Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is entering his new, less powerful role the same way he managed the Senate when he was Majority Leader, with one purpose in mind: block everything Democrats want.
Democratic Senators on Thursday blasted McConnell publicly after he threatened to filibuster the organizing agreement, which specifies how many Senators from each party sit on committees and who chairs them.
CNN’s Manu Raju notes if there is no power-sharing agreement, “the Senate will operate under the rules of the last Congress when the GOP controlled Senate majority and held committee chairs.”
At the center of McConnell’s obstruction: he’s demanding Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) commit to keeping the filibuster – which would allow Republicans to block and jettison everything Democrats want. That means Republicans could block all of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees, and all legislation Democrats want to pass, as Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis reports:
Under the false cloak of “unity,” McConnell is making “unprecedented, wacky, counterproductive” demands, according to at least one Democratic Senator, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), the Chief Deputy Whip.
In fact, McConnell claims Democrats should commit to handing Republicans full power to toally obstruct, under the guise of “unity.”
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) slammed McConnell’s hypocrisy:
Mother Jones’s Ari Berman, one of the nation’s top voting rights experts:
New York Times’ contributing opinion writer, attorney, and playwright Wajahat Ali suggests Democrats adopt more of a scorched earth strategy: