Opinion | Mitch McConnell, Too, Welcomes Russian Interference

As chairman of his county Republican Party in the 1970s, he backed aggressive campaign finance reform. He wanted “drastically” lower contribution limits, full donor disclosure, a ceiling on overall spending and public financing of elections. “Many qualified and ethical persons are either totally priced out of the election marketplace or will not submit themselves to questionable, or downright illicit, practices that may accompany the current electoral process,” he wrote in a 1973 op-ed for The Courier-Journal in Kentucky.

In 1990, as the junior senator from Kentucky, he introduced legislation to abolish political action committees. In 1993, he backed a ban on funds collected outside the contribution limits for individual candidates — what had come to be known as “soft money.” “Soft money should be banned,” McConnell wrote at the time. “All campaign spending should be on the top of the table where voters can see it.” By the end of the decade, however, McConnell would be a reliable foe of virtually every limit on the ability to raise and spend money in politics.

The reasons for his reversal were straightforward. At heart, McConnell is a partisan. When he thought campaign finance reform would harm Democrats or help him win higher office, he backed campaign finance reform. When he thought Democrats relied on soft money, he tried to ban soft money. But when those funds began to fill his campaign war chest, he changed his tune. By 1997, he had nothing but good things to say about soft money. “Soft money is just a euphemism for free speech,” he said. For McConnell, winning was the only thing that mattered, and anything it took to win was fair game.

Months before the 2016 election, the Obama administration alerted congressional leaders about the potential for serious Russian interference in the presidential race and sought a bipartisan statement condemning the Kremlin’s actions. McConnell stood in the way, scuttling the effort.

Later we would learn in the Mueller report that Russian intelligence breached computer systems in at least one Florida county government and planted malware in the systems of an election equipment manufacturer. There’s every reason to think we’ll see similar attempts to interfere in the 2020 elections. Given the weakness of our election infrastructure, they may succeed. And Trump, for his part, has already said he welcomes help from any foreign government that wants to interfere on his behalf. “If somebody called from a country, Norway, ‘We have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it,” the president said in an Oval Office interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

McConnell is driven by what would help or hurt the Republican Party. That’s why he opposes automatic voter registration and other efforts to bring more people to the polls. Is McConnell’s opposition to his colleagues’ election-security proposals rooted in some principle, or is the endlessly cynical McConnell following the only impulse that has ever mattered to him, the impulse to win?

The question answers itself. Partisan politics is the reason McConnell is standing in the way of better election security. For him, all that matters is the win, even if he compromises and corrupts our democracy.