United States Senate 2

[GreyhoundFan]

Continued from here:

 

 

Schumer is now majority leader, but minority leader McConnell is still being a nasty piece of work. They'll be conducting a trial of the OFM at the same time as considering Covid relief and approving President Biden's cabinet picks.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Can Democrats exercise a mini-nuclear option against McConnell?"

Quote

The standoff in the Senate continues: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is demanding that Democrats agree in advance to keep the legislative filibuster in place and is refusing to allow Senate business to proceed until they do. The result is that for now, some of President Biden’s agenda remains in limbo.

But it turns out there’s a mini-nuclear option that Democrats could exercise against McConnell, if they so choose.

This option would not do away with the legislative filibuster. Instead, it would do away only with the blockade that McConnell is imposing right at this moment — the one that is preventing the Senate from organizing and starting to get down to business.

Here’s how this would work. Right now, McConnell is filibustering the organizing resolution, which is the power-sharing agreement that would structure the Senate, given that each party has 50 senators (with Vice President Harris breaking ties).

McConnell is demanding that Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democrats agree in advance to never nix the legislative filibuster. In essence, he’s filibustering the very first step toward allowing Democrats to take over the majority, to force them to keep the legislative filibuster, no matter how extensively he uses it to stymie Biden’s agenda.

Democrats are refusing to make that commitment. While they likely won’t actually do away with the filibuster — moderates Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) are opposed — they want to preserve the option of doing so, as leverage against McConnell abusing it with abandon. McConnell’s position is utterly ludicrous, and Democrats should not cave.

But Democrats could end McConnell’s blockade now. Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution, says Democrats could devise a procedural motion to create a new precedent that would apply only to organizing resolutions.

In this scenario, Binder says, Democrats would end the filibuster on organizing resolutions in a targeted way, just as Democrats previously ended filibusters only on executive and judicial nominations but not on Supreme Court nominations, and similar to how McConnell and Republicans expanded that move to end filibusters only on Supreme Court nominations.

“Technically, yes, Democrats could with 50 votes and the vice president detonate a small nuke that only hits organizing resolutions,” Binder told me.

However, Binder added, this would in effect push the Senate further into procedural warfare.

“Each time a majority denotes a nuclear device, it greases the skids for future nukes,” Binder said. For this reason, she noted, Manchin, Sinema and other moderates might be reluctant even to detonate this mini-nuke, meaning Democrats might not have 50 votes for it.

Indeed, Manchin said in an interview that he would not support doing this.

“I will not vote to bust the filibuster under any condition, on anything that you can think of,” Manchin told me. “If you can’t sit down and work with your colleagues on the other side and find a pathway forward, then you shouldn’t be in the Senate.”

“Why would I ... vote on something that would divide us further when Joe Biden is coming in trying to unite the country?” Manchin asked.

When I pointed out that McConnell isn’t letting Democrats take over the Senate, Manchin responded that Schumer and McConnell would have to “sit down and get by this,” adding: “I believe very strongly in bipartisanship.”

Spokespeople for Sinema and Schumer didn’t immediately answer when I asked them if they were open to the mini-nuke option.

The strategic calculations for Democrats here are not easy. In addition to whether 50 Democrats would detonate this mini-nuke, it’s notable that the absurd and radical nature of McConnell’s tactics now might end up strengthening the case among moderates for some sort of filibuster reform. Even the moderates don’t think Schumer should rule out ending the filibuster and think he should keep this in his pocket as leverage.

So it’s possible that threatening the mini-nuke could disrupt this dynamic, driving the moderates further away from reform.

On the other hand, what McConnell is doing is simply intolerable. And there almost certainly will have to be a full blown confrontation at some point. As Carl Hulse puts it:

The feud reflects a challenging dynamic in the 50-50 Senate for Mr. Biden. By holding out against Democrats eager to take charge, Mr. McConnell is exercising what leverage he has. But he is also foreshadowing an eventual clash in the chamber that might otherwise have taken months to unfold over how aggressive Democrats should be in seeking to accomplish Mr. Biden’s top priorities.

