As a bipartisan majority in the Senate prepares to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell complained yesterday that Democrats not only support the wrong nominee, they also have the wrong ideas about the separation of powers in general. From the Kentucky Republican’s remarks on the Senate floor:

“When liberals fail to convince 218 House members and 60 senators of a position, they want to cross the street and try to persuade five lawyers instead. They want judges going beyond the text, roaming through policy questions and moral judgments. This is a huge difference [between the parties].”

For those unfamiliar with Capitol Hill geography, when lawmakers refer to “crossing the street,” they’re generally talking about the U.S. Supreme Court, which is literally on the other side of 1st Street, just to the east of the U.S. Capitol.

With this in mind, McConnell made the case yesterday that the problem with the left and its approach to the judiciary is that liberals see the justices as super-legislators: If Democrats can’t get what they want through Congress’ legislative process, those rascals simply look a block to the east and pursue those same goals by trying to persuade likeminded justices.

What’s amazing to me about this is the degree to which the Senate GOP leader has this backwards.

For example, congressional Republicans said they wanted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. When they failed to convince 218 House members and 60 senators of their position, GOP lawmakers tried to cross the street — three times — in the hopes of persuading five justices to roam through policy questions and give Republicans what they wanted.

Congressional Republicans also wanted to gut the Voting Rights Act. When they failed to convince 218 House members and 60 senators of their position, GOP lawmakers crossed the street and persuaded five justices to roam through policy questions and give Republicans what they wanted.

Congressional Republicans — and McConnell in particular — also wanted to undo the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (better known as the McCain–Feingold law). When they failed to convince 218 House members and 60 senators of their position, GOP lawmakers crossed the street and persuaded five justices to roam through policy questions and give Republicans what they wanted.

In other words, McConnell is accusing his political opponents of doing exactly what he and his party have repeatedly done.

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To be sure, this is familiar ground for the Senate minority leader. As regular readers know, it was a few years ago when McConnell lamented political “hostage-taking“ after having pioneered the practice. In late 2018, he urged Democrats to remember the virtues of bipartisanship after refusing to consider bipartisan policymaking when he was in the position of power.

A year later, McConnell warned about the dangers of politicizing election security after having played a role in politicizing election security. The year after that, he mocked the U.S. House’s work schedule while overseeing a Senate that wasn’t doing any work. The year after that, McConnell lectured Democrats on the importance of institutional “norms,” despite his role in taking a sledgehammer to Senate norms over the course of several years.

If there were a hall of fame for hypocrisy, McConnell would be a first-ballot inductee.

But there’s regular ol’ hypocrisy and then there’s Mitch-McConnell-talks-about-the-Supreme-Court hypocrisy. We’re talking about a Republican who’s routinely emphasized the importance of “judicial independence,” despite doing more than anyone alive to politicize the judiciary. He’s also given lectures on his interest in the “integrity” of the Supreme Court, apparently indifferent to his own record proving otherwise.

Now he’s accusing the left of looking to the justices as policymaking allies? If McConnell doesn’t want to be laughed at, he should make fewer ridiculous arguments.