Sen. McConnell’s Latest Threats Against Modifying The Filibuster Rules Give New Meaning to “Chutzpah”
Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest threats against modifying the filibuster rules give new meaning to the word “chutzpah.”
McConnell reportedly said today that if Democrats “nuke” the filibuster, Republicans will act “in ways that are more inconvenient for the majority and this White House then anyone has seen in living memory.”
This comes from the Senator who himself “nuked” the filibuster rules in 2017, allowing three Trump Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a majority vote.
The “McConnell Rule” apparently is that he can change the filibuster rules to suit his own political interests, but Senate Democrats cannot to protect the right to vote and preserve our democracy.
McConnell also reportedly said that he would “personally guarantee” that if the Senate filibuster rules are modified the Senate “would not be more efficient.”
That is a strange statement coming from the Senator who almost single handily turned the Senate into a dysfunctional institution.
It would be very hard for McConnell to make the Senate any less “efficient” than he already has. By using filibusters to block Senate action an unprecedented number of times, no single Senator has made the Senate more “inefficient” than Mitch McConnell.
McConnell has weaponized the filibuster to a fare thee well, incessantly using the filibuster for purely partisan purposes.
During the Obama Administration, McConnell made use of the filibuster more than ever in history. He made clear that this had everything to do with his partisan politics when he proclaimed, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Under President Biden, McConnell is on the same partisan path of using the filibuster for strictly partisan purposes. McConnell stated last May: “One-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new Administration.”
McConnell’s habitual use of the filibuster has turned the Senate from the “world’s greatest deliberative body” into a body that fails to debate, deliberate, or act.
And now, as Democrats are considering using a modification of the filibuster rules to preserve our democracy by passing urgently needed voting rights legislation, McConnell’s response is to threaten to make the Senate even more dysfunctional than he already has.
Senator McConnell has earned a rightful place in the “chutzpah” Hall of Fame. Senate Democrats should ignore his hypocritical threats and continue the urgent work to pass voting rights legislation.
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