Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) runs the Senate “like a plantation.”
Cassidy’s comments were published by E&E Daily on Tuesday. Cassidy, who is running for Senate, made the comments while bashing Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who he said has helped Obama “get his agenda through” thanks to her support for Reid.
Cassidy added that Reid “runs the Senate like a plantation.”
“Son instead of the world’s greatest deliberative body, it is his personal, sort of, ‘it goes if I say it does, if not it stops.’ Senator Landrieu’s first vote for him to be re-elected means that every other wish for a pro-oil and gas jobs bill is dead. Reid will never allow a pro-oil and gas jobs bill.”
Cassidy said he was just referring to Reid acting as a sort of dictator of the Senate and that there’s no other way to interpret that.
“I wish there was as much offense taken by Harry Reid running the Senate dictatorially, not allowing any votes which he does not personally approve of and the result of which he does not endorse,” Cassidy said in a statement in response to coverage of his remarks. “Any other interpretation of my remarks is a false controversy designed to distract attention from policies which are demonstrably crushing jobs and taking our country in the wrong direction.”
The TPM Polltracker average finds Landrieu with a 17 point lead in Louisiana’s open primary for U.S. Senate. She’s currently polling at less than the 50 percent she’d need to avoid a runoff election.
(H/t: Evan McMorris-Santorro)
This post has been updated.
