But for those of you who find the trifles of governance interesting... check out this Senate Judiciary Committee rule:
IV. BRINGING A MATTER TO A VOTEBut what does it all mean Jil???
The Chairman shall entertain a non-debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote. If there is objection to bring the matter to a vote without further debate, a roll call vote of the Committee shall be taken, and debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with ten votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority.
Okay it gets tricky, so stay with me and read slowly:
All Supreme Court nominations must first go through the Senate Judiciary Committee and be discussed and debated there.
Therefore, according to the above, a Supreme Court nomination needs at least at least one Republican vote to get out of committee so that it can go before the full Senate for confirmation hearings. No supreme court nomination will get out of the SJC committee without at least one Republican member of the committee voting to do so. As long as no Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee "votes in the affirmative", the Republicans can "filibuster" any judicial nomination.
Now for the tricky-dicky part:
Senator Arlen Specter was a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He always voted with the Democrats though: He was always guaranteed to be that one "Republican vote in the affirmative" to get things out of the SJC. Now that he is a Democrat, that isn't the case: There is no guranteed Republican vote to "break a filibuster".
So, even though Republicans are so far in Minorityland that they can't even see the clouds above Majorityland, they can still gum shit up in Committee... including any Supreme Court Nominee of President Obama's whom they do not like.
Like I said: Who the hell comes up with a rule that so long as there is still one Republican left in the Senate, he or she alone can block all kinds of shit from getting done? I'm all for equivalency and balance and forced bipartisanship, but jeez... lets get some perspective people.
Now, to drop all the way down to the 10th level vagaries in an attempt to really fry your brain:
The Democrats can decide not to reorganize the Senate Judiciary Committee until after the Senate adjourns, leaving Specter filling his "R" spot on the SJC until the end of the current Congress even though he has officially declared himself a "D". It's the equivalent of forcing the other baseball team to keep their second baseman in place until the end of the game, even though he's already decided to play for your team.
This maneuver would be flipping off the Republicans in the harshest way possible... but the interesting part is that the Republicans were thinking of "blocking the organizing resolutions" (the move I just described) earlier in the year for different reasons. It would be a bit comical (in a 10th level kind of way) for the Democrats to turn around and use the tactic on the Republicans instead.
(Okay... For those of you who made it through this post without going walleyed, you can now apply for your Senatorial Frippery Merit Badge.)
It is an interesting prospect: When a Senate rule requires in some way the presence/existence of a minority that was always assumed to be there... I wonder what would happen?
ReplyDeleteI suspect that if it ever came to the point where there was only one party left in the American Government (give a thousand or two years... it may happen), that party would probably opt to split in two along some ideological-but-minute tipping point, and make that their new point of political difference. It wouldn't be much, but it would be something... enough.