Democrats say they must retain at least the threat that they could one day end the filibuster, arguing that bowing to Mr. McConnell’s demand now would only embolden Republicans to deploy it constantly, without fear of retaliation.

In other words, McConnell is almost certainly going to filibuster as much as he can of Biden’s agenda, and Democrats will have to confront this at some point. McConnell is just forcing the issue early: He’s demanding that Democrats give up their leverage over him now, so that he can proceed with maximal obstruction.

McConnell is literally holding up the transfer of control of the Senate — temporarily nullifying the outcome of the elections — to try to force them to do this. Democrats can’t allow that.

So other than waiting for McConnell to cave (which might happen, but also might not), what other options does that leave for Democrats?

 

[Dandruff]

Article of Impeachment is being read by Jamie Raskin.

[AnywhereButHere]

It looks like McConnell and Schumer found an end run around their stalemate. McConnell got assurances from Manchin and Sinema that they wouldn’t back any repeal of the filibuster (which is something both have said in the past), so McConnell is backing down and Schumer didn’t have to promise anything.

Biden’s appointments are getting confirmed. 

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood! For now. I will be holding my breath for the next good while...

Edit: I don’t know if he got current assurances or is just taking past statements into account. I hope it’s the latter...

Edited January 26, 2021 by AnywhereButHere
Don’t want to spread disinformation ?

[hoipolloi]

D Senators like Manchin are absolutely maddening. That said, he's about the only kind of D who will get elected in WV for a statewide office, and probably for the foreseeable future.

This WaPo profile sort of lays things out:

Quote

 

Sen. Joe Manchin III, who is set to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is a conservative Democrat from one of the reddest states in the country...

In a bitterly divided Washington, Joe Manchin is a rare breed. A habitual aisle-crosser, he maintains strong friendships with Republican colleagues like Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the Energy Committee’s outgoing chair. He attacked Barack Obama’s environmental policies and voted to confirm more of Donald Trump’s Cabinet appointees than any other Democrat.

He claims to hate everything about Washington, sleeping on a houseboat named “Almost Heaven” rather than getting an apartment in the city.

But in 2018, when Manchin announced he was fed up with the Senate, party leaders talked him into running for another term, figuring he was probably the only Democrat in West Virginia who would win.

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

GOP cares about deficits again:

 

[hoipolloi]

24 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

GOP cares about deficits again.

It's like clockwork.

Just like, suddenly, now that Rs are faced with impeaching their treasonous party leader, they don't give a shit about law & order, and tell the rest of us to forgive and forget.

[AmazonGrace]

Fraudsters for Susan Collins.

[clueliss]

Joe went on a rant this morning.  Heard it while WFH (and watching it snow)

 

[clueliss]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[clueliss]

Wait?  What? 

 

[WiseGirl]

Sure Hawley you need to be tossed out.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Nice way to launder money:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[AmazonGrace]

how long until Mitch is gone?

[fraurosena]

So Mitch is calling her “a cancer for the Republican Party”.

Well, it takes one, to know one, Mitch.

[AmazonGrace]

 

Let's forget this so we don't get in trouble

[AmazonGrace]

 

and he has the nerve to complain about being canceled.

[clueliss]

34 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

and he has the nerve to complain about being canceled.

But, you know, he's not running for President in 24. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing or seeing him again.

 

[clueliss]

Now he's whining about Biden's son getting a book published but he was 'silenced' (and being published by a different arm/label of Simon & Schuster). 

[GreyhoundFan]

I adore Elizabeth:

[front hugs > duggs]

I live in Central FL where most women v-necks with bible verses. Mine are "Nevertheless, she persisted" and "Doctor. First Lady. Jill Biden", among others. My husband now always says the persist quote when I'm being EXTRA stubborn ?