Mike Lee Takes off the Gloves Over Schumer and McConnell's 'Corrupt Approach to Legislating'

With the release of the Senate's $106 billion supplemental aid and border security bill reportedly imminent, Republican Sen. Mike Lee (UT) not only wants nothing to do with the so-called "bipartisan" bill; he's also had enough of Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell's "corrupt approach to legislating."

Lee fired off a lengthy X (formerly Twitter) post on Thursday, in which he thoroughly blistered both the bill—and Schumer and McConnell. He began by recounting a short conversation with a reporter.

Earlier today, a reporter standing outside the Senate chamber told me that, after four months of secrecy, The Firm™️ plans to release the text of the $106 billion supplemental aid / border-security package—possibly as soon as tomorrow.

Wasting no time, she then asked, “if you…
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 1, 2024

Lee was surprised by his own quick reaction to the reporter's question about whether he'd be ready to vote for the bill by Tuesday.

Earlier today, a reporter standing outside the Senate chamber told me that, after four months of secrecy, The Firm plans to release the text of the $106 billion supplemental aid / border-security package—possibly as soon as tomorrow.
Wasting no time, she then asked, “if you get the bill by tomorrow, will you be ready to vote on it by Tuesday?”
The words “hell no” escaped my mouth before I could stop them. Those are strong words where I come from. (Sorry, Mom).
The reporter immediately understood that my frustration was not directed at her.

"Rather," Lee wrote, "it was directed at the Law Firm of Schumer & McConnell ('The Firm'), which is perpetually trying to normalize a corrupt approach to legislating—in which 'The Firm':

(1) spends months drafting legislation in complete secrecy,
(2) aggressively markets that legislation based not on its details and practical implications (good and bad), but only on its broadest, least-controversial objectives,
(3) lets members see bill text for the first time only a few days (sometimes a few hours) before an arbitrary deadline imposed by The Firm itself, always with a contrived sense of urgency, and then(
4) forces a vote on the legislation on or before that deadline, denying senators any real opportunity to read, digest, and debate the measure on its merits, much less introduce, consider, and vote on amendments to fix any perceived problems with the bill or otherwise improve it.

Lee continued: "Whenever The Firm engages in this practice, it largely excludes nearly every senator from the constitutionally prescribed process in which all senators are supposed to participate."

Which is precisely what's happening with the border bill.

When we reach a point in this country — we're already there — where the Democrat Party reduces the security of the United States to a political give-and-take, in which it (and its president) claims they will secure the southern border in exchange for Republican votes to send an additional $60 billion to Ukraine for their never-ending war with Russia, we're looking over the cliff.

"By so doing," Lee said, "The Firm effectively disenfranchises hundreds of millions of Americans—at least for purposes relevant to the legislation at hand—and that’s tragic, adding: "It’s also unAmerican, uncivil, uncollegial, and really uncool."

"So why does The Firm do it?" the senator asked.

Every time The Firm utilizes this approach and the bill passes—and it nearly always does — the Firm becomes more powerful. Lee wrote:

The high success rate is largely attributable to the fact that The Firm has become very adept at (a) enlisting the help of the (freakishly cooperative) news media, (b) exerting peer pressure in a way that makes what you experienced in middle school look mild by comparison, and (c) rewarding those who consistently vote with The Firm with various privileges that The Firm is uniquely capable of offering (committee assignments, help with campaign fundraising, and a whole host of other widely coveted things that The Firm is free to distribute in any manner it pleases).

"It’s through this process that The Firm passes most major spending legislation," said Lee, making it crystal clear that he wants zero to do with the supplemental aid/border bill.

It’s through this process that The Firm likely intends to pass the still-secret, $106 billion supplemental aid / border-security package, which The Firm has spent four months negotiating, with the luxury of obsessing over every sentence, word, period, and comma.
I still don’t know exactly what’s in this bill, although I have serious concerns with it based on the few details The Firm has been willing to share.
But under no circumstances should this bill — which would fund military operations in three distant parts of the world and make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.
Nor should it be passed until we have had adequate time to read the bill, discuss it with constituents, debate it, offer amendments, and vote on those amendments.
There’s no universe in which those things will happen by next week.

Lee concluded, "Depending on how long it is and the complexity of its provisions, the minimum period of time we should devote to this bill after it’s released should be measured in weeks or months, not days or hours."

I'd add only one caveat.

Any bill that includes annually allowing nearly two million illegal aliens into the country should be flat-out rejected by every Republican in both the House and Senate — including Mitch McConnell. That is, if Chuck Schumer would allow him to do so, of course.

The Bottom Line

As I reported earlier on Saturday, Elon Musk on Friday correctly explained why Biden intentionally created the open-border crisis — and why he and the Democrats (despite their protestations to the contrary) fight so hard to keep it open.