House Democrat’s Halloween display mourns passed bills that die in McConnell’s ‘legislative graveyard’

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) has made a festive Halloween display in his congressional office to mourn the House-passed bills that have gone on to die in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) “legislative graveyard.”

Roll Call reported Friday that Jeffries’s office has been filled with Halloween-themed decorations including tombstones inscribed with bills that have cleared the House but gone nowhere in the Senate, including ones addressing climate change, pensions and gun purchase background checks.

{mosads}Jeffries’s office even has a Grim Reaper prop, a reference to McConnell, who gave himself the nickname earlier this year regarding progressive priorities.

“If I’m still the majority leader in the Senate think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff is going to pass,” he said at an event in Kentucky in April.

Zachary Leibell, a staffer in Jeffries’s office, told Roll Call that he came up with the idea for the Halloween decorations, saying the “scariest thing” a House lawmaker can do is pass a bill “only for it to go to the Senate and endure a slow and painful demise.”

McConnell’s reelection campaign has reveled in the senator’s reputation as the “grim reaper,” posting on Twitter over the summer a picture featuring tombstones, two of which were dedicated to socialism and the Green New Deal and another reading “R.I.P. Amy McGrath November 3, 2020,” a reference to McConnell’s Democratic challenger and next year’s election.