Thanks to a Republican vote to stop California from setting its own auto emissions, Democrats can challenge virtually any Trump administration action, and eat up time on the Senate floor.
Thanks to a Republican vote to stop California from setting its own auto emissions, Democrats can challenge virtually any Trump administration action, and eat up time on the Senate floor.
Sure, they should try, but it’s silly to think that this would actually work. The Senate parliamentarian will rule that it doesn’t meet the requirements (and would be correct) and the republican majority won’t vote to override. Attempt quashed and it wouldn’t even be a news story just being a procedural thing.
I know, it’s unfair and that “they set a precedent” and all of that, but if your strategy requires that republicans not be abject opportunistic hypocrites, then it’s almost certain to fail.
Parliamentarians rule on all precedent including recent ones. Analogously, the threshold for filibustering cabinet nominees was only lowered to 51 in the early 2010s by simply overruling the decision of the chair. And you don’t even need a separate overrule motion to overrule the parliamentarian. You just have to not respond. 10 hours of required debate is 10 hours of required debate.
Fair point since rhe overrule would now be precedent. So, a republican objects since this is inappropriate, the parliamentarian deems that the precedent allows the Democratic motion, republicans overrule the parliamentarian, and the strategy is quashed.
Extra steps, sure, but since republicans don’t care about norms or hypocrisy, they wouldn’t even blink at such a move.
The only way that it works is if enough republicans don’t really want to pass the bill. Then, this might give them an out. It wouldn’t work otherwise.
That said, no reason not to make them do the extra work.