Will Flake, Corker and McCain behave like patriots or sell-outs?
by digby
Brian Beutler reminds us of how the Democrats and Republicans behaved when Scott Brown won his Senate seat in the midst of a historic debate about health care just 8 years ago:
Republican leaders are on the brink of losing more than just the Alabama Senate seat. They are, among other things, also poised to break the promises they made to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to secure her vote for the corporate tax cut bill. If she or any other Republican defects now, the Alabama senators’ vote will become the decisive vote.Remember, Republicans have retired the concept of hypocrisy except as a weapon to beat Democrats. Democrats refuse to understand this.
To that end, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling his intent to rush a vote on a final corporate tax cut bill before Jones can be seated.
McConnell is a serial violator of American political norms. His procedural extremism surprises no one. But it’s worth noting, as I did last week, that the norm he’s about to destroy is one he personally fought to uphold just eight years ago.
In January 2010, Democrats were one final roll call vote away from enacting health care reform when Republicans unexpectedly won a special Senate election in Massachusetts. McConnell, who was then the Senate Minority Leader, took great umbrage at the idea that Democrats would let a lame-duck interim senator cast the deciding vote on historic legislation. Once the results of the special election were in, though, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) headed off the confrontation by pledging not to vote for any health care legislation until Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) had been sworn in.
As of this writing, no Republicans—even ones, like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has claimed to prize regular order, and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who endorsed Doug Jones—have taken a similar stand.