Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced Wednesday that he will step down from his position as the leader of the Senate Republicans after the November elections, marking the end of a record tenure in the position.
For many conservatives who have loathed McConnell’s willingness to deliver Republican votes for Democratic bills, McConnell’s announcement is a welcome development that presents an opportunity for a more ideologically conservative Republican to lead the conference. But despite his willingness to work with Democrats on legislative issues, the legacy McConnell leaves is a complex one that cannot be reduced to the accusation that he is a liberal who was elected as a Republican.
McConnell first became the leader of the Senate GOP in 2007 but was the minority leader until Republicans secured the majority in 2014. And 13 months after the 114th Congress convened in January of 2015, longtime conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, leaving a vacancy on the Supreme Court during the final year of President Barack Obama‘s time in office.
Immediately after Scalia’s death, McConnell vowed that the Republican majority in the Senate would not even give a nominee for the seat a hearing, much less a vote. And indeed, Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, was never confirmed to the Supreme Court. And in January 2017, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the seat, and he was confirmed by the Senate in April of the same year.
A year later, as trumped-up sexual assault accusations threatened to derail the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the seat vacated by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, McConnell stuck to his guns and ensured that Kavanaugh was confirmed, thereby cementing a 5-4 conservative majority on the high court.
And in 2020, with the presidential election looming, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened another seat on the Supreme Court. And McConnell’s senate acted quickly to confirm Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, and ensured that the Supreme Court would have a solid conservative majority for years to come.
But since Democrats have taken control of the Senate and the White House, it has been McConnell who has completely rolled over and refused to wield the party’s leverage to negotiate for conservative policy priorities, a fact that was made most abundantly clear with McConnell’s pathetic negotiation on a foreign aid package tied to border security legislation.
Despite McConnell’s failings on legislation and his idiotic deference to Democrats on several issues, but especially federal spending, there is no question that the defining achievement of his tenure at the top of the Senate GOP is the remaking of the Supreme Court.
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If it were not for him, abortion would be legal in all 50 states as Roe v. Wade would still be the law of the land, racial discrimination in the form of affirmative action would still be the standard policy of college admissions offices everywhere, and the future of gun rights would be in question.
And while his retirement from Senate leadership presents a much-needed opportunity for a more conservative Republican leader in the upper chamber of Congress, Republicans should not forget how McConnell spurned the left and ensured a conservative Supreme Court majority for a long time.