He does not like the policy, so he has the power to grind Senate proceedings on appointments to a halt unless they change the policy. That’s a tremendous power for one Senator out of one hundred to have. And there doesn’t seem to be anything that anyone else can or wants to do about it. They don’t re-write the Senate rules, because no Senator wants to give up the power that they each have.
The latest from Beau on Tuberville.
Do you have a one line precis of his video?
Okay.
Basically, Beau says that Tuberville is planning to relent and let just the Marine Corps Commandant get installed, and forget about the other 300 or so promotions, just to take a little heat off himself, like a petulant child who promises to stop holding his breath if he’s allowed to watch an hour of his favorite TV show. And he says the Democrats shouldn’t let him get away with it.
Which feeds back into my thesis that the American Revolution was a mistake and we’d be better off if the British had won.
What I’m saying is that he can’t block any policy in general. It’s a specific set of circumstances that allow him to be able to act this way on this particular issue.
Apparently Schumer got them to vote by threatening to make everyone stay over the weekend.
Wondering why he hasn’t just made them all stay every weekend doing nothing but voting on these things until Tuberville is getting shit from everyone in both parties.
The legislative action would be for a majority of senators to vote to interpret the rules so that they can effectively release the holds.
While I agree that parliamentarianism is a better system in general and also that the senate has stupid rules, this an issue of lack of willingness from the majority, not lack of ability.
That’s probably plan G (or whatever). Start with carrot. Resort eventually to stick.
Plans A-whatever were probably all at least somewhat aspirational - it really would be best if people acted liked responsible adults and got work done. Jumping right to the conclusion that the other side is recalcitrant and will never work with you may end up being reality but it’s not a great thing to conclude from the beginning.
And to be fair, many other GOP senators would have balked well before now. It took a truly special (in the value-neutral sense of the word) example to escalate things to this point.
Which continues to be Democrats main problem. They think the GOP is suddenly going to come to their senses and start acting like adults again. That ship has clearly sailed long ago, and wishful thinking isn’t ever going to force their hand.
There are many more endangered Democratic incumbents running for reelection next year than there are Republican incumbents. The more time they spend in Washington, the less time they’re back home hosting fundraisers and campaign rallies, touring small businesses, doing ribbon cuttings for federally-funded projects, meeting with state and local officials, and all the other things that will help their reelection.
That’s another reason why the “just keep them in session for months until they vote out the backlog” approach won’t work. Schumer needs to see to the political needs of his caucus.
This is an overstatement.
None of the other GOP Senators would have pulled this stunt. Or if they had, taken it this far. They would have been reined in by their own party by now had they tried. Tuberville is ‘special’ in that sense.
And that’s the thing. It’s not the Democrats expecting the other side to act like adults. It’s them expecting the GOP to act within their recent levels of relative insanity. And that’s not unreasonable. The Senate GOP leadership, at least, understands that this escalation does them no good, either.
I assume part of the Senate Democrats’ expectations is that the party would exert some pressure to bring Tuberville around, which hasn’t happened. Instead, Tuberville has uncovered deplorables who stepped out of the shadows. (Like the Senators who voted against this confirmation of an officer who was appointed to his previous office – Chief of Staff of the Air Force – by Trump and unanimously confirmed on that occasion.)
The RWNJ infection is running deep, even in the upper house.
Serious, purely hypothetical question: a piece of heavy construction equipment falls on Tuberville, killing him. What happens to his hold?
I would expect most if not all those military confirmations go through very quickly after
There is a non-zero chance another GOP senator decides to take up the same game, but the likelihood is pretty low
“In memory of our dear departed colleague, I will take up his brave fight against the murder of the unborn that is imperiling our brave men and women of the Armed Forces, and by so doing increase my own reelection chances!”
Why not? What is the rule that says there must be a clear linkage between a policy he doesn’t like and military promotion? As far as I’ve read, each senator has the power to put a hold on a promotion, for any reason, arbitrary or principled, and the only remedy is political pressure.
Suppose he were to say: “The administration’s policy of granting funds to gay, lesbian and trans centres is illegal. Therefore I will put a hold on all military promotions until the administration stops that illegal policy.”
Someone then says, “But what’s the connection between funding for GLT centres, and the military?”
Tuberville says, “As a senator, I use the powers I have to defend my understanding of the law.”
There’s more at the link, but the pileup of vacancies, including on the Joint Chiefs, and the new chaotic situation in the middle east may have added urgency. In like maybe a month.
A group of Republican Senators confronted Tuberville on the floor of the Senate today and tried to individual bring up over 60 senior military nominations by unanimous consent. Tuberville objected to each one.
Heheheh… anything but just eliminating the “hold” and stripping that power from any single Senator, even if just on this matter… they won’t give up that, will they?