Mitch McConnell

Addison Mitchell McConnell III (; born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney who has been serving as senate minority leader since 2021 and the senior United States senator from Kentucky since 1985, the longest serving senator in his state's history. McConnell has been the leader of the Senate Republican Conference since 2007, including as majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.

McConnell holds conservative political positions, although he was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican early in his political career. He led opposition to stricter campaign finance laws, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling ''Citizens United v. FEC'' that partially overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) in 2010. McConnell worked to withhold Republican support for major presidential initiatives during the Obama administration, having made frequent use of the filibuster, and blocked many of President Obama's judicial nominees, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

During the Trump administration, the Senate Republican majority under his leadership passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act in 2018, the First Step Act, the Great American Outdoors Act, and confirmed a record number of federal appeals court judges during a president's first two years. McConnell invoked the nuclear option to eliminate the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, after his predecessor Harry Reid had previously eliminated the filibuster for all other presidential nominations; Trump subsequently won confirmation battles on Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. While supportive of most of Trump's domestic and foreign policies, McConnell was critical of Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and despite voting to acquit on Trump's second impeachment trial on reasons related to the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, deemed him "practically and morally responsible" for the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

In 2015, 2019 and 2023, ''Time'' listed McConnell as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. On February 28, 2024, McConnell announced that he would be stepping down as the Senate Republican Conference Leader in January 2025, but would serve out the remainder of his current Senate term. An internal election to fill the post of Senate Republican Leader will be held on November 13. Provided by Wikipedia