"Democrats should press candidates who claim to be serious about bold, structural reform to spell out what they think is necessary to revamp the Supreme Court"

 

On NBC’s Meet the Press, veteran lawmaker Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) emphatically urged expanding seats on the Supreme Court from 9 to 13 justices. “A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court,” he said. Court expansion, no longer the province of left-leaning academics thanks to the MAGA justices’ radicalism, has become an indisputably mainstream, pro-democracy response.

In truth, increasing the seats on the Supreme Court amounts to rebalancing. Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) packed the court when he denied Merrick Garland a hearing during President Obama’s term — yet rushed through Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation once election voting was already underway in 2020. 

Rebalancing to establish the proper equilibrium among the branches (i.e., reversing the MAGA justices’ investiture of the authoritarian executive power in Trump and their contemptuous disregard for Congress’s constitutional powers) is fundamental to preserving our constitutional system.

Increasing the number of seats on the court begins with a solid base of support. A June Marquette Law School poll showed the public split 50-50 on adding seats, up from just 42 percent support in 2019. Since 2021, support has varied between 48 and 52 percent, even without a nationally focused campaign on the issue. Simply because other proposals have even more support (the same poll shows term limits has approval from 73 percent of Republicans, 71 percent of independents, and 87 percent of Democrats) does not mean court expansion should be disregarded.

Indeed, fearing that court expansion might be catching on, the MAGA House majority Wednesday introduced a constitutional amendment freezing the number of justices at nine, confirmation that — absent such a measure — court expansion by statute is unquestionably constitutional. (It failed to win 2/3 required approval with only a single Democrat voting with Republicans.) 

Ironically, the stunt underscores that nine is an arbitrary number, carrying no historical or constitutional significance. (Unsurprisingly, the GOP, which is beholden to dark money purveyors such as court fixer Leonard Leo, leaves out other overwhelmingly popular reforms, such as a mandatory ethics code.)

In opposing the gambit, the progressive group Demand Justice released a statement explaining: Court expansion is the only court reform option that would promptly redress the 6-3 supermajority, which is itself the result of a partisan power grab. When the American people are counting on congressional Democrats to be the last line of defense against the Administration’s assault on the rule of law, it is more critical than ever to fight MAGA power grabs.

Noting that MAGA justices’ hugely unpopular and constitutionally flawed decisions in the Callais and Dobbs decisions have prompted trust in the court to decline and support for serious reform to spike, Demand Justice urges Congress to keep expansion as a viable option, observing that the “most persuasive argument in favor of expansion is the aggressive approach of the Court itself: the right-wing majority will continue to dramatically remake the law to favor the oligarchy.”

 

In the current environment, many Democrats nevertheless remain skittish about expanding the court, citing FDR’s failed New Deal scheme some 90 years ago. But as the bipartisan court commission assembled by President Biden recalled, “Soon after [FDR’s] plan was announced, the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions upholding state and federal regulation of the economy. . . . [which] left in place Roosevelt’s existing New Deal and ended an era in which the Court frequently invalidated laws designed to protect workers, consumers, and the public.” In short, it worked.

Bottom of Form

Democrats too often shy away from proposals such as court expansion for fear of triggering blowback from Republicans — who championed McConnell’s court-packing. Avoiding a meritorious reform simply because it will upset Republicans or does not already have sky-high approval reveals bizarre timidity and reflects a mindset that ignores the key role that persuasion and debate play in politics. A lengthy list of issues (from data centers to corruption to abolishing ICE) were not “winners” with voters until advocacy groups pushed to educate voters, independent media elevated them, and forward-leaning politicians took the lead.

What is key in the current environment is that dissatisfaction with the MAGA partisan Supreme Court is high (and likely to intensify with each new gift served up to their White House patron). This makes the rationale for serious, substantial restructuring of the court even more compelling.

Taken before the MAGA majority’s latest cringeworthy decision (allowing Donald Trump to build his ghastly ballroom), the Marquette poll found, for example, that 61 percent of Americans understand “the United States Supreme Court is ruling for President Donald Trump ‘almost always’ or ‘most of the time,’” and some 57 percent (including 60 percent of independents) say “the Court is going out of its way to avoid a ruling Trump might refuse to obey.” A captive, quisling court that has distorted the executive branch in direct contravention of the Framers’ vision (shaped by overwhelming fear of creating another monarch) is a court that requires dramatic, immediate repair.

