Posted on 12/26/2007 8:11:08 PM PST by TRY ONE
Smart move by the DEMs.
See "4. ORDER OF PROCEDURE" from December 19, 2007, at Page S16069 of the Congressional Record.
Notice Senator Reid's "I ask unanimous consent," followed by a schedule for pro forma sessions, recesses and adjournment sine die, and concluding with the chair's statement, "Without objection, it is so ordered."
In general, the notion that a bare quorum of senators (e.g., all of the GOP, plus VP Cheney), can show up and get legislative advantage "on surprise" is ludicrous. So is the notion that a trap can be sprung when all the potential objectors happen to be absent from the floor. The Senate runs on unanimous consent - consent sometimes given grudgingly, but given, just the same. Takebacks of consent require unanimous takeback.
The situation with pending nominations parallels the Democrats particular objections with recess appointments. See "2. NOMINATIONS STATUS QUO," also from December 19, but at Page S16061 of the Congressional Record.
Usually, all nominations not acted on are returned to the president when the Senate adjourns sine die (See Senate Rule XXXI), but in this case, all nominations are kept status quo, except Bradbury and six nominees that had been pending before the Armed Services Committee.
Finally, the process of entering a series of pro forma sessions in order to prevent a period of longer than 3 days without a Senate meeting was also done over the November/Thanksgiving recess, as well. AMERICAblog.com: Reid shut downs Bush recess appointments during Thanksgiving. To the best of my knowledge, it is otherwise without precedent.
Were is the presiding officer when this is going on ?
‘”I didn’t appoint myself ambassador to a tropical nation,” Webb, a former Navy secretary, novelist and TV documentary maker, quipped afterward. ‘
We’re more worried about your weird fixation on fathers putting their kids penis in their mouths, you nutcase.
The president of the senate should bother to show up.!!!!
No, he could not block a quorum call. But adjournment for a quorum call would not itself invoke a recess. It would just force the democrats to get 50 people to show up for the next session. A “recess” is like 10 days, this is why they are doing this every few days, so they can recover if the republicans try anything.
Sure, I’d like to see them do it anyway, JUST TO MAKE the democrats show up once every 10 days. But the democrats WOULD show up if they had to, so it would just be a gesture.
BTW, I wouldn’t count on all of the republican senators supporting this action anyway — senators in general are not enamored with recess appointments, seeing it as a usurpation of their authority. So a good number of republican senators would oppose taking extraordinary steps just to provide an opportunity for the president to make a recess appointment.
If Bush wanted to make a big deal out of it, he could simply vacate the offices that aren’t appointed, and refuse to spend money or perform the work assigned to those offices, until the senate acted on his appointment. By making “acting” personnel, he takes off the pressure.
I guess the democrats could have done this to block a recess judicial appointment as well, but since you can’t do “acting” judges, the effects would be more severe.
This illustrates the level of discord between the Senate Republicans and the Bush WH. By my estimation, perhaps half of the Pubbies in the Senate (if that) are willing to support Dubya on strategy/legislation, save for Iraq and tax cuts.
How many really supported Dubya's version of "comprehensive immigration reform"?
Now that I think about it, Dubya's "grand farewell" at next year's convention will hardly rival the sendoff the Gipper received.
Yeah...but I was thinking about that Quorum call.
If *all* the rest of the GOPers were waiting in the halls when the call went out..and they all came in, The acting Dem even though he would vote nay...numerically, would make the quorum complete. >Bo)
Yes, if they all showed up, they could have a quorum, but they wouldn’t be able to conduct any business because you can only conduct senate business by unanimous consent or through forced action by cloture, neither of which would be possible.
The only thing they could do is force adjourment, but I’m not even sure that would matter, because it may be that the senate was still technically in session before the adjournment is closed. I don’t know if you can object to bringing the senate INTO session based on the absense of a quorum.
That is an interesting question though, and I think I’m going to hit up my parlamentarian about that.
No there can not be a objection to the quorum call, A senator could object to suspending a quorum call.
How ever they could refuse to approve the journal for those days that a quorum was not present. Make the RATS prove there was a session.
Since there is a constitutional requirement for a new session to begin in early January. That means an old session must formally end before the next can begin. I wonder if the President can slide in a “recess appointment” in that interim?
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