Earlier this afternoon, Bloomberg reporter Sahil Kapur revealed that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has decided that no matter the result of the election between Trump-endorsed, pro-slavery child molester Roy Moore and Birmingham bomber prosecutor Doug Jones that fill-in “Senator Strange is going to be here through the end of this session.”
Luther Strange was appointed by the previous governor of Alabama, who was forced out amid his own sexual misconduct scandal to fill now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ seat.
.@SenateMajLdr McConnell: "Senator Strange is going to be here through the end of this session."
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 12, 2017
In other words, McConnell is going to pull a “Merrick Garland,” keeping Democrat Doug Jones from voting against the Senate tax scam just as McConnell stopped Republicans from performing their constitutional duty to confirm President Obama’s Supreme Court pick so Republicans could illegally seat Neil Gorsuch as a Justice.
Regardless of who wins in Alabama today, Mitch McConnell is going to pull a Garland and refuse to seat him until he jams his tax bill through. https://t.co/UlUDtGIGXl
— Resisterhood (@resisterhood) December 12, 2017
This is a flagrant violation of the spirit of Senate rules. Charles Tiefer at Forbes argues that “the seating of ones is highly privileged, as Senate rules state that the presentation of the credentials of Senators-elect ‘shall always be in order.’ It could be argued that for Senator-elect Jones to present his credentials and take his oath is so highly privileged that it cannot be delayed for anything.”
McConnell’s move is an insult to the spirit of our democracy and goes against the precedents that the Senate Majority Leader himself established in 2010 when he argued that Sen. Scott Brown should be able to fill the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy immediately in order to help kill the Affordable Care Act.
At that time, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced that “so here we are, and now the rumors are that they will jam this proposal through the House of Representatives and then bypass what has always been the normal legislative process.”
There’s no reason to not follow “normal legislative process” in this case – except the craven majority leader doesn’t want a moral Democrat sabotaging his precious tax scam that steals from the poor to give to the rich.
If Doug Jones takes the seat he rightfully won by the end of the week, he and one Republican defection – perhaps Susan Collins (R-ME) or Rand Paul (R-KY) – could sink the Republican class warfare agenda entirely.
Nor does he want a child molester and bigot keeping the public focused on Republican moral rot, which would lower the bill’s already sinking support. Instead, he wants appointee Luther Strange to stay and ram through the tax bill for their wealthy donors before anyone can stop them.
Since Doug Jones won today and Mitch McConnell refuses to seat him, every Alabama voter – and indeed, every American, should take to the streets.
If Republicans refuse to govern responsibly, Americans must make themselves ungovernable.
