You Lost, Senate Dems -- Grow a Pair and Show Up

I don't doubt that you are following the Cabinet confirmation hearings with muted enthusiasm.  After all, this only happens in real earnest when an administration changes and, as we are only on our 45th president since 1789, that doesn't happen too often.

This is sort of the first "Twitter transition", where we are privy not only to simultaneous newscasts of what goes on in the committee hearings, but the commentary of experts, pundits, newscasters and frankly, you and me, in real time.

It is the latter fact that makes me wonder a great deal about Democrats.  Of course, I have a hard time figuring out why anyone would even be one, given the dearth of their ideas that have ever worked, and the incompetence of its leadership, now in their 70s without having apparently learned anything.  In fact, the biggest challenge the party has is the juvenescence of its voters vs. the senescence of its spokespeople.

Including, of course, the laughable Democrats that are the minority leaders in both houses of Congress.

Exhibit A this past week has been the committee hearings in the Senate that are supposed to make recommendations to the full Senate to vote on President Trump's Cabinet appointees.  The committees, made up of slightly more Republicans than Democrats (elections have consequences, y'know), interview the candidates and then vote for them.  That recommendation is necessary before the full Senate votes.

Now, the Senate is a rules-choked rules-driven body, and one of them is that a committee may not report out a vote to the full Senate unless at least one member of the opposition party, in this case the Democrats, is there for the vote.  So knowing that they weren't going to get any of the nominees outvoted because all the Republicans would vote for the nominee, the Democrats figured they would do the next best thing.

They didn't show up for the vote.

How did that work out for them?

Not well, apparently.  Since the Senate's arcane and convoluted rules include the "how many senators does it take to change a rule" rule (cf. Obamacare), the Republican chairmen of the committees simply changed the voting rules and suspended the requirement for contrarian presence for each final vote to report the approval to the full Senate.

The chairman just asked the committee, empty of Democrats but with a quorum, "Motion to suspend rules 2a, 4 and 5 for this matter, do I have a second?"  Second, a vote, and there you go, rule waived.  Then a motion to send the nomination to the full Senate also passed unanimously and, Bob's your uncle, done and done.  Cliches back on the shelf.

The Democrats on the committee simply walked out on their duty to represent their constituents, and the nominations moved forward.  Not even a participation trophy for them.

And they lost.  They lost in the election, they lost the White House and both houses of Congress.  So if they want relevance, if they want influence, well, the Democrats are going to have to grow a pair and show up.  They might not win very often, or maybe ever, but at least the voters will have an idea where they stand -- and where they sit.

Because by walking out of committees and accomplishing nothing, they show the voting public what spoiled children they are.  Oh, wait; they're actually spoiled elders (see above).  That really looks pathetic.

And the voters will remember that next election cycle, although they won't have to think too hard, I figure.

The Republicans will make sure that the voters see the Democrats as the ones who didn't show up, and the Republicans as the ones who got it done.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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