'We have an entire political movement that is telling us out loud they've lost patience with playing by the rules and may well declare war on the rulebook itself.. This is about outcomes, not institutions, and there is no limit to how far left the goalposts will move.'
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the war on institutions:
"Before I discuss the legislation before the Senate, I need to spend a moment on something broader.
"Our country needs to confront the Democratic Party's willingness to threaten our governing institutions themselves.
"Earlier this year, as the Senate disposed of the least fair, least thorough, and most rushed impeachment in modern history, I offered a broader warning. I said "leaders in the opposite party increasingly argue that if our institutions don't produce the outcomes they like, our institutions themselves must be broken."
"No longer do disappointments for Democrats mean that Democrats need better arguments. Now, disappointments for Democrats are claimed as proof that our country is fundamentally broken or that James Madison messed something up.
"So while we have far-left mobs attacking statues of our Founding Fathers from coast to coast... we have far-left politicians attacking the institutions they left us.
"Step back and look at the landscape of fundamental changes that leading Democrats or their close allies are demanding:
"Amending the First Amendment, to restrict its protections. Ending the Electoral College. Packing the Supreme Court with new Justices. Packing the Senate with new states. And — to accomplish all this— destroying the Senate's distinguishing feature that makes radical change hard by design.
"We have an entire political movement that is telling us out loud they've lost patience with playing by the rules and may well declare war on the rulebook itself.
"A coalition of left-wing special interests are explicitly campaigning for, quote, "51 for 51." They want Senators to vandalize the rules to pass legislation with a simple majority, and then use that ill-gotten power to cement a presumed advantage by awarding the District of Columbia two seats.
"They want to nuke the Senate to pack the Senate. It is naked politics.
"No neutral principle could explain why all these special interests prioritize this cause which most Americans oppose.
"No neutral principle explains why Democrats want the nation's 20th-most-populous city to get two Senators all to itself, when retrocession to Maryland would satisfy their own slogans more cleanly.
"No neutral principle explains why House Democrats wasted floor time on a potentially unconstitutional show vote.
"Just days after Democrats used the filibuster power to block Senator Scott's police reform bill, even colleagues who recently defended this important tradition have bowed to the pressure to flirt with ending it.
"On a similar note, you may remember that a kind of naked intimidation without modern precedent took place a few months ago. The Democratic Leader stood by the steps of the Supreme Court and directly threatened Justices if they ruled the wrong way in the June Medical Services case.
"This display aligned with a whole new tradition of Senate Democrats threatening judges. A year ago, several wrote the Justices saying, quote, "the Court is not well [and] perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be 'restructured.'"
"In other words: Nice judicial independence you've got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
"Right on cue, a number of left-wing groups are agitating to revive the discredited notion of court-packing.
"Now, following the Democratic Leader's display, the Court ruled the way he wanted on that very case. They handed it down on Monday. And our colleague took to the floor, cracking jokes, giddy he had gotten his way. But just moments later, the Democratic Leader picked right up where he'd left off, impugning and pressuring one Justice whose vote he disliked.
"You see, the improper pressure and the accusations of illegitimacy will never end. No amount of rulings the Democrats like would be enough. Because the fundamental respect for an independent judiciary is not there.
"This is about outcomes, not institutions, and there is no limit to how far left the goalposts will move.
"Well, this subject is not going away. But for today, I'll leave it here: This weekend, July 4th, Americans will celebrate our founding. We'll celebrate the framers and the traditions and institutions they left us.
"We cannot let radicals tear down their likenesses... or their legacies. We must preserve the gifts and the institutions we celebrate so our grandchildren and their grandchildren can celebrate them as well."
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