By design and tradition, the Senate is the more considered and responsible of the two chambers of the United State Congress, seeking compromise and collaboration. While the House can advance measures with a margin of one vote (or fail by a margin of one vote as did the unjustified impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas) Senate rules mandate larger majorities.
Under the Constitution, impeachment and treaties require two-thirds of the Senate to agree. And that one senator can stop everything pushes lawmakers toward moderation and consensus. Or that’s the way it should be.
However, one longtime member of the club, Republican leader Mitch McConnell, has lost his way and forgotten about compromise and consensus. And he does know better, as next year will be his 40th year in the Senate.
It was McConnell who insisted that desperately needed aid for Ukraine battling back Putin’s invading legions, as well as assistance for besieged Israel and Taiwan, be twinned with immigration reforms and border legislation. And so negotiations began more than four months ago between Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican James Lankford, along with independent Kyrsten Sinema.
They produced an imperfect deal that was acceptable to both sides and that President Biden was ready to sign. But then McConnell and his GOP pals chickened out when Donald Trump denounced the pact and said it should be sunk.
McConnell voted to kill it yesterday, as did most of the Republicans. Lankford was only joined by fellow Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney in supporting the agreement. Collins, Murkowski and Romney are not afraid of Trump and they are three of the four Republicans still in the Senate who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial on Feb. 13, 2021 for orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats, but another 10 Republicans were needed for the 67 threshold that could have forever barred Trump from any public office again. Oh, how that should have happened. Today’s U.S. Supreme Court argument over Trump’s qualifications under the 14th Amendment insurrection clause wouldn’t have been needed.
Lankford gave an impassioned speech yesterday on C-SPAN2 about the value of the deal that he worked hard to craft. It had many flaws, but it was a compromise. Among Democrats, the naysayers were just Bob (Gold Bullion) Menendez and four lefties, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
We happened to be watching Lankford on C-SPAN2 on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, when at 2:10, dutifully pushing Trump’s lie as the Senate debated accepting the Electoral College results from a state that Trump clearly lost, said: “My challenge today is not about the good people of Arizona.”
Lankford was then interrupted by some noise and the presiding officer, Chuck Grassley (the only senator with more seniority than McConnell) said, “The Senate will stand in recess until the call of the chair” as an aide whispered to Lankford: “protesters are in the building.”
C-SPAN2 soon went black as senators fled and the barbarians invaded the chamber and the face-painted, shirtless, horned and fur draped QAnon Shaman with his spear sat in the vice president’s chair at the rostrum.
Another 10 Republicans would have ended forever the threat of Trump and Trumpism. McConnell and Lankford should have been two of those 10.
