On Wednesday (December 21), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA.) pleaded with Republicans in the Senate to trust his ability to manage an incoming GOP House Majority.
McCarthy was requesting his Senate Republicans don’t feel compelled to vote for bills in the final days before the new Congress because they were afraid a GOP House majority wouldn’t get bills passed.
The California Republican made his plea during an appearance at a Senate Republican lunch as the Senate was preparing to vote on a $1.6 trillion omnibus spending package.
Instead, McCarthy requested Republicans in the upper chamber postpone the package’s passage into the new year.
Although McCarthy’s mission was to prevent Republicans in the upper chamber from passing a trillion-dollar spending package, Republican Senators described McCarthy’s message as “unifying.”
The message came about as McCarthy is mounting a campaign to obtain the House Speakership.
Republican Senator Rob Portman (Ohio) explained McCarthy’s message at the meeting focused on getting Republicans in the House and Senate to “work better together than we have in the past.”
For the last two weeks, the House Minority Leader has attempted to get Senate Republicans to abandon the Democrat-backed spending package while Democrats still control the House.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, McCarthy asserted his belief that Democrats were attempting to “jam” Republicans in the Senate “right before Christmas” when the GOP would take the House majority in 21 days and have a “stronger hand.”
On Tuesday (December 20), he heightened those efforts by endorsing a letter to Senate Republicans from 13 incoming and incumbent House representatives, suggesting the legislative priorities of Republicans who vote in support of the omnibus package be thwarted.
That message didn’t seem to resonate with the 13 Republican Senators who joined Democrats to vote to pass the spending package on Thursday (December 22).
