Inside the Republican drama over Mitch McConnell’s successor

October 21

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Even as Republican senators prepare to elect Mitch McConnell’s successor as leader, there’s a debate raging among them over how much power to give the winner.

On one side are conservatives like Utah’s Mike Lee, who wants candidates for GOP leader to endorse diffusing their own authority by requiring high numbers of Republican senators to endorse critical tactical decisions. On the other side of the divide are senators like North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, who says any Republican agreeing to Lee’s demands would lose his vote for leader.

It’s more than a picayune disagreement — Lee and Tillis’ diametrically opposed viewpoints illustrate the stark divisions within the GOP as Republicans careen toward a hotly anticipated election to replace McConnell. The dozen or so conservatives who are tired of feeling sidelined in big decisions want a more prominent seat at the table, and their votes could swing the leadership race between Senate Minority Whip John Thune, former whip John Cornyn and dark horse candidate Rick Scott.

“There’s a significant prize to be won internally. I think a number of members, myself included, will be favorably disposed to support whoever is offering the clearest vision,” Lee told Semafor.

Still, plenty of Republican senators see the leader’s job as requiring unpopular decisions, and they note that some of the changes Lee’s group is pushing would dramatically shift how the GOP operates as the party is — according to most polls -— favored to take back Senate control next month.

Lee laid down a marker to his colleagues earlier this month, proposing that 75% of Senate Republicans must agree before their leader can shut down amendment discussions and that GOP leaders should only whip support for bills that already count majority backing within the party.

In Lee’s view, his group’s requests would increase the next leader’s power by giving his decisions full conference backing and cut back the “concentrated power” in the leader’s office. Tillis was incensed enough by those proposals to fire off his own response to colleagues, warning that Lee’s ideas would handcuff the leader and help Senate Democrats who seek to divide Republicans.

Tillis argued that Republican senators would have evicted McConnell as leader long ago if they disliked the way he used his power.

“Mike [Lee] needs to understand: Unilaterally disarming against an already very powerful leader in Chuck Schumer with conference rules that empower him makes no sense whatsoever. Unless you’re Chuck Schumer,” Tillis told Semafor.

The long-running leadership race will hinge on many other variables: Whether former President Donald Trump wins next month and then backs a candidate; how Thune and Cornyn can separate themselves as more mainstream options; and how many Senate Republicans take office next year.

The Republican leadership election is currently slated for the week of Nov. 11. Lee is not anticipating a successful attempt to delay the election further but is expecting a philosophical debate ahead of it.

“We’re gonna have a longer conversation with the candidates than we normally do, and that’s helpful. Neither I nor anybody I know, we don’t see there being any likelihood of delaying it,” Lee said.

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Cornyn has already laid out some of his platform publicly, including term limits for the Senate Republican leader job. Thune is discussing with colleagues what they want the Republican conference to look like, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Scott is promising more coordination with House Republicans and more consultation with his colleagues.

All three leader hopefuls are having plenty of conversations with colleagues and candidates alike, and Cornyn and Thune are hitting the campaign trail for many Republicans. (Scott is mostly focused on his reelection in Florida.)

Republican candidate Bernie Moreno, who’s running neck and neck with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, said he looks forward to hearing more from the leader contenders about “how we sequence the agenda. We can’t boil the ocean in one day.”

All three aspiring leaders are presenting themselves as more open and communicative than McConnell after a challenging past two years that were filled with disputes over Ukraine funding and the future of the party. Most Republicans aren’t deciding how they’ll vote until after the election. But not all.

Tillis said he would support “a guy named John,” referring to Thune or Cornyn. “And I’ve already told Rick that I couldn’t support him.”

“Anybody in any leadership position who thinks that Mike [Lee]’s ideas are good ideas to adopt — automatically disqualifying,” Tillis added.

Tillis said that Lee’s specific ideas probably lack majority support in the conference. Even so, there is a ton of pent-up energy to change how the Senate operates. The rank and file has a litany of complaints: Not enough amendment votes, too little focus on spending bills and too many bills written by leadership.

Addressing those criticisms with concrete new rules will be challenging for Republicans, but the next GOP leader may have to accommodate Lee’s allies in some way. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Semafor that “It is possible to force greater collaboration through changes in our rules — I believe that is what Mike is advocating and Thom is resisting.”

But Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, argued some of Lee’s proposals “would greatly diminish the ability of individual senators to represent the interests of our states. We’re not a monolith.”

Burgess’s view

The last three Senate majority leaders — McConnell, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer — have all clamped down on dissent at times, both to keep the government funded and pass more entrepreneurial legislation. It’s simply the nature of the modern leader’s job in a chamber where a single senator can hold up a popular nominee or bill, forcing extra votes and burning floor time.

Yet that reality has also generated a ton of interest in making the Senate run like it used to, with unpredictable, open amendment debate. Some of the ideas being discussed seem like no-brainers: Tillis wants to end the power of any senator to place secret holds on nominees or bills, and Lee wants leaders to commit to specific policy goals.

It’s hard for me to see the next GOP leader making more sweeping changes, though, unless that’s what it takes to clinch the election. Even then, Republican senators remember how poorly it worked out for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he made big concessions to his holdouts.

And the Senate leadership race is a secret ballot, unlike the speakership battle, which means there’s a lot more wiggle room for senators to quietly elect a leader who didn’t make ironclad commitments.

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