Democrats should emphasize that court redesign is required because the MAGA majority (created by Republican confirmation shenanigans) has arrogantly rejected fundamental judicial norms (e.g., eschewing an enforceable ethics code, abusing the shadow docket to render opinions without judicial reasoning, shredding precedent when it suits them), and taken a sledgehammer to checks and balances (e.g., granting Donald Trump criminal immunity, destroying independent commissions).

Ideally, combining term limits for future justices with court expansion would be the fastest, most comprehensive, and effective way to rescue our democratic structure. Certainly, term limits on justices would help address concerns about diversity, a geriatric court, and hyper-partisanship — with the hope that more frequent appointments with term limits would reduce partisan frenzy surrounding court fights. 

While proponents are confident it could be done statutorily, this Supreme Court majority might not agree. Moreover, changing the composition of the court only by periodic retirements/replacements would be time-consuming, leaving the country at the mercy of MAGA constitutional destruction for years.

Democrats would do well to think more like the Republicans who readily claim a “mandate” after elections. If Democrats win the trifecta in 2028 under the banner of bold pro-democracy reform, their mandate certainly should include court rebalancing as part of their democracy restoration project.

Only a few of the potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders (e.g., Pete Buttigieg) have embraced court expansion, but most have not ruled it out. However, Democratic voters have a critical role to play in promoting a wide-ranging debate in the next presidential cycle: What will it take to return the Supreme Court to its proper role and recover our constitutional order? Thanks to Clyburn, that issue is squarely before the party.

Democrats should press candidates who claim to be serious about bold, structural reform to spell out what they think is necessary to revamp the Supreme Court. They should not minimize the threat the current MAGA court poses, nor trim their sails to avoid incurring the ire of those who have pummeled our democracy. As long as the MAGA court majority remains hostile to pluralistic democracy and to the restoration of our constitutional structure, it will block progress on virtually all serious issues —dark money, abortion, voting rights. Democrats must decide if they are resigned to that fate.

 -Contrarian 

"We get it, Mitch. Paid sick leave for me but never for thee."

 

Welcome to August and the kickoff to Month Three of Sen. Mitch “MIA” McConnell’s taxpayer-funded medical leave. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear recently wrote a letter demanding that McConnell make a public address or issue his immediate resignation. The hypocrisy in collecting a paycheck since June 14, the last date McConnell showed up at work, makes one thing abundantly clear: the Republican Party has zero shame.

When it comes to paid sick leave, the United States is a global outlier in its refusal to require employers to provide it for workers. Of course, this is in large part thanks to McConnell’s decades-long tenure in the Senate. In 1993, he notoriously voted against the landmark Family and Medical Leve Act (FMLA), one of only 27 senators to do so. 

Thanks to the FMLA, most employees are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, to recover from an illness, or to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition.

[Personal note: FMLA was the only form of maternity leave I was afforded for my firstborn in 1996, and I was back on the job 12 weeks later; grateful as I was for the legal mandate that my position be held for me, our nation’s inability to ensure universal and paid parental leave is beyond a disgrace. But I digress]. 

McConnell’s FMLA vote to derail even unpaid leave was hardly a career one-off. During the height of the pandemic, he blocked various federal paid sick and family leave extensions in congressional stimulus packages — and then laughed about it. In 2022, he voted against a proposal that would have guaranteed seven days of paid sick leave for freight rail workers.

We get it, Mitch. Paid sick leave for me but never for thee.

The double standard goes even deeper. Conspiracy theories flooded the Internet over a pair of Weekend at Bernie’s-style photos, a response to public speculation as to his whereabouts (which achieved exactly the opposite of assurance that he is alive and kicking). 

But it was his companion written statement crowing about the excellent health care he’s receiving while hospitalized that was so galling — something millions of fellow Americans can barely imagine today thanks to his longstanding effort to repeal and stymie the Affordable Care Act.

McConnell’s written statement was also rife with reminders of his lifelong physical challenges from childhood polio and his fears of being on the receiving end of age discrimination. He’s not been a vaccine-denier, I’ll give him that, but his overall record on supporting truth in science and equal treatment under the law is long, self-serving, and ugly.

