Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) invited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to an all-senators meeting next week to discuss the Republican effort pass a health care bill.
“On behalf of the Senate Democratic Caucus, I write to request that you and the Republican Conference attend an All-Senators meeting next week on the topic of health care,” Schumer wrote in a letter dated June 15. Schumer crossed out “Majority Leader McConnell,” at the top of his letter, replacing it in handwriting with “MITCH.”
“Now, more than ever, Republicans and Democrats need to come together to find solutions to America’s challenges,” Schumer added.
Senate Republicans’ health bill has been written largely in secret by the GOP conference, who have held details of its contents close to the chest, revealing very little to their Democratic counterparts and members of the media, to a great deal of frustration. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) completed a procedural move on June 7 to ensure the bill could move directly to the Senate floor as soon as it was ready for a vote.
Schumer wrote later in the letter: “[W]e are dismayed at the reports that there will be no public hearings on your proposed changes to the American health care system.”
Read Schumer’s letter to McConnell below:
This post has been updated
Think he missed a letter in his handwritten correction there. Though I appreciate the Schumer sass, probably re: baseball based sanctimoniousness, it’s not a substitute for actual effectiveness. Where’s the spotlight on this secrecy? Where’s the outrage? If you’re still trying to maintain senate decorum or norms you’re missing the big picture of how those haven’t applied for at least one year (but really, longer).
Keep the pressure up on Yertle, Mr. Schumer.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant…
This should become a big public issue. The Republicans are scared to death of this bill. What are they going to do when it passes? It won’t be secret then.
like the Senate repubes give a fuck about decorum or tradition, been evident for years that working outside the bounds of Senate “traditions” is IOKIFYAR, go no further than Gorsuch for an example, and likely many many more that have been obscured by the tRUmpian illogic fog over the last few months but escape me now
I guess I’m missing the sass. It’s normal to personalize the letter in that way if the sender and recipient have a personal relationship. Expresses comity and an appeal to reason and Senate tradition. Mitch loses unless he takes the higher road.