By Gary Bennett
As seen in the Frederick News-Post Monday, September 23, 2019
There is no shortage of important legislation the country wants, the Democrat-led House has passed (much with substantial bipartisan support), and the Republican-led Senate refuses to act on. At last count, 127 different bills are languishing in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who has the absolute power to bring legislation to the floor of the Senate. Or not.
It’s the “or not” that has vexed Democrats and most Americans of both parties who want something done right now about many issues especially gun violence and election security. And it’s not even close.
In the case of gun violence, a recent NPR-PBS Newshour-Marist poll shows that 89% of Americans support enhanced background checks, including 84% of Republicans. Even the Republican lieutenant governor in ruby red Texas who boasts a 100% NRA rating says we must include private “stranger-to-stranger” gun sales in background checks. And, according to a Fox News poll, two-thirds of Americans support an assault weapons ban and nearly three-fourths support a national “red flag” law. That’s right – Fox News. If you are a gun-loving Republican who thinks nothing should be done about gun violence, you can be as stubborn as you want. Just know that you are now in the minority of your own party.
In the case of election security, a 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that over 75% of both Democrats and Republicans favor such measures as keeping a paper trail for each vote and performing a post-election audit even if it slows down results reporting. Whether you hold President Trump accountable or not, the Mueller Report makes it crystal clear, and politicians in both parties agree, that Russia most certainly meddled in the 2016 election and intends to do so again in 2020. And, individual states just don’t have the money or resources to combat this themselves.
So, how can Mitch McConnell be a one-man roadblock to the things Americans want? Very simply because he can. The Senate allows him to. The Senate majority leader holds astonishing power, none of which is laid out in the Constitution. Chief among these powers is the ability to set the agenda for the body, decide when it is in session, and decide which measures will be debated and voted on. One person decides all this and more. Whether by design or neglect the Founders did not address how the Senate would run itself or who would be in charge. Appointing leaders among Senate members and the power they wield has developed gradually and organically since about 1920.
Mr. McConnell has refused to take up House-passed legislation on hot-button issues because he says the president has not told him what bills he will support. This is a dangerous game to play with an erratic president who changes his position from one day to the next. Mr. McConnell’s stance precludes senators from debating and voting on legislation that is currently favored by most Americans and effectively transfers more power to the executive branch and away from Congress. This is not what the Founders wanted. Congress was always meant to be a co-equal branch, and even “first among equals” in the parlance of Thomas Jefferson.
To be fair, the Senate was always meant to be a calming influence on the House and the vagaries of shifting popular opinion. George Washington called it the “saucer that cools the tea.” The Founders provided that senators would stand for election every six years while representatives would stand every two years, making them more susceptible to short term swings in popular opinion while the Senate could afford to take the long view.
So, in one sense you can say that the Senate is doing exactly what it is supposed to do in regards to gun violence and election security. It is cooling the hot debate emanating from the House. But in another sense the Senate could just as effectively cool the tea by working with the House on compromise legislation and then bringing the legislation up for debate and subsequently voting it down if that is its desire. That is how it is supposed to work. But in this dysfunctional political climate in which we find ourselves, this is unlikely to happen. Many senators simply do not want an unpopular vote on their record. It is more politically expedient to simply not take up the issue. Mr. McConnell does not want to risk angering this mercurial president by forcing a veto and possible override.
This idea that you can’t consider legislation unless you know exactly how the president feels about it is a relatively new historical phenomenon and not a very attractive one. The president typically sets the broad national agenda and Congress attempts to follow it through legislative action. When you go back in history to the introduction of the Senate majority leader position in 1925 with Calvin Coolidge (R) in the White House, there have been 30 instances of the Senate majority leader belonging to the same party as the president. This did not stop Congress from doing its job and sending legislation to the president he might not like. According to the Congressional Record, in these 30 different Congresses, a total of 1,143 bills came to the president from a Senate controlled by the same party and were vetoed. Forty-four were overridden by Congress. Presumably the presidents didn’t like the 1,143 bills sent to them, but Congress sent them anyway. This is how our democracy is supposed to work. The president vetoed them as he had every right to do. But Congress overrode some of them, which is their right. Under the stewardship of Mitch McConnell, this Congressional right has been stopped in its tracks.
The majority leader has no constitutional right to withhold legislation from being considered. He has the right to do this by Senate rule and Senate rule alone. Those rules can be changed. Because he has taken political gamesmanship to a whole new level, it is hard to make the case that Mitch McConnell is still a patriot. He may have enjoyed that status at one time but no more. He is now derisively known as Moscow Mitch and clearly and unabashedly puts party over country just like when he said that he would do everything in his power to make sure Barack Obama was a one-term president even before he took office. While most political opponents wish a new president well, as was done with Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell was proud to blindly sabotage Mr. Obama’s agenda whether it made sense for America or not.
All of us had the chance to vote for Mr. Trump or his opponent for president in 2016. Like it or not he is president now and has the constitutional right to shape foreign and domestic policy and represent all of us on the world stage. However, not many of us, and certainly no Maryland citizen, got a chance to vote for Mr. McConnell or his opponent in the 2014 Kentucky senatorial election. And we certainly have no voice on who the leaders of the Senate will be. Putting it into terms that Mr. McConnell will understand, his actions (or more precisely his lack of action) has made us disenfranchised voters, and as such we now have every right to meddle in the Kentucky Senate election in 2020.
Since Mr. McConnell is a leading proponent of money-is-free-speech, which helped introduce dark money into politics and all the vitriol that comes with it, I invite all Maryland citizens who feel that Mr. McConnell has abused his power, is ambivalent to the will of the people, and is kowtowing too much to this erratic president to join me and make a donation to the campaign of his 2020 Kentucky senatorial opponent, Amy McGrath (D), a former 20-year Marine Corps fighter pilot at https://amymcgrath.com/. Then we should write to our own senators asking that the Senate curtail the power of majority leader, no matter the party, starting with the next Congress in 2021 before this sad spectacle repeats itself. The Senate gave the majority leader this unfettered power and they can and should take it away. A better model to guide the activities of the Senate would be a panel of three senior senators from each party. Ties would be broken by the vice president. This would still give the majority party the upper hand but take such crucial decision making out of the hands of one person not elected by the vast majority of Americans.