Mitch McConnell could use a lesson in leadership from Kentucky House Speaker David Osborne.

While McConnell helps Czar Donald the Unpredictable keep part of the federal government shut down because he doesn’t want to cross the president, Osborne seems to understand the role of an independent legislature.

“Republicans in the House are working diligently on this (pension) problem, I can assure you, but we will not rush to a vote,” Osborne said last week before the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in what sounded like a rebuke to Gov. Matt Bevin, who pushed the legislature into a failed special session last month.

He went as far as suggesting that there may not even be a bill to revamp the state's pension system this session if legislators can't come to an agreement about how to fix it.

On the same day, McConnell was standing firm on his pledge to not allow the U.S. Senate to vote to end the now record-breaking government shutdown that is forcing 800,000 federal workers to go without pay.

Latest:Where's Mitch? McConnell keeping his head down during historic shutdown

Read this:Federal workers protest government shutdown outside McConnell's office

From McConnell: Blame the shutdown on Democrats and their spite for Trump

More than half of those workers are being required to show up at work every day but aren’t being paid. They missed their first paycheck on Friday. The next one is due to them Jan. 25.

McConnell’s reason?

In an affront to the legislative independence that has served this country well for more than 200 years and has stopped imperial presidencies where all power would have been entrusted to the chief executive, Senate Majority Leader McConnell has said he won’t allow a vote on anything President Donald Trump will veto.

Again on Tuesday, McConnell blocked consideration of two bills that would have reopened government — one that would have funded the department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8 and the other that would have paid for the rest of government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

That means McConnell is blocking a vote on legislation that he and the Senate unanimously supported just three weeks ago when they were actually interested in keeping the government open.

I’ll say that again. McConnell is blocking a vote on legislation that he supported and that the Senate passed overwhelmingly just three weeks ago, before the 115th Congress ended and Democrats took control of the House.

In our system of government, Congress is supposed to provide a check on the powers of the president. McConnell has done nothing but embolden an immoral autocrat who is looking more and more like a Russian asset.

Trump shut down the government Dec. 22 because he doesn’t have the votes in the House or Senate to give him $5.7 billion to build a couple of hundred miles of wall on the Mexican border.

Just like he did as a businessman, Trump is using extortion to try to get his way when his powers of persuasion aren’t good enough to get done what he wants.

See also:Obit blaming Trump for hastening woman's death should have published

He is threatening to wreck our economy for a silly wall when the Democrats are prepared to give him billions for more Border Patrol officers and technology that really can help stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and illicit drugs into the country.

And make no mistake about this. It is Trump's shutdown. He bragged that he would be "proud" to shut down the government in December. And on Sunday, he rebuffed Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham's plea to open the government temporarily while a deal is negotiated.

Since the shutdown began, however, McConnell has gone missing. He’s not tried to reopen the government.

Like U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat, suggested the other day, someone needs to see if those hound dogs McConnell sent out to find Dee Huddleston when he missed votes 34 years ago are still alive.

What is outrageous is McConnell won’t put any pressure on Trump to sign the bill that he voted for in December and that Trump supported before radio talk show hosts howled about it.

God forbid the Republican McConnell even consider overriding the veto of a president of his own party.

It used to not be like that.

There once was a day that the House and the Senate cut deals, sent them to the president and if he vetoed them, they’d vote on whether to override. They sometimes did this even if the party controlling the legislature and the one in the White House were the same.

More news:McConnell to Steve King: 'Find another line of work' after racist quote

McConnell is old enough to remember that.

During the six years Republicans held the Senate during Ronald Reagan's administration, they voted to override Reagan, the patron saint of the GOP, six different times.

When Congress handed Reagan the biggest foreign policy defeat of his presidency and overrode his veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, McConnell was there. And he voted with the supermajority to override.

But that was back in the days when Senate Republicans were led by lions like Bob Dole of Kansas and the late Howard Baker of Tennessee.

Now the Senate, which showed no great desire to push Trump’s controversial and costly border wall during the first two years of his administration, has the cowering McConnell at the helm.

Scared for whatever reason — perhaps he doesn’t want the president to give him a nickname or fire a volley of mean-girl tweets at him — McConnell refuses to do what’s right for the country.

Maybe he doesn’t want Trump to endorse Bevin to unseat him in his 2020 Senate race.

But whatever the case, Osborne had the guts to publicly tell Bevin — who is prone to lash out on social media just like the president — that the Kentucky legislature isn’t going to roll over and do whatever he demands.

That’s what a truly independent legislature should do. After 34 years in the Senate, it looks like McConnell just forgot.

Read more:Rep. Massie explains why he voted against back pay for federal workers

Joseph Gerth's opinion column runs on most Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/josephg.