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Ira 'Greybeard Homer' Goldman 🦆🦆🦆 Profile picture
Ira 'Greybeard Homer' Goldman 🦆🦆🦆
@KDbyProxy
I used to write laws… then I invented Knee Defender. ex-HPSCI, ex-Senate tech, taxes, trade/FP, ethics, antitrust… crime & even reputed parliamentarian 🙃
5 subscribers
Nov 14 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Some thoughts on the issue of a president's power to force the Congress to adjourn – ie, for at least 10 days so he can then make so-called "recess appointments" of officials at will.

Looking at Art II, Sec 3, one could think the Constitution empowers a POTUS to do that...

1/ Image After all, it says if the Houses are in disagreement "with Respect to the Time of Adjournment," the president "may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper".

But what if there is no such "disagreement" between the Houses?

#SRules
2/
Oct 30 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Interesting piece by @ElieNYC, but while he gets some things right, he's wrong on others – and he misses some ~arcane things usable to counter nefarious efforts at a joint session.

1) Speaker Johnson, singly, as speaker, can do none of the "secret plan" things Mystal claims.

1/ That is, re the joint session, unless Johnson were _somehow_ to have the votes of a majority of the House and of the Senate, the JS things @ElieNYC outlines can't happen – and that's true whether something is done during this Congress or after the start of the next on Jan 3.

2/
Oct 28 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
A) There is no "secret" method I and others don't already know about.
B) If Repubs take the House _and_ Senate, _and_ ~all Senate Repubs toe Trump's line (which seems doubtful), then there would be a way they could steal the election at the joint session, but...

1/ C) If Repubs have only the House, or if they have both Houses but not the votes in the Senate, then at that point the only way they could steal the election would be by trashing the ECRA (eg, walking out), then electing Trump speaker & letting him succeed as acting-president.

2/
Sep 22 • 27 tweets • 8 min read
If MAGA members at the 2025 joint session pull 💩 of a kind they pulled in 2021, we're going to see how little the purported limits on the VP in the new Sec 15(b) of the ECRA mean.

Eg, recall at the 2021 joint session – despite what the Constitution and the ECA say about…

1/ Image … opening "all the certs", even just "purport[ed]" certs" – that Pence didn't open "purported" certs from Trump's electors? His decision on that was beyond ministerial (and that the Parls advised him to do it doesn't change that). I said at the time…

#SRules #HRules
2/
Jun 5 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
As the former Republican counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, my comment regarding this news is as follows:

What Speaker Johnson has done is flat out irresponsible. For the country. And for the House. In short, it's nuts.

All presidents receive the highest level…

1/
Image … intel briefings because, of course, that goes with the job to which the voters elected them. But Scott Perry & Ronny Jackson's elections to the House didn't elect them to receive those briefings as members of HPSCI. No, that's entirely in the Speaker's discretion. Indeed…

2/
Nov 1, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
HOT TAKE: This Daily Beast piece is so flawed, it should be taken down.

For starters: While it says "OMG!" Speaker Mike Johnson's *financial disclosure* doesn't show he has a bank account, the rules don't require every acc't (even >$1000) be reported.
🧵

thedailybeast.com/does-new-speak…
Image Specifically, the financial disclosure rules exempt *non-interest-bearing* checking accounts.

The piece actually includes the "interest bearing" detail, yet then misses the possibility he and his wife have one or more NON-interest-bearing checking accounts.

🧵 Image
Aug 19, 2023 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
How to break down Tuberville's blockade, Alt Take:
1) Biden withdraws from the Senate all his pending senior military promotions/nominations.
2) He immediately resubmits all 300+ of them as one nomination.
3) They're referred to Armed Services Cmte (SASC) as one nomination.

1/ 4) SASC reports them out as one nomination & they go on the Calendar under one number – let's say Cal. No. 1200.
5) Brief layover; Schumer makes a motion to go into executive session "to consider Cal. No. 1200."
6) Repubs make a point of order the motion's out of order.

2/
Jun 21, 2023 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
This is a story about the time Robert C Byrd bluffed & attrited his way to setting a Senate precedent.

The Senate must be in Executive Session before it may consider an item on the Executive Calendar – eg, a nomination. That used to be a two-step process, as seen here…

#SRules Image There, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield:
1) made a non-debatable motion to go into Exec Session, and after it was agreed to
2) made a debatable motion to consider a specific nomination.
Jun 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In the end, Biden was absolutely going to have to give McCarthy some things… in return for other things. Turns out, one of those things he gave McCarthy was just showing up to negotiate. And based on the overall deal, Biden got something in return. Yes, for just showing up.

1/ "Extortion" is the coin of the realm in Congress-Exec Branch . Were the stakes here unusually large? Yes. Were the threats from House Repubs nuts? Yes. But such "extortion" is not going away, and to think Biden could have made it go away is, in its own way, also nuts.

