Amend Rule XIX or Prohibit Sitting Senators from Being Nominated for Cabinet Positions

Last updated on: February 8, 2017 at 12:37 pm by Libby Anne

Amend Rule XIX or Prohibit Sitting Senators from Being Nominated for Cabinet Positions 2017-02-08T12:37:33-04:00 Libby Anne

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I’m flummoxed by what happened on the Senate Floor yesterday.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, had been holding forth on the Senate floor on the eve of Mr. Sessions’s expected confirmation vote, reciting a 1986 letter from Mrs. King that criticized Mr. Sessions’s record on civil rights.

Sensing a stirring beside her a short while later, Ms. Warren stopped herself and scanned the chamber.

Across the room, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, had stepped forward with an objection, setting off an extraordinary confrontation in the Capitol and silencing a colleague, procedurally, in the throes of a contentious debate over President Trump’s cabinet nominee.

“The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, as warned by the chair,” Mr. McConnell began, alluding to Mrs. King’s letter, which accused Mr. Sessions of using “the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.”

Mr. McConnell called the Senate to order under what is known as Rule XIX, which prohibits debating senators from ascribing “to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.”

I was vaguely aware of the existence of this rule. I had not, however, considered the consequences of applying this rule to situations where a sitting Senator is nominated for a cabinet position. This rule, if applied as it was yesterday, severely hampers the Senate’s ability to fairly discuss and debate a president’s cabinet nominee.

The Washington Post has covered the origins of this rule here, and needless to say they were far different from yesterday’s circumstance. It would be reasonable to conclude, from an understanding of the argument that precipitated the rule, that it was never meant to cover situations like this one, in which a sitting Senator is being considered for a cabinet position and another Senator is merely reading a statement from an influential civil rights leader about the man’s record earlier in his career.

Let’s be very clear about something—McConnell did not have to invoke this rule. His colleagues did not need to vote to affirm his invoking of the rule, and his silencing of Warren. No. The Washington Post suggests that this rule is generally considered archaic, and is rarely invoked. The Republicans chose to use this rule to stop Warren from reading Coretta Scott King’s letter.

“She was warned,” Mr. McConnell said of Ms. Warren. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

The Republicans are blatantly using this rule to silence discussion of a presidential cabinet nomination—in the very body which is tasked with confirming the nominees.

In light of this reality, I would like to make a proposal. If the rule cannot be amended, presidents should be barred from nominating sitting Senators for cabinet positions. If Jeff Sessions would like to be considered for Attorney General, in other words, he would first have to resign from his Senate seat. This done, the Senate could thoroughly and fairly examine and discuss his career and actions, without being prohibited from discussing problematic aspects of his past.

Now yes, I know it would be impossible to get such a provision enacted, and it’s possible that such a provision would be unwise. What I want to draw attention to is the bizarre situation we are in—after all, the Senate is free to fully examine and scrutinize the past and present of every other cabinet nominee. What we’re looking at is a special circumstance—Sessions is being held to a different standard, because he is a sitting Senator and his colleagues are therefore prohibited from speaking badly of him.

Between this and DeVos being confirmed by Senators whose campaigns she had given tens of thousands of dollars, I am becoming increasingly upset with glaring problems in our nation’s cabinet nomination process.

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