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Posts Tagged ‘Mitch McConnell’
February 16th, 2016 at 9:05 am
Hypocrite Chuck Schumer

Following the tragic news of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican lawmakers rightly have been arguing that Scalia’s replacement should be left to the next President.

Predictably, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), Harry Reid’s hand-picked replacement to become the Senate Democrat leader following Reid’s retirement in 2016, is crying foul.  On ABC’s “This Week,” Schumer bemoaned, “You know, the kind of obstructionism that Mitch McConnell’s talking about, he’s harkening back to his old days.”

But it was Schumer, back in July 2007, who argued in a speech to the American Constitution Society that, except for in extraordinary circumstances, the Senate should block any Supreme Court nominations made by President George W. Bush during his remaining time in office.  At the time, Schumer said:

We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.

Schumer went on to add:

We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances.

For the record, there were 18 months left in George W. Bush’s term when Schumer argued that the Senate block any additional nominees the President may have made to the Supreme Court.  The nation is now less than seven months away from electing Obama’s successor.

March 4th, 2015 at 12:49 pm
GOP Congress Caves on Obama Amnesty

After weeks of failing to pass a bill blocking implementation of President Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, Republican leaders in Congress called it quits.

A so-called “clean” bill – one without the amnesty prohibition – passed the House of Representatives 257 – 167 yesterday, with all of the no votes coming from Republicans. The bill is expected to pass the Republican-controlled Senate quickly.

Though much of the blame is being focused on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), it seems the media is conveniently forgetting that new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) let a presidential attack on constitutional separation-of-powers supersede a Senate debating procedure known as the filibuster. If the roles were reversed it is inconceivable that Harry Reid would let a procedural rule he controls thwart his sense of constitutional propriety.

By elevating a Senate tradition above Congress’ constitutional duty to make the laws, McConnell has effectively neutered his 54 member majority since it lacks the 60 votes it needs to actually govern.

Welcome to the Republican Senate. Its work product looks an awful lot like its Democratic predecessor.

May 14th, 2014 at 12:56 pm
Add Sasse to the Senate’s Tea Party

The U.S. Senate’s Tea Party caucus will soon get a lot of Sasse.

Ben Sasse, that is.

Last night the 42 year old president of Midland University won the Nebraska GOP’s U.S. Senate primary election with 48 percent of the vote in a four-way race.

In deep-red Nebraska, Sasse is expected to win the November general election easily, and take his persona as a conservative health policy wonk with him.

Running hard against ObamaCare, Sasse convinced Republican primary voters that his background in health policy (Assistant Secretary at HHS under George W. Bush), his stint as a top flight business consultant for McKinsey and his turnaround success at Midland qualify him to work alongside the likes of other conservative reformers like Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

And like most of these, Sasse has ruffled some establishment feathers along the way. He angered Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky by accepting the endorsement and financial support of the Senate Conservatives Fund – a political action group that is helping McConnell’s primary opponent.

Winning changes everything though. Yesterday as it became apparent Sasse would win, he pledged to support McConnell as Leader, and McConnell’s camp reciprocated with some mostly nice words of encouragement.

If both Sasse and McConnell make it to the Senate in 2015, expect them to work well together.

For those unfamiliar with Sasse, a profile some months ago in the Weekly Standard provides excellent background reading.

Even if Sasse wins and retains Nebraska’s seat for the GOP, Republicans still need to capture 6 Democrat-held seats to win control of the U.S. Senate.

If that happens, expect Sasse to be the most visible and vocal freshman since, well, his soon-to-be Senate Tea Party colleagues.

January 30th, 2014 at 5:41 pm
Leader McConnell: Obama “Declaring a War” on Free Speech By Using IRS to Target Political Dissent

November 26th, 2013 at 5:47 pm
A Way to Win the Filibuster Fallout

Quin has a must-read idea about how to turn Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) filibuster nonsense into a political winner for the Republican Party.

Sketched out as only a savvy former congressional staff member could do, Quin’s idea calls on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to hold a joint press conference to announce:

1)    The role the filibuster has played in Senate deliberations
2)    How Republicans on both sides of the capitol could respond with tactics that would grind legislative business to a halt
3)    Or instead, with a compromise endorsed by 19 current and former Senate Democrats that preserves the filibuster, but in a form more in service to the public good

The proposed change would “turn the group filibuster back into a tool for extended debate – to try to rally public support – rather than a means of permanent obstruction,” writes Quin at NRO. “By serially ratcheting down the number of votes needed to invoke cloture – from 60 to 57 – 54 to 51, on successive attempts – the rule in effect would force opponents of a bill or nomination to show that their arguments are gaining more adherents as time progresses, thus showing that they might actually gain the support of an awakening public.”

