Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) claims that
[O]ur Republican colleagues have made such a mockery of the Supreme Court confirmation process, we are not going to have business as usual here in the Senate….
Here’s what Schumer is doing to illustrate his point:
- forced a vote on a measure that would ban the Justice Department from arguing against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
- invoked the rarely-used “two-hour rule,” which governs when committees can meet when the Senate is in session, at one point preventing the Senate Intelligence Committee from meeting
- move[d] to bring up a vote under the Congressional Review Act and force Action on a resolution to undo the Trump administration’s gutting … of the Community Reinvestment Act
- Schumer then motioned to adjourn the Senate until after the presidential election
- appealed that ruling [that his motion to adjourn was out of order] and then motioned to table his own appeal, essentially putting up a motion in opposition of his own effort to close down the Senate
Then Schumer said this:
This is the most rushed…most partisan, least legitimate Supreme Court nomination process in our nation’s history—in our nation’s entire history—and it should not proceed.
Never mind that moving at the speed of business rather than at the glacial pace of politics is not at all rushed, but simply a matter of efficiency, of eschewing dithering or delay for the sake of delay—like the forgoing.
Never mind that, to the extent the present Supreme Court nomination process is partisan, it’s because Schumer is blocking partisanship in the process, refusing to allow Party take any serious part in the Senate’s Constitutionally mandated advise and consent role in confirmation.
No, with deliberately obstructive moves like these, Schumer personally is preventing business as usual in the Senate, including its confirmation business; he personally is making a mockery of the entire Senate. And so are his fellow Progressive-Democrats, who are going along with his nonsense.