I will use as an excuse that I am Canadian to ask if and how US Senate Republicans can force Mitch McConnell to change his current position of not sending any legislation to the President unless he knows in advance that Trump will sign it.
Is McConnell untouchable in this regard? Is there anything that Senate Republicans can do to force him to back down?
ETA: If a mod feels this is better in GD, please make the move, thanks.
Easily, if any of them had any balls. All it would take is for 4 or 5 of them to side with the Democrats to force a floor vote on a bill. Heck, if enough of them get pissed enough they could remove Turtleboy from his position as Majority Leader altogether.
A simply majority of the Republican Caucus can remove McConnell as Majority Leader.
But let’s not pretend that McConnell is acting in opposition to his caucus – he is protecting them. No Republicans want to vote on a budget bill that the President has already said he will veto. They risk enraging the base if they vote against the President or being exposed as hypocrites for voting against a bill they already approved. Even the couple of Republican Hamlets who have urged ending the shutdown (Collins, Gardner) do so knowing that they’ll never have to actually vote in opposition to the President – because of McConnell.
That isn’t correct. The Speaker of the House has strong control over what bills will be brought up for a vote, but there is a procedure by which a majority can move legislation forward regardless of the Speaker’s intent. That isn’t the case in the Senate for the vast majority of bills.
So, it could be simple . . . if the will was there. Understood. Thanks.
If I may, 'll use this opportunity to ask (again as someone who has no understanding of the workings and procedural history of the US Senate), is McConnell unique in this way? He certainly is being portrayed as such (e.g. Browning’s “Gravedigger of American Democracy”). Has anyone else ever approached his level of obstruction of ‘usual’ government processes?
ETA: I had not seen Ravenman’s post when I wrote this.
It wouldn’t be simple, but it could be done. 27 Senators could dump McConnell tomorrow.
Of course, the chances of that happening are less than nil. As flurb noted, McConnell is providing cover for the slime. Plus, the longer this clusterfuck goes on, the longer it is before the House lands on trump like a pile of neutronium.
I don’t see the House waiting - they can pass a CR everyday and still hold committee hearings to investigate the executive.
A new poll shows that half of Americans see immigration as one of the most serious issues facing the country, about double what the percentage was last year.
I’d bet that a huge proportion of these Americans are from states that voted for Republican Senators. They’ve been fed constant propaganda about hordes of illegals storming the country to the point where they are true believers.
Additionally, Trump has been steadily running a 90% approval rating among Republicans.
Sure, in a rational world, shutting down the government to get funding for a small portion of an unnecessary fence is the definition of insanity. If the people rose up and put pressure on their Senators, they would fold in a New York minute. But put the above numbers together. The Republicans aren’t disgusted by their Senators: they’re cheering them on. They love Trump; they fear the boogeymen; they hate the Democrats they imagine are advocating open borders that the hordes can pour over. Only a tiny fraction are seeing any real pain from the shutdown. Mostly they’re being told constantly by their favorite propaganda sources that Trump is Richard the Lion-Hearted, Leonidas of Sparta, and Stonewall Jackson rolled into one heroic figure.
No Senator who wants a career is going to impose his puny body between that Scylla and Charybdis. They’re going to run with Trump until he abandons them. He will, of course. He always does. Nobody else counts in his universe. As long as he’s a president with 90% approval from their party, they’ll dust themselves off and start running with him again and again.
The shutdown will end sooner rather than later, before the real pain sets in. No lessons will be learned.
A handful of Republican senators would still be enough, but it would have to be more drastic. The President Pro Tem of the Senate isn’t the leader of the majority party, because the Constitution doesn’t recognize the existence of parties. The President Pro Tem is whoever the majority of the Senate says it is. Traditionally, that vote has been made on party lines, but it doesn’t have to be. The Democrats could unite with a small number of Republican defectors to vote in someone else (possibly even one of the Republican defectors) as Pres Pro Tem.
What good would that do? The Constitution makes the Vice-President of the United States the President of the Senate. In early years, the V-P would actually preside over Senate sessions regularly. There’s no reason that that couldn’t happen again, in which case who cares who is the President Pro Tempore?
Are you saying in terms of the VP overriding McConnell, or in terms of preventing a newly-elected PPT from going against Trump? If the former, yes, he could single-handedly do that if he so chose. If the latter, that’d only work as long as he was continually present for all Senate activities, and as soon as there was a moment with the Senate in session and the VP absent, the PPT could move for a vote on whatever they wanted.
The House should rapidly start passing appropriations bills for individual departments and top level agencies. The Senate would probably go along with them. They going to not fund the Ag Dept or NASA because there’s no funding for a wall in it? It would end the shutdown piece by piece.
I realize that appropriations usually take a long time to get passed, but they need to expedite them. Someone in that town needs to get a sense of urgency.
If they can’t do that, then pass individual continuing resolutions for departments and agencies. They could priobably get all of them except DHS passed the Senate.
The House has already essentially done this – they passed a bill funding all of the remaining non-DHS agencies through the end of the fiscal year, and a separate bill funding DHS through February 8 (without wall money). Almost all House Republicans voted against both bills and Trump indicated he would veto both until he gets his wall money.
Why is it that these polls matter but polls showing that a majority of people want something like (say) gun control are thoroughly ignored? (A majority of republicans too)
I am NOT hijacking this into a gun control debate. I am asking why some polls matter and others do not.
Not individual enough. Pass one bill for each Dept and agency or possibly even for some subsections of departments. There are congresspersons of both parties that are fans of individual departments. For example, consider how many are from the Corn Belt and would like the Ag Dept funded. Get those guys, especially the Rs, to put pressure on McConnell to put their bill up for vote. Divide and conquer, guys.
Presumably you mean 27 Republicans. Assuming all 47 non-R’s would also support this, then 74.7% of the 99 sitting Senators would be required — 73.7% would not be enough. Is it proper that important workings require this threshold? It wouldn’t be enough to have the 67% needed for veto override; they need over 74%?
Pence only gets to vote if there’s a tie, otherwise he’s just keeping his seat warm.
Your question may be an interesting one, but note that Harpo (Exapno) was referring to the fact that a poll figure had changed so much from one year to the next (despite little change in the underlying facts) — the absolute values aren’t really important to make this point.
Ninja’d by JKelly Map.
Trump, aided and abetted by the right-wing propaganda machine, managed to instill fear into a majority of Americans. Fear always wins in politics. Fear drives people to the polls, increases campaign contributions, and makes speech very loud. Being nice and rational and forbearing may be popular in theory; the real world functions differently. When people fear they demand instant action. They don’t care what that is. Get 'er done is a million-dollar catch phrase for a reason.