Near the end of a wonderfully direct, tell-it-like-it-is opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned Senate Democrats that, if they kill the filibuster, they won’t like what happens when Republicans regain control.
“As soon as Republicans wound up back in control, we wouldn’t stop at erasing every liberal change that hurt the country. We’d strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero input from the other side,” says McConnell.
“How about a nationwide right-to-work law? Defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities on day one? A whole new era of domestic energy production. Sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn? Concealed-carry reciprocity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. …” [the emphasis is ours] writes McConnell.
NRA-supported concealed carry reciprocity legislation would require all states to recognize the right of law-abiding Americans to carry a firearm for personal protection. This commonsense legislation simply makes sure that civil rights don’t end at state lines. The House passed reciprocity legislation in the form of H.R. 38 in 2017, but the lack of 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster prevented the legislation from advancing to President Trump’s desk.
This list from Sen. McConnell is designed to sober Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) ambitions. Schumer, and others in his party, are now publicly reaching for the power to pass whatever they want without compromise.
Though Democrats have 50 votes in the U.S. Senate, plus Vice President Kamala Harris (D) ready to break Senate ties, Democrats are now likely blocked from passing, for example, two gun-control bills that were recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives—H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446—as they would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
This has anti-gun senators, and many of their cheerleaders in the mainstream media, toying with the idea of using the “nuclear option” to kill or weaken the filibuster. To accomplish this, they need Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to give in, as both Manchin and Sinema have publicly rejected the idea of eliminating the filibuster entirely.
If he did this, one thing Sen. Schumer would likely try to do, with President Joe Biden’s (D) support, is push through gun control on partisan votes.
Sen. McConnell is telling Sen. Schumer, however, that even if they manage to kill the filibuster, this won’t be so easy. McConnell says, if this happens, the U.S. Senate will become “a 100-car pileup—nothing moving as gawkers watch,” as there are other tools available to the minority party in the U.S. Senate to stall the legislative process.
Sen. Schumer is being warned not to turn the nation’s most-deliberative body into a one-party-ruled runaway freight train. Political expediency, in such a case, would have far-lasting consequences for American freedom.
We’ll keep you up to date as this story develops.
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