Sen­ate Repub­li­cans begin to chart post-McConnell future

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans gath­ered on Wednes­day to begin set­ting up the process to elect Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R‑KY) replace­ment.
Sen. Ron John­son (R‑WI) and nine of his con­ser­v­a­tive col­leagues request­ed the meet­ing “to devel­op a mis­sion state­ment, goals for the Con­fer­ence, and a process to elect a new Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader” in a let­ter late last month to Sen­ate Repub­li­can Con­fer­ence Chair­man John Bar­ras­so (R‑WY).
The meet­ing didn’t end with a mis­sion state­ment being draft­ed, though the idea was con­sid­ered, two sen­a­tors who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the meet­ing told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. Mem­bers across the con­ser­v­a­tive ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum described the meet­ing pos­i­tive­ly, say­ing indi­vid­ual sen­a­tors shared ideas about what they’d like to see for the con­fer­ence. 
Pri­or­i­tiz­ing deficit reduc­tion, ways to change the appro­pri­a­tions process, and pro­tect­ing the fil­i­buster were among the top­ics di …