Mitch McConnell: Expect more shutdown brinkmanship if Republicans take the Senate

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says that if the GOP emerges from the midterms with control of both chambers of Congress, he'll give Obama a choice: Pass bills you don't like, or risk another government shutdown.

In an interview with Politico, McConnell says that if he ran the Senate, he would slap riders — unrelated, typically partisan amendments — on to spending bills to force Obama to "move to the center." Stacking bills to fund the government with a wish list of non-germane conservative policy would naturally trigger a confrontation with the president that could cause Washington to once again grind to a halt — something McConnell seems keenly aware of.

Last year, the GOP insisted on trying to defund ObamaCare via a spending bill. Obama refused to go along with such a gambit, resulting in the first government shutdown in two decades.

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Republicans have roughly a 61 percent chance of retaking the Senate, according to The New York Times' latest election forecast.