Democrats narrowly control the Senate, which is split 50-50. So there has been talk about doing away with the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation in the 100-seat chamber.
But McConnell had to speak out when influential Georgia Democrat Stacy Abrams came out in favor of dumping the filibuster on Sunday, according to Raw Story.
“Protection of democracy is so fundamental that it should be exempt from the filibuster rules,” Abrams, a former senior state legislator and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in Georgia who helped Democrats win two U.S. Senate runoff elections in her home state in January, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
“Some Democrats believe this would be a tidy trade-off if they could just break the rules on a razor-thin majority,” McConnell complained. “That’s not what would happen. So let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues. Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like.”
“Everything Senate Democrats did to Bush and Trump, everything the Republican Senate did to President Obama would be child’s play compared to the disaster the Democrats would create for their own priorities if they break the Senate,” he continued. “Even the most basic aspects of our colleagues’ agenda, the most mundane tasks of the Biden presidency would actually be harder — not easier — for Democrats in a post-nuclear Senate.”
McConnell’s remarks also come a day after Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, offered a scorching rebuke of the 60-vote legislative filibuster – calling it a “weapon of mass destruction” that was holding the Senate “hostage,” reports The Hill.
One thing that getting rid of the filibuster rule would accomplish would be to force senators to physically be on the floor. So this is something that is gaining some popularity, but Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are both on the record opposing it and others are viewed as wary, according to Reuters.
McConnell said that nixing the filibuster would not result in a “fast-track” of President Joe Biden’s policies, instead, it would create a gridlock where Republicans vow to cause even bigger headaches for the opposition party.
“This chaos would not open up an express lane to liberal change. It would not open up an express lane for the Biden presidency to speed into the history books. The Senate would be more like a 100-car pile-up, nothing moving,” he added.
