Cornyn Rips Harry Reid on Rush to Immigration Vote: 'Dictatorship'

Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) ripped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s rush to bring the new version of the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill across the finish line without transparency in a Senate floor speech on Monday.

“On a subject as important as immigration reform, there have been nine amendments vote on this bill in the last two weeks,” Cornyn, the number Republican in Senate leadership, said. “Nine amendments. To listen to our colleagues in the majority who are happy with the underlying bill because they wrote it, they act like we’ve had a fulsome opportunity to offer amendment but we have been willing to have votes so long as we get votes on our amendments. It’s not just the majority that has the opportunity to modify the underlying legislation and to debate it. The minority has rights too and our side wants to a right to choose our own amendments, not to have the Majority Leader choose which of our amendments he’s going to ordain to allow debate and votes on.”

Cornyn said Reid’s tactics are not Democratic and are unfair.

“That’s not Democracy,” Cornyn said. “That’s not the United States Senate. That’s a dictatorship.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) last week made a similar argument against Reid’s tactics, accusing him of operating the U.S. Senate like a “banana republic.”