{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=AF6DEDFA-B116-4298-8EDC-588662BFDBAE", "McConnell to Democrats: Stop Delaying NDAA Over \u201cMiscellaneous Pet Priorities\u201d", "2022-12-06", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding national defense:\n\n\u201cHere we are again, Mr. President \u2014 into the month of December with crucial business unfinished.\n\n\u201cRepublicans spent months urging the Democratic majority not to neglect this year\u2019s National Defense Authorization Act; not to leave our Armed Forces to the last minute. Five months ago, I called on our colleagues to process the defense bill as soon as possible.\n\n\u201cBut instead, the majority has prioritized not just gigantic partisan spending sprees, but also a parade of mid-level nominations.\n\n\u201cThe Democratic Leader didn\u2019t even bring a Senate NDAA to the floor, forcing Senators Reed and Inhofe to conduct an informal conference with the House with a weakened hand.\n\n\u201cWhen Republicans controlled the government, we put our servicemembers first.\n\n\u201cIn 2017, the Senate passed our version of the NDAA in September and we\u2019d voice-voted the conference report by Thanksgiving. In 2018, the Republican Senate was completely finished with the NDAA by early August.\n\n\u201cBut on Democrats\u2019 watch, the Senate schedule has not matched the nation\u2019s needs. We have spent time on less important matters while both the authorization and the funding for our servicemembers have languished until the 11th hour.\n\n\u201cEven now, House and Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship to defense.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities \u2014 like making our financial system more sympathetic to illegal drugs, or the phony, partisan permitting-\u2018reform\u2019-in-name-only language that already failed to pass the Senate this year.\n\n\u201cIf Democrats wanted these controversial items so badly, they had two years to move them across the floor. Heck, they could have scheduled those matters for votes this week. But no \u2014 we\u2019re doing more mid-level nominations, while Democrats keep half-threatening to take our Armed Forces hostage over these extraneous matters.\n\n\u201cMr. President, there\u2019s an old saying that goes: Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on the part of other people.\n\n\u201cThe Democrats\u2019 failure to plan ahead for unrelated liberal pet priorities should not be creating uncertainty and confusion for the brave servicemembers who keep us safe.\n\n\u201cMy colleagues across the aisle need to cut the unrelated hostage-taking and put a bipartisan NDAA on the floor.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=AF6DEDFA-B116-4298-8EDC-588662BFDBAE"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8579249735921621, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}