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Mitch McConnell gets his Senate rule change, by @GlennThrush nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/…
2. The change will shorten debate on sub-Cabinet & lower court nominations to two hours, to be allocated only to the two party leaders. McConnell pressed this change on his caucus after complaints from Trump that the Senate wasn't acting more quickly when he made nominations.
3. Today's change in Senate procedure helps solidify the legacy @senatemajldr will leave. He'll be remembered as a Senator who was loyal to Trump. When it counted, McConnell stood up to do what Trump wanted him to do. McConnell had posed for some years as an institutionalist;
4....a man of the Senate. But that was always a bit of an act. His passions were fundraising for his party, recruiting candidates for his party, doing what he could in the Senate to help his party at election time -- and doing what the President of his party told him to do.
5. McConnell accommodated himself to the realities of politics as he saw them. Traditionally in the Senate, the Majority Leader is referred to by his party as "The Leader," but for @senatemajldr himself The Leader is clearly Trump. Trump demanded less debate in the Senate.
6. So McConnell gave him less debate in the Senate. Out of long habit, he blamed Democrats today for making him do it, but really he was just responding to Trump. He incidentally moved the Senate further toward irrelevancy, toward being a body that does less and less...
7... as more and more power within the institution is concentrated in the Majority Leader's office. Today's enervated Senate would struggle to respond to a President who actually wanted legislation, but Trump doesn't. He wants protection from oversight, and quick confirmations.
8. There are 53 other Republican Senators, of course, all but a couple of them as completely loyal and devoted to Trump as @senatemajldr is himself. Their near-unanimity would have been a hard thing to achieve in the old Senate where, it was sometimes said, ...
9... every Senator looked in the mirror and saw a future President. Today, at least in the Republican caucus, every Senator looking in the mirror sees a backbench Congressman who lucked into a nicer office, and holds onto it only at the pleasure of the President. [end]
Addendum: a less McConnell-centric discussion of today's restrictions on Senate debate is in this Political Theater podcast with @jiwallner and @nielslesniewski rollcall.com/news/congress/…
