Today a handful of senators are successfully blocking President Obama’s nominees by forcing the Senate to choose between confirming judges or completing any other business.
A supermajority of senators can break a filibuster, but once a filibuster is broken, Senate rules still permit up to 30 hours of floor debate before taking a vote. It would thus require nearly two months of uninterrupted, 24-hour days of debate in order to confirm President Obama’s 45 pending nominees. And no other business could be conducted during this entire period. When you also factor in the more than 100 executive branch nominees awaiting a vote plus the need to actually enact appropriations and legislation, it is simply impossible for the Senate to get more than a fraction of its work done in the face of blanket obstructionism.
This is how our government works. This is how it worked before and how it works now. I don't see where anything has changed in the last 45 years that I have been paying attention to how our government works...or maybe I should say...how it doesn't work, take your pick.
ReplyDelete