The following week, Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, made much the same case. Lately, the Senate has been like joining the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. “We’re not even voting on some big problems. “You may say the Senate isn’t solving some big problems, and you would be right,” said the Tennessee Republican on the Senate floor. Last December, it was Lamar Alexander’s turn. There has developed a biennial ritual in Washington in which departing senators, freed from the shackles of campaigning, deplore the lack of compromise and implore their soon-to-be-former colleagues to restore comity, as if the Senate were a painting that could use some sprucing. The Senate is supposed to be the legislative branch where no one acts rashly it has become the branch where no one acts, period. That is not the Senate we have had for a couple of decades. That is not the Senate that we have in 2021. I am old enough to remember Republican liberals and Democratic conservatives, old enough to remember when political discord in Washington ended at the close of the workday. I am old enough to remember when the United States Senate took pride in living up to the nickname the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.
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