Simply following the “new precedent” established by Republicans
Probably told the story of meeting Senator Dick Durbin at Showdown in Chicago during the ABA Bankers Roaring Twenties dance convention at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. Had asked him when were Dems going to take a stand and start acting like the party of the majority. Richard Trumka’s remarks are still up and can be read. Much of the other news on the protest of ~5000 protesting the results of banking crash has disappeared.
GOP Melts Down as Dick Durbin Uses Its Tactics for Advancing Biden Judges, msn.com, Jennifer Bendery
Senator Durbin is paying Republicans in like kind during the nomination of judges.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had full-blown meltdowns on Thursday after Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) held votes on two of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees without allowing debate on them, saying he was simply following the “new precedent” established by Republicans when they did the same thing to Democrats, twice.
Durbin appeared to completely blindside Republicans by moving straight to votes on two U.S. District Court nominees, Mustafa Kasubhai and Eumi Lee, without opening up the floor for discussions on them. Both nominees had two previous hearings and had been debated. But typically the panel would still allow for more discussion in what was their confirmation hearing.
Not Thursday. Durbin went straight to their votes, saying senators already had two chances to debate their nominations. And GOP reactions went from confusion to anger to the kinds of high-octane tantrums familiar to anyone with children under the age of 5.
AB: I read this and no it is not right for Durbin to do tit for tat.
“Are we going to have an opportunity to speak?” asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
“I would also like to speak on the nomination,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
“I understand what you’d like to do, but I’m saying, in fairness, we’ve debated these nominees twice,” Durbin said. “I ask the clerk to call the roll.”
This is where the anger kicked in.
“You’re denying us an opportunity to speak?” Cornyn asked.
“Come on, man,” fumed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I mean, OK. Do this. Just do it!”
“We don’t have a right to speak under the rules?” asked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
“Under the third time, I’d say no,” Durbin said flatly.
“So you’re just going to make it up?” Cotton demanded to know.
“You’re telling us to shut up? You want us to SHUT UP?” Blackburn said, raising her voice. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Soon Republicans were talking over each other and hurling insults and threats at Durbin.
“There’s going to be a lot of consequences coming here,” warned Cotton. “I cautioned a lot of you. Listen to me! I cautioned a lot of you!”
Cornyn suggested that Republicans might walk out of the hearing right then and deny a quorum, meaning the committee couldn’t conduct any votes.
Cotton got so mad he started talking about himself in the third person.
“Mr. Cotton says the chairman needs to rethink his decision,” said Cotton, as his name came up in the roll call. “That’s what Mr. Cotton says.”
When Blackburn said again she wanted to talk, Cotton interjected, “Now I guess Sen. Durbin is not going to allow women to speak either. I thought that was sacrosanct in your party!”
“Congratulations on destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee,” Cornyn dramatically told Durbin.
Through all this, Durbin sat expressionless, waiting for breaks in the attacks to quietly direct the clerk to continue the roll call. He periodically reminded Republicans that they’d already had two chances to debate both nominees in two separate hearings. That didn’t seem to matter much to them.
“You had to bring them up again,” Graham said. “It wasn’t our fault! It’s your fault!”
“This is a complete disgrace,” Cornyn said.
“Is this an illegal vote?” Blackburn wondered. (It was not.)
AB: It is here Durbin explains why he is allowed to do what he did. I am surprised it took two Republican Chairs before Democrats took action. Dems lost a lot of ground over those two times. Republicans set precedent by denying Dems an opportunity to speak in the third and confirmation meeting.
It wasn’t until after Democrats voted out both nominees and the complaints had somewhat subsided that Durbin had a chance to spell out why this was happening: He was following a precedent set by the last two Republican chairs of the committee, who violated committee rules to advance nominees and legislation without giving Democrats a chance to weigh in.
In other words, Durbin was giving Republicans a taste of their own medicine.
“The two preceding chairs of this committee violated the letter and spirit of Committee Rule IV,” he said, referring to a committee rule requiring at least one member of the minority to vote with the majority to end debate on a matter before moving to vote on it.
