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It looks like Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have backed down on their obstruction of judicial confirmations. But it’s a little unclear at the moment.
What we know is that McConnell and Harry Reid reached a deal that will allow the judges to get a vote. However, the JOBS Act, the financial market IPO deregulation bill which McConnell sought prior to the judicial issues, will get a vote first, rather than the sequencing Reid set up previously. McConnell claims there will be no need for cloture votes on the judicial nominations, after the JOBS Act passes.
The deal will avert cloture votes Reid was threatening to force on 17 district court nominations, McConnell said. The leaders did not announce details, saying they were briefing their members first, but McConnell said Reid had agreed to move first to legislation to help small businesses to raise capital. The agreement will allow the Senate “to handle judicial nominations and move forward,” McConnell said.
The exchange sounds clear. McConnell gets his JOBS Act, and Reid gets the 17 confirmations. However, McConnell is not actually in a position to make those guarantees. The Senate works under unanimous consent rules. So any member who wants to hold up judicial confirmations and force cloture votes and 30-hour post-cloture time can do so. Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) have vowed to block all nominations as payback for the recess appointments made recently by the President. And according to this story, the leaders had not yet briefed Lee, DeMint, or any members on the deal. So there’s no guarantee as to whether Lee or DeMint or someone else will abide by the agreement, or strike out on their own and force cloture votes. McConnell has a better handle on his caucus than John Boehner, but in a case like this, I could see DeMint or Lee breaking.
We’ll have to see how it transpires, but the JOBS Act was a fairly powerful lever, and Democrats are giving it up first before the judicial confirmations are made. Let’s hope it works, but there’s some danger involved.
UPDATE: The deal only ensures votes for 14 of the 17 nominees. So not quite as good as it first looked.
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Truly, Charlie Brown, I won’t pull that football out again. I’ll hold it for you this time.
If they have no intention of obstructing the judges, why the heck does the JOBS bill get to go first?
My thought also but this a normal demodog they made us do it.
Reading your report, David, I actually visualized Lucy/Mitch smiling and holding that football for Charlie/Harry. I saw it clear as a bell. I’m sure it will all work out fine.
Can someone explain the IPO deregulation bill? Thanks.
Wake me when it’s over. I’ll only believe it when I see it.
Obstructing citizens’ equal access to justice is part of the game-plan of the 1%, and that’s exactly what’s happening right now at both the state and federal level. The 1% ain’t that interested in hiring fed judges to attend to citizens’ needs. So hey: as I said: wake me when it’s over.
The system is broken beyond repair. It is incapable of reforming itself to serve the interests of the 99%. There is only 2 possible outcomes: indentured servitude or a radical restructuring of the economic and political systems. Humpty Dumpty can not be put back together again.
If Reid gets worked here, he’s done. Maybe a good thing, though a continuing disaster for the judiciary (and our “democracy”)
Reid is likely following orders from the WH.
Remember Lucy and the football?
Trust but verify. Probably the only thing Reagan said to which I could agree.
Lucy plus football?
A troubling fact is that traffic at FDL during the day is barely a trickle. The waters are very, very calm. Apathy, indifference, hopelessness, despair?
Oh, someone already noted the football!
Gloves-down Harry opens up his chin again.
Judges get a vote after a bill called JOBS with under $200 billion of “stimulus” spending proposed by Obama is allowed to die via Dems voting against, then we get no judges because the GOP can’t deliver – so sorry.
After so many dives, you know the payoff’s gotta be big.
Obama orders are not only likely – but a guaranteed truth – as shown by the various changes in the path of “health reform” through the Senate.
Some reform of securities regulation has been needed for quite some time. This particular bill isn not what is needed… but it’s what the toadies of the <1% are salivating for so of course Obama and all the demopublicans are all over it.
Before the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression practically anyone could sell stock in a startup to practically anyone… and did.
The fraud was massive, on a scale with all the other fraud that wiped out the markets at that time.
Yes, just as it is now.
So when overall securities regulation was put in place back then it was ruled that, for all practical intents and puposes, only "accredited investors", i.e. the independently wealthy, could invest in a startup… and getting a startup to the IPO stage was strictly regimented in turn.
Once those hurdles were cleared then anyone could buy stocks through a broker.
Of course the MOTU promptly gamed the hell out of the regulations so that basically the only way to invest in a startup was to either be wealthy to start with or to be one of the relatively tiny amount of non-accredited investors allowed for any given startup.
The regulation does need reform.
This bill guts the regulatiory structure altogether and leaves it to bleed out by the side of the road.
Have seniors you care about? Better begin trying to immunize them against a new torrent of unregulated boiler-room calls trying to latch on to their pensions.
Thanks so much for taking the time to explain.
BT, I’ve noticed that. When I first came, Dec-Jan, every topic had 50-60 even 90 comments. Now, like today, we’re lucky to break 30. Have people given up? Our only hope is that MORE people, not less, put in the effort to see and hear “the truth” and discuss and tell their friends.
Anybody who trusts the republicans in congress is a big, stupid, dumbass.
You misunderstand.
The nominees are not important to
ReidObama.Passage of The Boiler-Room Legalization and Cyberization Act Of 2012 is what is important to Obama.
The sideshow about nominees is just kabuki.
For the record, I don’t trust Reid/Obama either.
Costumes are nice, though.
Looks like Turtle and Boner felt a little drafty with their balls sitting there on the chopping block.They always like to get a little bragging out of the way before they’re forced to whip it out. Going into an election is not going to make anything easier for these POS obstuctionists.
… who, strangely enough, only happen to obstruct when it doesn’t terribly inconvenience Obama’s pro-<1% agenda…