[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14595-14596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               COMMENTS OF THE SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I confess that I came to the floor to talk 
about some of the nominations that we are going to see coming from the 
administration, particularly regarding one of our colleagues, Senator 
Sessions, the Senator from Alabama, to be the next Attorney General.
  I am somewhat taken aback by the nature of the comments that I hear

[[Page 14596]]

coming from the Senator from Massachusetts. I had to refresh my memory 
of the Senate Standing Rules, which I thought prohibited this sort of 
ad hominem attack--the claims of corruption, selling legislation for 
campaign contributions. I thought the rules of decorum of the Senate 
prohibited that sort of demagoguery.
  But I am not sure you can write a rule that would prohibit somebody 
who is actually determined to defy the very voters they claim to be 
representing. If our Democratic colleagues like the result of the 
election that just occurred on November 8, I would say: Keep on keeping 
on. Keep on with this same sort of ad hominem attacks and attacking the 
motivation of people, rather than talking about policy.
  I thought that is what the Senate was supposed to be all about--not 
where we come in here and call each other names. It is no wonder that 
the American people are turned off by what they see as politics as 
usual. I think what they told us on November 8 is that they actually 
would like to see us accomplish some things--first of all, starting 
with listening to them, not telling them what is good for them and 
saying: Well, if you don't like it, you are going to have to take it 
because the people in power, the people working in Washington, the 
elites in America know better than you do what is good for you.
  So when I hear the Senator from Massachusetts come in and give 
essentially a political speech, such as she did, not talking about the 
merits or the policy but rather making personal attacks against 
Senators and people who support the policy, I just think this is 
beneath the dignity of the Senate.
  I would hope we would rise to the occasion, in the wake of this 
historic election and say: You know what, we can do better. The 
American people deserve better than what they have been getting coming 
out of Washington. The only way we are going to be able to turn this 
country around is by, first of all, listening to what the American 
people are telling us. We know what they said is this: We are not happy 
with the direction of the country, and we are not happy with what is 
happening in Washington.
  To come in and make the kind of speeches that I just heard a moment 
ago is disturbing. It is disappointing. We can do better than that. We 
must do better than that if we are going to regain the confidence of 
the American people that we are actually worthy of their support as we 
try to guide this ship of state and try to pass laws that actually will 
improve the quality of their lives by growing the economy, by making it 
possible for people to find work who want work so they can provide for 
their families, to try to make sure that the American people are safe 
and secure, and to provide for our common defense.
  Those are the sorts of things we ought to be focused on. So it is a 
little distressing to walk into this Chamber, in what used to be known 
as the world's greatest deliberative body, and to hear the sort of 
diatribe and the personal attacks and the name calling that we just 
heard from the Senator from Massachusetts.

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