Three military services are now without Senate-confirmed heads for the first time in history, as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) holds up the confirmations of more than 300 senior military officers …
As I understand it, the Senate’s normal rules require each appointment to be discussed individually in the Senate. But the armed forces are so big now that they are typically discussed in committee at the same time. But since they haven’t changed the actual rule yet, in order to batch all the nominations together they need unanimous consent of all senators.
So, Coach is using that as a weapon to get what he wants. Yeah, blame him if you want, but we should also blame the culture in the Senate where they continually rely on unanimous consent to get things done, rather than take the time to fix underlying rules.
As I understand it, the Senate’s normal rules require each appointment to be discussed individually in the Senate. But the armed forces are so big now that they are typically discussed in committee at the same time. But since they haven’t changed the actual rule yet, in order to batch all the nominations together they need unanimous consent of all senators.
So, Coach is using that as a weapon to get what he wants. Yeah, blame him if you want, but we should also blame the culture in the Senate where they continually rely on unanimous consent to get things done, rather than take the time to fix underlying rules.