Dem
52
Ties
2
GOP
46
Sen. Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell (R-KY) reported for work on June 11, the last day before the Senate took one of its many breaks. He suffered a still-shrouded-in-mystery health problem on June 14, and has been largely invisible since. Yesterday, he finally returned to work after 92 days off.
Clearly, the Senator is neither dead nor brain dead. So, those conspiracy theories are moot. On the other hand, McConnell arrived in a wheelchair yesterday, his speech was halting and occasionally slurred, his face looked somewhat droopy on the left side, and the media was not allowed to capture video footage of him. His official story remains that he suffered a fall, but all of this says "stroke" to us. Of course, if you have a stroke and collapse, or if you have a heart attack and collapse and suffer a stroke while blood is not circulating, then it's technically true you did fall; you're just not including some other relevant details. So, it's possible that the "I fell" story is a lie of omission, rather than a lie of commission.
McConnell said he might not be able to make it to the Senate for every vote, but that he'd be there for "tough" votes. There may not be too many of those left in his career; the upper chamber is scheduled to be in session for 13 days between now and the midterms, and another 22 days over the remainder of the year, and then he's an ex-Senator. That said, there is a farm bill that is currently tied up in committee that McConnell will help to advance to the floor, and it's "budget time" again, so there might (or might not) be appropriations bills to vote upon.
During his convalescence, McConnell collected approximately $43,857.39 in pay for days he was not working. Or, at least, days he was not at work. Over the course of his career, the Senator has voted against 23 different bills that would have created or extended medical leave for various employees. Undoubtedly, his experience has shown him the error of his ways, and if he gets a chance to vote on a 24th bill, he'll support it. Otherwise, some folks might suggest he's a hypocrite.
The McConnell fiasco, preceded by the Dianne Feinstein fiasco, has caused quite a few people to kvetch about the ironclad hold that sitting officeholders have on their jobs, and to call for some sort of system by which clearly incapacitated members of Congress can be removed. The prospects of this happening are roughly equivalent to the prospects of a snowball in hell. The members of each chamber are allowed to expel members by a two-thirds vote. However, there is no way that two-thirds of members will help to create that "tradition," for fear that they will be the ones targeted some day. It's the same reason that academic senates, made up of tenured faculty, virtually never vote to revoke tenure from one of their colleagues.
The other way it might be done is to create a constitutional amendment. But there's similarly no way that such
amendment attracts the votes of two-thirds of members, particularly those in the old folks' home the Senate. And
even if such an amendment were to make it through Congress, well, look how great a job they did at creating a mechanism
for removing enfeebled presidents.
There does not appear to be any other member of the Senate who is skipping work right now (though it can be hard to tell, if they are gaming the system the way John Fetterman, D?-PA, does). So, at least on paper, the upper chamber is back to full strength. (Z)