At this point, it’s not veto power, it’s bringing a bill for the Senate to vote on. Mitch is doing the thing he does best: obstructing Democrats.
So, one senator could override the other 99 and there’s nothing they could do about it? For that matter, if 2/3s of the senators wanted to expel McConnell from the Senate as per the Constitution, he could just say, “No vote!” and be forever protected?
No, the party caucus could vote him out as leader at any time - if they wanted to.
I really doubt that. In practice it doesn’t matter - McConnell has been quite possibly the most effective republican politician in the modern era. Nobody’s going to vote to demote him.
So the house has passed spending bills, does anyone know if these are the exact same bills passed by the Senate last month? Or did they make changes?
No – the Senate passed a temporary funding measure to keep government open for a period, while not making any substantive decisions on the details of full-year funding matters. The House bills are full-year funding proposals.
And in any case, all bills that were introduced or passed last year have expired now that a new Congress has been sworn in.
The majority leader - right now McConnell - has pretty much absolute power to control what bills come up to the floor for a vote. It’s baked into the Senate’s rules. Were the question in the House there could potentially be a petition to discharge which can override leadership and force a floor vote on a measure. I don’t believe there’s an equivalent for the senate.
Mind you, there are other sorts of pressure that could be applied to McConnell - falling approval numbers, holding up his priorities in other ways or whatever - but those are all influential power…they’re not direct.
No, it’s McConnell’s show until either he’s out of office or he’s removed as Majority Leader by his caucus.
Effective? He has done exactly shit.
He singlehandedly tilted the balance of the Supreme Court. That’s got to count for something. I’m not saying something good, but just… something.
100% truth.
No, that was the President, and the senate as a whole.
McConnell wasnt needed at all. The president nominated the two judges, and there was a GOP majority in the Senate. Their vote was pretty much assured. Even in the case of Kavanaugh, if his nomination had failed, Trump could have brought in any number of better and still conservative judges, like Gorsuch.
All McConnell did was piss many people off by refusing to hold a vote on Garland. He could have let the vote happen, and Garland would have been voted down. That was a bad decision on McConnells part.
Nope, it was McConnell. He alone had the power to decide whether the Senate would steal a seat, and he decided so.
Nonsense. If McConnell had let it go to a vote, the GOp still wouldn’t have voted Garland in. McConnell was just trying to show how powerful he was, he was grandstanding.
Also remember that his base wants him to not do shit. And he’s been very effective at that.
Functionally, he’s the megacolonof the Senate.
And protecting his caucus from having any political consequence for voting against an obviously qualified nominee.
No, Garland would have been confirmed. Which is why McConnell refused to hold the vote, obviously.
How? The GOp had a majority of the Senate. The Senate Judiciary committee had already said they wouldnt confirm a lame duck appointment.
You think a half dozen Republicans would have voted against their party on this?:dubious:
I am not so sure Garland would have been voted down. Voting against a qualified judge is quite an unscrupulous act of partisanship. Maybe they could have cooked up something, but was there any dirt on Garland even close to 30 year old sex assault accusations? Anything like Bork’s pot smoking and hyper partisan Nixon enabling? Anything?
Voting him down might have been viewed as naked, scandalous shenanigans.
Probably 20-ish Republicans would have voted for him had the process played out.