‘It doesn’t reflect on the president.’ Senate poised to cut debate on Trump nominees

[Draggingtree]

McClatchy

‘It doesn’t reflect on the president.’ Senate poised to cut debate on Trump nominees

BY BRYAN LOWRY ANDDAVID LIGHTMAN MARCH 29, 2019 02:18 PM

WASHINGTON 

President Donald Trump’s nominees for federal judgeships will be able to sail through the Senate with minimal debate time as Senate Republicans prepare to remake the the body’s rules next week.

Democrats say it’s an effort to pack the courts and to prevent scrutiny of the president’s nominees. But Republicans say it’s a necessary move in the face of hundreds of vacancies in the federal court system and in federal agencies.

“If this rule was dated, ‘We’ll do this January 20, 2021,’ virtually every Democrat would vote for this,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and a co-sponsor of the resolution to cut down on debate time.

The current Senate rules empower the minority party to require 30-hour debates on the president’s nominees, a privilege Democrats exercised 128 times during Trump’s first two years in office. Republicans say this slows down both the confirmation process and the Senate’s ability to work on other legislation.   

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

 

“The abuse of the rules just does not allow us to get to other work and or fill the jobs that the president is supposed to be able to fill by congressional consent,”

 

So in other words the Senate is acting like the Framers envisioned it.