Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the floor Tuesday and threatened to turn the Senate into a 'hundred-car pile-up' i...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the floor Tuesday and threatened to turn the Senate into a 'hundred-car pile-up' if Democrats nuked the legislative filibuster.
'Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin, to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,' McConnell said.
A number of Democrats have been licking their lips at the prospect of killing the legislative filibuster, which would do away with them needing to meet a 60-vote threshold to get bills through.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a floor speech Tuesday where he threatened Democrats to run the Senate into a 'Hundred-car pile-up' if the majority party changed the rules and nuked the legislative filibuster
The Kentucky Republican tweeted a line from his speech. He outlined what policies conservatives would pursue if Democrats moved to kill the legislative filibuster
The Senate is currently divided 50-50, but Democrats rule because they have the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Killing the filibuster could pave the way for President Joe Biden's Green New Deal-like climate bill, immigration reform and other big-ticket items he campaigned on, which don't currently have GOP support.
At the same time, by removing the guardrails, Democrats would have to fathom how Republicans would use the rule change once they scored the majority again.
McConnell put some ideas out there - saying the GOP would pursue nationwide right-to-work, which could kill the labor movement.
Republicans would defund Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities 'on day one,' the Kentucky Republican continued.
They'd further push to make abortion illegal and would advocate that concealed carry permits were transferrable everywhere, McConnell said.
'Breaking Senate rules to kill the filibuster would not open up an express lane to liberal change. It would not open up an express lane for the Biden presidency to speed into the history books,' McConnell warned. 'The Senate would function more like a hundred-car pile-up. Nothing moving.'
McConnell suggested Republicans would deploy tactics to drag out everything.
'None of us have served one-minute in a Senate that was completely drained of comity and consent,' he said.
'This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon. To proceed with a garden variety floor speech,' he reminded the other senators.
'I want our colleagues to imagine a world where every single task, every one of them, requires a physical quorum,' he went on.
So far, President Joe Biden, who's a former U.S. senator, has said he doesn't want the Senate to make the rule change. Neither do Democratic moderate Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Senate Democrats were able to use the process of reconciliation, where legislation only needs majority-support, to pass the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill last week.
Other legislation, however, will need 10 Republicans to join the 50-Democrat majority in order to survive the filibuster, unless the so-called 'nuclear option' is pursued.
Democrats and then Republicans were responsible for rolling it back over the last eight years.
In 2013, then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got rid of the filibuster for executive branch nominations and judicial nominations, except those for the Supreme Court. In 2017, McConnell extended it to SCOTUS nominees as well.
Another option is reverting the legislative filibuster back to the 'talking filibuster,' meaning senators would actually have to speak on the floor when enacting it.
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