MITCH MCCONNELL’S UNIQUELY IMPACTFUL REIGN COMING TO A CLOSE

The sudden announcement from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that he will not seek another term as the Republican leader in 2025 has sent shockwaves through the political ecosystem. His legacy is a complicated one, and one that will likely look better and better over time.

I had the privilege of working with the Senator during my six years as a Senate lawyer.?During that time in the late 90s and early 2000s, Senator McConnell was a rising star in leadership and a master of Senate procedure. He was a major player on campaign finance and First Amendment issues, labor and union tactics, and of course judges. At a time when some Senate leaders traded votes on judges for bridge projects or other small wins, Senator McConnell understood the value of each conservative judge at all levels of the court system.

And unlike most Senators, he had no higher aspirations than the Senate, so convincing his colleagues to trust him with the caucus was his life’s work.?For 17 years, he has earned the trust of the bulk of his colleagues, during a period that has seen a radical transformation of the Republican party.

If you believe that the point of political power is to enact policies you believe in, Leader McConnell is a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. Tax reform, energy independence, light-touch regulation of the technology industry, right-to-work measures, muscular foreign policy, and support for human rights all were staples of the McConnell policy agenda.

But part of understanding power is knowing when to compromise and find common ground.?The 2012 post-election tax compromise with President Obama was probably the most important deal McConnell brokered, interestingly in tandem with then Vice-President Biden.?The recent supplemental funding bill to assist Ukraine is the latest in a long list of compromise measures he has negotiated with the current Biden Administration including the CHIPS Act and the infrastructure bill.

Yet in an era where social media and cable news has given political showboats of both parties an unhelpful incentive to talk more than negotiate, you would think an old-school workhorse like Leader McConnell would be a media darling.? However, most of the coverage of his decision to step down falls back on the stereotype of Mitch McConnell as just a partisan brawler.

Leader McConnell’s cardinal sin, according to the media and Democrats, was to block a confirmation process and vote on the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination in 2016 when Republicans controlled the Senate.?Was the move aggressive and political? Of course.?But any Democrat who complained then or now about the decision is ignoring the obvious point. If the situation had been reversed and the Democrats controlled the Senate and had the power to block a Republican nominee, does anybody honestly believe they would have behaved any differently?

Let’s remember which party has escalated the judge wars step by step. Democrats voted down an obviously-qualified Supreme Court nominee for the first time in 1986 (Robert Bork). Democrats for the first time filibustered Circuit Court nominees in 2003 (such as Miguel Estrada). Democrats launched the first filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in 2006 (Samuel Alito). Having invented the judicial filibuster, Democrats for the first time invoked the nuclear option to overturn Senate rules, denying the Republicans their use of the filibuster, to confirm their circuit court nominees with a majority vote in 2013.?Did Leader McConnell contribute to this procedural war? Of course, but in response to punches being thrown first by Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders.

It's also important to put broader Democratic criticisms of McConnell in context. It’s only after powerful conservatives leave office that Republicans become more lovable and ‘bipartisan.’?The accusations against McConnell are similar in tone to the same labels that were applied to George H. W. Bush, John McCain, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Trent Lott in the past, most of whom get cited now as memories of a better era. In a decade or two, McConnell’s image will probably have evolved into that of an honorable Republican.?But for now, we can all predict how the next Saturday Night Live’s skit will portray Leader McConnell – as the ‘Grim Reaper’.

It is also worth noting that Leader McConnell is only half of what is probably one of the top three important political couples in American history. His wife Elaine Chao has served with distinction as a Cabinet secretary both at the Labor Department under President Bush and at Transportation under President Trump, not to mention other senior roles earlier in her career. Along with the Clintons and the Doles, the McConnell/Chao combination has been a powerhouse for the ages.

It has been a privilege to work with and know Leader McConnell for three decades. Anyone interested in public service and political science would be well-served by studying in detail how he has operated at a high and ethical level for a half-century. It has been a master class by the modern-day Master of the Senate.