U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who entered Congress during the Reagan Revolution and helped transform the U.S. Supreme Court three decades later during the Trump era, announced Wednesday that he will step down as leader of the Senate Republican Conference effective November.
“As the book of Ecclesiastes tells us, ‘There is a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven,'” McConnell, 82, said in his speech. speech From the floor of the United States Senate. “…Father Time remains undefeated. I’m no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping my colleagues will remember my name. It’s time for the next generation of leadership. It is.”
McConnell was elected in 1984 to defeat President Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee Rohrbert, who was accused by liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy and the Democratic-controlled Senate of supporting racial discrimination and opposing women’s rights. – He was serving his first term when he defeated Bork. (The conservative Bork was replaced by Anthony Kennedy, a moderate who supported Roe v. Wade.)
Mr. McConnell’s colleagues and allies later said that experience shaped his views about the Senate’s role in confirmation fights.
“There is no one better able to reform the Supreme Court than Mitch McConnell.” Said Ed Whelan is a legal expert and distinguished senior fellow at the Center for Ethics and Public Policy.
McConnell rose through the ranks in the Senate to become leader of the Republican conference in 2007, using the filibuster as minority leader to block or delay confirmation of many of President Obama’s judicial nominees.
But McConnell’s most important moment during the Obama years was the death of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Republicans took control of the Senate a year ago, with Majority Leader McConnell not voting to confirm Mr. Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, and instead choosing to hold the seat to be filled by the winner of the presidential election. He announced that he would leave it vacant. That year’s presidential election, the campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. When Trump won the White House, McConnell led the effort to confirm Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
Four years later, McConnell was back in the headlines when liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died two months before the election. McConnell quickly announced that the Senate would hold hearings and ultimately vote on his successor, Amy Coney Barrett, before the November election. Barrett confirmed. Democratic critics accused McConnell of hypocrisy, but McConnell countered that he was following precedent in a situation where the White House and Senate were held by the same party (unlike in 2016).
Barrett’s confirmation gives the Supreme Court a 6-3 conservative majority. When President Trump took office, conservatives were in the minority on the court.
As leader of the Republican Party, Mr. McConnell also led efforts to confirm Mr. Trump’s other nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Mr. McConnell’s focus on the Supreme Court has paid off for conservatives, as the court overturned Roe v. Wade and issued several decisions that strengthened religious freedom protections. It is the most conservative Supreme Court in nearly a century.
“We are not an easy group to bicker with, but Mitch McConnell has managed to guide us through historic legislative battles and has been instrumental in establishing a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He played an important role,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, RN.D. . ). “I wish him the best of luck as he concludes his term as leader.”
Mr. McConnell also gave preference to Mr. Trump’s lower court nominees. By the time Trump left office in January 2021, McConnell and the Republican-led Senate had confirmed more than 225 judges nominated by Trump. The more than 50 appellate court judges are the most by a single-term president since President Carter (1977-1980).
He is the longest-serving Senate majority leader in history, and said he would complete his term until January 2027.
Image credit: ©Getty Images/Drew Angerer/Staff
Michael Faust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His story was published in Baptist Press. Christianity Today, Christian Poecent, of leaf chronicle, of toronto star and of knoxville news sentinel.
