S.C. senators to split on Loretta Lynch attorney general confirmation #scpol (by @skropf47) http://t.co/jvG60ygl6o pic.twitter.com/yOku1EstpQ
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 23, 2015
When I saw the Post and Courier headline, “Loretta Lynch confirmed as attorney general today; S.C. senators split,” I didn’t have to read further to know that Graham had voted “aye,” and the other guy did the knee-jerk GOP thing and voted against.
That’s because of what Lindsey Graham says, believes and lives by — the principle that elections have consequences. A president gets elected, he should get to pick his team. The Senate should only refuse to confirm if the nominees is obviously, clearly unqualified — not just because the nominee might not share the senators’ respective political views.
As he said following the vote:
I also believe presidents should have latitude in picking nominees for their Cabinet, and Ms. Lynch is well-qualified for the job. My goal is to have a Republican president nominate the next Attorney General so we will not be forced to choose between Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.
He’s not the only one who says this. John McCain says the same. But Graham practices the principle more consistently. (Graham voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court; McCain voted against.)
And of course, he’s right to do this. It shows he understands the proper roles of the president and the Senate under the Constitution.
If you want someone else for the job, work to elect someone else president. But if your candidate loses, you don’t spend the next four or eight years sulking and obstructing the process of governing.
We’re lucky that one of our senators understands that, and in fact understands it more thoroughly than most people in Washington.
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A split second after I typed “the other guy,” I remembered Tim Scott’s name. But why bother to retype it?
Thus far, Tim Scott has acted in everything as a generic Republican who can be relied upon to do the generic Republican thing, every time.
When he starts participating in the deliberative process, standing up and thinking for himself and acting like an individual instead of an automaton, I’ll probably find it easier to remember his name…
Too true. He seems like a nice droid programmed by the GOP so far.
Yes, Tim Scott needs to follow the lead of his mentor, Lindsey Graham and approve Obama’s nominee and THEN attack her relentlessly after she is confirmed.
Could not have highlighted transparent Graham’s hipocrisy, any better than that, Doug. But, Brad is inadvertently correct: “Graham voted for Lynch, and good for him”. What Brad casually dismisses, however,
is that Graham allegiance is to the lawyer-political network, so what elevates hom in that peculiar establishment (Brian excepted) is the no more than the un-lexic course of the mercenary Cecil Rhodes.
“And of course, he’s right to do this. It shows he understands the proper roles of the president and the Senate under the Constitution.
If you want someone else for the job, work to elect someone else president. But if your candidate loses, you don’t spend the next four or eight years sulking and obstructing the process of governing.”
As Bill Lumbergh said to the Bobs, “Oooh, ummm, I’m going to have to go ahead and sort of…disagree with you, there.”
“by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate” is the actual standard that the Constitution mandates. I know, I know, I’m probably making a “fetish” out of the whole “read the Constitution and go by the words in it” thing, but I’m just a simple lawyer-caveman. Your world frightens and confuses me.
Being a Senator does not mean that you simply say “Oh well, the President picked someone, and since elections have consequences, as long as he isn’t a total bird-brain, then I guess I have to vote for him.”
A Senator can either consent to an appointment or not consent. A Senator is free to withhold his consent for any reason he darn well pleases. If it’s a stupid reason and he doesn’t vote for a good candidate….well get to work and defeat him next time, Skippy.
If the President took the “advice” of the Senate on the nominations, he’d probably have no issue with the “consent” part. We might get a better class of candidate, too. (Eh, maybe.) But if the President doesn’t listen to the “advice” of a Senator, I see no reason why the Senator is under any obligation to consent.
And if we’re going with the whole “Elections have consequences thing” as our guidepost, how about the most recent election of the GOP to the Senate majority in 2014? I seem to remember the GOP doing quite well in that election. Maybe the consequence of that election is that the Senate just isn’t a rubber stamp anymore.
I used my entire month’s quota of scare quotes in that one comment. Gah!
What in the words “advise and consent” can be taken to imply holding up a nomination for 166 days (nearly half a year) rather than taking an up or down vote?
McConnell basically said “We’re going to do this one bill first, and then we’ll do the AG vote.” Then he stuck to his guns, made the Democrats compromise on the first bill, then moved to the AG vote just like he said he would.
Complaining that the opposing side is leveraging its power is kinda like complaining that the enemy if shooting back at you. What did you expect the other side would do?
Yeah, Bill, let me ask you a real quick question here: How much time would you say you spend each week dealing with these TPS reports?
Oh, and as for Bryan’s question, “how about the most recent election of the GOP to the Senate majority in 2014?”
I place no stock in such things as that. As you know, I don’t believe in parties. I believe in assessing individual candidates according to their merits.
And I’ve never swallowed the theory — that pretty much everyone else seems to swallow — that voters deliberately choose this party or that party to be in charge. I think that shifts of partisan control in Washington are the aggregate result of decisions in scores of very different elections with very different candidates. Yes, there may be some vague impulse in the electorate at a given moment that causes more voters to simultaneously choose candidates who are spouting this party’s or that party’s line. But I don’t think it’s any clearer or more specific than that.
If we were in Britain, I’d see it differently. There, the individual candidate is a consideration that is subordinate to party. But ours is not a parliamentary system.
It shows how things are these days but I found the confirmation interesting
MSNBC and folks like Al Sharpton were praising the confirmation in a manner that would cause you to believe they had just hit the 10 billion dollar lottery.
This was “their” candidate and since they approved of her, she is a can’t miss reason.
Reasonable people understand she has precious little time in the office and will take a wait and see approach and judge her performance after her tenure concludes next year.
Ah and I meant to add, anyone notice that 4 current or former MSNBC hosts owe thousands of dollars in back taxes to the IRS?
Melissa Perry, the guy known as “Toure” (who thinks US Senators have districts and owe their wins to gerrymandering), Joy Reid, and of course the king of owing taxes – Al Sharpton.
All of them spend a great deal of their time talking about paying your fair share, and Toure has talked about how he is happy to pay his taxes. Yet, reality tells a different story as several have had to have liens placed against them in order to try to collect.
(Washington Post covered this story this week)
I’m happy to say that I don’t know who any of those people are except for Al Sharpton. And I wish I didn’t know who he was…
heavy sigh