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Originally Posted by specious_reasons
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Originally Posted by erimir
I could see McConnell using the threat of a filibuster to nix Carson, Perry or DeVos as nominees and get Trump to nominate other people, but eventually he would've eliminated it because McConnell has no problem with right-wing extremists per se. Those three are just embarrassingly incompetent and so McConnell probably would've preferred more competent ideologues.
There's no way he'd let, for example, Jeff Sessions be completely blocked by a filibuster. And Sessions is likely a candidate that could've attracted a Democratic filibuster. And if not Sessions, someone else would've. The filibuster would've been dead by April.
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It was - The Senate changed the rules in April 2017 by a party-line vote to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, so they could approve Gorsuch. |
Yeah, but I meant it would've been dead for executive appointees by April if it had still been in force. I could see McConnell utilizing it at first to shape some of the initial cabinet appointees, but he wouldn't have let it go on forever because he wouldn't only want appointees that could overcome a Democratic filibuster.
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I have no idea why the Democrats didn't filibuster the rule change, but it wouldn't surprise me if McConnell pulled some trick to avoid it.
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1. Because the filibuster doesn't apply to votes on points of order. So they couldn't.
2. Even if that weren't the case, the rules have to be adopted anew at the beginning of each Congress, because future Congresses are not bound by prior ones. Adopting the rules only ever requires a simple majority. If McConnell
had been required to, he would've simply eliminated it on January 3.
Nonetheless, it can be more difficult to change
some rules mid-Congress, but it's not that hard either way.