Even under the best conditions, the legislative process is a messy, time-consuming affair. But the job gets much harder when not everyone is able to show up for work. Leading the inactive list in Congress right now is Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The former Senate majority leader’s absence has entered its fourth week, with little explanation and no timeline for his return.
McConnell’s hospitalization has so far mostly overlapped with a Senate recess. Even without having cast a vote since June 11, however, the longtime head of the GOP caucus is impeding Trump’s top legislative priorities. And McConnell is merely the latest lawmaker whose absences have helped make writing laws especially difficult for this session of Congress.
McConnell is merely the latest lawmaker whose absences have helped make writing laws especially difficult for this session of Congress.
Though he no longer runs point for Senate Republicans, McConnell is still chair of the chamber’s Rules and Administration Committee. That position, crucially, has jurisdiction over bills dealing with federal election law. It’s also a role that McConnell held before his lengthy time in leadership. In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election’s chaotic results, he helped draft the Help America Vote Act, the last major overhaul of federal election law.
A quarter century later, Trump is pressing Republican lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill he says will “guarantee the midterms.” While the bill’s supporters claim it is needed to prevent (nonexistent) voting from noncitizens in federal elections, in practice, it makes it harder for Americans to vote.
When Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced the latest version in January, its first stop was the Rules and Administration Committee. Thanks to McConnell, that’s precisely where it has remained. McConnell hasn’t scheduled any hearings on the bill, let alone a vote to send it to the full Senate for consideration. McConnell also hasn’t made his disdain for Trump’s efforts to gain more control over federal elections a secret, publishing a Wall Street Journal op-ed in April laying out his opposition. He also argues that the president taking away too much control over election from states will become something Democrats later exploit.
The bill’s backers in the Senate have had to go around McConnell to try passing it. Lee and allies attempted to attach it to other major bills, including funding packages for the Department of Homeland Security in April and immigration enforcement in June. Both efforts required 60 votes to pass, but failed to even garner a majority, with McConnell and three other Republicans voting with Democrats to block the amendments in each instance.
In addition to chairing the Rules and Administration Committee, McConnell also sits atop a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handles defense spending. That puts him in the middle of two more inflection points. First, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is trying to muscle through another bill using budget reconciliation, the third in two years. The as-of-yet theoretical bill could also cover roughly $350 billion in bonus funding that the Pentagon would like to have because Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth like big numbers. There’s even talk in the House about attaching its version of the SAVE America Act to the spending bill, though it’s likely that would be stripped out under the rules of budget reconciliation.
Second, the deadline for usual appropriations process for the coming fiscal year is Oct. 1 — and while that might seem far away, there are only so many legislative days left. The Trump administration had requested $1.5 trillion for the military, a sum that even Pentagon staffers were struggling to figure out how to spend. According to Politico, there’s already work being done to pass a budget that, while smaller than the White House’s request, still clocks in at a record-breaking $1.15 trillion — with the difference to be made up by the reconciliation bill.
While McConnell has long advocated for increasing the military’s budget, he’s expressed wariness at using one-off legislation to dictate longer-term planning. The Appropriations Committee’s work has already stalled out over a disagreement on topline spending levels, and McConnell’s continued absence would only drag things out further once that’s resolved.
Narrow majorities mean that even one or two missing members in either the House or Senate could be the deciding factor in whether a measure passes or fails.
In a letter released Wednesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear asked the 81-year-old senator with a history of medical issues to “fully update Kentuckians regarding the current status of your health.” It’s a fair request, particularly since transparency has been notably lacking from other legislators. We’ve seen several lawmakers go missing for months at a time in recent years, including Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, who later turned up in an assisted living facility, and Rep. Tom Kean, who just returned to Capitol Hill after more than three months absent.
The pending campaign season and a low sense of morale among Hill Republicans have GOP leaders reportedly worried about getting much of anything done in the coming months. Narrow majorities mean that even one or two missing members in either the House or Senate could be the deciding factor in whether a measure passes or fails.
McConnell’s potentially lengthy time away from Washington may likewise be a major reason for this shuffling, sleepwalking Congress to remain stalled out for the foreseeable future.
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