WASHINGTON — Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday was finally able to get his resolution honoring former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher through the Senate, despite delays caused by Democratic concerns over its language.
The resolution was approved Tuesday afternoon after McConnell called on the Senate to approve it by unanimous consent. There were no objections.
“It is our intention for that resolution to be a statement equal to her legacy,” McConnell said on the floor.
McConnell called for a vote on the resolution despite objections over the last week to some of the language by the staff of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez, sources said.
After The Daily Caller reported this week that the Thatcher resolution was being delayed because of Menendez’s concerns, the New Jersey Democratic senator proposed his own version of a Thatcher resolution Tuesday.
His version is nearly identical to the resolution proposed by McConnell, except he struck four paragraphs and adds two of his own.
The Daily Caller has obtained and reviewed both versions. Among the paragraphs omitted in the Menendez version is a Thatcher quote about destroying “democracy by terrorism.”
The line taken out of the Menendez version states that, “Baroness Margaret Thatcher in 1984 survived an assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army in Brighton, United Kingdom, and declared that ‘all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.'”
McConnell’s three-page resolution “honors the legacy of Baroness Margaret Thatcher for her life-long commitment to advancing freedom, liberty, and democracy throughout the world.”