McCain: ‘Regular Order’ Can Counter ‘Poorly Informed,’ ‘Impulsive’ Trump

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 27, 2017. The Senate voted decisively to approve a new package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia, Iran and North ... Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 27, 2017. The Senate voted decisively to approve a new package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, sending the popular bill to President Donald Trump for his signature after weeks of intense negotiations. The legislation is aimed at punishing Moscow for meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria, where the Kremlin has backed President Bashar Assad. McCain said the bill’s passage was long overdue, a jab at Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress. McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has called Putin a murderer and a thug.(AP Photo/Cliff Owen) MORE LESS
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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.

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