Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) claimed victory on Monday night after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) finally agreed to a power-sharing resolution and dropped his demand that Democrats commit to preserving the filibuster.
“We’re glad Senator McConnell threw in the towel and gave up on his ridiculous demand,” Schumer spokesperson Justin Goodman said in a statement to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “We look forward to organizing the Senate under Democratic control and start getting big, bold things done for the American people.”
After several days of refusing to move forward with the resolution and thereby hamstringing the process of transferring majority power to Senate Democrats, McConnell relented on Monday after Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) publicly pledged to keep the filibuster, a Senate procedure that would require Democrats to find 60 votes in order to advance most legislation instead being able to rely on a simple majority.
“With these assurances, I look forward to moving ahead with a power-sharing agreement modeled on that precedent,” the GOP leader said.
Manchin and Sinema, who had already stated their opposition to nuking the filibuster prior to the standoff, reiterated their stances on Monday.
“I’m in the same place I’ve always been. Busting the filibuster under any conditions is wrong,” Manchin told Politico, while a spokesperson for Sinema told the Washington Post that the Arizona Democrat is “against eliminating the filibuster, and she is not open to changing her mind about eliminating the filibuster.”
