The secrecy surrounding Mitch McConnell’s hospitalization has created a vacuum, and political rumors have rushed to fill it.
McConnell was hospitalized after a supposed June 14 fall. His office later said he briefly lost consciousness and developed pneumonia. For nearly a month, Kentuckians received little information about whether their senator was capable of returning to work. Only on July 12 did McConnell release a statement and photograph saying he remained in rehabilitation and was not ready to return to the Senate.
That delay deserves criticism. A United States senator does not have to release every detail of a medical record, but the public is entitled to know whether an elected official is alive, conscious and capable of performing the duties of office. McConnell’s staff allowed reasonable concern to become suspicion.
Suspicion, however, is not evidence.
There is no credible evidence that McConnell is dead. There is also no evidence that the photograph released July 12 came from his 2023 hospitalization. Digital-forensics specialists found no sign that the image was generated by artificial intelligence, and no earlier copy of the photograph has been found. Its metadata was reported to be consistent with the date on which it was released.
The same caution is required in discussing the death of Lindsey Graham.
Graham died July 11 after what authorities have preliminarily identified as an aortic dissection associated with arteriosclerosis. No initial evidence of foul play was reported. The FBI offered assistance to local authorities, but that is not the same as announcing an assassination investigation.
Iranian officials and state media celebrated the death of a senator who had called for military action and regime change in Iran. Their comments were hostile and should be reported. But Iran did not publicly admit to killing Graham, and no evidence released so far connects the Iranian government to his death.
Facts are not less important because rumors fit our political suspicions.
Still, the speculation about McConnell is attached to a genuine political problem. Kentucky is represented by a senator who has been absent for weeks, and the public has no independent account of when or whether he will return. If McConnell is unable to serve, he should resign. If he is capable of serving, his office should provide enough information to establish that fact.
Gov. Andy Beshear cannot simply declare McConnell incapacitated and appoint a replacement. Incapacity does not automatically create a Senate vacancy. There is no Senate version of the 25th Amendment. Unless McConnell dies, resigns or is expelled, the seat legally remains occupied.
Kentucky law presents a second obstacle. The Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated the governor’s temporary appointment authority in 2024 and required Senate vacancies to be filled through a special election. Beshear vetoed the measure, arguing that his administration should retain the authority previously exercised by Kentucky governors, but lawmakers overrode him.
That law was not enacted in a political vacuum. Kentucky Republicans first restricted Beshear’s appointment power and then abolished it while a Democratic governor occupied the office. Their stated justification was that voters should choose their senator. The political effect was to prevent Beshear from naming a Democrat should a Republican Senate seat become vacant.
Democrats are entitled to call that what it is: partisan power politics.
They are also entitled to remember how McConnell handled the Supreme Court.
In March 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the seat left vacant by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. McConnell’s Senate refused to give Garland a hearing or a vote on the theory that voters should first choose the next president.
Donald Trump won, and the Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch.
In 2020, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died less than two months before the presidential election. McConnell abandoned the principle he had invoked in 2016. Amy Coney Barrett was nominated September 29 and confirmed October 26, eight days before Election Day.
McConnell did not break the Constitution. He used every power available to the Senate majority, discarded a previously stated principle when it became inconvenient and secured the result he wanted.
Democrats should learn from that.
They should stop treating unilateral restraint as a substitute for principle. They should stop assuming that preserving a political norm by themselves will cause Republicans to preserve it when power changes hands. McConnell demonstrated that a power left unused by one party may be used against it by the other.
But the lesson is not that facts and laws no longer matter.
Beshear should not appoint a senator today because there is no vacancy to fill. Declaring a living senator dead or removed would not be constitutional hardball. It would be an abuse of power, and any appointment would probably collapse in court or be rejected by the Senate.
If a vacancy becomes official, however, Beshear should not meekly accept whichever interpretation of Kentucky law most benefits Republican leaders.
The 2024 statute is untested. It requires a special election and at least 56 days’ notice, but questions remain about how it interacts with Kentucky’s election calendar and constitutional vacancy provisions. The widely discussed August deadline is an interpretation, not a date explicitly written into the Senate vacancy statute.
Beshear should be prepared to issue a special-election proclamation immediately, seek expedited court review and challenge any attempt to manipulate the timing of the election. His lawyers should preserve every plausible argument under the Kentucky Constitution. If they conclude that the governor possesses a colorable constitutional appointment power despite the 2024 law, they should be willing to test that argument openly in court.
Republicans would call that a power grab. They called Garland’s exclusion a constitutional exercise of Senate authority and Barrett’s rapid confirmation a fulfillment of the same authority. Their standard has been clear: use the power available when it produces the desired outcome.
Democrats should not be vilified merely for responding with equal determination.
There is, however, a boundary between hardball and fabrication. Beshear should fight over the meaning of the law. He should demand transparency about McConnell’s ability to serve. He should contest any partisan effort to delay an election or leave Kentucky underrepresented.
He should not pretend that a vacancy exists before one does.
The best response to McConnell’s legacy is not lawlessness. It is a Democratic Party willing to use every lawful power it possesses, challenge every partisan restriction placed upon it and stop expecting political opponents to reward restraint they have never practiced themselves.
