U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, left, greets Stewart Perry of Lexington after speaking to a Commerce Lexington public policy luncheon, Aug. 21, 2024. McConnell posed for photos with luncheon attendees but did not take questions from the news media. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jamie Lucke)

LEXINGTON — Republican Mitch McConnell said it’s important for his party to retake the U.S. Senate in November to protect the filibuster.

Speaking to a Commerce Lexington luncheon, McConnell said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “just this week is talking about getting rid of the filibuster. What that does is to say to any given majority, my issue, what I care about, is more important than the structure of the Senate, which has served us well for many, many years,” McConnell said. “That bothers me a lot.”

Earlier this week, Schumer told reporters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that he will push to circumvent the 60-vote requirement in order to move voting rights legislation if Democrats this year win the presidency and both congressional chambers, according to media outlets.?

Senate rules require a supermajority of 60 votes from the 100 members to advance most legislation. Most?filibusters have occurred since 2007-08, as use of the 60-vote bar to block a simple majority of the Senate from passing laws has soared in this century.

McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, warned that without the filibuster a Democratic majority could grant statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, which, McConnell said, would ensure “four new Democratic senators in perpetuity, which significantly disables our side, my side.”

McConnell said, “I worry about today’s Democratic Party becoming so far left that what they want to do is so important they break the rules to get the outcome. So it won’t surprise you to know that I’d like to be turning my job over to the majority leader rather than the minority leader.”

McConnell, who is stepping down as Republican leader at the end of this session of Congress, told the gathering that the “single biggest decision” he made when he was the majority leader was refusing to fill a Supreme Court vacancy during then-President Barack Obama’s final year in office, paving the way for Republican President Donald Trump to appoint Justice Neil Gorsuch. At the end of Trump’s term, with less than two months before the presidential election, McConnell pushed through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Trump also named Justice Brett Kavanuagh, ensuring a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court.

McConell, who referred to the Trump administration once but did not say the words “Donald Trump” during his 30-minute speech, said, “I’ll say this about that administration’s president (he) took good advice from two White House counsels in a row about who to appoint to the federal courts.”

McConnell praised the Federalist Society, which recommended most of Trump’s judges, saying decades of work by the legal organization paved the way for a recent 6-3 Supreme Court decision that overturned an earlier ruling known as the Chevron deference and weakens the power of the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies.

“I think it’s a great check against runaway government no matter who’s trying to run away,” McConnell said. “So as I look back over my career, I think the thing that I chose when I was majority leader to put first was the thing that will last for the longest.”?

McConnell will continue to serve as Kentucky’s senior senator after stepping down as Republican leader. He has not said whether he will seek reelection in 2026 but is widely expected to retire.

Commerce Lexington President and CEO Bob Quick said the luncheon was attended by more than 350 business and community leaders from Lexington and the surrounding region, the largest turnout since the pandemic — a tribute, Quick said, to McConnell, Kentucky’s longest-serving U.S. senator.

McConnell did not take questions from the news media.