Of the hundred ways the Democrats lost the White House and the Senate, one was by being pro-democracy but against Republicanism.
If you’re a conservative or moderate Trump skeptic who’s open to perhaps voting for Kamala Harris, the vice president’s support for rolling back the 60-vote threshold will support most legislation in the Senate to enshrine the right to nationally codify access to abortion after the fall of 2011 Roe v. Wade was a big warning sign. In the context of the post-DemocraticRoo By flirting with occupying the Supreme Court, the center-right received with alarm all other moves to smear the majority rule in the upper chamber of Congress.
Following Harry Reid’s 2013 deployment of the tactical nuclear option to suspend the 60-vote threshold for most presidential nominations so Democrats could push through then-President Barack Obama’s choices for lower federal courts and administration posts, the idea emerged that the next change in the rule — that only abortion laws would be exempt under Harris’ proposal — the latter would be risky.
Even if the Democrats themselves had been able to resist the temptation to extend the power of simple majorities to other issues, Republicans would certainly have upped the ante when they took back control, just as they did in 2017 by losing nominations to the Supreme Court to add to Reid’s list of exemptions.
Progressives, who hate the filibuster anyway, wanted promises from Harris on bold action on abortion, arguing that since Americans voted pro-choice in large numbers in state referendums, allowing the minority in the Senate to block abortion legislation was undemocratic. Conservatives, however, say it is important to preserve the power of political minorities, and by extension, the power of the Senate to act as a stabilizing force in our politics.
Democracy is about the will of the people, republicanism is about the freedoms of individuals and the power of institutions charged with protecting them, even when those things are unpopular. Our system needs both, always under tension.
The filibuster—the prerogative of individual senators to block the work of the entire body—evolved in the early Senate as a reflection of the Constitution’s anti-majoritarian stance. Harris’s enthusiasm to make the Senate more representative and less cautious was therefore anathema to the small Republicans.
In his victory speech last week, after Senate Republicans regained the majority they lost four years earlier, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed that “the filibuster will endure.”
“I think this shift to a Republican Senate majority helps keep the guardrails in check and ensures that people who want to change the rules to achieve something they think is worthwhile are not successful” , the outgoing Republican leader said in comments that were undoubtedly as much aimed at his party as the other side.
McConnell, who weathered Donald Trump’s push in his first administration to abandon the filibuster, could reasonably expect that his successor, who will become majority leader when the new Senate convenes on January 3, would face similar pressure.
The new Republican leader will be chosen by secret ballot on Wednesday by the 49 current Republican members of the Senate, plus the three new ones elected last week (Jim Justice of West Virginia, Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Tim Sheehy of Montana). ) and another who likely won but is still waiting for the final ballots to be counted, David McCormick of Pennsylvania.
The contenders for the top spot are Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas — both veterans of McConnell’s team during his 18-year tenure as party leader — and Rick Scott of Florida, a McConnell foe who failed in a long shot to depose him in 2022. If none of the three candidates receives an outright majority of 27 votes on the first ballot, the third place will be eliminated and a new round will be held.
This initially seemed like a bull’s-eye for Thune or Cornyn, experienced leaders with stellar fundraising records for their fellow Republicans’ campaigns. Scott received just 10 votes in his 2022 presidential campaign, after leading the party’s ill-fated efforts that year as chairman of the Republican Senate campaign arm. And no matter who won, it initially looked like the filibuster would be safe. Cornyn and Thune are both avid proceduralists, and Scott – while unconventional in other respects – is a vocal proponent of the 60-vote threshold.
But then things got weird.
Scott was probably always the MAGA favorite, drawing support from populist rabble-rousers like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. But the outside play turned boiling, as Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson and other top advisers to the president-elect publicly campaigned for Scott. And Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Bill Haggerty of Tennessee, both in line for big jobs in the new Trump administration, signed Scott’s bid.
The strangest move came on Sunday. Trump posted on his social media platform that “any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to recess appointments.” Six minutes later, Scott chimed in: “100% agree. I will do everything I can to get your nominations through as quickly as possible.”
So what does Trump mean? In the darkest interpretation of his demand, Trump says the new Senate must go home for at least 10 days after the inauguration, which would trigger the constitutional clause that allows presidents to make recess appointments. That would give Trump the chance to choose anyone to any position, without hearings or Senate approval, to serve until the next Congress ends, a term of nearly two years.
Thune and Cornyn interpreted it, at least publicly, in a milder way, with Thune saying that “all options are on the table” when it comes to getting Trump’s choices confirmed, including recess appointments. Cornyn took the route of citizen education and explained the constitutional authority for recess appointments. Most tellingly, both threatened to let Trump make these choices if Senate Democrats blocked them, which of course they cannot.
Thanks to Reid, only 51 votes are needed to confirm the nominees. The Republicans will have 52 or 53 seats. The only people who can block Trump’s choice are the Republicans who refuse to participate.
In 2017, when Trump also had a Republican Senate, his nominees faced unusually long delays before receiving a vote, largely due to his choice of some very wealthy individuals for top posts. Disclosures and ethics compliance extended the time to 25 days, but after that it was a piece of cake. Trump had installed the last part of his cabinet at the end of April, a day earlier than his predecessor, Barack Obama, managed in 2009.
It seems like Trump, who hasn’t yet nominated anyone for a Senate-confirmed job that would have trouble getting through, must have some real doozies in mind for other jobs if he’s already worried about them being rejected by his own party will be rejected. .
Scott’s message is clear. The Senate majority leader has wide latitude to set the House’s calendar, and he is willing to use it to clear the way for Trump. Thune and Cornyn, meanwhile, seem to be saying that if they had to grant a break date to get through a choice that had been hanging on the line for weeks, maybe they would.
There is no good version of the Senate in which the party in power abandons its constitutional duty to “advise and consent” regarding executive nominations. The duty is not just a check on presidential power but, like the filibuster, it is a moderating force. When presidents are forced to find consensus nominees, even if that consensus exists only within their own parties, ideological excesses are curbed and certain ethical and characterological standards for nominees are preserved.
If Republicans were to oblige Trump and withdraw, it would set a precedent that Democrats would certainly be pressured to follow the next time they take control of the White House and Senate, creating a permanent an even greater balance of power between the departments is created.
While it seems unlikely that this will work, since senators, who vote by secret ballot, are unlikely to reward Scott for being an enthusiastic champion of executive power, this is our first big clue to what kind of relationship Trump expects to have with his fellow Republicans. in the Senate. He’s not looking for a honeymoon where he and the Republican Party in Congress start with the things they all like — tax cuts, border security, etc. — before moving on to the hard stuff. The president-elect is seeking domination.
Condolences to whoever wins Wednesday’s vote, as they either face the fight of their lives or will go down in history as the man who turned the Senate into a vassal of the executive branch.
I don’t know how quickly Trump’s picks will move forward next year, but I have to hand it to the Republicans: from winning the majority to starting a bloody internal conflict over presidential power in less than a week, a new land speed record.
Read more at De Uitzending
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