North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R) circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter Tuesday warning that some of the reforms being pushed by Senate conservatives would only weaken the next Senate Republican leader and cause the same chaos that is plaguing the House Republican majority.
Tillis released his letter in response to a list of procedural reforms conservative Senate Steering Committee Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) unveiled in his own letter last week, which called for giving rank-and-file senators more say in how to run the Senate floor.
Lee is pushing to curtail the next Senate GOP leader’s grip on floor strategy in anticipation of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) retirement as Senate GOP leader at the end of this year.
McConnell has served 18 years as Senate GOP leader, both in the majority and the minority, the longest tenure of any leader in Senate history.
Tillis, an ally of McConnell and Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), who is running to succeed McConnell, warned Tuesday that taking power out of the hands of the next GOP leader would only further empower Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.).
“The debate among members really boils down to whether you favor a weak or strong leader model. Mike has laid out proposals that would substantially weaken the Republican leader and further empower Schumer, and I believe it would be unwise to go down that path,” Tillis wrote in his letter to colleagues.
Lee has called for limiting the power of the next Republican leader to block colleagues from getting votes on amendments to legislation on the Senate floor by using a procedure known as “filling the amendment tree.”
Lee says the leader should need support from three-fourths of the Republican conference before blocking an amendment.
But Tillis argues the Senate GOP leader is already fairly weak compared to the Senate Democratic leader and warned that further eroding the leader’s power could create the “gridlock” that paralyzed the House GOP majority when it came to passing spending bills over the past two years.
“We are witnessing the downside of a weak-leader model in the House today. Two Speakers during a single congress and self-imposed gridlock on legislation hardly seems like a model we want to adopt in the Senate. Compared to the democrat conference leader, we already have a weak-leader model, and I believe it would be risky to weaken it further,” Tillis wrote Tuesday.
The North Carolina senator wrote a similar letter in June, pushing back on Senate conservatives’ demands for reform.
“If the goal is to enhance more of that kind of discipline among us, then weakening the leader would be counter-productive. So, as we are considering these things, let’s bear the goal and the consequences of changes in mind,” Tillis advised colleagues in early summer.
The internal debate among Senate Republicans over what reforms to adopt is heating up ahead of a leadership election, which senators expect will be held the week after Election Day.
Lee on Tuesday responded to Tillis’s arguments, calling them “unconvincing.”
“What would truly weaken the Republican Conference would be more backroom deals, preventing senators from offering amendments, and handing policy victories over the objections of large portions of the GOP conference — all of which are hallmarks of our current leadership structure,” he said.
The Utah senator encouraged Thune, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to weigh in on the subject.
“I would be curious to hear from each of our leadership candidates what they think is proper going forward: the reforms I have outlined, or the status quo embraced by Sen. Tillis,” he said.
Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) hasn’t publicly announced a date for the leadership election, but senators expect it to be held Wednesday, Nov. 13. They will discuss proposed reforms to the conference rules before voting on the makeup of the new leadership team.
Lee has called for the next Republican leader to propose a structured process and floor schedule for considering the annual spending bills at the start of each year to make it less likely they get balled up into a massive omnibus spending package in December.
And Lee argues that if an omnibus spending package is to come to the floor, senators should have a minimum of four weeks to review and debate the legislation.
Aside from floor procedure, Lee says the next GOP leader should present “specific strategies for achieving Republican victories” and should follow a version of the House GOP’s “Hastert rule,” which holds that Republican leaders should only whip for or against bills with the support of a majority of the GOP conference.
Conservatives are pushing for new rules after McConnell earlier this year pushed hard to pass military aid for Ukraine, which ultimately passed with 22 Senate GOP votes, less than half of the Republican conference.
Tillis, a strong proponent of aid to Ukraine, said Republicans should first elect their next leader instead of attempting to negotiate changes in exchange while candidates are vying for their support.
“Mike suggests that we should have the leader candidates present their plans/concessions in advance of the leadership vote, but I respectfully disagree. I believe we need to elect a new leader first, rather than negotiate terms with the Republican leader candidates before the vote,” he wrote.
“If enough members are concerned about the risk of a rogue leader, perhaps we should consider adopting conference rules that provide for this unlikely circumstance,” he suggested.
On the technical question of whether the next Senate Republican leader should be empowered to block amendments from being offered to a bill to speed its consideration on the floor, Tillis countered that the power is needed to prevent one senator using their powers to stall popular legislation on the House floor.
“I have witnessed several occasions when we were on the brink of working out a comprehensive agreement to consider dozens of amendments only to have it fail because a single member or a handful of members objected—the tree gets filled, no amendments are considered, and everybody gets angry,” Tillis wrote.
Updated at 5:41 p.m.