"If We Cannot Have Her, No One Will Have Her"
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in his latest move to seize power by dismantling the chamber’s centuries-old safeguards, was about to push through another vote to break another rule.
Vice President Aaron Burr started “it” — the Senate tradition of unlimited debate, that is. That tradition has prevailed, more or less, in the Senate since 1806. Over that time, senators had the right to delay votes on presidential nominees they found objectionable. But McConnell undid 213 years of history in 33 minutes on Wednesday afternoon, holding a party-line vote to rewrite the rules of debate.
Both sides have chipped away at this right to filibuster in recent years. Democrats restricted it for circuit-court judges in 2013 (a move that, I wrote at the time, they would come to "deeply regret"), and McConnell's Republicans restricted it for Supreme Court justices in 2017. But McConnell has now significantly escalated, reducing the right to delay consideration of judicial or low-level executive nominees to two hours from the current 30. It's clearly just a matter of time — a few years, perhaps — until this leads to the complete abolition of the filibuster for everything, including legislation. This will further destabilize a federal government that has suffered many such blows during the past two years.
And McConnell took this extraordinary step — the "nuclear option," as it is known — on the mundane matter of confirming an assistant secretary of commerce who had no opposition.
He did it even though the Senate has confirmed more appellate-level judges for Trump than for any president during his first two years in office going back to at least Harry S. Truman.
McConnell rose to blame his victims. He sat on the Garland nomination for a year, he said, because he knew "for absolute certainty" that Democrats would have done the same. And he's taking away the filibuster because Democrats made him.
Mitch McConnell assured his Republican colleagues that "I don't think anybody ought to be seized with guilt over any institutional damage being done to the United States Senate."
McConnell then read out a 42-word parliamentary maneuver that jettisoned 213 years of wisdom.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin..._story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop&noredirect=on
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/04/dana-milbank-mitch/
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in his latest move to seize power by dismantling the chamber’s centuries-old safeguards, was about to push through another vote to break another rule.
Vice President Aaron Burr started “it” — the Senate tradition of unlimited debate, that is. That tradition has prevailed, more or less, in the Senate since 1806. Over that time, senators had the right to delay votes on presidential nominees they found objectionable. But McConnell undid 213 years of history in 33 minutes on Wednesday afternoon, holding a party-line vote to rewrite the rules of debate.
Both sides have chipped away at this right to filibuster in recent years. Democrats restricted it for circuit-court judges in 2013 (a move that, I wrote at the time, they would come to "deeply regret"), and McConnell's Republicans restricted it for Supreme Court justices in 2017. But McConnell has now significantly escalated, reducing the right to delay consideration of judicial or low-level executive nominees to two hours from the current 30. It's clearly just a matter of time — a few years, perhaps — until this leads to the complete abolition of the filibuster for everything, including legislation. This will further destabilize a federal government that has suffered many such blows during the past two years.
And McConnell took this extraordinary step — the "nuclear option," as it is known — on the mundane matter of confirming an assistant secretary of commerce who had no opposition.
He did it even though the Senate has confirmed more appellate-level judges for Trump than for any president during his first two years in office going back to at least Harry S. Truman.
McConnell rose to blame his victims. He sat on the Garland nomination for a year, he said, because he knew "for absolute certainty" that Democrats would have done the same. And he's taking away the filibuster because Democrats made him.
Mitch McConnell assured his Republican colleagues that "I don't think anybody ought to be seized with guilt over any institutional damage being done to the United States Senate."
McConnell then read out a 42-word parliamentary maneuver that jettisoned 213 years of wisdom.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin..._story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop&noredirect=on
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/04/dana-milbank-mitch/