When Mitch McConnell first ran for Senate in 1984, President Ronald Reagan came to Kentucky. approved His best friend “Mitch O'Donnell”. Vice President George H.W. Bush mistakenly identified McConnell as the mayor of Louisville.
For the next 40 years, no politician, Democratic or Republican, would make that mistake again. And this week, McConnell stepped down as the longest-serving and one of the most important Senate leaders in history.
During his tenure as leader, McConnell secured passage of important bipartisan legislation. He negotiated a compromise with the Obama administration to prevent the federal government from defaulting on its debt. Extended George W. Bush-era tax cuts. and bailed out the financial services industry during the Great Recession. He worked with President Biden to pass the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and military aid to Ukraine through the Senate.
That said, as Michael Tackett suggests in his book, new book“The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell took control of the Senate, changed America, and lost his party,” in which he does tremendous damage to democratic norms, practices, and institutions.
While in college, McConnell wrote that the U.S. government should guarantee “the fundamental rights of all citizens, regardless of race, creed, or national origin.” He voted for Lyndon Johnson because Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act.
But in 2019 and 2020, McConnell refused The House-passed Voting Rights Act, which would restore the Justice Department's power to “preclear” state voting laws that allegedly discriminate against people of color, will not be brought to the Senate floor, let alone hold a hearing. being sought after. McConnell claim that “Nobody's vote is being suppressed in any state in any of America.” But in 2021, the Brennan Center for Justice revealed that: 253 banknotes Forty-three states have introduced, pending, or passed legislation restricting voting access.
In an op-ed published in 1973, McConnell claimed that “The lack of an overall limit on spending is an unsuspecting invitation to special interests to unduly influence candidates.” We are “closer” to becoming a “bought nation,” he said. added. He advocated eliminating the “cancer” of money in politics by making campaign financing public, limiting campaign contributions, and requiring full disclosure by donors.
Twenty years later, McConnell made a claim that became “the core of his political identity,” according to Tackett, that “campaign spending is an act of free speech.” He launched an all-out attack on McCain and Feingold's campaign finance bill. And he played a pivotal role in the court challenge that led to Citizens United v. FEC. This is a 2010 Supreme Court decision that paved the way for virtually unlimited and often undisclosed “dark money” political contributions in political action committees. The fiction that they are not aligned with candidates or political parties.
Since then, campaign spending has skyrocketedwhich has reached a previously unimaginable $16 billion for the 2024 presidential and congressional elections, and shows no signs of leveling off.
During the debate over Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987, McConnell said that senators evaluate the character and professional qualities of judicial nominees and defer to the president on their philosophy and ideology. I was of the opinion that it should be done. McConnell acknowledged that he was adhering to this standard “to avoid deadlock,” adding, “Perhaps in a few years, I will cancel this standard and support qualified candidates with views that I believe are completely inappropriate.” “I'll be in a position where I have to do it,” he admitted.
But McConnell abandoned this view when a Democrat was in the White House. he blocked Dozens of President Obama's nominees appear in federal court. he is responsible for that schedule President Trump's first term had about the same number of appellate court judges as President Obama's second term.
After Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, McConnell cited a previously non-existent rule that states Supreme Court vacancies should not be filled in a presidential election year, and that the Senate would He refused to consider presidential candidate Merrick Garland. In 2017, when Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's pick to fill the seat, McConnell persuaded his colleagues to end the filibuster against Supreme Court nominees, and Gorsuch was approved by a majority vote. It was done.
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, Mr. McConnell concocted another new rule. The idea was that if the same party controls the Senate and the White House, the proximity of a presidential election should not prevent candidates from being considered. After a short hearing, the Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett, giving the high court a conservative majority.
A week after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, McConnell said in an interview with Oral History, “It looks like you can impeach someone after they leave office, and if that happens, there will be a second vote in the Senate.” It will be done. If passed by a simple majority, that person would be barred from holding public office again.''If Trump had committed no indictable crime, Trump then said, “What is that? I don’t know,” he told Tackett.
But when the impeachment resolution was called on February 13, McConnell reversed his stance and declared that the Constitution does not provide for such penalties after a president leaves office. Perhaps he was betting that Trump had no future in politics, fearing a break with the majority of his Republican colleagues in the Senate.
It is now clear that Mr. McConnell made a fatal miscalculation. For some reason, he also support Trump is seeking re-election in 2024.
Mr. McConnell will serve out his term, which expires in 2027, albeit from a different seat in the Senate. Some wonder whether he will follow the president's will when he has nothing left to lose. characteristic “Unfit for office,” “stupid,” “sneaky,” “scumbag.”narcissist” and “Almost every quality you wouldn’t want someone to have.”
Glenn C. Altshuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Cornell University.
