Tag: McConnell filibuster threat

‘I’ve got news for Mitch McConnell — he broke the Senate’: Ex-senator kills ’empty threat’ from GOP leader

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the floor Tuesday to claim that if Democrats change the filibuster now that they are in charge, it would be a “scorched Earth” move. The problem with the claim, according to one former senator, is that McConnell is the one who broke the senate to begin with.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Brian Williams, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said that McConnell’s threats at this point are empty because there’s nothing worse that he can do whether in or out of power. 

“Well, that’s what he’s trying to do, but I’ve got news for Mitch McConnell: he kind of broke the Senate,” she said. “He’s the one that has used the rules in a way they were never intended to be used. And he has done it with gleeful abandon over and over and over again. The senate has become broken. The regular order is gone. There’s not debate. There are no amendments. It is just a mere shadow of what it used to be. So, the question is, should you have to stand up and own your obstructionism?” Continue reading.

Spooked McConnell Threatens ‘Scorched Earth’ To Protect Filibuster

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As momentum grows to eliminate a tool Republicans have used over the years to kill overwhelmingly popular legislation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday threatened to make the Senate into an unbearably slow and hostile work environment as retribution.

“Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” the Kentucky senator declared in a speech on the Senate floor, referring to what he’d do if Democrats repealed the filibuster, the extended debating tactic that makes it possible for the chamber’s minority to block legislation. Invocation of cloture, a move to limit the debate, requires a total of 60 votes to be adopted.

McConnell said he’d require a quorum to be present to conduct even mundane business. That would slow down work in the Senate because it would pull lawmakers from committee hearings and take away time senators have to meet with constituents in their offices in Washington, D.C. Continue reading.