Kentucky's six-term Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is the most disliked Senate leader on both sides in history. On the right, he's been vilified, mocked, and denounced as weak and incompetent.
On the left, he's known as the man who created a conservative majority on the federal courts for the next generation. They see him as the worst obstructionist in Senate history, going so far as using his encyclopedic knowledge of Senate rules, procedures, and precedent to prevent Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy for almost a year and giving Donald Trump the opportunity to name three justices to the Supreme Court.
Both sides are right. Mitch McConnell had few legislative triumphs during his tenure as GOP Senate leader, the longest in history. He notably failed to repeal Obamacare. He was especially ineffective as the minority leader, although he had some notable successes obstructing Democratic Senate priorities with his skillful use of the filibuster.
But there has never been a Senate majority leader from either party who was able to shape the federal judiciary and push it so far to the right. McConnell not only was able to confirm three conservative Supreme Court justices, but also more than 200 conservative lower court federal judges. Many of those judges were in their 40s and 50s, meaning their lifetime appointments may last decades.
It's a record that may never be matched.
Today, the left isn't celebrating because an incompetent leader is leaving. They're celebrating because the number one Republican obstructionist will be unable to thwart their agenda anymore.
In the two years when President Joe Biden had a Democratic majority in Congress, for example, all of his major legislative accomplishments — the Inflation Reduction Act, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the American Rescue Plan — were spending bills and not regulatory legislation such as a minimum wage hike or a new voting rights law.
A major reason why is that it is sometimes possible to bypass a filibuster of spending legislation through a process known as “budget reconciliation,” but reconciliation cannot be used to regulate. So presidents who wish to accomplish anything at all in Congress must limit their ambition to taxing and spending unless they can convince their opposition to play ball. Parties try their best to get creative within those categories (and sometimes succeed), but it is a huge constraint on policymaking.
Yet, while McConnell essentially eliminated Congress’s ability to regulate, the Republican Party has still enjoyed tremendous regulatory policymaking success over the last decade or more. And the reason why is that Republicans don’t need a functioning Congress to set policy, so long as they control the courts.
Talk show host Eric Erickson complained about McConnell constantly during his tenure. It took him a while to realize that McConnell just didn't care about the criticism.
McConnell did not care about my complaints or your complaints. He did not care about those who vilified him or his own popularity. He did not care that Republicans would attack him on the campaign trail and denounce him on TV. He did not care that Democrats made McConnell the most disliked national politician in America. Real Clear Politics’ political average for McConnell has him with a 21% national approval rating — lower than any other national political figure, including Kamala Harris.
But Mitch McConnell does not care. He is elected by the people of Kentucky who have been returning him to the Senate more than any other senator in the commonwealth’s 232 year history. He cares about Kentucky, not national opinion polls.
Mitch McConnell does not care that Republicans or Democrats dislike him.
McConnell had enormous power because of the hundreds of millions of dollars he dispensed from his political action committee, the Senate Leadership Fund, to incumbents and candidates. There was a lot of controversy from more conservative Republicans because McConnell wouldn't back many candidates favored by the far right.
McConnell's legacy will thus be mixed. But I will bet that at some point, McConnell's legendary expertise and knowledge of Senate rules will be missed.
