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Let's talk about Senate procedure! Or rather, what might be done with Senate procedure. @jiwallner rags a bit today on @BernieSanders for blaming Senate dysfunction on Mitch McConnell. Most Senate Democrats do. They're right, and wrong. This will be a thread.
2. It's quite true that, were McConnell so inclined, he could schedule for Senate floor debate and votes popular legislation, including bills the House has already passed. He is not so inclined, because the President opposes this legislation. Why is this so important?
3. Current practice is to defer absolutely to the Majority Leader on all questions of whether and when legislation should be considered on the Senate floor. Senate rules do not mandate this, however, nor is absolute rule by the Majority Leader traditional in the Senate.
4. As @jiwallner explains, any Senator can move to proceed to consideration of any bill at any time. He can offer third degree amendments to legislation -- in response to a maneuver called "filling the amendment tree" -- & force votes on points of order against such amendments.
5. Any Senator can even move to postpone amendments offered by the Majority Leader, forcing a vote on the motion (or using the motion as leverage to allow the Senator to offer his or her own amendment)
6. These are among many tools afforded Senators by the rules and precedents, to ensure each Senator an equal right to determine the legislation to be considered on the Senate floor. The current practice, in which everything is left up to the Majority Leader is much simpler.
7. It is also the major reason why the Senate accomplishes so little: basically, only nominations and a few bills that the Majority Leader wants -- which is to say, that the President wants.
8. Senate Democrats can address this barrier to considering popular legislation with ineffectual kvetching, & caterwauling about McConnell. @SenSchumer excels at this, but @BernieSanders and other Democratic Senators are pretty good at it as well. It is not their only option.
9. Here's why this matters: a number of politically salient issues are ripe for assertions of Congressional authority. They include gun safety, election security, & blocking use of funds appropriated for disaster relief & US Navy maintenance to pay for Trump's stupid wall.
10. These will do for a start. Senate rules and precedents would allow Democratic Senators to initiate massive procedural brawls on the Senate floor over whether the Senate should do anything about gun massacres, or Russian attacks on American elections....
11.... or Trump's defiance of Congressional decisions as to how taxpayer money should be spent. All of it would be televised, and all resulting votes would be recorded.
12. Senate rules do not enable miracles. If the Republican majority holds together, and stays loyal to the Republican President, the Senate will end up not doing anything to prevent gun massacres, or secure our elections from Trump's Russian friends, or keep Trump from....
13....seizing funds Congress has appropriated for one purpose and spending them on something else. Republicans can even prevent the Senate from voting to keep Trump from using emergency authority to fight trade wars or ripping off the taxpayers to support his own businesses.
14. And this is the point. On each of these issues, & some others as well, public opinion favors the Democrats. They are on one side, the GOP is on the other. Senate Republicans' loyalty to Trump will not be an asset to those among them running for reelection next year.
15. If @SenGillibrand (who wisely decided today to end her Presidential candidacy) or other Democratic Senators whose campaigns for the White House are going nowhere want a useful project, this would be it. That goes for Democratic Senators not running for President as well.
16. My personal view is that Mitch McConnell's contemptuous debasement of the Senate as an institution over these last few years has dealt a heavy blow to responsible, Constitutional government in this country. Many Democratic Senators have said something similar.
17. Do they propose to do anything about it? Can Senate Democrats actually "fight," as they always say they do before friendly audiences of donors and campaign supporters, or will they just complain? Are they able to be Senators? This, I suppose, is the essential question.
18. The answer to this question, for Democratic Senators, is not going to come from Mitch McConnell. They've got to answer it themselves -- not someday, not after the next election. Right now. That's all I've got. [end]
