Does Schumer "Have Something" on McConnell?
After surrendering his filibuster fight, Minority Leader McConnell retreats while directing the credit toward two moderate Democrats - but it appears that Majority Leader Schumer sealed the deal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been deadlocked with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for the past week over a core procedural rule in the Senate, that has kept the two from reaching a deal on how to manage the 50-50 chamber, moving forward. The stalemate has delayed the basic organizational process within the Senate that begins the new year, which is essential for organizing all of the committees, and assigning newly elected members.
Due to the high volume and complexity of the work that is managed by the chamber, the Senate divides its tasks among 20 permanent committees, 4 joint committees, and occasionally temporary committees. All together, Congress manages approximately 250 committees and subcommittees — but, each committee determines its own rules, and it is this process that has been further delayed by the McConnell hold-out this week.
Despite Democrats technically having a majority with the 50-50 split among leadership party affiliation, that winning vote relies on Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie — something she can’t do every day due to her own extensive duties. Both sides needed to strike an arrangement for how the power would be distributed to govern daily Senate operations. Enter Mitch McConnell’s last chance: the filibuster.
A filibuster allows for the minority party in the Senate to delay or block legislation that they do not have the votes to stop, and it requires the minority to take over floor debate without a break for hours on end. (If you haven’t seen the film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” where a naive Jimmy Stewart goes to Congress and finds out the system is rigged, so he enacts a filibuster, I highly recommend that you watch it immediately.)
In 2013, then Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) invoked what is called the “nuclear option,” by dropping the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster from 60 to a simple majority for executive appointments and most judicial nominations. At the time, Reid argued that the move was a necessary option due to the deadlock of pushing through Obama court confirmations during the later years of the Obama Administration.
This changed a long-standing Senate rule and then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and many other Republicans warned that this was a move Democrats would come to regret when the GOP regained power one day. Republican Senator John Thune (R-SD) foretold of the impending dangers in this move by warning at the time, “What goes around comes around. And someday they’re going to be in the minority.” Thune was right.
Once Republicans had a majority in the Senate again, Mitch McConnell was able to apply this precedent of a simple majority vote and extend it to Supreme Court nominees. McConnell then used his newly mutated rule to enact a vote threshold low enough to push through the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2019.
The GOP has been using the Democrats’ own nuclear option against them for the last four years to quickly make their policies into law. This week, McConnell had the audacity to demand that the filibuster be protected to preserve the rights of the Republican Senate Minority — the same rights the GOP denied the Democrats. Senate Democrats now have the power to enact the nuclear option once again and unilaterally change the rule to require only a simple majority for legislation to advance, as opposed to a traditional supermajority of 60 votes required to advance most legislation.
Many progressive Democrats argue that the chamber needs this nuclear option in order to bypass the constant objections from conservatives that will certainly delay passing critical and time-sensitive legislation. But McConnell is relying upon moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), who favor keeping the legislative filibuster as a protection from the minority to keep one party from amassing too much power, despite that already occurring.
Yesterday, two things happened that led to McConnell acquiescing and agreeing to move forward to begin the organizational process. Sen. Manchin made a statement that he would't vote to kill the filibuster "under any condition," directly ignoring mounting pressure from progressives.
Sen. Sinema, who has openly opposed axing the filibuster, issued a public statement in the form of a correction to The Washington Post, which incorrectly suggested that she might be open to going nuclear. A spokesperson for Sinema confirmed that the senator is "against eliminating the filibuster, and she is not open to changing her mind about eliminating the filibuster."
Next, Sen. Schumer went on MSNBC for an interview with Rachel Maddow and made a point to explain that not only were Democrats sticking to their guns and refusing to give in to Mitch McConnell’s incredulous demands, but that he was not worried because the Democrats have something to hold over McConnell’s head for added pressure (see video embedded in the tweet below).
Soon after the interview on cable news aired, Mitch McConnell issued a late night statement indicating his intention to yield. While McConnell specifically said that the two Democratic senators pledging to keep the filibuster was the key to his decision, the statement was made only after Schumer’s televised threat, which was casual, but very clear.
While analysts are crediting the promises made by the two moderate Democratic Senators as the catalyst for reversing McConnell’s ironclad position, it is apparent that the final blow was executed by Majority Leader Schumer in his calculated reminder, that appeared to be directly aimed at and done for the benefit of Mitch McConnell.
Given all the flurry of activity within the Senate following Trump’s departure and the many options lawmakers have to start censuring the behavior of those on the right who fueled or assisted the insurrection at the Capitol earlier this month, Schumer could be alluding to several things.
He could have inside information about McConnell’s plan to have Democrats convict Trump in the Senate for him, so that he continues to keep his hands clean. Or, Democrats might be planning to pass legislation curtailing campaign finance that would limit the GOP and McConnell substantially. Maybe there is some incriminating evidence against McConnell, that we still don’t know about, that could greatly implicate him in something big, from which he can’t easily escape.
It seemed a little too easy to back McConnell down so early in the process this time. This could mean that there is something, perhaps many things, that could be detrimental to McConnell, that are being held back — ironically, Schumer could be holding a “trump card.”
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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McConnell’s military career was very short, and it’s sudden ending has been Cloaked and covered up for over 50 years. I think an enterprising young reporter from the Courier-Journal may have gotten her hands on some documents that would embarrass the sanctimonious blood sucker. And perhaps Schumer has decided to use ammunition rather than putting it on a shelf and remarking about how interesting it looks.
Or maybe someone got to the bottom of why it was that Fox news executives were seen sneaking into McConnells senate chambers after hours one evening in November Shortly after the 2016 election.
Or perhaps someone found the real vote counts from McConnell‘s last election. Amy McGrath came on strong at the end, as reflected in the polls. The vote counts did not match what was expected.
All three things could be true. I’m taking wagers. 🗽
For the longest time, I have been saying the Dems needed to play fire with fire. Dems liked to play nice, with this GOP, you can not. I hope Schumer slapped that arrogant smirk right off McConnell's face. McConnell is/was more dangerous than DT. His "reign" has been too long.