Mitt Romney took courageous stands on principle, but he also passed a lot into law.
‘What would Mitt Romney do?’ His fight is still worth waging.
By: The Editorial Board
The Washington Post
December 19, 2024
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), retiring at 77, accomplished more during his single term than many senators do in decades. Though it helped that he entered the chamber with the gravitas of an elder statesman, having served as the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, the reason he proved so effective was his willingness to work across the aisle and prioritize the interests of the country over his party.
Mr. Romney joined a group of 10 senators — five Republicans, five Democrats — who cooperated closely in 2020, during the covid-19 pandemic, to hammer out a stalled relief package. They subsequently helped shepherd into law a bipartisan infrastructure bill, the furthest-reaching gun-safety bill in a generation, a codification of same-sex marriage rights with protections for religious liberty and a reform of the Electoral Count Act after its defects were exposed on Jan. 6, 2021.
Five of those 10 lawmakers won’t be in the Senate next year: In addition to Mr. Romney, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats who became independents, opted not to seek reelection. Jon Tester (Montana) was one of the three Democratic senators defeated in this year’s election. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) retired in 2023. Those remaining are Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire).
After they’re gone, even hardened partisans will come to miss the pragmatic dealmakers who sought common ground in good faith amid ever-more-extreme polarization. Other excellent senators are riding into the sunset as well, including Ben Cardin (D-Maryland). He worked with John McCain (R-Arizona) to pass the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which allows the U.S. government to impose sanctions on individuals who are responsible for human rights abuses by freezing their assets and banning them from entering the country.
Mr. Romney’s tenure might be most remembered for his courageous stands on principle. He was willing to say on the record what many GOP colleagues would say only on condition of anonymity. In 2020, he became the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial. Mr. Romney concluded that President Donald Trump abused his power by holding up vital military assistance for Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. Six other Senate Republicans joined him a year later in voting to convict Mr. Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Mr. Romney didn’t accomplish everything he had hoped. He says his biggest regret is failing to stabilize the national debt, which grew from $22.7 trillion when he took office to $36.1 trillion. He blames “the scourge of partisan politics” and warned in his farewell address that “our national credit card is almost maxed out, and America risks becoming debt poor.”
We did not always agree with Mr. Romney, but he proved to be a man of character and decency. He’s routinely described in the press as a centrist, but that’s incorrect. He’s deeply conservative — “severely,” as he once put it. He resisted the MAGA takeover of his party because he’s devoted to what he understands to be the first principles of conservatism: individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets and championing U.S. global leadership.
As the Republican nominee in 2012, Mr. Romney didn’t always get as fair a shake as he deserved from his critics. He was unjustly mocked by President Barack Obama for calling Russia “our No. 1 geopolitical foe.” His comment that 47 percent of Americans would never vote for him because they depend on government benefits devastated his campaign. It’s quaint compared with what Mr. Trump says every day.
Mr. Romney ran for Senate in 2018 because he felt he could counterbalance Trumpism. As he steps away, he has taken to joking that he used to be a main-stream Republican, but now it’s more like main-creek. Mr. Romney acknowledges that “Trump is the Republican Party today” and predicts Vice President-elect JD Vance will be the GOP nominee in 2028.
Yet Mr. Romney’s fight was one worth waging — and continuing to wage. His record proved that the country would be tangibly worse if its voices of calm and reason withdrew because times got harder. As Sen. Thom Tillis bid Mr. Romney farewell on the floor, the North Carolina Republican pleaded with colleagues to emulate Mr. Romney’s example. “As we solve problems that can only be solved by people on both sides of the aisle coming together and taking the heat that comes along with that,” Mr. Tillis said, “let’s ask ourselves over the next two or four years: What would Mitt Romney do?”