Norman Ornstein has a word for the press about Mitch:
Memo to mainstream journalists: Stop treating Mitch McConnell as an institutionalist. No one has blown up more norms. Stop taking everything he says at face value. Do you really think if he employed obstructionist tactics to blow things up that the majority would be helpless?
Use unanimous consent to bring the Senate to a complete halt? The majority can bring back a motion on the previous question to override, or use other rules changes to obviate. Delay every confirmation? Majority can find many ways to expedite.
Go to DEFCON 1? Majority can schedule votes and sessions with scant notice, can schedule votes when majority of Rs are going to be back home, telling Ds in advance to organize their schedules. In other words, McConnell’s threats are idle.
So why did Mitch not change the filibuster for legislation when Trump and Rs had control for 2 years? He had only these priorities: confirm Supreme Court justices– he blew up that rule, along with the blue slip–get a huge tax cut, try to repeal Obamacare.
He could accomplish those in reconciliation. So no need to eliminate 60 threshold for legislation. But you can be sure that if he had other top priorities he could only accomplish be shredding Rule XXII, he would have done it in a nanosecond.
Right.
The fact is that the Republican party doesn’t have a legislative agenda. They have put all their eggs in the judiciary and executive basket. They only exist to stop Democrats from doing anything and ensuring that a Republican president can pack the courts with extremist judges and confirm toadies and henchmen to the executive branch. That’s it.
McConnell blew up every rule he needed to blow up to get his agenda passed.