Goodbye and Good Riddance to Mitch McConnell

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday that he is stepping down as GOP leader this November. The Kentucky Republican is the longest-serving Senate leader, and has served in Republican Senate leadership for nearly two decades.

McConnell, who is now 82 years old, will be leaving the post after a series of episodes last year where he seemed to freeze and shut down entirely in front of the press. The news comes as a wave of longtime members of Congress (especially Republicans) are also announcing their retirements, many of them exhausted by the infighting in recent years. McConnell will serve the remainder of his Senate term, which ends in 2027.

“I think back to my first days in the Senate with deep appreciation for the time that helped shape my view of the world,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “I’m unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world.”

“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.”

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell concluded. “So I stand before you today...to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. However, I’ll complete my job my colleagues have given me until we select a new leader in November and they take the helm next January.”

Republican senators were shocked by McConnell’s announcement, reportedly not having been informed of his resignation beforehand.

As Senate leader, McConnell had two main objectives in the role. First, he wanted to completely block campaign finance reform. Second, he wanted to stack the courts with conservative reactionaries.

McConnell’s main goal as Senate leader seemed to be to encourage more money in politics, welcoming the role of corporate America in U.S. democracy. It’s impossible to go through the full history of how he has blocked campaign finance reform efforts over his nearly 20 years in leadership, but he has opposed any real change at virtually every turn.

A big reason for his decades-long fight with former Senator John McCain, for example, was over McCain’s signature campaign finance law.

In 2002, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act, which aimed to limit the role of “soft money” in political campaigns as well as the political advertising of corporations and nonprofit organizations in elections. Almost immediately after it became law, McConnnell took the law to court, challenging its constitutionality. By 2010, the Supreme Court weighed in with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, overturning key aspects of the law and effectively freeing corporations to spend money directly advocating for the election or defeat of specific candidates.

This was a recurring theme for McConnell during his leadership. More recently, in 2021, he helped kill Democrats’ sweeping voting rights and election overhaul bill, which would have required additional disclosures on funding and stiffened campaign law enforcement. McConnell at the time called the bill, which would have also expanded voter registration and vote by mail options, “jaw-droppingly audacious.”

On the courts, McConnell was just as cruel in his leadership.

He single-handedly held up the appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court during President Barack Obama’s tenure—arguing that the president couldn’t appoint a Supreme Court justice in an election year. But when it came to President Donald Trump’s term, McConnell suddenly sang a very different tune.

He helped Trump appoint three Supreme Court justices, including Amy Coney Barrett in 2020. That Supreme Court, of course, overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed the right to abortion just two years later.

And it wasn’t just the Supreme Court. McConnell helped Trump completely reshape our judiciary, allowing Trump to appoint 54 appeals court judges during his 4-year tenure. For comparison, President Barack Obama appointed only 55 appeals court judges over his eight years in the White House. The court of appeals, it’s critical to note, handles tens of thousands of cases annually and is reshaping laws in ways that don’t get nearly as much attention as what the Supreme Court is doing.

All this to say, McConnell did nothing good for this country as Senate leader. He used his position in power to help only himself and his party.

This story has been updated.