According to this post on the Maddowblog (below), Democratic members of the Senate are appealing to McConnell to try and pry Tuberville away from his blockade of military appointments. As the article says, good luck with that.
My questions – and forgive me if these have been answered on this Board before, but the media, even the left-wing media, aren’t answering them – are these:
1.) How is it possible for a single Senator to hold these appointments up? I mean the actual mechanics. Do you need a majority of members of some committee , and he’s one of only five, andf the other two aren’t budging? In that case, why aren’t the other ones held up to blame as much as Tuberville? How and Why is HE the only roadblock?
2.) It’s repeatedly been said that, well, he isn’t really an unmovable obstacle. There are procedures that let them go around him. But they take time. So why didn’t they start these anti-obstruction measures a long time ago, rather than complaining that it’s almost the end of the session? Were they hoping that he’d change his mind? Were these time-consuming work-arounds so time-consuming that they wouldn’t be finished before the session ended?
I think the answer is, appointments like this are done in groups, but it requires “unanimous consent of the Senate” to do it this way rather than one officer at a time. Even if they would have started when this first came up, I doubt they would be anywhere near finished by now - and even that would be at the expense of pretty much all other legislation.
The legislative “hold,” which is what Tuberville is employing on 200+ military appointments, is a practice that allows any one member of the Senate to inform his or her party leader to object to any unanimous consent agreement to move forward with the nomination. It is not in the Senate rules – it is, however, a deeply entrenched expectation that the party leader will honor the hold. Because the majority of the routine business in the Senate is conducted through unanimous consent, the hold de facto prevents further consideration of the nomination.
Currently Tuberville has over 200 holds on individual nominees. Without unanimous consent, Schumer can still bring each nomination to the floor, but it is a much longer process. Given the sheer number of holds, it would take months to get through them all. And during those months, the Senate could not dedicate floor time to any other business.
Schumer could attempt to move the nominations “en bloc”, which would allow an up-or-down vote on a group of nominations as a whole (military promotions are commonly considered this way). That would require a suspension of the rules, which requires unanimous consent or a 2/3 vote. It’s not clear how many Republicans would stand with Tuberville on a rules suspension.
This is yet another one of those tactics that, were a Democrat to try it, would unleash the furies of every right-wing media outlet in existence. And correctly so – it’s weakening our military to make a political point. But IOKWARDI.
If these appointments are normally so uncontroversial that everyone’s willing to go through with the polite fiction that they’re unanimous, then why couldn’t the senate just go “Aaron Anderson, yea or nay?”, and count the votes, and then the same for Mary Baker, and John Campbell, and Michael Davidson, and down the list, spending only as much time on each as it takes to count the votes? Surely, if they actually needed any serious debate, they wouldn’t be under the “unanimous consent” procedure in the first place, and all of the Democrats at least would vote yes.
How much “other business” is Congress in general actually getting done now anyways? Call their bluff, and do the work. They’re not going to stop playing silly bugger games like this until the Democrats force them to stop.
The issue is that, absent unanimous consent, Tuberville and/or other Senators could draw out the process. Each nomination can be filibustered. That can be overcome through cloture, but that process can take days.
Tuberville is an example of how McConnell has lost his hold on the Senate. McConnell hates Trump, especially after he turned against his wife. Elaine Chao, and Trumpists. Why can’t he can’t say so publicly? Because he’d lose even more of his power and that’s far more important to him than the country.
There’s like a dozen major budget bills that the House Freedom Caucus is stuffing thousands of culture war amendments into. As a priority, the Senate’s need to battle those is far above not having a General or some judges.
IMO part of what’s going on is that the Democrats want to maintain a distinction between the political side of congressional business and the basic civic responsibility of congress. A partisan fight over a nominee for the Secretary of Defense that winds up resulting in a party-line confirmation vote may not be ideal but it’s acceptable – that position is supposed to be a political appointment who advances the President’s vision for the DOD. A general (for example) is supposed to be a nonpartisan figure, so they should get confirmed smoothly with a bipartisan vote and there should certainly be no horse-trading over tangential issues.
The senate majority can for all intents and purposes change its rules in response to procedural hurdles with a simple majority. The holds/committee shenanigans etc. have happened back and forth over nominations that are understood to be political in nature and the majority changes procedures (or threatens to) from time to time in response. This is a different situation because this is something the Dems feel both parties should own.
Some of this is just political self-interest–by having bipartisan support for non-partisan matters, it prevents any future opportunity for a partisan attack. But part of it is (ironically) an ideological matter of what political ideology should and shouldn’t factor into. Unfortunately I think the Dems are going to have to come to grips with the fact that separation they want is not going to be respected by the GOP. Even election integrity has become something that at least rank-and-file GOP senators and reps are willing to use as a political tool.
This asymmetry is a direct result of the policy differences between GOP and Dem supporters. A significant chunk of GOP supporters are not in favor of the Federal government; they would like it stymied, dismantled, or destroyed. As a result Tuberville has two sets of supporters: people against the government and people against abortion. This helps ride out any GOP backlash about undermining the military.
They claim that, yes. They looooove to claim it and wave a flag, even.
(Some actually wave the American flag, while other Republicans go with the confederate traitor bastard flag.)
Military medical facilities are not allowed to perform abortions. After Roe was overturned the DOD put in a policy to allow military personnel to travel to other states to get reproductive healthcare if it’s prohibited in the state they are stationed in. Tubby is holding his breath until they take it back. Anti-abortion > pro-military
A snippet: “In sum, the lives and careers of military officers are not a bargaining chip to achieve a desired social outcome. Tuberville’s dangerous ploy harms civil-military relations, undermines military readiness, and damages military retention. He should withdraw his halt on promotions and allow these talented military officers—and their families—to continue on with their careers and their lives.”
I will say, politics is being played on both sides of this. Shumer and Senate Democrats could absolutely be doing more to break this hold. He could bring a motion to suspend the rules to the floor, and force Republicans to put up or shut up. He could bring particularly important officers to the floor and force a cloture vote.
But so far, the Democratic line has been that it is up to Republicans to fix this by getting Tuberville to back down. Because they know this looks terrible for Senate Republicans. And railing against Republican intransigence helps their endangered incumbents, particularly those with large military constituencies (i.e. Tester).
I suspect the reason Schumer isn’t bringing a motion to suspend the rules is that he might not have the votes to pass it, which would be embarrassing for him. Manchin is probably the likeliest suspect, but many other Democratic Senators hold an irrational attachment to the “rules and traditions of the Senate”. That’s why the filibuster still exists.
I think he likes the optics of what Tuberville is doing. He could absolutely bring the nomination for General Smith to the floor and ask Senator Tuberville if he has an basis to oppose it.