Posted on 10/11/2017 10:38:32 AM PDT by jazusamo
This may seem like an abstruse parliamentary maneuver -- and it is -- but Mitch McConnell just escalated the judicial wars in a minor but meaningful way. If frustrated conservatives want the GOP Senate majority to " start acting like one ," McConnell's decision eliminates a lever Democrats have been using to stymie some of President Trump's judicial picks. In that sense, he's very much acting like a majority leader; a Democratic one. Try not to let your eyes glaze over as you read the details of this move, which involves dramatically reducing the power of so-called "blue slips" on judges, with which Senators from the home state of a presidential selection have been able to withhold their consent in order to prevent that nomination from moving forward. Not anymore. McConnell warned Democrats that he was leaning this direction last month, hoping they'd abandon this form of partisan blockade. They didn't. So he's followed through on his threat -- via the Weekly Standard:
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Good, now we can see very Conservative judges in Cali. That’s immensely important.
Things are so partisan anymore because stupid Senate rules allow the minority to have total veto power if there isn’t 60 votes. So presidents are taking more and more power for themselves. Simple majority to get things through is all it should take.
Took him long enough. I would guess he is taking a beating from the voters.
Leni
Dole,Lott,Frist,McConnell.
What a waste of 25 years.
“I will take a WIN anyway I get one.”
I agree. I think this is the right attitude.
Better late, than never.
Don’t beat him up now, when he finally does the right thing.
McConnell playing hard ball? It is to laugh....
Exactly.
OK
I doubt it. Look at post #13.
Talk is cheap.
Finally! But almost a year was wasted. He should have done it an hour after Trump was sworn in.
He did this because Trump warned M/Bitch that Bannon has him on his sights.
I’m not praising him for doing his job. And particularly for doing it years late.
It needed to be done, but he deserves no special notation for doing it long past due.
FINALLY, he reached down and found that they were actually there!
OK, who put the pods in McConnell’s cellar?!
Yes, these wingnut courts like the Ninth Circus will never be cleaned-up if blue state Senators can continue to blue slip.
The big dollar donors and bundlers started griping in public last week. See how fast the GOPe can move when the money's threatened?
I guess when the big donors and others took Turtle to the woodshed the other night, it was a real come-to-Jesus moment.
The fact that Bannon has announced that all senators running for re-up will be primaried, except Cruz, may jerk the slack out of some other of these laggards, too.
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