Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has promised a “nightmare” for Senate Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris if they act to end legislative obstruction over the next two years.
McConnell’s ominous speech, in which he alternately praised the merits of the 60-vote barrier for the Senate to pass bills and warned of a dystopian Senate if Democrats removed it, came after two Senate Democrats officially said on Monday that they do not support the removal of protection for the Senate minority.
After receiving the promises from Sens. Joe Manchin. DW.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., McConnell gave in to their demand that Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., include a clause preserving the obstruction in their power-sharing agreement in the Senate 50-50.
McConnell said “simple arithmetic” now guarantees that the Senate “will not destroy a central rule”.
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“The Senate exists to require deliberation and cooperation. James Madison said the Senate’s job was to provide a complicated check … against inappropriate acts of legislation,” said McConnell. “We ensure that the laws gain sufficient adherence to receive long-term consent from the governed. We prevent bad ideas, improve good ideas and prevent laws from swinging wildly with each election ”.
But, McConnell said, “I want to discuss the cliff that the Senate has backed off from … So, let’s take a look at what would happen if, in fact, the legislative obstruction ended.”
McConnell said, in what was essentially a threat, that there would be “immediate chaos, especially in this 50-50 Senate”.
ARCHIVE – On this December 30, 2020, photo from the archive of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, from Ky., Walks to the Senate floor at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo / Susan Walsh, Archives)
“Destroying the obstruction would drain this body’s courtesy and consent to a degree that would be unparalleled in living memory,” he said. “The Constitution requires the Senate to have a quorum to do any business. At the moment, the quorum is 51 and the vice president does not count to establish a quorum. Most cannot even produce quorum on their own, and one could be demanded by any senator at almost any time. “
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McConnell said that evenly divided committees would need a quorum to do any business – which theoretically Republicans, forming half of a committee, could deny.
“Technically, it takes collegiality and consent for the majority to continue acting like the majority at any time that physically does not … have the majority,” added McConnell. “Each Democratic senator and vice president could basically block the next two years from their calendar. They would have to be here all the time.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of NY takes the elevator to the US Capitol on Friday, January 22, 2021, in Washington. It took Democrats just a few days to assess how far President Joe Biden’s bold immigration proposal can go to Congress to recognize that if something comes up, it will likely be significantly more modest. (AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta)
McConnell warned that in a “post-nuclear scorched earth Senate”, Republicans could block unanimous consent requests to schedule speeches or meet before 12 pm. McConnell added that Republicans could force all confirmations “even at the lowest level” to move forward at “snail’s pace.”
Things would happen “as hard as possible or never,” without the obstruction, McConnell warned, and that if Democrats got rid of the obstruction “it would be immediately and painfully clear to the Democratic majority that they really had just broken the Senate.”
“It would undermine Biden’s presidency because of a takeover that the president spent decades warning against,” said McConnell.
McConnell’s comments came immediately after Schumer boasted of “remarkable progress” in a power-sharing deal between the two leaders after McConnell “finally gave up” on “his demand for additional clauses” to the 2001 power-share deal , who “ruled the last -50 Senate.”
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Schumer said he was “happy that we finally got the Senate up and running. My only regret is that it took so long.”
The agreement between Schumer and McConnell, assuming that it finally materializes, would probably make Democrats the chairmen of the committees, but would allow a fifty-fifty split between the parties on each committee. In the meantime, it would probably allow the legislation to go to the Senate floor, even if it received a tied vote on the committee.
It would also govern other rules on how the Senate will function in the next two years – without which the Senate was largely limited. Therefore, senators began Biden’s term by considering his less controversial nominees for the Cabinet, especially on national security issues.
Now, with an agreement on how to manage the impending chamber, it will be able to deal more competently with more controversial issues. The Senate will have to act quickly on immediate priorities – former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial begins on February 9 and will occupy the entire Senate timetable until a resolution is reached.
But, said McConnell, any progress on anything would be destroyed if Democrats got rid of the obstruction.
“Taking that plunge would not be a progressive dream. It would be a nightmare,” he said. “I guarantee that.”