During my radio interview with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday, he pointed out an interesting fact about how the Senate Judiciary Committee – on which Sen. Sheldon "WhiteClub" Whitehouse sits – handles revelations about nominees' membership in discriminatory organizations. After acknowledging that, of course, this would be a major national story if he himself were the one revealed to belong to an exclusive all-white club, McConnell offered this tidbit:
?? Interesting: @LeaderMcConnell notes that membership in discriminatory private clubs is disqualifying for judicial nominees who come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Sen. Whitehouse sits… pic.twitter.com/rOO4Ff3p50
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) June 23, 2021
MM: "You might be interested to know that when we vet on the Judiciary Committee, upon which Sheldon sits, when they vet judges, one of the things they look for, do they have private club memberships that discriminate, and if they don’t resign from them, they don’t act on them...in fact, I remember a judge a number of years ago – a good guy – who resigned from a club, and this was probably 20 years ago, Guy, otherwise he wouldn’t have been confirmed...
GB: That is a very interesting little tidbit, especially given the antics, to put it kindly, that we’ve seen from this particular senator in his perch, or from his perch on that committee, especially with Justice Kavanaugh and that whole circus...
MM: ...Yeah, I don’t have any particular observations about Sheldon. What I do know is that for a long time on the Judiciary Committee as part of the vetting process for federal judges this question is asked. And if they don’t -- if they belong to one, they're disqualified. They're given the opportunity to resign, typically, but it’s a disqualifier to be a federal district judge.
If that's the standard applied by the members of the committee, shouldn't it apply to those same members? Granted, senators face voters and don't enjoy lifetime appointments, but if membership in a discriminatory private club is disqualifying for high office among one federal branch, it's not unreasonable to ask whether that same benchmark ought to be in place for another branch. And Whitehouse is not exactly a sympathetic figure, considering the glee with which he launches personal broadsides against nominees he opposes. Whitehouse's staff is now denying that his club is still all-white (one of two different all-white clubs he's been a part of, mind you), but the senator himself accepted the premise of the question he was recently asked on the subject. And if they claim the premise is no longer true, (a) he clearly wasn't aware of that fact (despite having been confronted about this issue repeatedly), which is telling, and (b) prove it. Let's see details. Who was admitted, and when? Did Whitehouse know? Did he lift a finger to end the all-white composition of the club?
Remember, he'd pledged to quit both of his all-white organizations in 2006, then didn't. Eleven years later, he still hadn't resigned from the beach club, saying that he would raise the issue of integration internally. Four years after that (2021), he indicated that it was still all-white, feigning dismay, and justified his hypocrisy – in light of his "system racism" stance – by calling the all-white club a "Rhode Island tradition." If this fact pattern were applied to a Republican, there would be a massive tempest over racism and privilege. The club would be picketed, other members' identities would be revealed (likely leading to other fallout). The club probably wouldn't survive, and the senator would be under siege. Media outlets would be in full court press mode, dispatching investigative reporters to Rhode Island to uncover every tiny detail about the club's problematic history. Instead, this a fairly minor story and newspaper headlines are avoiding "racist" and "all white," in favor of more anodyne adjectives like "exclusive" and "elite." Democrat Privilege on parade. Later in the interview, McConnell praised his Democratic colleagues Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for keeping their word on defending the filibuster and therefore the institution of the Senate:
"Back when President Trump was in office and we were the majority, about half the Democratic Conference signed a letter saying they thought the legislative filibuster was the essence of the Senate. Now that the players have changed, we have a Democrat White House, a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate...only two of them are willing to publicly defend the institution, and I want to, you know, say to both Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema, I admire their – the courage in defending the Senate as an institution, and, basically, I guess, saying you don’t change the rules to try to win the game. For them to win the game, they need to win more seats, and I’ve been here, Guy, when they did have 60. They had 60 the first two years of President Obama, they could do pretty much what they wanted to do, and they did. Well, they don’t have 60 now. They don’t have a mandate. And breaking the rules of the Senate to achieve a short-term partisan advantage is bad for America, bad for the Senate, and shouldn’t be done. And hopefully, thanks to these two courageous Democratic senators, it won’t be done.
There are reportedly multiple additional Democratic senators who do not want to blow up the legislative filibuster, but they don't want to say so out loud, for fear of angering their already-irate base. Finally, McConnell signaled an openness to a bipartisan deal coming together on infrastructure, which is less than half of the spending level requested by the White House, will allegedly be paid for, and will not raise taxes:
There isn’t a bill yet. But if there is an infrastructure bill that is credibly paid for, that is not any more debt, we just racked up a lot of debt understandably last year during the pandemic, not acceptable this year with the pandemic over -- credibly paid for without changing the 2017 tax bill, which we think was the singular, other than judges, the single biggest accomplishment during the previous four years for the country, it’s worth taking a look at. There is no deal yet, but the negotiations are continuing. Infrastructure is an area, potentially, of bipartisan agreement, but the devil’s in the details, and we’ll have to make sure there’s not some kind of hidden tax increase in there. And I want to see that it’s credibly paid for. So, I think it’s too early to say whether this will come together or not, but there are constructive talks going on.
Plenty of caveats there, but if Republicans decide the deal is acceptable (11 GOP members have signed onto it already, along with 10 Democrats), that will put Schumer in a box, and will really challenge the lefty narrative that negotiating with Republicans is pointless and inevitably fruitless (update: Biden and the senators have announced a deal, so next moves from each party's congressional leadership should be interesting). I'll leave you with this observation on the Sen. WhiteClub tempest:
Guys.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) June 24, 2021
They didn’t get rid of Gov. Blackface.
They’re not going to cancel Sen. WhiteClub.