McConnell has shown extraordinary leadership during these extraordinary times
During 30 days marked by insurrection, rebellion and the loss of his majority in the United States Senate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has provided leadership that represents the high point of his 36-year tenure in the Senate.
No one has been more critical of Senator McConnell over the years than my wife and I. We spent two years and a great deal of money attempting unsuccessfully to defeat him in the 2002 Senatorial election when Lois Combs Weinberg was Kentucky’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.
Nonetheless, Senator McConnell has played a pivotal role in protecting our democracy from the unrelenting assault by Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency. McConnell’s leadership in Congress and the amazing integrity shown by secretaries of state across the nation, have provided the guardrails for our democracy and prevented Trump from pushing the nation into complete chaos in his single-minded, ego-driven effort to overturn the legitimate results of the presidential election through false and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. As horrific as the attack on our nation’s capital was, Trump’s attempts to subvert our electoral process could well have succeeded without McConnell’s steadfast insistence that Senate Republicans respect the rule of law.
On Dec. 15, 2020, McConnell went on the Senate floor and became the first Republican Senator or House member in leadership to recognize Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential race saying: “The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden.” During a caucus call on the same day, McConnell urged Republicans not to object to states’ electoral votes on January 6, 2021, when the House and Senate would meet in joint session to approve the votes of the Electoral College. He pointed out that if any Senator joins the House members who are objecting to the electoral votes, it would force a debate and vote on the issue, a situation McConnell argued would be damaging to Republican Senators. He told fellow Senators that in his view the Electoral College vote will be “the most consequential I have ever cast.”
It is no coincidence that neither Kentucky’s Republican Attorney-General nor any of Kentucky’s five Republican members of the House of Representatives joined the pernicious lawsuit filed Dec. 8 by the state of Texas against Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out those states’ election results. The Supreme Court refused to allow the complaint to be filed, but 17 other Republican attorneys general and 126 Republican House members joined the suit, literally turning their backs on democracy. McConnell’s influence within the Kentucky Republican Party was surely a major factor leading to Kentucky’s Republican political leaders’ refusal to join the lawsuit.
Senator McConnell’s comments on Jan. 6 during the riot-delayed joint session of Congress supporting the Electoral College vote were short and very much to the point. He condemned the violence, saying: “We will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs or threats. We will certify the winner of the 2020 presidential election ... If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”
While Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Hal Rogers and many other House Republicans put their political ambitions and fortunes ahead of their obligation to support the Constitution and protect our democracy, McConnell consistently used his leadership position as a tool to maintain adherence to the rule of law. Every Kentuckian and every American — Republican, Democrat, Independent or Libertarian —- owe him a debt of thanks. Healing our divisions as a nation requires recognizing heroic actions by our adversaries.
Bill Weinberg is a Knott County businessman and attorney. He was a Kentucky State Representative from 1978 to 1982, ran for Attorney-General in 1983, and is the husband of Lois Combs Weinberg, who ran against Senator Mitch McConnell for the US Senate in 2002.