The majority leader wanted to block the USA Freedom Act and extend the Patriot Act. Now the bill he fought so hard to preserve is in danger of expiring.
Sarah Mimms
National Journal
Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
All Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted was a quick extension of the Patriot Act and then a vacation.
Early Saturday morning, his plans for a two-month extension quickly dwindled to a weeklong extension, then a four-day extension, then a two-day extension, then a one-day extension. Each time, McConnell was rebuffed by a small coterie led by Sen. Rand Paul, his home-state colleague, a close ally and friend, not to mention his choice for the 2016 presidential nomination.
Call it the Bluegrass State brawl.
The all-out legislative fight capped off the end of a strange session for McConnell, when not only Democrats but his own Republican allies in the House questioned his strategy, one which left the majority leader with an abbreviated recess and no solution to the problem of the Patriot Act’s pending expiration on June 1.
Just before 2 a.m. on Saturday, McConnell threw in the towel, for the time being. After attempting to use one of his best-loved tools, the clock and the threat of missed flights home, to cajole a divided Senate into extending the Patriot Act unchanged for at least a short time, McConnell will have to try again next week with an unusual Sunday afternoon session. That will give members just a few hours to pass some kind of extension.
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For those of us who love our country and believe that men in power who made this a free country by writing the Constitution were much wiser and knowledgeable than the money hungry representatives we elect today; the Patrot Act was the most unConstitutional bill ever passed. The men who wrote the Constitution were well aware of what happens when freedom is lost and through their knowledge of that kind of life under King George wrote the Constitution to prevent such legislation as the Patriot Act. If it is renewed, someday those are for it now will be sorry for their error of removing the greatest privilege we can have as a free people — to live our lives as we wish without some nosey group of people we do not even know watching every move we make.