Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expressing Democrats’ “huge anger” at Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Monday night, just minutes before Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was to transmit the Article of Impeachment against former President Donald Trump.
“All I can tell you is we are not letting Mitch McConnell dictate how the Senate runs or what we do,” Schumer reportedly said, in response to a question from Punchbowl News about going “nuclear” and eliminating the filibuster in the Senate. “I will tell you this. There’s huge anger in my caucus about what he’s done.”
Grassroots Democrats, including liberals and progressives, are increasingly demanding Leader Schumer eliminate the filibuster, a Jim Crow-era holdover that was implemented to prevent civil rights legislation from passing.
McConnell has yet to agree to an organizing resolution (also known as a power-sharing agreement) and may force Schumer to “go nuclear.” An organizing resolution determines how many seats on each committee each party is allowed, and who is allowed to chair them.
The Senate has a 50-50 split, and Democrats hold the majority only because Vice President Kamala Harris, who constitutionally serves as the Senate president, can break ties for Democrats.
Senate Democrats have never forgiven McConnell for what they see as the theft of the Supreme Court seat that then-President Barack Obama constitutionally had the right to fill. McConnell then rushed to fill the seat left open by the passing of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
McConnell has also killed almost every piece of legislation passed by the Democratically-controlled House, and even nicknamed himself the “Grim Reaper,” while pushing through hundreds of often unqualified, far right wing judges under President Trump.
Image by Senate Democrats via Flickr and a CC license