Well, grrr. The imbalance in the Senate has worked against us Democrats this time, and it’s not a good thing. As a matter of fact, I *really* think it’s not a good thing. I guess the hurt feelings House Republicans passed it along to Senate Majority Leader John Thune. From CNN:
Republicans jammed through a change to Senate rules on Thursday that will allow them to confirm many of President Donald Trump’s nominees more quickly. The move came over the objections of Democrats after bipartisan negotiations collapsed. The rules change will allow nominees to be considered en bloc, or as a group, as tensions have grown over several months between the two parties over the backlog of President Donald Trump’s nominees awaiting Senate confirmation. The vote was 45-53.
So now, Republicans, wanting to ingratiate themselves even more with the Dear Leader, have pretty much hog-tied the Democrats on such issues. We still have a voice, but no power. We have no way to fight back, and I expect this will continue.
Bipartisan negotiators worked furiously Thursday to reach an agreement that would head off Republicans from using the so-called nuclear option to allow the GOP to more quickly confirm Trump nominees. The deal ultimately fell apart when they were unable to get all senators to agree to move on to a new, negotiated rules change on Thursday. Democrats argued that negotiations collapsed because Republicans were rushing, rather than waiting for the negotiated proposal to be ready early next week. A fired-up Senate Majority Leader John Thune demanded of Democrats, “How much time is enough?”
Well, Thune didn’t give them much and likely wanted to get the nominations done, under pressure from Trump. I’m irritated that the bipartisan deal fell through. Apparently, Thune thought they’d had plenty of time and possibly didn’t want to put through that deal because it would lessen Republican power. That may sound far-fetched, but think about it a moment or three. Republicans’ rule change will apply only to executive branch civilian nominees, not Cabinet members nor the judiciary.
“This would buy us the time we need and not cost the leader anything,” said Senate Democratic Deputy Whip Brian Schatz. “I am legitimately shocked that we are 94% of the way there” and not moving forward, he added, noting he was “deeply disappointed.” Republican Sen. James Lankford acknowledged there wasn’t enough trust between the two sides to wait any longer. “Time to quit stalling,” said Thune, arguing that the Senate has had to devote more of its floor time this year to nominees, with Democrats not giving consent to speed up the confirmation process.
There ya go. Unhappy Republicans who consider this to be a waste of time. Just one and done, get them confirmed and move on. Well, they’ve approved a bunch of CRAP people (see: Emil Bove), and they want to confirm more of the same, I expect. People with no background for the jobs they are approved for (See: Kristi Noem). Damn.
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that of all of the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thanks. Ursula
Anything that weakens ‘the system’ weakens it against them when Dems get back in.
Of course, Dems only put forward competent people and there”s no harm in hurrying that.
The problem is that “rules changes” tend to only last as long as the CURRENT Congress is sitting. Permanent changes are far less likely to happen, largely because GOPers (even the most MAGAt, Drumpf-ass-kissing ones) tend to think “Hmm, we may not actually stay in power after the next election so let’s hold off making this permanent because we want to be sure of using whatever minuscule scrap of power we can get if or when we’re in the minority.”
Susan, I read your story, and I saw that it contained a mistake. When I investigated it to find the correct information, I discovered that you did not make the mistake, you simply passed it on without noticing that it was mathematically impossible.
You told us that the Senate passed a rule that will allow certain presidential nominees to be considered in a group rather than individually. The story from CNN that you quoted stated that the motion to adopt that rule passed 45-53. I found the CNN story online; you quoted it correctly.
Susan, the motion could not have passed on a vote of 45-53. No motion in any organization can pass with less than 50% of the vote, and 45 is less than 53. I did not know what the vote had been, so I searched online. NBC and several other sources said the vote was 53-45. However, CNN, which you quoted, along with at least PBS and AP, said the vote was 45-53.
I finally found the reason for the discrepancy. First, I saw a photograph in the New York Post story, which I cannot post here, with an overlaid caption saying that the 45-53 vote was on the question: Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgement of the Senate?
I did not understand that, but then I found the explanation in the PBS story:
“Republicans forced a ruling by the parliamentarian declaring that it is actually against Senate rules to confirm nominees that way. That may seem counterintuitive, but it was a case of setting up the bowling pins in order to knock them down.
“Once they had a ruling against passing nominees en masse, Republicans could then vote to overrule the parliamentarian – setting a new precedent and “going nuclear”, [sic] as the act of changing rules by, essentially, voting to break them. Republicans needed just 50 votes to do things that way, not the two-thirds majority normally required for a rules change.”
So, Susan, the ruling of the parliamentarian became the decision of the chair, Sen. John Thune, Majority Leader. A motion to support the chair’s ruling failed 45-53, so, by a simple majority vote, of 53-45, rather than the two-thirds vote usually required to change an organization’s rules, the Republicans were able to change the rule and allow certain nominations to be voted on in groups.
Let us get back to the excerpt you quoted from CNN. It bizarrely implied that the 45-53 vote was to pass the new rule. But, as PBS explained, the 45-53 vote was a parliamentary maneuver to allow the Republicans to pass the new rule on a simple majority vote, which was 53-45, rather than the usually required two-thirds vote.