WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor calling on the Majority Leader to allow the Senate to function again through real debate and an open amendment process:

“The American people send us to Washington to debate serious issues. They expect us to take our jobs seriously and to develop effective solutions to the issues that matter to them.

“That’s our charge.

“And throughout our nation’s history, the Senate has been the place where the weightiest issues have been discussed and debated — and in many cases resolved.

“It’s where we wrestled with whether or not to go to war.

“It’s where we passed landmark bipartisan legislation like the Civil Rights Act, the G.I. Bill, and the Welfare Reform Act.

“But over the past several years, and very vividly in the past several months, that proud history has started to erode.

“Instead of a forum for debate and resolution of the most pressing domestic and international issues facing our nation, it’s become fodder for late-night TV. When the American people turn on C-SPAN these days, they don’t often see a Majority Party driving serious debate on the issues of the day. They hear bizarre monologues about greased pigs and a couple of Kansans the Majority Leader seems to see around every corner. They see a daily display of absurd political theater that has almost no relevance at all to their daily lives.

“It’s disgraceful.

“But it’s no surprise either, since the Democrat Majority clearly ran out of ideas a long time ago.

“Their refusal to engage in serious debate is just another symptom of that.

“Senate Democrats are afraid to expose their party’s empty playbook — so they play games instead.

“They fill the time with aimless diatribes against private citizens and legislative theatrics that are more about satisfying their liberal patrons than addressing the real concerns and anxieties of the American Middle Class.

“It’s all about revving up the Far Left for them so they’ll show up in November and save the President ’s Senate majority. That’s their hope at least.

“But the larger point is this: as Washington Democrats seek to preserve their hold on power, they’ve become increasingly untethered from the daily concerns of average Americans.

“That’s why you’re seeing the Senate lose its sense of purpose. And that’s why you’re not seeing any real debates.

“Instead of listening to the needs of the Middle Class, they dance to the tune of the Left.

“That’s why you see Senate Democrats pushing legislation that could cost up to a million jobs – at a time when the Middle Class is practically begging us to help create jobs.

“That’s why you see Senate Democrats basically boasting that their legislative agenda was drafted by campaign staffers with no shame at all.

“And that’s why you see Senate Democrats killing job creation bills the House sends us, without even so much as a vote.

“No wonder the American people are so disgusted with Washington.

“Wouldn’t you be?

“The Majority’s antics this week were particularly shameful.

“They shook their fists and declared that global warming was the most important issue of our age – that to stand in the way of their preferred solutions would be, at best, immoral.

“They shouted it from the rooftops – and, presumably, sent emails to Left-wing supporters to let them know just how serious they were and how Republicans were somehow holding things up.

“What they didn’t tell their supporters was that the Democrats’ own Majority Leader, who also spoke forcefully on the issue yesterday, has been blocking the Senate from voting on global warming legislation for years.

“Why?

“Because he doesn’t want his fellow Senate Democrats to have to take a tough vote – and because he knows it could never pass a chamber Democrats control anyway. Like I said, almost everything’s become a show in the Senate now.

“The needs of the Middle Class are simply lost in the shuffle. And the institution itself is trivialized. It’s diminished.

“The Senate used to be a place where we discussed the pressing issues of the day.

“We’d be able to do so again, if the Senate floor weren’t being used as a campaign studio.

“On Iran, Republicans have tried for months to debate and vote on additional sanctions to put an end to its nuclear program. We know that a huge bipartisan majority would vote for increased sanctions if the Majority Leader would only allow the bill to come to the floor. But he won’t.

“Just like he stopped us from voting to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline yesterday, resulting in headlines like this one from the AP: ‘Democratic leader blocks Senate vote on Keystone.’

“In fact, at a time when we should’ve been debating energy, the Majority Leader refused to allow a single Republican amendment on energy this week.

“As I’ve noted in recent days, the Republican-led House has offered Democrats 125 roll call votes on their amendments since last July. Here in the Senate, the Majority Leader has allowed us just 9.

“But let me put a finer point on that. Democrats in the House have received more than twice as many roll call votes on energy-related amendments alone as we have received on all amendments since July.

“That’s not the way this body was meant to function.

“And it’s disrespectful to the millions of American citizens represented on the Republican side of the aisle.

“They deserve a chance to be heard.

“The way the Senate operates these days is a travesty.

“No real debate, no amendments, and no respect for the millions of Americans represented by the minority party.

“It’s become an arm of the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee.

“We owe the American people so much better than that.

“It’s time to focus on the Middle Class again – to let go of the obsession with the Far Left and the next election. It’s time for the Senate to be the Senate again.”