For me, the attractiveness of Quin’s idea is its attempt to re-inject much-needed attention on the deliberative process in lawmaking. For the first time in years, the Senate – and especially the Republican bench – boasts a bevy of thoughtful debaters like Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY). Rather than speechmaking marathons where one person must speak until exhausted, America would be better served hearing, for example, Cruz and Tim Kaine (D-VA) debate immigration policy.

The possibilities abound. Imagine a debate between Paul and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on fiscal and monetary policy. Or between Lee and a Democrat-to-be-determined on any clause in the Constitution. By making the filibuster vote threshold drop with every round of voting, opponents of a measure must either win converts or lose the majority. Either way, the legislative process is made better because the senators elected to represent the public are putting their reasons on the record.

My quick summary doesn’t do enough justice to Quin’s piece, which you can read here. At a time when so much of government seems broken, it is refreshing to read a piece that offers a workable solution.

November 19th, 2013 at 6:20 pm
Of Obama’s 27 Senate Dem Accomplices, 3 Might Lose Their Seats in 2014

Byron York has a potential sneak peak at some of the most devastating political ads in the upcoming 2014 election.

It’s a list of Democratic U.S. Senators parroting President Barack Obama’s promise that “if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.”

The list comes with names, dates and the exact phrasing from 27 current Democratic Senators, courtesy of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Among those profiled, three are in tight reelection fights ahead of 2014: Mark Begich (Alaska), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) and Kay Hagan (North Carolina).

If you live in one of these states, expect to see and hear the following statement as the campaign season heats up:

SEN. MARK BEGICH (D-Alaska): “If you got a doctor now, you got a medical professional you want, you get to keep that. If you have an insurance program or a health care policy you want of ideas, make sure you keep it. That you can keep who you want.” (Sen. Begich, Townhall Event, 7/27/09)

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-La.): “If you like the insurance that you have, you’ll be able to keep it.” (MSNBC’s Hardball, 12/16/09)

SEN. KAY HAGAN (D-N.C.): ‘People who have insurance they’re happy with can keep it’ “We need to support the private insurance industry so that people who have insurance they’re happy with can keep it while also providing a backstop option for people without access to affordable coverage.” (“Republicans Vent As Other Compromise Plans Get Aired,” National Journal’s Congress Daily, 6/18/09)

May 14th, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Meanwhile, on Tom Perez…..

(Note: This is the first of either three or four blog posts coming today, on different subjects. LOTS going on. Please keep coming back to this site today and tomorrow….)

Okay, first, there are several important developments regarding Tom Perez, whose nomination for Labor Secretary is slated, after several delays, for a committee vote this week.

First, Republican opposition to Perez seems to be stiffening, with several senators coming out definitively, or in some cases more strongly than they already have, against his nomination. Most significant was the stout statement last week by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.:

“He is a committed ideologue who appears willing, quite frankly, to say or do anything to achieve his ideological ends.

“His willingness, time and again, to bend or ignore the law and to misstate the facts in order to advance his far-left ideology lead me and others to conclude that he’d continue to do so if he were confirmed to another, and much more consequential, position of public trust……

“Mr. Perez, however, does not merely push the envelope; all too often, he circumvents or ignores a law with which he disagrees.

“A few examples:

“As a member of the Montgomery County Council, Mr. Perez pushed through a county policy that encouraged the circumvention of federal immigration law. Later, as head of the federal government’s top voting-rights watchdog, he refused to protect the right to vote for Americans of all races, in violation of the very law he was charged to enforce. In the same post at the Department of Justice, Mr. Perez directed the federal government to sue against the advice of career attorneys at his own office. In another case involving a Florida woman who was lawfully exercising her First Amendment right to protest an abortion clinic, the federal judge who threw out Mr. Perez’s lawsuit said he was ‘at a loss as to why the government chose to prosecute this particular case’ in the first place.

“This is what pushing the envelope means in the case of Mr. Perez: a flippant and dismissive attitude about the boundaries that everybody else has to follow for the sake of the liberal causes he believes in.

“In short, it means a lack of respect for the rule of law – and a lack of respect for the need of those in positions of power to follow it…..

“[He is] a crusading ideologue whose conviction about his own rightness on the issues leads him to believe the law does not apply to him. Unbound by the rules that apply to everyone else, Mr. Perez seems to view himself as free to employ whatever means at his disposal, legal or otherwise, to achieve his ideological goals.

“To say this is problematic would be an understatement.

McConnell is hardly the only Republican senator to speak out. The list now includes Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, along with previously announced opposition by Louisiana’s David Vitter.