Meanwhile, McConnell is not even the only Republican in Congress who has been off the job while collecting a paycheck. Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. also failed to show up for nearly four months, missing every House vote from March 5 to June 30. He, too, has rallied against legislation to require employers provide paid sick leave for workers during his prior stint in the New Jersey state Senate.

When Kean eventually returned to work, he grudgingly shared that he had been receiving inpatient mental health treatment and sought to maintain his privacy. Privacy, ahh, must be nice — now unheard of for any female of reproductive age in this country. 

I dare say McConnell’s singular and most significant contribution to the downward spiral of American democracy is his engineering of the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court, which made its first order of business decimating a constitutional right to privacy when it overturned Roe v. Wade. 

As for Kean, pro-choice groups uncovered a trove of deceptive statements about abortion he’s made over the course of his political career. Privacy, dignity, and control of one’s healthcare are similarly “me” and not “thee” rights.

[Another presumably missed vote by McConnell will be the confirmation of Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general; Politico reported yesterday that Blanche was caught on tape pledging he would deploy the Justice Department in concert with Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, and the White House to curtail abortion rights nationwide].

We all surely know that the dysfunction of our democracy means the likes of McConnell and Kean have little incentive to serve, let alone empathize with, their constituents. The way they’ve flouted decency and flaunted their respective leaves-of-absence proves it. 

With fewer than 100 days to go until the midterms, the moment is ripe to make a lesson out of these stories. That entails doing more than calling out the hypocrisy — bald-faced and infuriating as it is — but pointing toward real policies like paid sick (and parental) leave, access to healthcare, and reproductive freedom and dignity, all of which undergird the benefits in which they’ve basked. We all deserve the same.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law. She also leads strategy and partnerships at Ms. Magazine.

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Mitch McConnell

 

Dahlia Lithwick: Can we talk about Mitch McConnell for a minute?

Mark Joseph Stern: What was your first reaction when you heard the news?

My first reaction was that I hate this timeline so much. It’s the timeline where we have to miss Rep. Kevin McCarthy because the person who followed him was, as sure as night follows day, vastly crazier. That’s how I feel about McConnell. 

This is the person who singlehandedly did more to destroy Senate norms of comity and respect, to help Donald Trump evade accountability, and to steal and pack the Supreme Court with people who should not be sitting on the court. And still, in this moment, we’re going to have to thank him for respecting the vestigial norms that he did and not being an utter sociopath each and every day. Because the person who follows him will be worse.

I’ll add that, in my view, no one has done more to destroy the federal judiciary than Mitch McConnell. This is the guy who, under Obama, decided to block as many judicial nominations as possible, for no reason other than to leave the seats open so Trump could come in and fill them. 

This is the guy who violated every known norm to hold open Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, ostensibly because it came open in an election year, only to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat when people were already voting in the 2020 election. I think he made a lot of Americans wake up and realize that this was all Calvinball, that he had no principles to begin with.

But even more than that, Mitch McConnell was the guy who realized you don’t need to win elections to enact Republican policy. You don’t need to change hearts and minds. You don’t need to push ballot initiatives or win over the views of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts. You only need 51 votes in the Senate to stack the courts with far-right partisan activists like Aileen Cannon and Matthew Kacsmaryk. And they will enact Republican policies under the guise of judicial review, policies that could never pass through the democratic process. And those policies will be bulletproof, because they will be called “law,” and Democrats will need at least a century to win back the courts.

Anyone who believes in an independent judiciary with any integrity should loathe McConnell to their bones.

I want to add that McConnell, for so many reasons, stands out as somebody who knew exactly who Donald Trump was, exactly what happened on Jan. 6, exactly what his responsibility was in that moment. And he didn’t do it. He normalized the idea that you can mumble stuff and do nothing. Then we all live with the consequences. 

He made it easier for whoever follows him to do even less. And now he’s being praised as some elder statesman? Really? He’s totally morally bankrupt. The only silver lining, Mark, is that whoever follows him will not be as good as him at this crap.

Slate

 

"Our democracy is broken when one man who profits from the fossil fuel industry can defy the 81 million Americans who voted for Democrats to stop the climate crisis"

 

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia informed Democratic leaders Thursday that he will not support any new climate spending or tax increases targeting the wealthy and large corporations, sinking his party's revived push for renewable energy investments and further undercutting the country's ability to rein in carbon emissions.

