The Republican opposition to a House-passed bill establishing a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission to investigate the events leading to the most violent attack on the Capitol since the civil war is proof that the biggest threat to US democracy is not coming from a foreign adversary, but from the self-proclaimed “grim reaper”, Sen. Mitch McConnell, who made it a personal mission to sink the bill.
The Senate minority leader lobbied his fellow GOP senators to kill the legislation despite having their own lives threatened by a Trump-fueled mob during the deadly attack.
Senators voted 54-35 on the House-passed bill, falling short of the 10 GOP votes needed to get it over a procedural hurdle.
The vote outcome in many ways marked the return of McConnell as the Senate’s main roadblock to legislation passed by the House, even if it means endangering the nation’s future.
One GOP senator said the measure would have garnered enough votes to pass the chamber and eventually land on Biden’s desk had McConnell not gotten involved.
“The vote on the commission would have had 60 votes in the absence of McConnell’s position,” said the Republican lawmaker who ended up voting against the bill.
McConnell pledged before the 2020 election, in which he won a seventh term, that he would be the “grim reaper” of liberal policy proposals.
“If I’m still the majority leader in the Senate, think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff is going to pass,” he told voters during an event in Kentucky.
While McConnell is no longer the majority leader, his mission is largely the same, and now he sees democracy as a liberal idea that he’s determined to kill.