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Feinstein has been away from the Senate since early March, after hospitalization from a case of shingles. Her absence has created a serious headache for Majority Chief Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee. Together with her absence from the committee, Democrats don’t have a majority on the committee and might’t simply advance President Biden’s nominees, which was principally the one job that they had for the subsequent two years.
After issues got here to a head final week within the nationwide information media, Feinstein requested that she be quickly changed on the committee with a fellow Democrat till she’s cleared by her medical doctors to return. That, nonetheless, is topic to the settlement of the entire Senate as a result of that’s how committee assignments are authorised. Within the pre-McConnell days, it will have been executed with unanimous consent by the Senate as a result of that was simply the way it labored. Not anymore.
The fast response from the GOP in all probability has one thing to do with the return of McConnell after his lengthy restoration and rehab from a fall that resulted in a head damage. As a result of in terms of breaking the Senate, and the federal judiciary, McConnell has no equal. Cotton and Blackburn aren’t on the market winging it with out management’s approval; it is a McConnell ploy all the best way.
By no means thoughts that committee assignments have by no means been topic to partisan fights within the Senate. Every occasion convention decides amongst members who’s going to be on which committee and people selections are revered by the entire Senate. “You simply don’t screw with a convention or caucus’ determination” on committee assignments, one longtime Senate aide informed Politico. You do for those who’re Mitch McConnell.
This units up yet one more filibuster struggle. When Majority Chief Chuck Schumer asks for unanimous consent for an additional member to fill in for Feinstein, Cotton or Blackburn or any of the opposite assholes from the Judiciary GOP—and it has greater than its share of them—will say “no.” Then Schumer should ship it to the ground, the place it’ll require 60 votes. Which means discovering 10 Republicans to assist. There received’t be 10 Republicans to assist.
At this level, Schumer might attempt to break the filibuster by invoking the so-called nuclear possibility, making a movement {that a} easy majority of 51 votes can be utilized to make committee assignments. That requires the presence of Vice President Kamala Harris to solid the 51st vote. It additionally requires anti-filibuster reform Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to agree.
The opposite possibility is to proceed to attempt to do judicial confirmations the best way they did it final session, when the Senate was divided 50-50. That required Schumer to have additional votes. When the committee deadlocked on a vote for a nominee, Schumer needed to schedule a vote to discharge the nominee from the committee after which votes to maneuver that nominee to the ground. It considerably slows the affirmation course of and, thus, the variety of Biden nominees the Senate has time to get confirmed.
If Biden’s purpose of remaking the federal judiciary goes to be realized, Schumer and the Democrats actually solely have one possibility: forcing the difficulty and getting one other Democrat on the committee by no matter means mandatory.
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