Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is dangling the threat of canceling the Senate’s August recess to pressure Democrats eager to get back to their hometown campaign trails, on key votes, according to a Wednesday Politico report.
McConnell is reportedly planning to meet with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and President Donald Trump to see if he can negotiate with Schumer to get nominees confirmed and a spending bill passed in exchange for a ceasefire from Trump in attacking the Senate and it’s four-week break.
Sixteen Republican senators signed a letter last week urging McConnell to cancel the recess to force Democrats’ hand. They say that they want to forego the break to get work done amid “historic obstruction” from the Democrats.
However, the fact that ten Democrats are up for reelection this year in states won by Trump certainly factors in. Only one Republican, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), is up in a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
I am soooooo tired of this hyper-partisan POS.
Ugly politics. Ugly face.
He’s genuinely scared. Cool.
So? If I were a Democratic senator up for reelection I would revel in this. I’d send letters to all of my constituents pointing out that I was being held up in Washington, because the Republicans who are said to control Congress can’t get their act together. I’d have interviews on every television station in the state telling the folks back home that I’d love to be able to smell the grass and see the flowers and shake their hands, but that the Republicans are holding the Senate hostage, even though they have a majority in both houses. I would focus my campaign around the Do-Nothing Republican Congress. (Hmm, seems to me I’ve heard that before somewhere. Now, where was it?)
Absolutely. But it requires some guts from Dems and, historically, they’re often in short supply.