The Republican Party Just Showed Everyone How OK They Are With Insurrections

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.

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.

(via NPR, image: ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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