Tina Smith, a Democrat, is a United States senator from Minnesota. The views expressed here are hers. Read more opinion on CNN.

(CNN) I came to the United States Senate 18 months ago as an accidental senator; I never expected to gain the great honor of serving in Washington. I'll never have the seniority of lions of the Senate who've been in office for decades. What I do have is a lifetime of experience as a parent and activist, small business owner, and lieutenant governor of Minnesota.

Tina Smith

And all this experience, and basic common sense, tells me that Mitch McConnell's leadership of the United States Senate has been a big fat waste.

Americans can see this, and they are rightly frustrated with the slow pace of progress in Washington. I'm frustrated, too. I came to Washington understanding what the Senate is capable of accomplishing and knowing that I'd have myriad opportunities as a senator to get things done. And let's be clear that the problem isn't that senators on both sides of the aisle can't agree on anything. Truth is, there's plenty of work we could be doing -- if only Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would let us.

But McConnell has transformed the Senate into little more than the Trump administration's personnel office, the place where good ideas go to die. As of July 3, the Senate has taken 127 votes since the rules change on April 3, which drastically reduced the amount of time some nominees could be debated on the Senate floor. Just 21 of those 127 votes were related to legislation -- that's 16.5% of floor time devoted to legislative debate -- while the vast majority were devoted to pushing through the Trump administration's nominations.

He's proud of this, too. Asked what his priorities are, McConnell has said , "We are in the personnel business." What that means is that day in and day out, the work of the Senate has been reduced to voting to pack the courts with Trump-appointed, lifetime federal judges, as fast as we can. And because McConnell and the Republicans have dramatically reduced the time for debate on most of these judges -- from 30 hours to two -- they can pack the courts faster than ever before.