How Democrats Paved the Way for the Confirmation of Trump's Cabinet

[kelly1mm]

How Democrats Paved the Way for the Confirmation of Trump's Cabinet

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/democrats-trump-cabinet-senate/513782/

SNIP
A little over three years ago, Senator Mitch McConnell stood on the Senate floor and issued a warning to the Democrats who then controlled the majority.

“I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you’ll regret this,” McConnell, then the minority leader, told them. “And you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.”

At the urging of Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats had just voted along strict party lines to change the rules of the Senate, deploying what had become known in Washington as “the nuclear option.” McConnell and his Republican colleagues were furious. Under the new rules, presidential nominees for all executive-branch position—including the Cabinet—and judicial vacancies below the Supreme Court could advance with a simple majority of 51 votes. The rules for legislation were untouched, but the 60-vote threshold for overcoming a filibuster on nearly all nominations was dead.

As Donald Trump prepares to assume the presidency this afternoon flanked by Republican majorities in Congress, McConnell’s warning is looking more and more prescient. Trump may win Senate confirmation of his entire Cabinet, and while Democrats will oppose many of his nominees, it was their vote in November 2013 that helped pave the way for their success.

END SNIP

May we all live in interesting times .........

[crazycatlady]

1. Time to burn up the phone lines

[SFnomad]

2. If you think the Republicans wouldn't have done this all by themselves ...

you're incredibly naïve.

[kelly1mm]

4. It is the title of the article. Perhaps they would have but Reid's

move gives them cover. They are proceeding by the rules put in place by us now.

[Blue_Tires]

3. I don't get how this is the Dem's fault

because it's a brilliant move when you have control of the WH and/or Senate...

[kelly1mm]

5. The theory of why it is their 'fault' is prior to Harry Reid changing the

rules, even when the party in the Senate and the White House were the same, cabinet picks were subject to filibuster rules meaning basically they needed 60 votes not just 51.

[emulatorloo]

6. Can we take a day off from shitting on Democrats? No praise for "prescient" McConnell either.

He's an asshole, not Miss Cleo.

[SFnomad]

7. +1

Right wing talking points get old ... quickly.

[FSogol]

10. +1 n/t

[joshcryer]

8. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Democrats were trashed for years for not using the nuclear option. They finally do, and now they get blamed when we don't elect a Democratic President.

Fucked. We're fucked.

[Kingofalldems]

9. Quit blaming Democrats for republicans please.

[kelly1mm]

11. It is the title to the article. In this case you can factually say

that the rule was changed from needing 60 votes to 51 was under the control of Democrats. Now that is not to say that the R's would not have changed it - it is just that they did not have to as Harry Reid did the work for them, perhaps for good reasons, but we still live with the consequences.