The GOP leader promised a free-wheeling Senate. The numbers show it’s been anything but that lately.

By Burgess Everett @ Politico.com, April 2

Republican John Kennedy has served in the Senate a full 15 months — and not once received a roll call vote on one of his legislative amendments. “I think it sucks,” the Louisiana senator fumed as Congress headed home in March for a two-week recess. The Senate has voted on only six amendments this year.

“All I hear is, ‘Well, it’s not done that way,’” Kennedy said of his call for a more robust debate of ideas on the Senate floor. “Well, the way we’ve been doing it for a long time sucks.”

When Mitch McConnell took over as majority leader in 2015 after years in the minority, he vowed to make good on a central campaign pledge of returning to a more “free-wheeling” Senate. And in the early days of his tenure, he did: McConnell presided over open, raucous floor debate on the Keystone XL Pipeline, winning praise even from some Democrats.

But the Senate has reverted to form [....]