GOP Senate majority isn't even pretending to legislate

[babylonsister]

Damn shame they can't be fired.


GOP Senate majority isn’t even pretending to legislate
All of those legislative promises Republican Senate candidates made in 2018 — forget them.
Josh Israel
May 9, 2019, 12:05 pm


Despite several campaign promises to change the way Congress legislates and get things done, the U.S. Senate, under the leadership of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has not had a recorded vote on a bill in more than a month.

Instead, the Senate on Thursday was considering the nomination of Michael H. Park for a lifetime appointment to the be a federal judge. On Wednesday, it voted to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominees for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Export-Import Bank, and another circuit court judgeship.

A ThinkProgress review of the Senate’s roll call votes reveals that, since an April 1 cloture vote on an appropriations bill, the chamber has devoted virtually all of its roll call votes to confirmation of Trump appointees. With very few exceptions, the Senate’s floor schedule is subject to the sole discretion of the majority leader.

On April 2 and 3, McConnell rammed through a rule change — using a procedural maneuver he previously decried as a way for the majority to “break the rules to change the rules” — to reduce the time allowed for debate before confirmation votes. Since then, the body has confirmed 11 lifetime judgeships and 11 executive branch nominees. The sole remaining vote — an unsuccessful attempt to override Trump’s veto of a resolution to block the president’s use of military force in Yemen — was “privileged,” meaning that it could be considered without McConnell’s approval.

Senate Democrats have noticed that the place McConnell once called “the greatest deliberative body in the world” has stopped deliberating about appropriations, immigration, health care, gun violence, infrastructure, entitlements, and everything else.

more...

https://thinkprogress.org/gop-senate-majority-isnt-even-pretending-to-legislate-e7b35d7c3521/

[beachbum bob]

1. getting trump federal judges appointed is all they need to do...

I'm hoping to see 10 or 12 articles of impeachment of various trump admin officials sitting on McConnel's desk...as he will not hold a single trial and the Constitution has NO mandate to do so

[enough]

2. Yes.

[Kurt V.]

3. the gop has no interest in governing. they are interested in ruling.

[TwilightZone]

4. They haven't in ten years.

They even told everyone that they weren't going to legislate and people voted for them anyway.