While Manchin's refusal to endorse green energy funding may have been entirely foreseeable given his close ties to the fossil fuel industry and his role in tanking the Build Back Better package just months earlier, climate advocates nevertheless voiced dismay at the power one individual has been able to exert over a process with implications for billions of people across the planet.

"This is nothing short of a death sentence," warned Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement. "Our democracy is broken when one man who profits from the fossil fuel industry can defy the 81 million Americans who voted for Democrats to stop the climate crisis. It's clear appealing to corporate obstructionists doesn't work, and it will cost us a generation of voters."

Manchin's position, which he reportedly laid out during a closed-door meeting with the Democratic leadership on Thursday, marks a huge setback for the majority party's last-ditch attempt to assemble a far more limited reconciliation bill ahead of the pivotal midterm elections, in which Democrats' slim majorities in the House and Senate are at risk.

The Washington Post, the first outlet to report on the West Virginia Democrat's stance, noted that party leaders had already "agreed to surrender their most prized spending proposals, from offering paid family and medical leave to providing child care, free prekindergarten, and tax benefits to low-income Americans" in a bid to win Manchin's support, which is necessary to get a reconciliation package through the Senate.

"In more recent talks," the Post added, "[Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer and his colleagues set about trying to woo the longtime holdout over a scaled-back approach—including tax credits to spur clean energy, incentives to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles, and limited penalties on the producers of harmful methane gas."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, told the newspaper that the collapse of climate talks is a devastating failure. "I'm not going to sugarcoat my disappointment here, especially since nearly all issues in the climate and energy space had been resolved," said Wyden. "This is our last chance to prevent the most catastrophic—and costly—effects of climate change. We can't come back in another decade and forestall hundreds of billions—if not trillions—in economic damage and undo the inevitable human toll."

With new climate and tax provisions off the table, Manchin reportedly told top Democrats that he's open to letting Medicare negotiate the prices of a small number of prescription drugs and extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to lapse in the coming months, which would mean surging premiums for millions of people.

The removal of climate provisions from the nascent legislative package is disastrous for U.S. efforts to bring carbon emissions into line with international targets and transition the country away from fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis.

But it's a major victory for the powerful and deep-pocketed oil and gas industry, which has been lobbying aggressively against renewable energy spending. "Manchin has taken more money from the fossil fuel industry than anyone else in D.C.," noted Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. "And the return on that investment has been enormous. Big Oil got its money's worth a thousand times over."

Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires—a group that advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy—said Thursday that "Manchin just handed victory in America's class war to the billionaires."

"He's shown he doesn't care about the American people, he only cares about the tiny wealthy minority of Americans who are opposed to rich people (like his family and friends who own the coal mining industry) paying taxes," Pearl added. "Some may be ignorant, some may be corrupt, all are just sad pawns in the oligarchs' takeover of America."

The closure, for now, of legislative paths toward climate action spurred fresh calls for President Joe Biden to do everything he can through executive action. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) tweeted late Thursday that "it’s now time for executive Beast Mode" from the president, who has thus far resisted pressure to declare a climate emergency and take other steps to mobilize federal resources to combat a crisis whose deadly consequences are becoming more evident by the day. "Do it all and start it now," Whitehouse demanded.

In a press release, the Sunrise Movement outlined a list of actions Biden could take without needing congressional approval:

• End the practice of leasing public lands and waters for fossil fuel production;
• Stop the issue of permits for any new fossil fuel infrastructure, including pipelines, petrochemical plants, and export terminals, especially Line 3, Line 5, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline;
• Declare a climate emergency;
• Update and strengthen outdated standards limiting particulate matter, ozone, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, coal ash, and tailpipe emissions, as well as lead and copper rules preventing contamination of drinking water;
• Finalize new methane standards for new and existing oil and gas operations, and make these standards strong enough to cut methane pollution at least 65 percent below 2012 levels by 2025; and
• Direct the EPA to designate greenhouse pollutants as criteria air pollutants and set a science-based national pollution cap under the Clean Air Act.

"We won't stop fighting," said Prakash. "Biden must declare a climate emergency, and do everything in his executive power to stop the climate crisis immediately. That's the only way he can salvage his presidency and save our generation. And we must uproot this broken system and rebuild it to work for us." 

-Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

 

“There [was] only one story [yesterday]” by Heather Cox Richardson

 

“It is not the coronavirus pandemic, although 547,000 of us have died of Covid-19, and a study today suggested that we could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths if we had adopted masks and social distancing early on. It is not the coronavirus even though [yesterday] President Joe Biden noted that we will reach 100 million vaccinations tomorrow and that he aims to reach 200 million vaccines by his 100th day in office….

“It is not the situation on our southern border, where a surge of migrants apparently matches the seasonal pattern of people trying to make it into the United States….

“It is not the economy, although the U.S. Treasury said today it had issued 37 million payments this week, worth $83 billion, from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan....

“The story [yesterday]—and always—is the story of American democracy.

“[Last night], Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed a 95-page law designed to suppress the vote in the state where voters chose two Democratic senators in 2020, making it possible for Democrats to enact their agenda. Among other things, the new law strips power from the Republican secretary of state who stood up to Trump’s demand that he change the 2020 voting results. The law also makes it a crime to give water or food to people waiting in line to vote.

“The Georgia law is eye-popping, but it is only one of more than 250 measures in 43 states designed to keep Republicans in power no matter what voters want.

“This is the only story from [yesterday] because it is the only story historians will note from this era: Did Americans defend their democracy or did they fall to oligarchy?

“The answer to this question right now depends on the Senate filibuster. Democrats are trying to fight state laws suppressing the vote with a federal law called the For the People Act, which protects voting, ends partisan gerrymandering, and keeps dark money out of elections.

“The For the People Act, passed by the House of Representatives, is now going to the Senate. There, Republicans will try to kill it with the filibuster, which enables an entrenched minority to stop popular legislation by threatening to hold the floor talking so that the Senate cannot vote. If Republicans block this measure, the extraordinary state laws designed to guarantee that “Democrats can never win another election will stay in effect, and America as a whole will look much like the Jim Crow South, with democracy replaced by a one-party state. Democrats are talking about reforming the filibuster to keep Republicans from blocking the For the People Act.

“They have been reluctant to get rid of the filibuster, but today President Joe Biden suggested he would be open to changing the rule that permits Republicans to stop legislation by simply indicating opposition. Republicans are abusing the filibuster, he says, and he indicated he would be open to its reform.

“The story [yesterday] is not about coronavirus vaccines, or border solutions, or economic recovery, because all of those things depended on the election of Joe Biden. If the Republicans get their way, no matter how popular Democrats are, they will never again get to direct the government”—Heather Cox Richardson

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Notes:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-economy/u-s-covid-response-could-have-avoided-hundreds-of-thousand-of-deaths-research-idUSKBN2BH1DK

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/georgia-voting-restrictions/2021/03/25/91009e72-8da1-11eb-9423-04079921c915_story.html

 

"Republicans openly fretting that broader access to voting will harm the party's chances"

 

“In the aftermath of the GOP's assault on the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and amid a torrent of Republican measures aimed at restricting voting rights in the name of security, Democrats are pushing for a far-reaching solution to counter attempts at narrowing access to the ballot box.

“H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act, seeks to abolish hurdles to voting, reform the role of money in politics and tighten federal ethics rules. Among the key tenets of the bill to overhaul the nation's election system: allowing for no-excuse mail voting, at least 15 days of early voting, automatic voter registration and restoring voting rights to felons who have completed their prison sentences.

“Democrats' comprehensive bill passed the House -- for the second time -- nearly along party lines earlier this month and was introduced in the Senate this week. But it faces steep opposition from the GOP over its potential implications for future elections, including the 2022 midterms, with some Republicans openly fretting that broader access to voting will harm the party's chances.

“For Republicans, H.R. 1 represents a Democratic ‘power grab’ that could tilt elections in their favor for years to come, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put it. One Arizona state lawmaker called it ‘anti-Republican.’ ‘H.R. 1 is an attempt to use the Democrats' slim majority to unlevel the playing field and take away the rights of roughly half of the voters in the country,’ said Mark Weaver, a GOP consultant based in Ohio and an election law attorney.

“Other Republicans condemn the bill as a naked federal overreach of states' rights, saying the legislation will usurp the decentralized electoral system in favor of a nationalized, one-size-fits-all approach. And some Republican lawmakers, officials and strategists go even further, signaling the GOP's opposition to such extensive electoral reforms is based on the fear it will cause them to lose elections.

