Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Friday argued for a return to “regular order” in Congress, describing it as an antidote to a President “who has no experience of public office, is often poorly informed and can be impulsive in his speech and conduct.”
“[W]e are not his subordinates,” McCain wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, referring to Donald Trump. “We don’t answer to him. We answer to the American people. We must be diligent in discharging our responsibility to serve as a check on his power. And we should value our identity as members of Congress more than our partisan affiliation.”
Arizona’s senior senator will return to Washington, D.C. next week, having completed chemotherapy and radiation treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer.
McCain was the deciding Republican vote against a hastily and often covertly orchestrated effort to repeal Obamacare. Rather than object to the bill’s contents, however, McCain complained in July that it hadn’t followed the proper procedure.
“The Congress must now return to regular order, hold hearings, receive input from members of both parties, and heed the recommendations of our nation’s governors so that we can produce a bill that finally provides Americans with access to quality and affordable health care,” he wrote on July 17, 11 days before his party-defying “no” vote.
On Friday, McCain again called for “regular order,” describing it as “letting committees of jurisdiction do the principal work of crafting legislation and letting the full Senate debate and amend their efforts.”
That, McCain said, would heal a Congress that he described as mired in self-interest: “Our national political campaigns never stop,” he wrote. “We seem convinced that majorities exist to impose their will with few concessions and that minorities exist to prevent the party in power from doing anything important.”
However, McCain’s own policy priorities are far from universally-supported. Concluding the op-ed, he outlined them.
“[S]pending levels for defense and other urgent priorities have been woefully inadequate for years,” he said. “The president has promised greater border security. We can agree to that.”
“Let’s try it on tax reform and infrastructure improvement and all the other urgent priorities confronting us,” he added, referring to two issues on which Republicans’ insistence on huge corporate tax cuts and “public private partnerships,” respectively, have met fierce Democratic resistance in the past.
Bold talk, sir. Let’s see how you VOTE, Mr. Senator.
Good luck; we’re all counting on you.
Praiseworthy sentiments McCain, pity they are decades too late: From Newt to Mitch, the Republicans have suborned regular order while lying to mask and sell a reactionary policy agenda most Americans wouldn’t like if they understood its consequences.
The real regular order required to make congress work wouldn’t just require Republicans give up more of that agenda than their plutocratic sponsors would like, it would require they admit to their base they’ve been lying to them about its real contents. That would be honorable but political suicide so (most) Republicans won’t do it; full stop.
‘…bad boys…Koch Bros spank…’
"Sen. John McCain […] argued for a return to “regular order” in Congress…."
Which, considering their record of the last several years, means doing nothing or doing damage.