Durbin said one former chair, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), violated this rule with a vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, and Graham was chair when he broke the rule to advance a partisan immigration bill without Democratic input.
“In doing so, Republicans established a new precedent that I followed on one occasion last Congress and will follow again today,” said the Illinois Democrat. “I’ve said time and again there cannot be one set of rules for Republicans and a different set for Democrats.”
“This is the third time they were brought up,” he added of the two nominees at the center of Thursday’s hearing. “That’s the reason the ruling was made by the chair.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) suggested it was petty for Durbin to break rules just because previous chairmen did it, too.
“So Mr. Chairman, you’re saying because you think Sen. Grassley violated the rule, you’re going to violate the rule?” he asked.
“It’s called precedent, senator,” replied Durbin.
A committee spokesperson noted that Kennedy spoke on Kasubhai in a Nov. 2 hearing and again in a Nov. 19 hearing, for a total of 12 minutes.
Graham spoke on both nominees in the Nov. 2 hearing, for about two minutes, too. And Cotton spoke on Kasubhai in the Nov. 9 hearing for about six minutes.
“Chair Durbin did in fact offer Republicans the opportunity to speak on Lee’s nomination before we turned to the subpoenas,” said the spokesperson, referring to other business carried out in the hearing, “and not a single one took him up on that offer.”
Both nominees now head to the Senate floor for final confirmation votes.
Great! Looking forward to real progress here.
Dick Durbin leads Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence crisis
CBS News – Nov 28
Of course, I had to comment on this post because it deals with one of my favorite (actually my favorite) subjects — Congressional Rules. My latest post on the subject is, “Rules of the Game.” In short summary, it is Congressional Rules, that are the, “devils of democracy.”
This latest AB posting regarding Senator Dick Durbin and Senate rules and “precedents” is such a great example of not only the problem with Congress creating its own rules, but also the historically destructive quintessential political practice of, “What goes around comes around.” It reminded me of a posting I did back in 2021, where I reposted one of my posts from 2016 on exactly this topic and what then-VP Joe Biden, in his capacity as President of the Senate, could have actually done to shed some light on this practice and its effects in destroying a functional government. According to the Brennan Center, one of the duties of the VP, acting as president of the Senate, includes issuing advisory opinions about internal Senate procedure. While Biden never did act, the ability is now there for Kamala Harris should she choose to exercise it.
J.P.
It is counterproductive if taken that way. If Repubs establishing precedent as Durbin explains, then why is it wrong to do such when they set the foundation for such? However, Dems should expect this to be the rule when Repubs take over too.
I have plenty of space to put up your “Rules” commentary J.P. I (AB) and Joel need more writers.
Bill, feel free to repost any of my commentaries at https://jpmcjefferson.blogspot.com/. I’m just not writing on any kind of regular basis these days to be considered one of your listed writers. But, if I get inspired I’ll surely let you know. At this point I’m probably better at commenting on various issues of the day.
On the above post, I wasn’t saying what Durbin did was wrong (he’s just playing the game), but the process of “tit for tat” is a very unorganized way to make rules of operation & the other side can always say there was something different about they way they did it that made it right for them but not for you. My bigger point is that if you want government to be efficient, fair and based on the public good, then you shouldn’t let the politicians make and enforce their own rules and have the ability to change them when ever it’s convenient.
You’d have to amend the constitution to prevent Congress controlling its rules. Who would you have do it?
As I have written before in Rules of the Game, Constitution, Article 1, Section 5, simply says that “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…” The important word is “may” as opposed to “shall.” While this wording implies that the House and Senate can, themselves, develop their own rules of proceeding, it does not in any way prohibit the development of rules of proceeding by some independent, outside source which would then be adopted by the House and Senate.
An initial step must be to focus on this major root cause of polarization – Congressional Rules. Short of a Constitutional Convention, a massive coordinated public campaign must harness the vast economic resources and human energy of the “good forces” to educate the public and call for the in-depth investigation and analysis of the existing rules.