NOW, PLEASE NOTE THIS: The single biggest issue in the short term should be Perez’ refusal to honor valid congressional subpoenas, about actions of his that certainly appear to be flagrantly illegal. And even Democrat Elijah Cummings agrees that Perez’s refusal should not stand:

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the committee that held the hearing, yesterday joined Representative Darrell Issa of California, the committee chairman, in sending letter to Perez requesting that he provide all personal e-mails used to conduct official business that were subpoenaed by the panel last month, and respond by the end of this week.

It is illegal for bureaucrats to use private email for government business. It is illegal for bureaucrats to ignore a congressional subpoena (except in certain, severely limited circumstances when officially claiming executive privilege, which cannot be the case here). It boggles the mind that somebody could still even have a chance of confirmation who has done both (and continues to do the latter). And it is astonishing, or should be astonishing, that the establishment media hasn’t heavily criticized Perez for these violations.

Also, former whistleblower Christian Adams is out with one more good argument about the the thuggishness of Mr. Perez, who abuses his authority at every turn:

When local sheriffs made the mistake of asking for guidance from Perez about how to implement the Alabama immigration law, Perez threatened them in a meeting. Memo to state and local officials everywhere: don’t ask for guidance from the DOJ Civil Rights Division. The radicals running the place will take advantage of your good faith and make demands of you that the law does not support.

Perez has also threatened election officials in Alabama, threatening to “bury” the state ”with paper” if Alabama did not give in. This is typical of the would-be Labor secretary. Under oath before Congress, he is all smiles, sunshine, and bluebirds; behind closed doors he is a thuggish progressive bureaucrat comfortable wielding power despite what the law says.

Adams will be speaking down here in Mobile next week to the local chapter of the Federalist Society. He promises to have much more to say about Perez during his remarks.

It is also worth reviewing a statement on the nomination by Judicial Watch, whose work has done so much to uncover the various examples of Perez’ perfidy.

Also, Hans von Spakovsky eviscerates Perez’ excuse for using his private emails, here.

Finally, even a youth organization is coming out against Perez, on pure policy grounds. See the statement of Generation Opportunity, here.

September 13th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Mitch McConnell Hires Tea Party Strategist

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell made a very public peace with Rand Paul and Kentucky’s Tea Party movement by hiring Jesse Benton to head his reelection campaign in 2014.

Previously, Benton steered Rand Paul into Kentucky’s other U.S. Senate seat by defeating an establishment candidate handpicked by McConnell.  This cycle Benton ran Ron Paul’s presidential campaign.

With $6 million already in the bank for an election two years away, McConnell’s hiring of Benton likely shuts the door to the kind of Tea Party conservative primary challenge faced by other long-serving Republicans.

February 28th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Could a RINO Cost Republicans the Senate?
Posted by Print

Just about an hour ago, notoriously centrist (if not liberal) Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) announced on her Facebook page that she has decided against running for a fourth term in the Senate this year. No doubt many conservatives will respond “good riddance.” From her opposition to the Bush tax cuts to her objections to free trade (she voted against both NAFTA and CAFTA) to her love for big-government environmentalism and gun control initiatives, Snowe is hardly a Tea Party favorite. Yet her retirement is likely to do more to hurt conservatives than help them.

The reason? Snowe’s native Maine is, for the most part, a liberal place and Republicans need a net pickup of four seats in the upper chamber to retake the senate majority. Snowe’s absence makes it much more likely that the Pine Tree State’s next senator will be a Democrat.

Snowe wouldn’t deserve any of the blame for that if it wasn’t for the fact that she completely set the GOP up for failure. According to the Washington Post, she failed to notify both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and NRSC Chairman John Cornyn of her decision until earlier today. That spells disaster for the party, since the filing deadline is March 15 — two weeks from Thursday — and no one in the state party bothered looking for a candidate while Snowe was believed to be a sure thing.

Not only has Snowe skipped out on her team, she’s done so 10 minutes before the start of the game, with no backup readily available. Perhaps “good riddance” is the right sentiment after all.

August 10th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Savvy McConnell Names Terrific Trio to Super Committee

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) earned his position today by naming three conservative workhorses to represent the Senate GOP in the new “Super Congress” charged with eliminating more than $1 trillion in federal spending.

Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) is getting the lion’s share of attention because of his former leadership of the conservative Club for Growth, and his opposition to the debt deal that created the committee he’ll serve on.  But McConnell deserves some serious thanks from the Tea Party for also naming Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Rob Portman (R-OH).

Both Kyl and Portman own reputations as serious policy wonks who know how to get substantial conservative victories in government negotiations.  (Kyl is an expert on foreign affairs, defense, and tax issues, while Portman served as President George W. Bush’s OMB Director and Free Trade Representative.)

For his part, Toomey is no slouch when it comes to putting skins on the wall.  (Under Toomey, Club for Growth helped illuminate the economic records of several Republican candidates, helping to identify which were in line with less government.)

