As has been pointed out a short way upthread, they’ve cast at least one proxy vote for him in committee.
Which is a purely symbolic vote that doesn’t advance the bill.
Quite honestly, given the Senate rules, none of these seem like very important questions to answer. And i expect we’ll learn the answers after his death, which probably isn’t too far in the future.
Just for kicks, though, I’ll give you my best guesses:
- it was written by his staff. They ran it by him. To the extent he’s capable of understanding it, he approved it, or at least, didn’t object.
- yes, he’s doing very intensive physical therapy, which probably includes major skills like swallowing and speaking.
- they are covering up for him
- going out farther on a limb than the first three, but i think it’s likely he is not in a coma or persistent vegetative state.
- this is pretty much the same question as 4, right?
That would be “ask the people who are already lying”. One of them might flip to provide confirmable evidence, but without that, they should be assumed to still be lying.
If he is permanently incapacitated, what the current situation does do is prevent the Democratic governor of Kentucky from attempting to appoint his replacement for the next six months.
(The Kentucky legislature apparently passed a law stripping this power from the governor, but the governor contends that this violates the Kentucky constitution.)
Under the old law, would the governor have been able to replace a living-but-incapacitated senator? Who had the authority to declare the senator incapacitated?
I don’t think so. The change in law simply changed how a vacancy is filled. There is not, from a legal standpoint, a vacancy in that seat at this point.
Options for replacing a “living-but-incapacitated” senator, who refuses to step down, are very limited; that’s not a Kentucky thing, that’s a U.S. thing. Unless he was removed from the Senate by his fellow members of Congress, there’s no way for anyone else to remove him from office.
Then i don’t think any of @robby 's questions matters.
Not sure, but if I had to guess, it would be the Kentucky state courts. And since it relates to a federal office, it could get appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
An obvious rejoinder is this would take time, but courts can move as fast (or slow) as they want to. With the courts dominated by conservative judges (thanks to McConnell himself), I would expect them to slow-walk this until the issue is moot.
Probably not, other than to demonstrate how dysfunctional our political system is. None of this serves the people.
Which is why it is actually a good idea for an investigative reporter to attempt to answer the questions I posed. Sunlight being the best disinfectant and all. And how this is handled by the affected parties could even affect the outcome of the next senatorial election in Kentucky—which does matter.
By the time this got through the courts, it would be November, and Moot.
Yup, in all likelihood, as I already pointed out.
Plus, there’s no Comstitutional apparatus for removing an “incapacitated” senator anyway. There’s no 25th amendment for Congress.
I’m saying it now. Not only will we never see Mitch McConnell alive again, but he’ll probably serve two more terms.
He’s already not running this year, the end of his current term.
He’s not even running for reelection THIS year.
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Kentucky,_2026
Well, I thought it was funny.
This guy gets it.
I’d send a donation to Kentucky for a write-in campaign for a brain-dead McConnell.
Just noodling here, looking up some famous Senators who died in office.
Hubert Humphrey revealed his cancer in August 1977..He went back to Minnesota for treatment, returned to the Senate in October (Jimmy Carter famously sent Air Force One to bring him back to Washington), made a farewell speech in November and died in January 1978, still in office.
Ted Kennedy suffered a seizure in May 2007. He underwent brain surgery and chemotherapy in June and did not appear in publiic for five weeks. He returned to the Senate, but suffered another seizure in September. In January 2009 he suffered a seizure at Barack Obama’s inauguration luncheon.
The Dope was alive and thriving in those days, and here’s a thread about that event.
Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Byrd collapse at inaugural luncheon
He appeared in the Senate less frequently, at one point going three months without casting a single vote. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom but could not attend the ceremony and died in August.
The Democrats nearly had a supermajority after Obama’s inauguration. The GOP margin is razor thin now. A single missed vote can mean anything from shutting down Trump’s vote rigging bill to losing two Republican-friendly seats on the Supreme Court.