It's too bad US Senate terms are six years. After one embarrassing year, it's a pretty good bet that a majority of Wisconsin voters are having buyer's remorse about Ron Johnson (pictured).
Johnson has accomplished nothing, voted against everything, even things most Republicans supported, and single-handedly brought the Senate to a halt last summer to make a point about the fact that a federal budget hadn't passed. He threatened to continue, but some of the GOP leadership must have slapped him around enough to get him to knock it off.
Johnson, apparently thinking the only thing the voters want is a little more partisan gridlock, is threatening to do it again. The Appleton Post Crescent reports:
During a Senate floor speech in June, Johnson chided Democratic leaders over the chamber's failure to pass a budget and stunned even some of his GOP colleagues by objecting to unanimous consent to allow Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, an opportunity to speak.
Unanimous consent is a procedural method that speeds up the process on routine business that comes to the Senate floor. Rarely is there an objection.
Johnson said Tuesday he is prepared to do it again this year.
"If we haven't passed a budget by April 15, you can rest assured that on April 16, I'll start doing the exact same thing," Johnson said. "I'll start withholding my consent to draw attention to the issue that we have not passed a budget, that we are not seriously addressing the financial situation of this country."
The threat drew a strong rebuke from a spokesman for Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
"The American people are fed up with gridlock in Washington, so one can only wonder what would motivate any Republican to single-handedly generate more gridlock, and then brag about it," said spokesman Adam Jentleson.
Amen to that.