[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 68 (Thursday, April 26, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S2450]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Appropriations Process

  Madam President, while we are speaking about bipartisanship, there is 
another bit of good news. There are two shoots of bipartisanship 
springing up today--the Judiciary Committee's action on preventing the 
President from firing Mueller and an agreement between Senator Shelby, 
Leader McConnell, and me to try to begin moving appropriations bills 
the way we used to--in a bipartisan way.
  We had a very good meeting yesterday in which we laid out the 
parameters of how to do this. We talked about not letting extraneous 
amendments disrupt the process. We talked about doing our job the way 
it used to be done--doing all of the appropriations bills this year and 
doing them in a bipartisan way, having the chairs and ranking members 
of the subcommittees work together to craft a bill that both sides can 
be happy with even though neither side will be happy with everything in 
it.
  I hope that it moves forward. I pledge to the Members of this body 
and to the American people that I am committed to making that process 
move forward in a fair, bipartisan way and to trying to restore some of 
the semblance of bipartisanship that we used to have in this place and 
bring it back to actual action and reality, not just verbiage.