Senator Mitch McConnell did not screw up Congress. That distinction goes to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his band of cutthroats who, in the 1990s, turned a tumultuous and often boisterous lower chamber into a free-fire zone where nothing gets done and dysfunction runs rampant.

And this legend continues to this day.

But McConnell, of Louisville, has perfected the Georgia Republican’s campaign to tear down walls, albeit in a subtler, more insidious way, bending the rules as the longtime leader of the Senate GOP to consistently quash efforts to push the nation with hesitation before and then abusing. the appointment process to create a contemptible Supreme Court.

Those days have finally run their course. McConnell, 82, stepped down as GOP leader after a historic 17-year run, handing the reins to his running mate, Sen. John Thune, R-SD, who is expected to essentially follow suit. course charted by McConnell, who, in the words of columnist George Will, is “the second most important conservative—after Ronald Reagan—in national politics in his lifetime.”

NKyTribune Washington columnist Bill Straub served 11 years as Frankfort Bureau Chief for The Kentucky Post. He is also the former White House political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at [email protected]

Consequential, as previously mentioned, has neither a positive nor a negative connotation – Hitler, for example, was the most important politician in Germany during his lifetime, which ended abruptly in 1945. But there is no doubt that McConnell has left his mark on the body politic through his 39 years in office and counting. Some of it was commendable – his influence on foreign affairs, especially his support for Ukraine in the face of Russian invasion, was exemplary.

But the rest is a mish-mosh.

McConnell conveniently summed up his political philosophy in May 2021 during an interview with NBC News. By then, Democrats had captured the White House and majorities in both legislative chambers.
“One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration,” he said.

Mitch’s old friend in the Senate, President Joe Biden, was by then settled in the White House. But instead of expressing an interest in working with the administration or expressing hopes of finding common ground, McConnell immediately rolled out the mattresses, highlighting what has been his perpetual modus operandi — party across the country. Regardless of the issue or the potential consequences, McConnell has rarely sought to accomplish anything other than amass power for power’s sake and undermine those seeking a brighter path forward.

McConnell sought to achieve his goals by abusing the Senate’s filibuster rules, using a process implemented to protect the rights of the Senate minority and turning it into a political coup, not for reasons of public policy, but simply to get more power.

Cloture, a procedure that former party leaders could have used but generally chose to use only in special circumstances, proved to be his favorite tool in the toolbox. It’s a form of filibuster that basically requires 60 of the 100 members of the Senate to support a bill’s passage. No doubt a bare majority is adequate to proceed.

In a tightly divided Senate, a 60-vote requirement can kill a bill even if a majority of lawmakers support it. And McConnell has the killing fields to prove it.

During the 109th legislative session, from January 3, 2005 to January 3, 2007, with the Republican majority, the Democratic minority under Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada sought to close on 68 occasions. The next session, the 110th, with Democrats back in control and McConnell installed as GOP leader, Republicans initiated 139 class votes, more than twice the number Reid sought in the previous session and a record up to that point in history.

And the numbers only increased in the following sessions. By the 113th Congress, with McConnell as minority leader, the number had reached 252. In the 117th Congress, 2021-2023, Republicans under McConnell sought impeachment 336 times .

The Democrats, once in the minority, felt compelled to join in the cloture madness. But it was McConnell who got the ball rolling, putting the party as always across the country. Writing in Atlantictwo political scientists, Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of the University of California, Berkley, asserted: “No one today—or perhaps ever—in the Senate has practiced the dark art of obstruction as relentlessly as Mitch McConnell” .

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a government watchdog organization, said bluntly: “Sen. McConnell has turned the world’s largest deliberative body into a dysfunctional, undemocratic, and blameless institution.”

That sums up McConnell’s legacy perfectly.

In a press release, Democracy 21 noted that Biden’s agenda upon taking office, “including voting rights, immigration reform and lowering prescription drug prices” faced Republican obstruction.
“Even the bipartisan plan to establish an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is blocked by a Republican filibuster,” the organization said.

McConnell blocked so many judicial and cabinet appointments during President Barack Obama’s administration, including nominations to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, considered the nation’s most powerful panel behind the Supreme Court, that Reid, in his role as majority leader , changed the rules. to prohibit building votes on judicial appointees for all but the high court.

There were other problems than constant cloture movements. McConnell fought tooth and nail against the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, when it was passed in 2010, giving some 44 million Americans health care coverage they previously didn’t have access to or couldn’t afford allows. Once Republicans captured the majority in 2016, McConnell tried to repeal the landmark law, only to be stopped when an old cross-party rival, the late Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, voted to keep it.

There are too many points of view on McConnell’s resume to list. A few quick shots:

• McConnell infamously botched two Supreme Court appointments while Republicans held the majority. Obama nominated Justice Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died, on the court in 2016, but McConnell refused to even consider it, saying such appointments should not be ratified in a presidential election year. Four years later, in 2020, McConnell promoted the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who also died in office. That nomination, by President Donald Trump, was voted on just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost. Somehow, McConnell managed to ignore the rule he invented out of thin air just a few years earlier. McConnell cites this as his greatest achievement.

• McConnell served as an enabler for Trump during his first four years in office, even as he told a biographer that he thought the president was stupid and a disgrace. In fact, McConnell supported Trump in his successful campaign to win back the White House, although he held him responsible for instigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election that Trump lost. All this even though Trump insulted him countless times.

It’s not a pretty picture. McConnell seems destined to go down as one of the worst congressional leaders in history, despite the praise that describes him as a legislative genius for trampling on all legislative comity. Kentucky, in reviewing its moribund economic condition, often sighs, “Thank God for Mississippi.” McConnell is probably thanking God for Bill Frist, a nothingburger from Tennessee who preceded him in office.

One point, in addition to his international acumen, might be McConnell’s occasional disdain for the far right in his GOP caucus, bomb-throwers like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, who will to develop. anyone standing in the way of their wild ambitions.

After stepping down as Republican leader, McConnell is expected to retire and not seek an eighth term in two years. He is already the longest serving senator in Commonwealth history.

There are reports that he may take over as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, a position that may prove more beneficial to Kentucky than his tenure as Republican leader.

Either way, the next two years should prove interesting for McConnell as he faces a Trump-led administration. The two men despise each other and a potential standoff is already brewing.

Trump, as is his wont, has nominated some real winners for top jobs in his administration. Four jobs stand out — former congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vax activist, for secretary of Health and Human Services, former congressman and ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to head the CIA and a character Fox News Pete Hegseth to run the Defense Department.

All four carry enough baggage to sink the Titanic. When push comes to shove, will McConnell find the courage to stand up to these bozos, or will force of habit send him back to the party the country way?

Betting lines are open.