Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday for stalling power-sharing negotiations as the Senate prepares to address the “three essential items on our plate” — impeachment, coronavirus relief, and confirming Cabinet members.
The Senate has yet to approve an organizing resolution that would give Democrats control of the upper chamber. After Georgia Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their January runoff elections, the balance of power shifted in the Senate to a split 50-50 between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris acting as a tie-breaker.
“Mitch McConnell will not dictate to the Senate what we should do and how we should proceed,” Schumer said on Sunday. “McConnell is no longer the majority leader, and in every Senate in the past, they have come to an agreement on an organizing resolution, Democrats and Republicans, to move forward. McConnell is standing in the way. He will not dictate to us how we move forward.”
“We will move forward and decide on the organizing resolution where Democrats make the decisions, not Mitch McConnell,” he added.
Schumer noted that the impeachment trial would be “fair” but said the proceedings must move quickly in order to provide much-needed coronavirus relief, reaffirming his support for sending out additional stimulus checks to individuals.
“Both the House managers and the president’s defense will have a period of time to draft their legal briefs, as they did in all the previous impeachment trials,” Schumer said. “And during that period, the Senate is able to do other things, and the two biggest things we will do are approve a number of the president’s key appointments and advance the COVID relief bill in a bold and strong way that helps New York and helps the country. That’s what we will do during that time.”
“The Senate must and will do all three and advance all three in the next few weeks, and we will. The stakes are too high to delay any of them,” Schumer said.
