In an effort to put Senate Democrats on the record regarding their support for the Green New Deal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held a procedural vote on the resolution yesterday, and for the most part, Democrats didn’t take the bait. As Vox reported, “nearly all members of the Democratic caucus voted “present” when the resolution came up for a vote on Tuesday, with just four breaking and voting against it. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Doug Jones (D-AL), all lawmakers from more moderate or conservative states voted “No” on the resolution.” However, the most bizarre part of it all was Senator Mike Lee’s (R-UT) use of floor time to ridicule the principles of the Green New Deal by showing outlandish posters of Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor while holding a machine gun. Take a look at Anderson Cooper’s take in the video above.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) response to Lee’s antics said it best:
Like many other women + working people, I occasionally suffer from impostor syndrome: those small moments, especially on hard days, where you wonder if the haters are right.
But then they do things like this to clear it right up.
If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything. https://t.co/vU4ChbTnnr
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 26, 2019
Why This Matters: Although the Green New Deal is still a simple resolution and not a bill, Senator Mitch McConnell wanted to fracture Democrats on the bold principles of what the resolution entails. This also underscores the need for Democrats to start creating substantive policy recommendations to support the principles of the Green New Deal so that heading into 2020 election season candidates have legislation they can campaign on back home. While the right (and even some Democrats) have routinely criticized the Green New Deal, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also made a point about paying for the plan that resonated very profoundly with me (Miro) as a Millennial who will have to live with the impacts of climate change:
“We’re going to pay for this whether we pass the Green New Deal or not. Because as towns and cities go under water as wildfires ravage our communities we’re going to pay. We’re either going to decide whether we’re going to pay to react or we’re going to pay to be proactive. So it’s not a question of if we’re going to spend the money. I’m very sad to say that the government knew climate change was real starting as far back as 1989 and the private sector knew in the 1970s. I wish it didn’t have to cost so much. For the entire 30 years of my lifetime, we did not make substantial investments to prepare our entire country for what we knew was coming.”
Go Deeper: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez will be on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC to discuss the Green New Deal during a special event in the Bronx on Friday, March 29, at 8 p.m. ET.
March 27, 2019 » Green New Deal