All told, the Tea Party should be very pleased that Leader McConnell has named a terrific trio to grow the federal government down in a smart and lasting way.

July 25th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Congressional Democrats Tacitly Admitting Obama is Inept
Posted by Print

For the past two and a half years, it’s been the exclusive provenance of the right to point out that President Obama often seems overmatched by his job. But after this weekend’s latest round of debt ceiling negotiations — where a newly irascible President Obama was nowhere to be seen amidst the congressional horse-trading — it’s becoming clear that Democrats on the hill are starting to think the same thing. The ugly details are fleshed out by Craig Crawford, writing in the Huffington Post:

While the GOP obviously would savor a solution to the debt-ceiling crisis that gives Obama no credit, why are Democratic leaders so willing to cut him out?

The answer might be found in growing concerns among veteran Capitol Hill Democrats that their president is a lousy negotiator.

Although they see him as a talented public communicator, his short time as a senator and painfully slow learning curve as president leads congressional Democrats to think it best to take over and provide cover for him once the deal is done.

“A talented public communicator” who can’t negotiate? The Democrats are essentially saying that the president is really good at talking about his job, just weak when it comes to actually doing it. This, my friends, is what the wag who coined the phrase “damning with faint praise” had in mind.

July 15th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Why Not a Short-Term Deal?

Charles Krauthammer suggests (more a command, really) calling President Barack Obama’s bluff about a “long-term deal or nothing” on a debt default deal: a short-term deal that extends the negotiating clock instead.

The Republican House should immediately pass a short-term debt-ceiling hike of $500 billion containing $500 billion in budget cuts. That would give us about five months to work on something larger.

Why not?  Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan to give the president authority to raise the debt ceiling on his own just stokes an already imperial presidency.  What’s more, McConnell’s reservation of oversight to Congress by a 2/3 vote to block the president from raising the debt ceiling is constitutionally suspect because it sounds suspiciously like an impermissible legislative veto.  Since the Supreme Court has said that Congress can’t overrule Executive decisions once Congress delegates its authority, don’t be surprised if McConnell’s clever power switch gives unilateral discretion to a big-spending liberal president without any means of checking him.

Far better to go with Krauthammer’s suggestion since it keeps the focus on spending and the economy and relieves the pressure of a debt default while the parties get serious about specifics.

February 1st, 2011 at 3:07 pm
McConnell to Force Vote on ObamaCare Repeal

Senator Mitch McConnell today announced that he will try to force a Senate vote on a measure to fully repeal ObamaCare as early as this week. 

Specifically, The Hill is reporting that the Republican Leader plans to offer the repeal measure as an amendment to the to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, which is currently being debated on the Senate floor.  McConnell could offer the amendment, which is anticipated to be identical the the repeal bill that recently passed in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support, as early as this afternoon.  A procedural vote on the amendment is expected to occur shortly thereafter. 

Call your Senators right now and urge them to vote “YES” on Senator McConnell’s amendment to repeal ObamaCare.  Find your Senators and their phone numbers here.

November 30th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Misguided Obama Quote of the Week
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“The American people did not vote for gridlock”

That was President Obama following his White House meeting with senior congressional leaders (including heretofore marginalized Republicans) earlier today. A few things are wrong with this:

1. Of the many tasks for which Barack Obama is demonstrably unqualified, interpreting election results is clearly towards the top of the list.

2. To the extent that the 2010 midterm elections can be boiled down to a single trend, it wasn’t the American people voting for anything — it was them voting against Obama’s agenda.

3. The American people don’t vote for process. They saw the country headed too far to the left and wanted to stop it. While the electorate may not think gridlock is ideal, they would probably prefer it over another two years like the ones we just had.

4. It’s amazing how many Democrats are spinning the 2010 elections as a mandate for the two parties to work together (not that this is a particularly innovative narrative for parties that crawl back into the minority). The 2010 election saw disgust for the two major parties at an all-time high and faith in our political institutions at an all-time low. This is just a hunch, but I don’t think the resulting message was “we’d like to see more effective cooperation between the party we hate and the party we really hate”.

November 15th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
McConnell to Support Moratorium on Earmarks

In a surprise announcement on the Senate floor this afternoon, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will be supporting a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress.  McConnell, who for the last couple of weeks has defended the practice of earmarks, stated:

…I have thought about these things long and hard over the past few weeks. I’ve talked with my members. I’ve listened to them. Above all, I have listened to my constituents.  And what I’ve concluded is that on the issue of congressional earmarks, as the leader of my party in the Senate, I have to lead first by example. Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people. When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.

Make no mistake. I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them. But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.

That’s why today I am announcing that I will join the Republican Leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress. …

Read McConnell’s full statement here.