting of Republican and Democratic leadership at the White House and say: I am not going to negotiate. And by the way, I am leaving town on Saturday. Good luck.

That leads me to conclude that the President and his party are actually enjoying this shutdown because they see this as partisan political gain. They read the public opinion polls, just as we do, but I do not think the American people should be fooled and they are not being fooled. House Republicans and Republicans in the Senate have made many reasonable proposals, only to be given the Heisman, and the President is not negotiating and the government remains shut down.

The President needs to stay here, demonstrate leadership, continue to meet with leaders on both sides of the Capitol, and we can break through this impasse, get the money for children's cancer research, get the money for the troops, and open the World War II Memorial to the Honor Flights coming from Texas and around the country. We can do this. They call it self-government for a reason. We all ought to be working together toward that end.

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