Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Day 2 of the Biden Administration, is continuing to block Democrats, who have a controlling ever-so-slight majority in the chamber, from actually taking control by threatening to filibuster the initial organizing rules package.

Because of McConnell’s intransigence, Republicans remain in control of the committees, even as the Senate is split 50-50, with Democratic Vice President the deciding vote in the chamber.

Not surprisingly, it’s an unprecedented move.  And also not surprisingly, McConnell is doing it while whining about the importance of “minority rights” in the Senate.  (And no, he’s not talking about the rights of non-white non-male persons.)

According to TheWeek, McConnell is demanding that the Senate preserve the filibuster in its current form so that Republicans can block any legislation that does not secure at least 60 votes in the Senate. 

During his reign as the Republican Senate Leader, particularly when the GOP was in the minority, McConnell invoked the filibuster to block virtually every piece of legislation passed by the Democratically-controlled House.  Famously, McConnell would use the filibuster to grind Senate business to a halt during the Obama Administration, and then he and his minions would go before cameras to complain that Democrats couldn’t do anything constructive.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party want to rid the Senate of this vestige of civility, which until McConnell was used only to block highly unpopular legislation being shoved through by the majority party.  Moderate Democrats, however, don’t want to eliminate the filibuster–at least not entirely.  The threshold could be lowered to 55 Senators to break a filibuster, or the Democrats could initially agree to keep the filibuster, but make any future rules changes subject to a simple majority–using the threat to change it to push through legislation.