Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered a floor speech on Tuesday, threatening to turn the chamber into a “100-car pileup” if Democrats were to alter the filibuster rules, which Senate Republicans have used to require a 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation.
But mainstream media need to do a better job of explaining a key point: Not only is the Senate already a “pileup” because of McConnell, but Republicans are already using the additional saboteur’s tactics that he is threatening to supposedly unleash if the filibuster is changed.
Politico wrote on Tuesday: “McConnell knows the ins and outs of Senate rules better than anyone. In an institution that operates by unanimous consent for everything — from turning on the lights, to allowing senators to give floor speeches or speed through the customary reading of lengthy legislative text — McConnell can slow down everything with one simple demand: Require quorums for everything. And he signaled he will.” (Emphasis in the original.)
In fact, Republicans have already exploited the ability of an individual senator to gum up the works — in exactly the ways described above. In the run-up to passage of President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief bill, Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) forced Senate clerks to read out loud through the entire 628 pages of text.
At the time, Politico’s own coverage of the stimulus bill had explained: “Republicans are planning to make life as excruciating as possible ahead of passage.” So how is McConnell’s latest threat to make the Senate become more dysfunctional really any threat at all, since it’s already been going on?
Other major outlets also failed to explain this context in coverage of Senate Republicans’ latest threat. Reporting on McConnell’s comments, The New York Times wrote: