Pence Casts Historic Tie-Breaking Vote to Confirm DeVos
Source: Roll Call
For the first time ever, the vice president was called to Capitol Hill to break the tie on a vote to confirm a member of the Cabinet.
Vice President Mike Pence presided over the Senate for the first time since being sworn in just over two weeks ago, and cast the tie-breaking vote, 51-50, to confirm Betsy DeVos as the next Education Secretary. The vice president has never done so before, according to the Senate Historian’s office.
That DeVos could not garner support from the GOP-led Senate underscored her weakness as a nominee, Democrats argued.
“She’d come into the department as a very weak Secretary of Education,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “I think to the extent she thought she was going to get major policy changes passed through Congress, that will be made much more difficult.”
Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/pence-casts-historic-tie-breaking-vote-confirm-devos
= new reply since forum marked as read
if we thought america has been dumbing down since reagan just watch.
i called almost every day but of course i'm in NC so my words fell on deaf ears. i can only hope that burr and tillis sleep badly and find themselves ousted at the next election.
When are people going to wake up and vote?
"When you're pre born, you're fine. When you're pre-school, you're fucked!"
Truer words ever spoken!
What I posted was in reference to the culmination of the extreme blockage of Obama's appointees after the 2012 election, to the point where after major efforts and negotiations and compromises had to happen to get NLRB seats filled (since the board could no longer function due to the vacancies), Turtle basically directed that they would block everyone else.
I.e., the amount of filibusters and cloture votes skyrocketed under Obama and I see that apparently some on DU cheered this. In fact, there were those on DU who insisted all Obama need do was stamp his feet and pound the podium and "use the bully pulpit" and other such bullshit, to get his people an up or down vote.
It had to end.
The immediate matter at hand was the GOP's decision to block three nominations by President Obama to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans refused to confirm Robert Wilkins, Nina Pillard and Patricia Millett not on grounds of their qualifications or even ideology but because they argued the court's workload doesn't demand more judges. That stance also happened to preserve a partisan division on the court that tended to favor Republicans.
"Enough is enough," Obama told reporters at the White House, applauding the vote. "This isn't obstruction on substance, on qualifications. It's just to gum up the works." He noted that use of the filibusters to block confirmations had exploded in recent years. Twenty of his U.S. District Court nominees have faced filibusters, compared with just three before he took office.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/21/first-take-senate-partisanship-nuclear-option-filibuster/3663141/
And no, Drumpf can't "stack as many hard core judges to the federal courts for life as possible", because Obama was able to fill many of the vacancies - the most critical being at the Appeals Court level because of the lifting of the filibuster for general appointees. In total (all levels), Obama was able to put in 329. Many of these lower appointees get in through "Unanimous Consent" and any Democrat can put a "hold" on such motions meaning each and every one would have to go through an actual recorded vote (meaning 30 hours of debate beforehand unless negotiated and agreed to for a lesser number of debate hours, etc) - assuming the Democratic Senators are on board to use the same tactics used by the GOP before 2014.
And as a note, the SCOTUS pick is NOT subject to that rules change. The GOP may consider heeding Drumpf and doing a nuclear option for the SCOTUS but then the question becomes whether the GOP can get enough votes to reach 51 (they needed Pence today just to get DeVos in).
The same can happen to the Republicans. Yes it was worth it in that instance because Democrats now control 9 of 13 Circuit Courts of Appeals where before that we only controlled 1 of the 13.
The GOP wants "less government" so the fiscal conservatives are going to eventually wake up and balk at any "increasing" of anything that must be paid for out of the Treasury. The rules are not set in stone and can be changed. Right now, the GOP is getting an earful so it's only a matter of time before the bloodlust dissipates. See the election of 2006 as an example of the citizenry waking up. You have a lunatic with a twitter handle who is wearing out his welcome among his party.
So simple question, are you going to continue to argue for all or nothing governance? Certainly I know Obama was hated on this board but the depth of such continues to be quite breathtaking.
And as a sidenote - and keep this in mind as I am headed out.... This entire system of government operates on a principle of an "honor system". At any time, any individual in power in any branch can break the whole system and then that will be "the end". I.e., the President can refuse to honor the courts and if no one begins impeachment hearings (or other criminal proceedings), then the system will be done after 230 years. Think about it. It's deep.
What this means is that those hundreds of lesser positions (including lower court judges) that one might think will get "packed" into office in large swoops, can be blocked by 1 person refusing to go along with any "Unanimous Consent" motion, thus forcing them to go through the debate process and a formal vote for each and every one. Someone would have to be present to object to the Unanimous Consent however. But doing this consistently will take up Senate floor time and thus generally forces scheduling for confirmation of those types of vacancies, to the back burner - notably because Bannon/Drumpf have bigger fish to fry.
There are parliamentary moves that Democrats can use that they have not used yet (maybe in some effort to "pick the fight"
.
