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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (179030)	1/10/2012 11:35:27 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541768

By the rules, Senate was in session; Constitutional scholar Obama forgot to adjourn them. Rules are rules; how come I know them better than he does? In 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Ballin that both houses of Congress are parliamentary bodies, implying that they may make procedural rules by majority vote. In 1917, Senator Thomas J. Walsh [9] contended the majority of the Senate could revise a procedural rule at any time, despite the requirement of the Senate rules that a two-thirds majority is necessary to approve a rule change. "When the Constitution says, 'Each House may determine its rules of proceedings,' it means that each House may, by a majority vote, a quorum present, determine its rules," en.wikipedia.org

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (179030)	1/11/2012 11:20:17 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541768

If that process allowed to stand why not this one of pro forma sessions? We're still, to some extent, talking past one another. You're not addressing the use of these "pro forma sessions" to block the work of legal agencies instead of using the confirmation process as it should be used. I have no doubt that's an illegitimate use of the confirmation process. As we move ever further into a Republican Party which is less and less about governing and more and more about anti-governing, these kinds of issues will grow. However, given the current makeup of the supreme court, I don't hold out much hope for sanity at that level. At best, it's a four to four vote with Kennedy, the unpredictable one, doing the deciding. Crazy system.