2/2
Jun 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
.@ringwiss About senators who want a bill to go directly to the Calendar (vs being referred to a cmte):

Why, after asking for first reading, do they immediately ask for second reading & then object to their request, vs just waiting for the next day? The answer may be here… Image Some notes:
Based on my "sense" of these things, and from reading the Byrd-assisted cleanup of that Baker & Helms clown show, and from reading chunks of this from 1957, I think the immediate request for second reading + objection may be defensive.
Jun 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-TN) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) have a moment on the Senate floor.

Can you tell what was happening?

#SRules Image Here's a hint: This is the very next line in the Record... Image
May 31, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
B/c this is about how Ron DeSantis defines himself as governor & now as a candidate for president, and b/c for him this is a boilerplate line, it's > noteworthy he didn't say "I will be able to… leave woke _policies_ on the dustbin of history," but rather "woke _ideology_".

1/ Image A candidate running for president on a promise to end an "ideology" is running in the wrong country. And by phrasing it as he does, DeSantis reinforces what we've already come to see about his vision of gov't – setting not just policies, but also how everyone should think.

2/
May 31, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
15+ minutes into this 15-minute vote on the debt-limit rule and look at how many members haven't yet voted...

😁🍿 Image 😀🍿🍿🍿 Image
May 17, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Some takes re expelling George Santos.
1) Yes, he should be expelled.
2) The vote should come _after_ the House receives a report from the Ethics Cmte; iow, not as an insta-vote on a question of privilege.
3) Even with bribery cases, the House has waited for a cmte report…

1/ Image 4) FUN FACT: Apart from whether he should be expelled (again, he should), the timing of Santos' departure is (potentially) a BFD to both Republicans and Democrats – specifically b/c of (A) the impending vote(s) on a debt limit deal, and (B) math...

2/
May 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
If that's how Crow feels, he better get into court quick seeking to stop Treasury from providing Wyden his tax returns, b/c unlike when Manchin was there, Treasury can provide returns in response to a request under 26 USC 6103 w/o prior notice to the targeted taxpayer – ie, Crow. Image While it's not uncommon for me to disagree with Sen @RonWyden on issues, I consider him one of the Senate's best tacticians, and so in light of the reply from Harlan Crow's lawyer, I'd guess his @SenateFinance staff now (if not already 2 weeks ago) has a 6103 request in process. ImageImageImageImage
Apr 25, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Current Florida law requires state/local officeholders to resign in order to run for another office, even if that other office is federal.

FL legislature now considering a bill to exempt officeholders/DeSantis planning to run for president. (Congress-hopefuls would still be SOL) Image Here's the Florida bill language. Note it claims the bill wouldn't really _change_ anything; that it's just "intended to clarify existing law". 🤔
Apr 18, 2023 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
This is arcane stuff, b/c it rarely comes up.

Presumably that aide figured if authorizing subpoenas requires a cmte vote, and the cmte doesn't have the votes to report out judges, then they don't have the votes to authorize subpoenas. Ah, but the subpoena rules are different. Image If Durbin doesn't get this story straightened out (that he could issue subpoenas by getting Feinstein's proxy), should we consider he doesn't really want to investigate Thomas – not b/c he thinks there shouldn't be an investigation, but because _he_ doesn't want to get into it? Image
Sep 2, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
FUN FACT: Even if Trump _had_ declassified all of the marked-classified documents that he had at Mar-a-Lago, they were still government property, and so it was as much a §641 crime for him to have them as it would have been if he'd taken and kept that bust of Winston Churchill… ImageImage And yes, I know Tom Fitton & other Trumpalites yap that Judicial Watch v NARA (which Fitton's side lost) says Trump can claim any doc as a "personal record" and (they yap) that that claim is not subject to judicial review, but that's 🐂💩. Indeed, it's 🐂💩 for 3 reasons:
Dec 25, 2019 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
While I've said Trump has been impeached (so I don't disagree with Tribe on that part), the authority he cites for his legal conclusion is waaay off – starting with the fact that that quote he says is from the House Rules… is not from the House Rules.

1/ For starters, House Rules aren't numbered by "Chapter"; there are 29 of them and they're simply numbered by Roman numerals.

2/
Dec 13, 2019 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
About this @benjaminwittes thread, I went through this "oath" issue over two years ago and... that's the way it is.

In brief, knowing they must take that the oath should sober senators, but there's no cure if it doesn't.

Now, follow along...

1/ @benjaminwittes From that 2017 thread: While the Constitution requires senators to sit on "Oath of Affirmation," here's the actual oath required by the Senate's impeachment trial rules...

2/
Dec 12, 2019 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
FUN FACT: There is a *bribery article* in the impeachment articles against President Trump.

It's Article I.

"But, Ira – Article I is titled 'ABUSE OF POWER', not 'BRIBERY', so how can you say that?"

Because it's not the title. It's the acts alleged.

B/c history…

1/ As we know, Article II of the Constitution states an official may be impeached for "Bribery".

But when the House has impeached officials for having committed bribery, has the House actually impeached them verbatim for "Bribery"? 🤔

Let's look at two cases...

2/