WASHINGTON – Ya gotta love Mitch McConnell.
Really.
The Senate Republican Leader from Louisville has for decades been one of the staunchest defenders of the legislative tactic known as the filibuster, which essentially permits lawmakers from the minority party to coalesce and stop in its tracks legislation they find odious. Like a mother bear defending her cub, McConnell has consistently excoriated anyone looking to alter one of the upper chamber’s most popular tactics.
“I do not favor turning the Senate into a majoritarian institution, even though we would probably have some short-term advantage to doing it,” McConnell said during an appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, in May 2014.
He continued:
“I think the supermajority requirement in the Senate has been important for the country,” he said. “I think probably the biggest service the Senate has provided to America is the things it has not passed. Some of the proudest moments I can think of in my career are the things I have stopped.”
When Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, then serving in the majority, successfully moved to change the rule two years ago, prohibiting its use when it comes to most presidential appointees, McConnell flew into something approaching a rage, complaining of a tyranny of the majority over the minority.
A quick political lesson: Majority rules in the Senate except when it doesn’t. The minority can halt legislation from coming up for a vote if they simply refuse to proceed, initiating a filibuster. The majority can counteract the filibuster by seeking cloture, which requires 60 votes. If the majority doesn’t have the 60 votes to invoke cloture, it’s bye-bye legislation.
So McConnell’s defense of the filibuster is understandable. Over an eight-year period while serving as minority leader, from January 2007 to January 2015, the GOP utilized the filibuster 644 times, halting a vote in 292 of those instances. During the 113th Congress alone, from 2012 to 2014, McConnell forced the filing of 253 cloture motions – breaking the all-time record established during the 110th Congress when he forced 139 cloture motions.
To say that McConnell abused the filibuster is akin to saying the sun rises in the east. He vowed to halt President Obama’s legislative agenda in its tracks and, in some instances, succeeded. And the nation is poorer for it, as witnessed by governmental shutdowns, crises over raising the debt limit and legislative deadlock. It’s not hard finding McConnell’s fingerprints on all this. Give him a magnifying glass and he’ll proudly point them out to you.
Paybacks are . . .not pleasant
Which brings us to the present, where our boy Mitch is discovering that paybacks, as they say, are, indeed, hell. Minority Democrats have forced the filing of 57 cloture motions thus far during the first nine months of the 114th Congress, standing in the way of GOP efforts to kill Obamacare, ruin Planned Parenthood and destroy the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mitch is unhappy about the turn of events and his fellow Republican senators of an extreme conservative bent who never cared much for our boy to begin with – hello Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX – are even more upset about their inability to thwart Democratic tactics and send the nation reeling back to the stone age. They hold him responsible.
So, lost this week among events like the continuing soap opera over in the House, presidential debates and Donald Trump’s sustained mouthing off, was McConnell’s very hush-hush, on the q.t. decision to form a special task force to consider changes in the filibuster rule. The panel, led by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-TN, a McConnell ally, will look at, among other things, eliminating filibusters on motions to proceed.
After defending the filibuster to his last breath when it worked to his advantage – and the disadvantage to the nation as a whole – McConnell all of a sudden is now willing to consider changes that, once again, work to his advantage.
Gee, what a surprise.
Now it could be that McConnell is hoping the panel will keep the filibuster in place and might even strengthen it by re-instituting cloture on presidential nominees. Alexander, like McConnell, has been a strong supporter of the procedure. In a floor speech in late September, Alexander asserted that the filibuster is here to stay and celebrated the fact that it promotes consensus, “and consensus is the way you govern a complex country.”
But there are no Democrats on the panel and other appointed members are not so fond of the tactic.
“At times, the rules and practices of the Senate have left Americans and members of the Senate deeply frustrated,’’ said, Sen. James Lankford, R-OK, a member of the task force, quoted in The Hill newspaper. “Senate systems that should serve the nation are currently blocking debate and slowing progress, instead of promoting it.’’
No real political principles
Regardless, McConnell’s gambit exposes several interesting things about the Republican leader. The first is he holds few, if any, real political principles.
Over the years McConnell has only infrequently assumed the lead in battles over policy. The one time he was certainly in the forefront before taking on leadership duties occurred when he fought bitterly against even a smidgen of campaign finance reform.
That is typical of McConnell’s modus operandi – power over substance. He’s more than willing to trade off any value he might hold as long as it results in his success in retaining control. He opposed campaign finance reform because it might result in difficulty raising the money he might need to win re-election, thus retaining power. He’s willing to sell off one of his long-held beliefs – one of the few he has maintained over the years – to stay on top.
Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t be able to find the man’s core values with Toby at the end of his leash.
In an ironic way, hypocrisy has nothing to do with it. He is remaining amazingly consistent. With McConnell, in a battle between principle and power, power always wins. His sole political philosophy can be summed up in one word – win.
The move also establishes his willingness to bow to the crazies to his right to retain his exalted leadership position, a job he has craved like Evangeline pined for Gabriel. Feeling pressure from the conservative side, especially among the Young Turks rabid to impose their skewed view on the nation, McConnell appears more than willing to play ball.
Back in November 2013, when Democrats pushed through the change that resulted in no filibuster on more presidential appointees, McConnell rose on the Senate floor to say “we will leave the political games to our friends on the other side of the aisle.’’
Yeah, you bet.