The week
Mitch McConnell darkly threatens “scorched-earth Senate” if Democrats remove the obstruction
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Is putting pressure on some Democrats’ efforts to remove the obstruction. Speaking at the Senate floor on Tuesday, McConnell envisioned an unobstructed future, painting a bleak picture: “Nobody serving in this House can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would be like,” he said. Without the obstruction, he predicted that the Senate would be “a 100-car pileup”, where “nothing moves”. Some Democrats hope to lift the obstruction, which requires an absolute majority of 60 votes to pass most legislative acts. Democrats and moderate Republicans are opposed, and Politico’s Burgess Everett described an exploded obstruction as “the Republican Party’s greatest short-term threat.” Because of that concern, McConnell threatened to push a long list of conservative “zero-entry” policies from Democrats if only a simple majority is needed. He listed the reduction in planned Parenthood funding, penalizing sanctuary cities and a national law on the right to work. McConnell continued to warn that it would require quorum for everything, making past actions look like “child’s play”, reports Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News. While it is not clear why McConnell would object to easier approval of his legislative priorities, there are some reasons why Democrats may not be overly concerned with his threats. Benjy Sarlin of NBC News notes that many of these conservative policies are not supported by more than 50 Republicans in any way, and the Republican Party did not use all available tools to approve them, even when it held the three government powers. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post separately argues that many Democrats may feel that conservative courts have power over some of these issues, so the stance of Republican senators is irrelevant. In any case, analysts seem to agree with McConnell in his prediction of increased chaos and stalemate. With only 50 seats for each party, the most frequent quorum requirements can “get complicated quickly” and can lead to bills being passed out of spite. More stories from theweek.comCuomo vs. Inslee: a COVID-19 tale by two governors. The GOP’s anti-woke dead end supposedly redirected a Seattle Navy hospital ship to Los Angeles because Newsom was more complimentary than Inslee