I have suggested that among the “good forces,” there are literally hundreds of organizations, university centers, and thousands of staffers and retired politicos that are involved in advancing specific issues related to good government and government reform that could be focused on such an effort.
At a minimum, there is absolutely nothing to prevent some outside respected source from conducting a deep dive review of Congressional rules and recommending changes that would minimize political polarization and advance rational, governmental decision-making. Such an initiative could be the rallying point for a massive public campaign to address the current, widely accepted, public agreement on the dysfunction of Congress. It will not be easy to change Congressional rules, either voluntarily with Congressional support or by some kind of external public initiative.
Many observers, including the President himself, have said, “Something must change.” One change, that is within our grasp and could make a huge difference in the decisions we make as a country, is Congressional Rules. However, it requires focus and a massive campaign to force changes. The selling point is that existing politically motivated, arcane rules are the underlying reason that we as a country are unable to address the major issues of our time.
Daniel (in your comments), you are correct that the “no factor” will always be there, but part of the solution is to make it so untenable that it results in immediate public disgrace.
See also: New Rules To “Discourage and Restrain,” October 2020
I don’t think the problem is so much the rules. The problem is when one side decides to say no to the rules.
Back when there was the Bush/Cheney show and the “nuclear option” was being considered regarding the filibuster I came to realize just how fragile our democracy was.
As was explained by a Constitutional professor, each branch has the right to decide how they will conduct their business as it relates to the job of being part of the government. Thus rules.
In the Senate it is a simple handshake of the 2 party leaders that the rules are agreed upon. However, if one decides to not shake hands, say no, democracy is dead.
Since Mitch McConnell decided to say no, democracy has been neutered.
The Senate has no clear means to get around the word “no” when used to stop democracy. We see this with Tuberville’s use of the word “no”.
When the entirety of a party decides to say no to anything their partner in the relationship proposes or offers there is no means to stop the stopping of government function.
The Democratic Party has tried to uphold the “congeniality” of the rules. It has only bolstered the Republicans to continue using the word “no” to the rules as it is getting them success as they define it.
The dilemma as I see it is if the Democratic Party decides to follow the lead of the Republicans, knowing the Republicans character to win at all costs and now the added motive of vengeance we flow into that downward spiral toward our government being a democracy in name only. Same as Russia and China are communism in name only (at least as what they have for government has been label as such).
The only solution to the issue of rules is for the citizenry to do their citizen’s duty and vote as an informed citizen. Unfortunately, being informed to the reality of our current state of governance has become captured by algorithms for the purpose of selling for the purpose of pocketing money. (There, this makes my comment an economic one.)
Then again, maybe seeing the Democratic Party using the same tactics as the Republicans will lead people to see them as fighters, as emotionally driven and lead to Democrats being elected without these elected forgetting that they are only using the tactics to get the US back to being a democracy.
Then I read this today: Muslim Americans in several swing states are scheduled to gather in Michigan on Saturday to start a campaign they’re calling #AbandonBiden, a reflection of their outrage over President Biden‘s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/03/i-know-lets-make-everything-worse-for-everyone/
The proverbial cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The question, what do you do with an adult that just keeps saying no?
Daniel:
Thank you for your commentary. Not sure how to fix when one side will not change and meet in the middle.
Daniel, regarding the campaign they’re calling #AbandonBiden. As I have recently posted on X, I’m sick of media obsession with negative approval ratings of Joe Biden and various AbandonBiden efforts — his age; his Israel activity; his approval of the Willow Project. Give me a break! Biden is for: democracy; voting rights; abortion rights; gun control; & the rule of law. What does Trump stand for? Among other evils, Trump, the criminal rapist, wants to kill shoplifters, execute a general & get rid of the Constitution. In normal times, you could bitch and moan about this and that. These are not normal times. You must choose right versus wrong; good versus evil. There are no other choices. If you have a problem with Joe Biden — GET OVER IT! Vote Democratic & show the world you know right from wrong. 3rd & 4th Party candidates aren’t going to win or help your cause. Don’t throw your vote away. Do the right thing.