b*****d
发帖数: 61690 | 1 Senators in both parties predict blowing up the Senate’s rules to confirm
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will inflict serious damage on the
institution.
Democrats are mulling whether to employ the same retaliatory tactics that
Republicans used in 2013 after Democrats triggered the “nuclear option” to
prevent the GOP from filibustering President Obama’s executive branch and
judicial nominees.
“They used the age-old Senate tactic of slowing things to a crawl, which
you can do under the rules of the Senate,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick
Durbin (Ill.), referring to Republicans.
“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen next,” he said. “We need to
sit down and see where we are when this is finished.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed disappointment on
Tuesday that Democrats would filibuster President Trump’s nominee but vowed
that Gorsuch would be confirmed on Friday one way or another.
If Democrats decide to slow things down in the Senate, it will throw up
additional obstacles for President Trump’s agenda.
A test will come when lawmakers return later this month to work on a
spending package that must pass by April 28 to avoid a government shutdown.
Democrats are warning GOP colleagues not to downplay the consequences of a
rule change that Republicans only a few years ago condemned as “breaking
the rules to change the rules.”
“This fallout will be dangerously and perhaps disastrously radioactive for
the Senate in years to come,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who
argued that scrapping the filibuster for the Supreme Court is a major
escalation of partisan tactics compared to the 2013 decision to ease the
confirmation of lower-court and executive-branch nominees.
Centrists who are most likely to work with the Trump administration on tax
reform or an infrastructure package are warning Republicans not to go
forward with the rule change.
“It’s just one more big destructive step,” said Sen. Christopher Coons (D
-Del.), who since coming to the Senate has tried to carve out a role for
himself as a pragmatist and dealmaker. “If they choose to break the rules,
use the nuclear option, that’s a big negative step.”
At the same time, Republicans feel they have little reason to offer
concessions to Democrats, who have shown little interest in working with
Trump.
A troubling sign for the president, who has few legislative accomplishments
under his belt, is that two Democrats representing states he won last year
by double digits, Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), are
filibustering his court pick.
The president’s approval rating has sunk as low as 35 percent, according to
a Gallup daily poll released last week.
McConnell downplayed the potential impact on the Senate, arguing that a rule
change would return the Senate to its tradition of not filibustering
judicial nominees.
He noted that Democrats gave Justice Clarence Thomas an up-or-down vote in
1991 when they had a five-seat majority, even though his nomination by then-
President George H.W. Bush was viewed as highly controversial.
Some suggest the repercussions of the GOP going nuclear will be less
dramatic than they were in 2013.
When then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) deployed the
controversial tactic, it caught Republicans largely by surprise and was the
first time it was used in years.
It has less shock value now, and Republicans have been warning for months
they would change the rules if Democrats blocked Gorsuch.
There has been a sense of resignation more than outrage as it became clear
over the past two weeks that Gorsuch would not reach the 60-vote threshold
to end a filibuster.
Not all Republicans are convinced the fallout will be minimal, however.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters that whoever thinks the Senate
will be a “better place” after the nuclear option “is a stupid idiot.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said, “I don’t think it’s helpful,”
but also asked, “Can it get worse?”
And Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Trump’s most promising potential Democratic
ally in the Senate, was also pessimistic.
“We like to think it couldn’t get any worse, but it seems every day it
surprises you,” he said of the bitter partisanship that has intensified
during this week’s Supreme Court debate. “Sometimes everything becomes
pretty personal.”
But while Democrats are angry, they are not as upset as Republicans were a
few years ago when Reid invoked the nuclear option. | l*******g
发帖数: 27064 | | f*******g
发帖数: 1290 | 3 这些人渣的人生历程都是都早把良心像给狗阉割一样割掉了，根本不知道脸皮是什么东
西，更不明白脸有什么可要的。
【在 l*******g 的大作中提到】
: 左逼人渣无耻无底线，根本没脸的
| j*********r
发帖数: 24733 | 4 精辟
【在 f*******g 的大作中提到】
: 这些人渣的人生历程都是都早把良心像给狗阉割一样割掉了，根本不知道脸皮是什么东
: 西，更不明白脸有什么可要的。
| G*******h
发帖数: 4091 | |
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