It’s Mitch’s Fault
“If I’m still the majority leader of the Senate after next year, none of those things are going to pass the Senate,” “They won’t even be voted on. So think of me as the Grim Reaper — the guy who is going to make sure that socialism doesn’t land on the president’s desk.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – 4/22/19
Before there was Donald Trump, before there was “fake news,” before there was Twitter; there was Mitch. Before there was the Star Wars like “Resistance” to the current Republican Administration (worrisome for Resistance fans, the Rebellion in Star Wars didn’t always turn out OK) there was “McConnell Blocks.” Try “Googling” it, you’ll get over one hundred hits.
Mitch McConnell, the seventy-seven year old senior Senator from Kentucky, started in politics after receiving his medical discharge from the Vietnam War era Army. He only served thirty-three days, exiting to become an aide to Senator Marlow Cook in 1968. He has, except for a brief stint in private legal practice, been in politics ever since. He first ran for office in 1977, elected as Judge/Executive of Jefferson County (Louisville). He was elected to the US Senate in 1984 and he has been there ever since, thirty-four years. He became Majority Leader when the Republicans won the majority after the 2014 election. Through all of that, he has managed to amass a personal wealth of over $20 million. Government work is good.
Before Republican’s gained the majority, McConnell was the Minority Leader for eight years. Upon the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, McConnell stated; “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one term President.”
It isn’t out of the norm for a Republican leader to want to defeat a Democratic President in the next election; in fact, it’s exactly normal. The difference is the extent that Mr. McConnell was willing to go. He was willing to completely abandon the values of bipartisan rule in order to do anything and everything to stop President Obama’s legislation.
Even when the Obama Administration took a Republican plan, developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation and first implemented by Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and presented it to Congress as the Affordable Care Act; McConnell did everything he could to stop it, and led Republicans in a total boycott. It wasn’t just that they voted against the legislation, they refused to participate in any negotiations about it. When current arguments are made that Democrats shut Republicans out of the Affordable Care Act legislation, the reality was Republicans refused to participate.
In 2015, when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly died of a heart attack, McConnell as Majority Leader quickly made it clear that President Obama’s appointee would not get a hearing or a vote. As McConnell later said; “One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, ‘You will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy’.”
The Courts have been a singular focus for Leader McConnell since the election of Donald Trump as President. In the last two years, McConnell has managed to fill 20% of the Federal Appellate seats in the nation. As Federal judges are appointed for life, and McConnell has determined to place an emphasis on youth in his appointments; his actions will have a profound influence on US law for the next thirty years.
His coordination with the Federalist Society, a national organization of lawyers dedicated to conservative views on the Constitution, has provided a pipeline of nominees. While the most famous recent appointees were Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, they join three other Society Justices; Thomas, Roberts and Alito, in changing the Court majority.
The Federalist Society “court packing” is McConnell’s singular achievement, starting with blocking President Obama’s Merrick Garland appointment. Whatever may happen to President Trump, either Constitutionally or electorally in the next two years, McConnell can definitely say “mission accomplished” when it comes to the Federal Judiciary.
That power is contingent on a Republican President, and a Republican Senate. The Presidential election of 2020 is an existential turning point for the United States, but the choice for control of the Senate is almost as critical. McConnell has made it clear that a Democratic President in 2020 will continue to be hamstrung by a Republican majority. McConnell will be happy to return to his “grim reaper” role.
