McConnell warns of 'scorched-earth, post-nuclear Senate,' promises 'nightmare' if Dems end filibuster
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promised a "nightmare" for Senate Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris if they move to end the legislative filibuster during the next two years.
The foreboding speech from McConnell, in which he alternatively lauded the merits of the 60-vote hurdle for the Senate to pass bills and warned of a dystopian Senate if Democrats remove it, came after two Senate Democrats on Monday said on-the-record that they don't support removing the protection for the Senate minority.
After getting those pledges from Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W. Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., McConnell relented on his demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., include a provision preserving the filibuster in their power-sharing agreement in the 50-50 Senate.
McConnell said that "simple arithmetic" now assures the Senate "won't tear up a central rule."
"The Senate exists to require deliberation and cooperation. James Madison said the Senate's job was to provide a complicated check ... against improper acts of legislation," McConnell said. "We ensure that laws earn enough buy-in to receive the lasting consent of the governed. We stop bad ideas, improve good ideas and keep laws from swinging wildly with every election."
But, McConnell said, "I want to discuss the precipice from which the Senate has stepped back... So let's take a look at what would happen if, in fact, the legislative filibuster was gone."
McConnell said, in what was essentially a threat, that there would be "immediate chaos, especially in this 50-50 Senate."
"Destroying the filibuster would drain comity and consent from this body to a degree that would be unparalleled in living memory," he said. "The Constitution requires the Senate to have a quorum to do any business. Right now, a quorum is 51 and the vice president does not count to establish a quorum. The majority cannot even produce a quorum on their own, and one could be demanded by any senator at almost any time."
McConnell said that evenly-split committees would need a quorum to do any business -- which theoretically Republicans, making up half of a committee, could withhold.
"Technically, it takes collegiality and consent for the majority to keep acting as the majority at any time they do not physically ... have a majority," McConnell added. "Every Senate Democrat and the vice president co... (Read more)
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