“‘If the Democrats pass H.R. 1, it's going to be absolutely devastating for Republicans in this country,’ said Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia, a state seeing one of the most aggressive campaigns to restrict voting. ‘They're just going to basically just shaft so many Republicans in places where they would actually have opportunities to pick up.’

“In Arizona, another battleground seeing an onslaught of election-related legislative battles, state Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican, told CNN, ‘Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they're willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote -- but everybody shouldn't be voting.’

“After more than a decade of Republicans scaling back voting access, the latest push comes after former President Donald Trump and his allies spent months seeding distrust in the electoral system based on fabricated claims of a ‘stolen’ election.

“The measure comes as many Republican state lawmakers, some of whom peddled Trump's baseless allegations of widespread fraud, are now leaning into what they cast as a lack of confidence in the democratic process to justify their election-related offensive. Republican state lawmakers across 43 states have advanced at least 250 bills so far aimed at limiting absentee and early voting and implementing stricter voter ID laws, among other provisions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

“The debate over H.R. 1 reflects the broader reckoning within the GOP over how to win elections in the post-Trump era, when the most significant motivator for both sides is no longer on the ballot. With both history and conventional wisdom pointing to an advantage for the out-of-power party in midterms, some Republicans are convinced H.R. 1 could make a difference.

“‘I think stopping [H.R. 1] is more relative to Republican success in the future than Donald Trump,’ Williams said, as the former president remains the most influential Republican in the party. ‘The ramifications of passing legislation like that would be very difficult for Republicans to win a majority status after that.’

“But Republican fears don't necessarily permeate in states where -- even with more people voting -- they found success in 2020, such as North Carolina, Ohio and Kentucky ‘I think it's a mistake for Republicans to believe that under any particular voting model they can't win elections. I think that's wrong and absurd, but it's the same error the Democrats are making trying to push H.R. 1,’ said Michael Adams, Kentucky's Republican secretary of state, before adding that in the last election, high turnout resulted in more registered Republicans participating than Democrats for the first time in the state's history.

“Democrats, for their part, point to the wholesale Republican push to curb voting rights as the impetus for more urgently pressing ahead on H.R. 1, which could serve as a backstop to thwart the state-level clamp down on voting. President Joe Biden made clear in a statement that the bill's reforms were "urgently needed," adding that he looks "forward to signing it into law after it has passed through the legislative process."

“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., underlined the string of attacks from Republicans on the electoral system in his defense of the Senate's companion bill. ‘If one political party believes 'heads we win, tails you cheated,' if one political party believes that when you lose an election, the answer isn't to win more votes, but rather to try to prevent the other side from voting, then we have serious and existential threats to our democracy on our hands,’ Schumer said Wednesday. ‘That's why we need S.1. so badly.’

“The proposal faces a tricky path forward to overcome the 60-vote threshold in the evenly divided Senate unless Democrats reform the filibuster. Biden said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday that he isn't opposed to looking at a return to the "talking filibuster,’ which would require opposing senators to ceaselessly speak on the Senate floor until the bill is dropped or proponents have the votes. Schumer made clear during a press conference Wednesday that Democrats will "decide the appropriate action to take" on the bill since ‘failure is not an option’” (ABC News).

 

"There simply is no more loathsome creature walking the political landscape"

 

“There simply is no more loathsome creature walking the political landscape than the Majority Leader of the United States Senate. You have to go back to McCarthy or McCarran to find a Senate leader who did so much damage to democratic norms and principles than this yokel from Kentucky. Mitch McConnell is a career politician who knows full well what he's doing to democratic government and is doing it anyway because it gives him power, and it gives the rest of us a wingnut federal judiciary for the next 30 years... 
 
“He doesn't have the essential patriotism god gave a snail. He pledges allegiance to his donors, and they get what they want. He's selling out his country, and he's doing it in real-time and out in the open. This is worse than McCarthy or McCarran ever were. Mitch McConnell is the thief of the nation's soul” (Esquire, There Is No More Loathsome Creature Walking Our Political Landscape Than Mitch McConnell Yes, that includes the jumped-up real-estate crook in the White House by Charles P. Pierce).

