Roll call votes on binding amendments have dropped precipitously under the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a trend that has senators on both sides of the aisle fuming, Politico reports.
McConnell made good on a vow to open up the Senate floor when he took over in 2015, allowing 140 votes on amendments. But that dropped to 57 in 2016 and just 19 in 2017, according to Politico's analysis, drawing the ire and fire from his own party.
"All I hear is, 'Well, it's not done that way,'" Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, told Politico. Kennedy has had zero votes on any of his amendments in 15 months. "Well, the way we've been doing it for a long time sucks."
The criticism being heaped on McConnell mirrors the criticism that Republicans lobbed at former Democratic majority leader Harry Reid. Though the dynamics of the upper chamber have changed, the distrust on both sides — and the GOP's slim one-seat majority — makes for the same kind of gridlock.
Republican Sen. James Lankford told Politico that McConnell "wants to get out of this [standoff] and feels stuck with it."
But according to a former Republican Steering Committee member, the decline in debate and roll call votes is "entirely on McConnell, James Wallner told Politico.
According to Wallner's analysis, senators filed just 1,090 amendments as of last September, on a snail's pace compared to the previous two-year Congress tally of 5,125, Politico reports.
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