Is Mitch McConnell losing control of his caucus?
By Greg Sargent, WashPost, Updated: July 18, 2013
So the Senate just voted to end debate on conf Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency — one of the nominations Democrats had insisted on as a condition for not changing the Senate rules by the nuclear option.
Yes, Mitch McConnell had previously admitted McCarthy had the votes to break the GOP filibuster. But McCarthy passed cloture by a surprisingly large margin — 69-31 — with over a dozen Republican Senators voting for her. (She cleared the final vote with 59 Senators supporting her.) This, after far right Senators such as David Vitter had essentially threatened to burn down the Senate to block McCarthy’s nomination.
In other words, the deal Dems forced earlier this week is holding, and then some. There are tentative signs that more Senate Republicans are willing to cooperate and work with Dems, and are losing their appetite for the GOP leadership/hard right alliance’s pact to do everything in their power to render government during the Obama era as dysfunctional as possible.
Democrats are looking at recent developments and pushing the line that Mitch McConnell is losing control of the GOP caucus. I’d say that conclusion is premature at best — GOP obstructionism, and gridlock and dysfunction, is likely to remain alive and well.
(More here.)
So the Senate just voted to end debate on conf Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency — one of the nominations Democrats had insisted on as a condition for not changing the Senate rules by the nuclear option.
Yes, Mitch McConnell had previously admitted McCarthy had the votes to break the GOP filibuster. But McCarthy passed cloture by a surprisingly large margin — 69-31 — with over a dozen Republican Senators voting for her. (She cleared the final vote with 59 Senators supporting her.) This, after far right Senators such as David Vitter had essentially threatened to burn down the Senate to block McCarthy’s nomination.
In other words, the deal Dems forced earlier this week is holding, and then some. There are tentative signs that more Senate Republicans are willing to cooperate and work with Dems, and are losing their appetite for the GOP leadership/hard right alliance’s pact to do everything in their power to render government during the Obama era as dysfunctional as possible.
Democrats are looking at recent developments and pushing the line that Mitch McConnell is losing control of the GOP caucus. I’d say that conclusion is premature at best — GOP obstructionism, and gridlock and dysfunction, is likely to remain alive and well.
(More here.)
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