McConnell blocks House plan to include Supreme Court staff in security bill

Laura Clawson

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday June 14, 2022 · 6:41 AM PDT

2022/06/14 · 06:41

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 17: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks about his opposition to S. 1, the "For The People Act" on June 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. Republican are calling the proposed legislation, which is intended to expand voting rights and reform campaign finance, a federal take over of elections and unconstitutional. (Photo by Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)

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House Democrats are buckling to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s demand that Supreme Court staffers and their families be excluded from the bill extending security to the families of the justices. This is Very Important to McConnell.

After the Senate passed a bill to protect the justices’ families last month, by unanimous consent, the House contemplated a bill that would have added staff. But McConnell spoke to reporters on Monday in what The Washington Post describes as “a rare Capitol hallway interview.” In other words, this was important enough to McConnell to break with his usual practices.

The House bill, McConnell said, “is NOT going to pass the Senate,” because “the security issue is related to Supreme Court justices, not to nameless staff who no one knows.”

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In other words, refusing to protect Supreme Court staff is a hill McConnell and Republicans are ready to die on. There is ostentatiously no chance McConnell would agree to protect anyone but the families of the nine justices.

McConnell’s Republican colleague from Texas agreed.

“All we’re trying to do is give the justices the very same protection that’s available to members of Congress,” Sen. John Cornyn said. Emphasis on “All we’re trying to do.” Heaven forbid they do anything more.

McConnell used his Monday remarks to reporters to once again suggest that it’s a given that a liberal was behind the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

”It's an unnecessary shot sending a message about how proud they were that something leaked out of the Supreme Court,” McConnell said. Except the ongoing investigation has not yet revealed who leaked the draft, and many court observers have concluded that the leak was more in the interest of the court’s conservatives—and part of a pattern of leaking from the right on this issue. All of which McConnell knows, but he still worked to create the opportunity to suggest otherwise.

Republicans are truly the party of not protecting or helping anyone but the most powerful.

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McConnell blocks House plan to include Supreme Court staff in security bill

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