The Republicans know how to play hardball. The managed to get the Democrats to agree to hold pro forma sessions during the recess so that the president cannot make any recess appointments. As part of the deal, the Democrats did get about half of Obama’s 110 outstanding nominees confirmed last night, but only one of them was a judge.
Democrats agreed to the pro forma sessions to keep Republicans from sending Obama’s most controversial nominees back to him while lawmakers are out of town. Such a move would have forced the president to resubmit the nominees to the Senate and Democrats to start their confirmation processes (including hearings) all over again…
…By scheduling pro forma sessions twice a week, lawmakers can take away Obama’s ability to make recess appointments.
Obama had more than 110 executive- and judicial-branch nominees pending on the Senate’s executive calendar as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Senate approved 54 of Obama’s nominees late Wednesday evening, including a dozen ambassadors, 11 U.S. Marshals and six U.S. attorneys.
The Senate confirmed Sarah Raskin to serve as a member and Janel Yellen to serve as a member and chair of the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve. The chamber also confirmed Maria Raffinan as an associate judge of the D.C. Superior Court, the only judicial nominee on the list.
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had threatened to send Obama’s most controversial nominees back to the president if Democrats did not agree to schedule pro-forma sessions, according to a senior GOP aide.
Senate rules give McConnell this power.
Here’s Ezra Klein’s observation about this.
Now that McConnell has discovered a way to leverage his power over non-controversial appointees to end the president’s ability to make recess appointments, there’s little doubt that he’ll use it again, or that the Democrats will use it when the Republicans are in control. And so the already broken process for nominations becomes that much more broken.
Yup. On another note, I watched John Boehner make remarks and take questions at the American Enterprise Institute today, and he was asked how he expected to repeal ObamaCare since the president has veto power. His answer was that they wouldn’t fund it, and that they would do everything, everything in their power to undermine the bill and make sure it never gets implemented. So, all those workers at McDonald’s and Hope Depot are going to be shit out of luck if the Republicans take over the House.
Yeah, and don’t cry for those Big Mac distributors. They’ll be much better off with a Silver Plan. They just have to get from here to 2014.
I still don’t get why there haven’t been recess appointments prior to this.
The choice is to let those positions stand empty. Except now the situation is worse as a whole than before because of the “deal” struck.
Getting 54 people confirmed in one fell swoop is a pretty enticing deal, but it’s a bit like paying a ransom.
Fed Governors are the most important short term deal (to improve the economy) and Judges are the most important long term deal to improve our society in this bunch. But we didn’t get all the Fed Governors and only one judge.
To riff off your hostage analogy it’s like we rescued some civilians but left a dozen children in the hands of the hostage takers.
Yeah, pretty much.
I like Drum’s suggestion. Which he points out, is his understanding it might not be this way in reality.
Nathalie Dupree, a cookbook author from Charleston, has announced a write-in run against Jim DeMint. She has a good adviser and strategist in the family; her husband is Jack Bass, who has written about South Carolina politics since the late 1960s. And she can hearken back to Strom Thurmond’s successful write-in campaign in her messaging.
Needless to say, the wife of the author of the history of the Orangeburg Massacre is about a progressive as you get in South Carolina.
And she just might get Alvin Greene to get on the campaign trail instead of sitting it out.
And she can play the absentee Senator message on DeMint in the same way that Kay Hagen played it on Liddy Dole.
The next five weeks are going to be very interesting.
Very, very exciting news!!
Here’s her newly set-up web site.
Nathalie Dupree for US Senate
Look at how she is running as a pro-earmark candidate and how she pulls the Upcountry voters (BMW and Michelin workforce) into what otherwise would be a local Charleston issue.
For a South Carolina audience, that is masterful framing.
The framing may be masterful but someone needs to do just a little proof reading:
My viewers know me and stust me to put the food on the table.
‘…there’s little doubt that he’ll use it again, or that the Democrats will use it when the Republicans are in control.’ – Ezra Klein
You can take the first half of the statement to the bank. You better think twice before you do the same with second half. The Democrats will NEVER employ this tactic. Never. Just see how they act as a majority.
And how do we know this? Why just look back to when Republican Sen. Bill Frist was the Senate Majority Leader. And there were, what 52 or 53 Repubs? And when the Dems threatened to filibuster, Frist threatened the “Nuclear Option” of eliminating the filibuster and the Dems caved. Caved with out a wimper even.
Yet in the past congress when the Dems had 59 Dem senators, the mere mention of a Repub filibuster meant that the bill was dead.
On a related subject: I will vote this election cycle. And I will only vote for Dem candidates b/c the Repubs are far too extreme and if a position does not have a Dem running, I wiil not cast a ballot for that office.
Chief, congrats on following the voting strategy of the great Molly Ivins’: In primaries, vote your heart; in general elections, vote your head.
How much more evidence will it take for the reality based to recognize that the Senate is a dinosaur beyond all repair. The most reasonable move would be to abolish it. The compromise would be to find a way to force it to kill all its “rules” and start again, in the open, from scratch.
Its rules are an accident anyway. Aaron Burr, that power-hungry megalomaniac, is the reason we have these rules.
How do we do it?
Constitutional amendment, revolution, or just wait until Congress gives the coup de grace to the national government and there is no more Congress.
Why should the Senate get all the attention with respect to rules. The House rules are just as arcane.
The intent of deliberative bodies having rules is to keep them from throttling or killing each other during debates. There has already been one cane attack in the House.
But in the setting of rules there is both jockeying for power and obfuscating actions to avoid accountability to the folks back home.
One issue that has to be dealt with is time. With everything else Congress should be attending to, having a major revamp of the rules of either House takes time from other things. Which allows foot-dragging on rules changes to translate to obstruction on policy and budget issues.