Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is losing his grip. His career may now be over.
Because this U.S. Senate mutiny has Chuck Schumer running for the hills.
The Democrat Party may be in power in the upper chamber in Congress, but so far they have been so ineffective and so incapable that many are wondering what in the world is going on.
That’s a problem for the Democrat Senate leadership members like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who need to prove themselves in the Democrat Party establishment in order to hold on to power.
Chuck Schumer and the head of the U.S. Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris, paraded around when they gained a seat in the U.S. Senate. The only results they have for their “huge” 2022 election win has been a U.S. Senate that’s in deeper gridlock than the first two years of the Joe Biden administration.
One of Chuck Schumer’s biggest failures has been the dozens and dozens of executive branch appointments that haven’t been able to get confirmed or even get brought up for a vote.
Schumer has been holding back votes on Biden administration nominees because he’s scared to death that they aren’t going to get confirmed and that will make the Democrats look bad in return. Especially when there’s a number of Democrats like Joe Manchin who keep pushing back on Schumer and the Biden administration.
Well, now the Republicans are stepping up calling for an end to the circus of Chuck Schumer keeping nominees in the wings for months on end without ever bringing a vote to the Senate floor.
To break the Senate’s impasse on blocked military Biden admin nominees, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and his allies are planning to break with Senate precedent and demand a procedural vote on the nominee for Marine Corps commandant.
Senators met in private in the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to deliberate the unprecedented action. Due to the fears that doing this in the minority could make the already burdensome Senate even more difficult to administer, it is highly rare for a rank-and-file member to compel a procedural vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has declined to put individual nominees on the floor out of worry for Alabama Republican David Tuberville’s methods, and Republicans are trying to pin the blame for the escalating disagreement on Schumer. The Democratic leader has maintained that such nominations have traditionally been approved quickly in the Senate by voice votes, and that to change that practice would be harmful to the institution.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota stated, “It’s unusual, but it’s where members are.” He cited “pent up frustration” because “Schumer won’t allow a vote.” Furthermore, he said, “I don’t know where it goes from here, but at least this is one way of breaking things.”
Tuberville’s demands that the Pentagon alter its policy of compensating service members and their families for travel expenses incurred as a result of their need to travel to another state to obtain an abortion, have resulted in a blockade lasting several months. Pentagon officials have cited to a Justice Department document saying the regulations are lawful, while Tuberville has argued they are illegal and should be voted on by Congress.
Republican senators want to take matters into their own hands because neither the Pentagon nor Tuberville seem willing to budge.
Concerned that caving to Tuberville might encourage other senators to put holds to achieve their policy objectives, Schumer is refusing to schedule a vote on any of the candidates. Instead, he has insisted that Tuberville remove his obstruction so that the nominations can be speedily approved by voice vote.
Tuberville hopes to use a petition process that requires him to get 16 signatures from other voters before he can file the petition and set up a procedural vote, which would take 51 votes to pass. According to Thune, Tuberville has enough backers to make a vote inevitable.
“I didn’t sign it,” Thune declared. “He’s got the – I think he’s got the requisite number of signatures. We’ll see where it goes. I mean, I think there were other ways of getting this done, but he was intent in pursuing a cloture petition, to use that mechanism. So we’ll see where it lands.”
It’s hard to say how this will turn out, and Schumer has options for countering Tuberville’s strategies.
During the previous Senate session, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan was considering using this same approach to force a vote on one of the military candidates before the August recess, but McConnell helped talk him out of it.
The DC Daily Journal will keep you updated on any news on the Biden administration nominations that are being held up by the Senate Democrats.
