Senate

Reid slams GOP over missed deadlines

by Jordain Carney - 07/07/15 3:15 PM ET

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) doubled down on criticism Tuesday of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) handling of the chamber’s schedule since Republicans took control in January.

“Senate Republicans seem to reject the idea of finishing on time. Instead, the Republican leader has repeatedly taken the Senate to the brink,” Reid said.

{mosads}Reid pointed to a missed deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the temporary expiration of a phone records collection program and, most recently, the expiration of the Export-Import Bank.

The Nevada Democrat said that each resulted in “consequences that hurt our country: lost productivity, volatile stock market, lapses in national security.”

Senators face another end-of-the-month spending deadline for July: the Highway Trust Fund.

Reid suggested that he expects Republicans to try to pass a short-term extension of the trust fund ahead of the month-long August recess, because he said that the extensions “have become part of the Republican mantra.”

Democrats are also hoping to force Republicans to the table to negotiate a deal to lift budget caps ahead of the new fiscal year. Reid said that his party is “ready to work with Republicans on these two issues and now.”

McConnell, however, touted the legislation that has been passed in the Senate since Republicans took over the majority in January.

He said that he received positive comments from Kentuckians during a recent break.

“They see more opportunities for senators in both parties to take a stake in the legislative process. They see us passing bills, they see committees working again,” he said. “Quite a bit of bipartisan reform legislation has emerged from committees already, often with strong support from both parties.”

But Reid fired back that McConnell was “taking credit of passage of the bills that they [previously] filibustered.”

“He led the filibusters on these the last four years. It’s unfortunate, but any one of these, with rare exception, would have passed had we not had filibusters by the Republicans,” he said. “My friend, the Republican leader, should be very happy that we’re not doing the same thing to him that was done to us.”

Tags Harry Reid Mitch McConnell