Many, many years ago, in the 1700s, the pace of life was slower. I can’t confirm this from personal experience, but I have that on good authority.
The Senate did not need to respond in a timely fashion to anything, except for perhaps a muscular attack on the country. And in that event, it was not especially hard to muster the necessary votes for a declaration of war because even if the Senate had a few admirers of Vladimir Putin, they would be quickly overwhelmed by sensible people. And, the Senate wasn’t hobbled by the filibuster, anyway.
But by the twentieth century, the pace of life had quickened. The telegraph and then the telephone connected the entire country, and it was possible for emergencies to develop rapidly. The Senate slumbered on, oblivious. By the Sixties it took the overwhelming consensus of the American people to get the Senate to address even major problems.
Which it sometimes did, begrudgingly.
Still, the Senate never quite adjusted to twentieth century life. After maybe 80 or a 100 years, I think it’s time to drag the Senate into that century. It would be better, obviously, if we could get them on board with the twenty-first, but that’s clearly asking too much. You’d probably have to flush the Senate of nearly everyone there and start over. Let’s not tackle that just yet. Let’s just get them up to last century’s standards. One hundred years out of date seems about right for the Senate.
Not just standards, but ethics. The Senate has slipped so far behind the times that Senators aren’t even aware, it appears, when they are abusing their powers.
I give you, as a prime example, Sen. Tommy Tuberville.
According to Slate, Tommy Tuberville’s Military Blockade Shows the Senate’s Rules Need to Change (Fred Kaplan, 2 November 2023).
Even as the U.S. military faces threats in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Tommy Tuberville—a first-term Republican senator and former football coach without a whit of political experience, and maybe a half-whit of knowledge—is single-handedly blocking the promotion of 367 generals and admirals.
Good point, Mr. Kaplan, but how? How should the Senate rules change?
Here’s my proposal, which I think would end a modern history of Senators abusing their power to block confirmation votes. The rules should specify the schedule by which votes on nominations will occur.
For military appointments, this would be two weeks. For regular judicial appointments and executive positions, like cabinet appointments, this would be two months. For Justices of the Supreme Court, this would be three months.
When the Senate received a nomination from the President, the vote for that nominee would be placed on the Senate calendar according to this schedule through the normal scheduling process, under the stipulations of this new Senate rule. There would be some slack to place it just after already scheduled major legislation. The vote could then be rescheduled through regular order, should there be reason.
This would eliminate the abuse of Senators, like Tuberville, holding up nominations for petty reasons.
Two weeks is more than sufficient for Senators (by which I mean their staffs) to dig into the history of a nominee and determine if there’s sufficient reason to oppose their appointment. If there’s a valid reason not to confirm them, like they aren’t really fit to be in the military at all, for example, then fine. Gather fellow Senators and turn down the confirmation when the vote comes up.
Same for other appointments. If this had been the rule during the Obama Administration, we would have a Justice Merrick Garland. Because Republicans didn’t actually want to vote against him. He was carefully chosen to be acceptable to enough of them to get him confirmed. It’s only by abusing their power that Republican Senators (Leader Mitch McConnell to be pointed about it) were able to keep Garland off the bench.
Sure, it’s possible Republicans could have voted en bloc to turn him down. But that would have exposed them to much more effective backlash at the polls, which were then pending.
Think about the consequences of that one appointment.
If Garland had been confirmed, would we have had Dobbs? Maybe we would have had some other attack on abortion freedom, but Dobbs?
I know even Democratic Senators are reluctant to do the right thing in many cases because they worry that Republicans will use any changes as new weapons with which to beat on Democrats once they regain control. There are a couple problems with this way of thinking.
To begin with, it assumes Republicans will ever gain control.
But more importantly, how? How would Republicans use this schedule to the detriment of Democrats? Do they imagine Donald Trump regaining the White House and forcing through appointments they don’t like?
Let me have a quiet word with you, Senate Democrats. If we see him elected President again, Democrats won’t control the Senate, anyway. They’ll just push through those nominees regardless of what you want.
In any case, maybe it’s time to just do the right thing. When someone is nominated, take a sensible amount of time to vet them, then vote them up or down.