Senate Republicans have blocked the bill that would have formed an independent commission into the January 6 Capitol riot because that’s how little they apparently care about seeing their workplace swarmed by violent insurrectionists.
The bill passed the House with bipartisan support but failed Friday in the Senate after Republicans staged their first filibuster of Biden’s presidency. Democrats had given in to nearly all of the GOP’s demands in drafting the bill, and in recent days, the family of Brian D. Sicknick, the Capitol police officer who died following the riot, traveled to DC to plead with Republican senators, asking them to vote in favor of the commission.
Still, only six Republican senators voted in favor of the bill. It needed 60 votes to pass but failed 54-35, with 11 senators (including Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, to the surprise of no one) choosing to just not show up at all.
How can you miss a vote of this magnitude? What ever happened to duty? https://t.co/hhY7Sij1Ev
— Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) May 28, 2021
After Brian Sicknick’s family met with lawmakers, Mitch McConnell (who reportedly would not see them, scheduling the meeting for his aides instead) seemed to be worried his colleagues might actually do the right thing and asked Republicans to vote against the commission as a “personal favor” to him.
I don’t know, if even one of my closest friends asked me to ignore the fact that a bunch of people tried to murder me at work, I don’t think I would, even as a favor. But I guess that’s why I’m not a Republican senator!
If Republicans are trying to prove that they didn’t encourage the insurrection in any way, they’ve sure chosen a funny way to go about it.
weird that republicans are convinced that January 6 was done by antifa but they don’t want to investigate it
— Heather Anne Campbell (@heathercampbell) May 28, 2021
I can’t believe that Republicans don’t want to investigate the coup they planned, funded, incited, and then downplayed when it failed.
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 28, 2021
Dems: We need a full investigation into how Republicans staged the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. Full stop.
Dems: But it has to be bipartisan
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 28, 2021
Sen. Tammy Duckworth: “Once again, when faced with a choice between the truth and Donald Trump’s Big Lie, Republicans are proving that they’d rather spread lies than defend our democracy.”
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 28, 2021
4 Americans died in the assault at the embassy in Benghazi and Republicans conducted 10 investigations over 3 1/2 years. 6 Americans died (countless more wounded) in the assault on our own goddamn Capitol Building, and Republicans filibustered the very idea of looking into it.
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) May 28, 2021
(via NPR, image: ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
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