"The cold-blooded, most corporate-indentured Republicans dominate our political process today. Mitch McConnell led by the election-buying Koch brothers, drove Kavanaugh’s nomination through the Senate and excluding important witnesses who wished to testify. McConnell and the Senate prevented Trump from being convicted under the impeachment clause of the Constitution [on December 18, 2019; now look where we are today because of it!] -Ralph Nader.
 

“‘We have no choice but to take it up,’ McConnell said of impeachment. ‘But we'll be working through this process hopefully in a fairly short period of time in total coordination with the White House counsel's office and the people who are representing the president.’ Democratic lawmakers viewed McConnell's comments as unsurprising confirmation that the GOP-controlled Senate has no plans to allow an objective impeachment trial…” (Common Dreams).
 

“Senators Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham received donations from rich Russian oligarchs: In 2017, donated $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund.  ‘McConnell surely knew as a participant in high level intelligence briefings in 2016 that our electoral process was under attack by the Russians. Two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement in October 2016 that the Russian government had directed the effort to interfere in our electoral process, McConnell's PAC accepted a $1 million donation from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings. The PAC took another $1 million from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings on March 30, 2017, just 10 days after former FBI Director James Comey publicly testified before the House Intelligence Committee about Russia's interference in the election” (Dallas Morning News).
 
 
“Donald Trump helped provoke the swarms of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday, January 19… ‘The mob was fed lies,’ McConnell told the chamber, which two weeks earlier had been evacuated as rioters invaded the building. ‘They were provoked by the president and other powerful people’” (CNBC).
 

“[The notion that] Trump cannot be tried since he’s out of office attracted 45 of the 50 Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the Senate Republican leader. Rand Paul’s gambit confirmed Trump will not be convicted, despite the horrific events of Jan. 6 (and others leading up to them) in which Trump obviously played a central role.

“McConnell’s vote surprised some since he had publicly expressed such displeasure with Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. It was thought that perhaps McConnell might lead his conference to convict Trump, holding him accountable for his atrocious behavior.

“But ultimately McConnell came around to Paul’s view — also shared by legal scholar Jonathan Turley, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, and several others — that the Constitution doesn’t permit the trial of a former president, and that ‘perhaps impeachment just isn’t,’ as conservative godfather George Will wrote, ‘worth it.’

“…While many Republican senators know Trump is in the wrong, they simply didn’t want to confront him (and his supporters) when it wasn’t clear that conviction would have any real-world effect on him, anyway. The wisdom of this is in question, but the reality is not.

“Does this make them feel good about themselves? Probably not. Who can feel good about allowing someone — even a former president — to get away with such egregious behavior? Letting Trump off the hook could incite a future president to push the envelope even further (now that presidents can absolve themselves by simply resigning following an unconstitutional bender), and it undermines a fundamental lesson we teach our children: that cheaters never prosper…” (Courier Journal).

“Mitch McConnell told GOP colleagues in a letter that he will vote to acquit Donald Trump in the former president's impeachment trial, according to sources familiar with the communication. McConnell's announcement ends a long period of silence over whether he would consider convicting Trump for incitement of insurrection and could pave the way for many other Republicans to follow in acquittal. The Kentuckian shared his decision in a note to fellow GOP senators on Saturday morning, ahead of what could be the final day of Trump’s second impeachment trial. ‘While a close call, I am persuaded that impeachments are a tool primarily of removal and we therefore lack jurisdiction,’ McConnell wrote.

“That position puts McConnell in line with the votes he and 43 other GOP senators already cast, declaring Trump’s second trial unconstitutional. But the Republican leader, who has not spoken to Trump for weeks, suggested that criminal prosecution of the former president could be appropriate as a remedy following the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. ‘The Constitution makes it perfectly clear that Presidential criminal misconduct while in office can be prosecuted after the President has left office, which in my view alleviates the otherwise troubling ‘January exception’ argument raised by the House,’ McConnell wrote to fellow Republicans.

“McConnell is not whipping colleagues on their votes, but the decision of the GOP leader to acquit Trump will certainly tamp down the number of ‘yes’ votes. As many as 10 senators were thought to be considering a conviction vote as of Friday, but it's become harder and harder to see many senators convicting Trump other than the six who have voted to proceed” (Politico, Feb. 13, 2021).

WASHINGTON — Moments after voting to acquit Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a speech excoriating the former president for a "disgraceful dereliction of duty" and said he holds him responsible for "provoking" the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol.

