http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/did_jim_demintjust_take_contro.htmlEzra Klein: Did Jim DeMint just take over the Senate?
What is Sen. Jim DeMint doing?
Senate staffers I spoke to weren't exactly sure -- but whatever it is, they're really not happy about it.
"This is really, really, really, really, really, really bad," one said. "In a precedent-setting institution like the U.S. Senate, letting one person anoint themselves king is not a good idea."DeMint's method of anointment is relatively banal. Non-controversial legislation in the U.S. Senate gets "hotlined." That means it goes out on an internal messaging system to see if anyone has an objection. If no one does, the legislation is often passed using unanimous consent, and without any floor debate. That's done so the Senate doesn't waste a lot of time on things like post offices or -- to use an example that got hotlined recently --the Longline Catcher Processor Subsector Single Fishery Cooperative Act.
As the Senate approaches the end of a session, these non-controversial bills build up and often get passed in a rush at the end. And that's where we are now: The Senate is expected to adjourn either Wednesday or Thursday, and most expected a few non-controversial bills to pass during those final hours. But DeMint is saying he'll block any bills that aren't hotlined by this evening -- a position, according to his office, that the Republican leadership was notified of last week. Anything less than 48 hours, he says, simply doesn't give him and his staff time to review the legislation. If the bill -- and, in some cases, its CBO score -- isn't delivered by tonight, it'll have to wait until the lame-duck session.
It's not a crazy request. Sens. Tom Coburn and Claire McCaskill, in fact, have tried to make it a rule of the Senate with their Stop Secret Spending Resolution. DeMint supports their effort.
What's riled so many in the chamber, however, is that DeMint is turning that preference into a demand. Given the power that unanimous consent affords to individual senators, the chamber's functioning is always fragile. It relies on 100 egotistical people with differing procedural preferences to compromise with their leadership and their colleagues. That's what you see in Coburn and McCaskill's bill: an effort to get enough senators behind them to make this the new rule.
DeMint, by contrast, is saying that if this is not the new rule, he won't let the Senate vote on these bills before recess. That's a challenge to the Senate, of course, and to the Democratic leadership. But it's most directly a challenge to the Republican leadership, who've argued that the Democrats don't give them time to read the bills, but haven't demanded a change in the underlying rules. By making news with a hard-line stance on the rule, he's highlighting the Republican leadership's hypocrisy on the point.DeMint's office says they expect that most of the legislation will indeed be non-controversial, will be sent to them and will pass. They emphasize that they have long requested time to review these bills and say that taking time to look at every bill shouldn't be a lonely crusade for one senator, but the job of every senator. And in all of that, they may be right. But the other offices in the Senate look over and see them taking the rules and norms of the Senate into their own hands, going around their colleagues and leadership, and calling the fragile compromises that allow the Senate to function into question. "You cross that line," says the aide, "and where do we go from here?"
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