The leader of an effort among conservative senators to shape the race to elect the next Senate GOP leader — and push the chamber further right — is finally putting his ideas down on paper.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Monday night laid out a series of proposals meant to decentralize power inside the Senate Republican Conference, taking it away from the office that outgoing Leader Mitch McConnell has occupied for nearly two decades.
In a letter sent to Senate Republican offices Monday night and obtained by Playbook, Lee doesn’t explicitly refer to his proposals as demands. But in the context of a hotly contested race to succeed McConnell between Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the list will clearly be seen as a roadmap for winning the support of the roughly dozen conservative senators whom Lee is believed to be speaking for.
“We have the chance to strengthen the Senate, empower individual members, and ensure that the voices of the American people are heard once more,” Lee wrote.
The proposals largely have to do with Senate and GOP Conference procedures, not with particular policies. In that respect, they are similar to the demands that the hard-right House Freedom Caucus made last year ahead of Kevin McCarthy’s election as House speaker.
McCarthy indulged those demands to win election, including giving conservatives de facto control of the floor through prized spots on the House Rules Committee, and he immediately found it difficult to govern effectively. A small cadre of hard-liners forced him out nine months later.
The Senate has traditionally been more collegial, and more respectful of individual lawmakers’ rights. But frustration has grown over the past two decades as more and more power has been centralized in the party leadership suites, and conservatives have blamed that centralization for bipartisan deals that they despise. Lee has taken to calling it “uniparty” rule.
While Scott is seen as the most solicitous of conservatives in the race to succeed McConnell, his broader support is seen as limited. The more likely scenario is that the conservative bloc becomes a possible kingmaker in a second-ballot race involving Cornyn and Thune, who are seen as more natural heirs to McConnell’s leadership style.
Lee’s proposals can be seen as an initial bid to exert leverage in such a scenario. His ideas include:
Requiring three-fourths of the Conference to agree before the leader can “fill the tree,” an increasingly frequent procedural maneuver by which a majority leader can effectively shut down potential amendments. “This would give individual members more say and restore the Senate as a place of genuine debate and negotiation,” said Lee, who has long pushed for a more open amendment process — along with many other senators of both parties.
Require four weeks of debate and amendment for omnibus appropriations bills, the catchall packages that leaders tend to hash out behind closed doors then push through the House and Senate with minimal time for review or debate. “We know when the funding deadlines are; we set them,” wrote Lee. “We should have no problem setting a schedule for consideration four weeks in advance of that deadline.”
Create a “floor schedule” at the outset of the legislative year for appropriations and stick to it — so that the chambers can fully debate and amend spending bills rather than consider them in a rush during the holidays, as has become customary.
Confine the GOP whip to muscling votes only for positions that have majority support from the Republican Conference. Such a rule, Lee said, “would protect Republican leadership from ever being in the position of having to whip for legislation advancing Democrat priorities, as happens from time-to-time when must pass legislation is up against a critical deadline.”
Lastly, propose “policy goals” and “specific strategies” to achieve them that Republicans should aim for during high-stakes negotiations — a nod to conservatives’ belief that they too often get rolled on priorities such as the debt ceiling and spending caps. Laying those out in advance, he wrote, “would give us a shared vision to rally around.”
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