Indeed, this is true. But that’s because the two statements you’re trying to compare are not equivalent.
If Pelosi says something like “The Speaker of the House can do X, Y, and Z”, it would certainly be less correct (by reason of omission) than “Well, sometimes it changes, but at the moment, the Speaker of the House can do X, Y, and Z”. But the elements that are there would remain correct in and of themselves.
By the same token, if Palin had said something like “Well, they keep the Senate running smoothly during discussions about laws so everyone who wants to can get a chance to talk, and they also vote in case there’s a tie, and can take over from the President if he can’t be President any more,” that would also be less correct than my earlier suggestion of “Cast tiebreaking votes, take over for the President if needed, and whatever else the Senate permits him or her to do under the rules that the Senate as a whole sets and can change at any time.” But it also would be correct enough that I wouldn’t have been “up in arms”.
Instead, she said “They’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes.” If Pelosi came out and said something like “The Speaker’s job is to lock the doors of the room the Representatives meet in so they can’t leave until they vote on the laws that are being talked about in the way that the Speaker wants,” that would be just as wrong as what Palin said (even though, as with what Palin said, such a thing actually did happen in the House once), and I’d excoriate her just as strongly.
Yes, and this was pure Byrd, not Mondale. Mondale merely cooperated. Until rather recently as he has slowed down with advanced age, Byrd has used his knowledge of the rules to be the kind of force in the Senate that the Vice President never has been. There was no appeal of the chair’s ruling, but there could have been, putting it to the floor for a majority vote. The article implies that if it had continued that is what would have happened, but the threat of the appeal effectively ended it. The pretense that this is black and white the Chair has the ultimate power is false.
This is a false analogy that is so weak as to be laughable. The Speaker of the House has enormous power under the House rules. The Speaker does set the agenda.
What you have argued is that Palin could change the way the Senate is run. Not without changing most of the rules of the Senate with a cooperation of a majority to regularly back it up. If she had that majority and their cooperation, then she could. But she would no more have that then Elizabeth II has the balls to make herself King. Sure, she could accomplish this in theory by simply marching armed guards into the chamber and putting guns to the heads of the Senators. Both are so unlikely as to be laughable. It was more plausible that OJ was factually innocent in the killings. This is not the Great Debates forum for the fantasy of Sarah the Powerful Dominatrix whipping the soon to be Dem majority to do her bidding: this is the Great Debate about Sarah Palin misinforming third graders because she simply doesn’t know any better.
That’s actually not quite true. It is perfectly possible and legal for both members of a ticket to be from the same state. What it is not, is a good idea, because that means that the electors of that state cannot vote for both of them.
Because in order for there to be an appeal of the chair’s decision, the chair has to recognize a senator who then moves to appeal the decision of the chair, which is a preferential, non-debatable motion.
But no such motion was made because Mondale refused to recognize anyone other than Byrd.
Yes, Mondale had a collaborator (or, if you prefer, Byrd had a collaborator) but no two, three, or twenty senators could have done what was done that day. It took the power of the presiding officer.
I submit that Article I of the US Constitution states that the Vice-President shall preside over the Senate, but the same Article I gives the Senate the power to set the rules which would define what “presiding” means. Thus the VP, aside from the specifically granted power of casting tie-breaking votes, has whatever powers in the Senate that the Senate grants him/her.
The appeal from the chair is a privileged motion and takes precedence. Not only as a matter of parliamentary rules, but the members can simply take over if not recognized. You are over inferring what Mondale did and the strength of the floor protest. Byrd had the floor and despite all the shouting is not obliged to relinquish it under Senate rules until he is done. Senators are allowed to ask the person holding the floor to relinquish the floor, but they are not obliged to do so except by cloture vote as long as they keep talking.
I’m sure all the arguments in this thread about constitutional powers, Rule 22, cloture, Mondale being a dick, all of that … it was all floating right through Sarah Palin’s mind just as the question was being asked.
Either that, or she has no idea what the Vice Presidency is all about.
Of course the Senate Majority Leader may invoke Rule 22 under the rules after a cloture vote has passed. He may and he did. I am aware of no rule prohibiting it. The rank and file would have been well within their rights to complain (they did) or appeal the ruling of the chair (they did not) or compromise (they did). Arguing the point that the Vice President of the United States controlled this is Sarah Palin stupid: it was Robert Byrd using the existing rules to run rings around people who did not understand the rules.
The way to have stopped Byrd short of compromise would have been to appeal the ruling of the chair, which would have been a privileged motion. But the main point is that outrage would stop anything like what Palin proposes, that the VP is “in charge” of the Senate. The anecdote alluded to shows the opposite: outrage would stop the matter by compromise or worse.
Cheney is not “in charge” of the Senate, and Lyndon Johnson, when he was VP was not “in charge” of the Senate. It is suggested that Sarah Palin was not ignorant of Senate rules and tradition when she said that the VP was “in charge”; that she would have greater authority under the Constitution than any VP has previously wielded or argued: that she could be “in charge”. The Constitution specifically allows the rules of the chamber to be set by the chamber, and no Supreme Court is going to interfere in the political processes of the Senate short of refusing to allow the VP to break ties and ceremonially preside.
The argument to defend Sarah Palin against the accusation of ignorance is that she could do these things by virtue of the Constitution. That is a dangerously radical reinterpretation of the Constitution that should be avoided keep things from being worse than under Cheney in the Senate. Just because a wanna be lawyer thinks he or she can come up with a tortured interpretation to alter the institution of the Senate beyond recognition does not make it responsible to entertain such radical notions as acceptable schemes to seize that power.
So if McCain is elected .you repubs actually believe Palin will walk in and run the senate. Please tell me that you think it will happen. I want to watch you claw away at the election as it slips away. Hang on to your integrity too. I do not think you actually believe such a thing could or would happen. I hope you enjoyed your dance but it was completely unconvincing.
Perhaps the better question is, if Obama is elected, to Republicans think Biden is going to run the senate? If the hoped-for (in conservative circles) off-year election stems the tide in 2010 and the Republicans get back into power in the senate, do they think Biden is going to be in there “running the senate”?
Do we really want that to happen so desperately that we argue for pages and pages about how realistic and right it is? Crazy.
Well, if you want to be crass about it, you’re not that far off. Here is a book written by what the Senate’s own website calls “one of the foremost experts on Senate procedure.” Bio.
Notice on pages 58 and 59 that Gold gives credit (or blame) to Byrd for breaking the post-cloture filibuster, e.g., “Byrd disposed of 33 amendments in this fashion.”
So once long ago in a special circumstance that will never be repeated, you derive a precedent and the idea that the VP runs the senate. That is not only a ridiculous stretch,but I do not believe you think since that time the VP has actually presided over the senate. I think you know better . I also think you know neither Palin or Biden will be running the senate.