McCaskill, in farewell speech, rips a U.S. Senate with ‘too many embarrassing uncles’

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill didn’t hold back Thursday morning during the final speech of her Senate career, saying the chamber where she’s served for 12 years has become dysfunctional, top heavy and “just doesn’t work as well as it used to.”

“Peter Morgan, an author, said no family is complete without an embarrassing uncle,” McCaskill said. “We have too many embarrassing uncles in the United States Senate.”

The Missouri Democrat is leaving the Senate next month after losing her seat to Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley. She used her final floor speech to express her concern about the future of the U.S. Senate.

The Senate is “no longer the world’s greatest deliberative body,” McCaskill said. “And everyone needs to quit saying it until we recover from this period of polarization and the fear of the political consequences of tough votes.”

The new norms of the Senate, she said, are “writing legislation behind closed doors, giant omnibus bills that most don’t know what’s in them (and) K Street lobbyists knowing about the tax bill managers’ package before Senators.”

Among the most telling examples of the Senate’s dysfunction, McCaskill said, was the decline in the use of amendments to reach compromises on legislation. In 2007, McCaskill’s first year in office, she said the Senate voted on 306 amendments.

“This year, we voted on 36,” she said. “That’s a remarkable difference. Something is broken, and if we don’t have the strength to look in the mirror and fix it, the American people will grow more and more cynical, and they might do something crazy like a reality TV star president.”

McCaskill also used her speech to thank her family, her staff and her constituents.

Her husband and children, she said, have stood beside her during difficult times throughout her 34 years in politics. Her voice cracked as she mentioned her staff, noting that her office motto has always been, “if you work hard you can do well, but if you’re having fun, you’ll do great.”

And she thanked her home state for allowing her to have a long career in public service.

“I love my state. All of it,” she said. “Every corner of it, even the parts that aren’t very crazy about me.”

This story was originally published December 13, 2018 at 1:08 PM.