McConnell was among the 43 Republicans who voted that Trump was "not guilty" on the charge of incitement of insurrection.

"There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it," the Kentucky Republican said Saturday. "The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president."

"And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet earth," he continued.

McConnell said the deadly riot was the product of "increasingly wild myths" and "an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision, or else torch our institutions on the way out."

But despite all the criticism, he said he voted "not guilty" because he believes Trump is "constitutionally not eligible for conviction" given that he is no longer president.

The riot occurred on Jan. 6. The House impeached Trump on Jan. 13, while he was still president. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House was ready to send the article to the upper chamber on Jan. 15 but couldn't because the Senate was out of session. At the time, McConnell opposed returning sooner, arguing that a fair trial could not be conducted and concluded in the short time Trump had left in office.

"It is so pathetic that Senator McConnell kept the Senate shut down so that the Senate could not receive the Article of Impeachment and has used that as his excuse for not voting to convict Donald Trump," Pelosi said in a statement Saturday… (NBC News, Feb. 13, 2021).

"The filibuster means that no legislation can pass Congress without the support of 10 Republicans" -Heather Cox Richardson

 

“…[T]he Senate is currently unable to organize itself because Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is insisting that the Democrats commit to leaving the filibuster intact. The filibuster is peculiar to the Senate, and is a procedure designed to draw out the session to prevent a vote on a measure. It is an old system, but it is not exactly hallowed: it was a bit of a mistake.

“The Constitution provides for the Senate to pass most measures by a simple majority. It also permits each house of Congress to write its own rules. According to historian Brian Bixby, the House discovered early on that it needed a procedure to stop debate and get on with a vote. The Senate, a much smaller body, did not.

“In the 1830s, senators in the minority discovered they could prevent votes on issues they disliked simply by talking the issue to death. In 1917, when both President Woodrow Wilson and the American people turned against the filibuster after senators used it to stop Wilson from preparing for war, the Senate reluctantly adopted a procedure to end a filibuster using a process called ‘cloture,’ but that process is slow and it takes a majority of three-fifths of all members. Today, that is 60 votes.

“From 1917 to 1964, senators filibustered primarily to stop civil rights legislation. The process was grueling: a senator had to talk for hours, as South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond did in 1957, when he spoke for 24 hours straight to stand against a civil rights act. But the need to speed up Senate business meant that in the 1960s and 1970s, senators settled on procedural filibusters that enabled an individual senator to kill a measure simply by declaring opposition, rather than through the old-fashioned system of all-night speeches.

“The Senate also declared some measures, such as budget resolutions, immune to filibusters. Effectively, this means that it takes 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to get anything--other than absolutely imperative financial measures-- done.

“In 2013, frustrated by the Republicans’ filibustering of President Obama’s judicial nominees and picks for a number of officials in the Executive Branch, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) prohibited filibusters on certain Executive Branch and judicial nominees. In 2017, when Democrats tried to filibuster the nomination of Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch, then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, as well.

“The filibuster remains in place for legislation.

“The Democrats currently have no plans to try to kill the filibuster altogether—they do not have the votes, as Joe Manchin (D-WV) has openly opposed the idea and others are leery—but they want to keep the threat of killing it to prevent McConnell and the Republicans from abusing it and stopping all Democratic legislation.

“This impasse means that senators are not organizing the Senate. New senators have not been added to existing committees, which leaves Republicans in the majority in key committees. This is slowing down Biden’s ability to get his nominees confirmed.

“What’s at stake here is actually quite an interesting question. While the new Senate is split evenly—50 Democrats, 50 Republicans—the 50 Democrats in the Senate represent over 41.5 million more people than the 50 Republicans represent. The filibuster means that no legislation can pass Congress without the support of 10 Republicans.

“Essentially, then, the fight over the filibuster is a fight not just about the ability of the Democrats to get laws passed, but about whether McConnell and the Republicans, who represent a minority of the American people, can kill legislation endorsed by lawmakers who represent quite a large majority.

“We are in an uncomfortable period in our history in which the mechanics of our democracy are functionally anti-democratic. The fight over the filibuster might seem dull, but it’s actually a pretty significant struggle as our lawmakers try to make the rules of our system fit our changing nation.”

-Heather Cox Richardson