Opportunity for the possible redemption of Mitch McConnell

In the late 1960s and early ’70s the U.S. Senate Republican staff was a rich talent pool. More than a few of them had their eyes already set on a career in electoral politics. None of them succeeded so impressively as Mitch McConnell, who not only made his way into the Senate but became a master of the institution comparable only to Lyndon Johnson. (Another of those staffers was George Will, who became a national force by writing politics rather than doing politics — or was it doing politics by writing politics?)

As a personal matter, I have always considered our acquaintance reasonably cordial, beginning when McConnell worked for the late Sen. Marlow Cook (R-Ky.), one of the so-called Wednesday group of Republican senators with whom I was actively engaged during those years. Policy differences have not diminished my regard for McConnell's extraordinary political achievements. Our encounters have been few, but a particular highlight was the time we spent together at Richard Nixon’s funeral service, watching emotional appearances by Robert Dole and Henry Kissinger, and the cool admiration voiced by Bill Clinton.

McConnell has never sought my advice and I have never offered any — until now. His historic tenure as Senate Republican leader, in both the minority and majority, leaves a powerful impact in many spheres of American life. He has shaped history in building a party coalition, sustaining it, setting its goals and achieving many of them. McConnell can take pride in the lasting regard of his fellow Republicans and the (if grudging) professional respect of his political opponents.

Yet one suspects that deep in his heart, McConnell knows grief at one aspect of his labors: his role in facilitating the return of Donald Trump to the presidency.

His denunciations of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol were stern and appropriate. He has left no doubt that he sees Trump’s character as profoundly flawed and his behavior indefensible on that occasion. It therefore took an agonizing contortion for him to assert Trump’s moral responsibility for threatening the constitutional order while evading a vote to impeach him and foreclose the possibility of a further Trump campaign.

McConnell’s stated hope that the justice system would hold the disgraced former president accountable was in vain. Indictments and criminal prosecutions and civil processes and courts moved toward action, but nothing commensurate with Trump’s misdeeds has resulted.

So one can only imagine that Mitch McConnell harbors deeply mixed emotions about the return to power of a person he knows is unfit to lead the nation. His deference to Trump supporters can scarcely obliterate the clarity of his personal, informed judgment about the man now taking hold of the American government.

He may find comfort in telling himself that he did not bring Trump back to power; 73 million other Americans bear that responsibility. But McConnell is simply too shrewd a man not to acknowledge that his failure to stand firm against Trump in 2021 left the door open to the dangerous outcome of 2024.

What remains for McConnell is an opportunity for at least partial redemption. His reputation as an institutionalist devoted to Senate traditions and prerogatives suffered from his management of the Trump impeachments. He has, however, pledged that there will be no further damage to the filibuster as a safeguard of minority rights and Senate power.

The imperative issue now is whether he will stand firm in enforcing the Senate’s right to advise and consent on executive nominations. Once again, the inclination to accommodate a president’s preferences will be strong, reinforced by McConnell’s desire for continuing accord with his fellow senators.

But the notion that the Senate should merely roll over in the face of a president’s cavalier exercise of his appointing power flies against the basic instinct to protect the Senate’s crucial authority for independent evaluation of nominees’ qualities. Trump’s blatant display of indifference to Senate opinion and demand for wide latitude to make recess appointments without timely Senate confirmation confronts McConnell and his colleagues with an intolerable situation. 

Do they protect and preserve their distinct constitutional function or sacrifice it to the whim of the most authoritarian personality ever to reach the presidency? The late Justice Antonin Scalia cautioned emphatically against transforming “the recess-appointment power from a tool carefully designed to fill a narrow and specific need into a weapon to be wielded by future Presidents against future Senates.”

For McConnell the choice between institution and demagogue should be straightforward. No longer his party’s leader and nearing the presumed end of his active service, he retains unique standing among Senate Republicans. He will be reluctant to complicate the challenges his successor, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), faces in coping with the problems of another Trump term.

Already, however, the dismay about some of Trump’s proposed appointments is evident, not only among Democrats but Republican senators as well. Enough Republicans signaled likely opposition to former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) appointment as attorney general to end that dubious prospect.

Other fights are certain over some of the impending Cabinet nominations. The Senate has often found the will and courage to deny presidents their preferred voices for high office. Dwight Eisenhower’s recess appointment of Lewis Strauss as secretary of Commerce ended when the Senate refused to confirm him. Republican opposition led to withdrawal of Anthony Lake’s nomination as CIA director. Even John Tower, one of the Senate’s own and erstwhile chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was rejected as secretary of Defense.

Over the centuries dozens of Supreme Court nominations have failed to receive Senate concurrence. Perhaps most memorable in recent times, the Senate rejected both of Richard Nixon’s first nominations to the Supreme Court. (McConnell will recall that John Sherman Cooper, for whom he interned, voted against confirming Clement Haynsworth to the court and Marlow Cook against Joseph Carswell.)

So the pattern is firm. Vigorous review and sometimes rejection of presidential nominees is well established in Senate procedure. Numerous nominees have withdrawn rather than face formal rejection. Maintaining the integrity of that process is a duty that falls with special weight on Mitch McConnell. He could well mobilize enough senators to resist unqualified nominees advanced by a querulous executive. Most of all he can lead the resistance to the dubious demand for the unvetted recess appointments Trump is eager to make.

McConnell’s contribution to Trump’s resurrection is a grave blight on his extraordinary career. Making sure that the Senate fully exercises its power of advice and consent would be a large step toward personal redemption.

Alton Frye was staff director for Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.) and a long-time associate of Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker (Tenn.).