McConnell screws Dems ahead of midterms with October session - Polidicks

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/11/senate-democrats-mcconnell-midterms-2018-815705 Traditionally, the Senate hits the road in October of an election year. But the Senate is throwing tradition out the window this year. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to keep the chamber in session for a significant portion of October if not four entire weeks, costing Democrats key campaign trail days and allowing the Senate to continue its work into the fall, according to five Republican officials. The Kentucky Republican wants to keep cranking through as many lifetime judicial nominations and executive nominations as he can with his majority in the balance and the GOP still with the unilateral ability to confirm President Donald Trump’s picks. Moreover, the Senate GOP has only two members who are considered vulnerable in the election: Ted Cruz of Texas and Dean Heller of Nevada. Democrats, meanwhile, are defending 10 seats total in states that Trump won in 2016, with at least four considered extremely competitive. The House is expected to head home for the rest of the election season after passing a spending bill later this month. But with the Senate’s unique role confirming the president’s nominees and little political downside to staying in session, McConnell plans to forge ahead into October after slashing the August recess down to little more than two weeks. “I plan to be here, yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). “You see anything that’s traditional these days? … they don’t need more than a couple of weeks to campaign.” The proposed work schedule also could give the GOP leverage over Senate Democrats and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer; if they are eager enough to return to the campaign trail, they may strike a deal with the GOP leader to swiftly confirm some nominees. But McConnell has to worry about attendance among his own ranks after a poor showing in August. Still, another month in session will allow the GOP leader to continue reshaping the courts in a conservative image: The Senate GOP has already confirmed 26 circuit court nominees and 41 district court nominees to lifetime appointments, plus Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, in about 20 months time. Another 27 district court judges and one circuit court judge is ready for the floor. And in the next two weeks, the Senate Judiciary Committee is on track to have three more circuit court judge nominees, 17 district court picks and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh ready for the floor. Several more have been nominated by the president. “We’re going to clear the deck of all the circuit judges,” McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt last week. “If we can hold onto the Senate for two more years, we’re going to transform the federal judiciary with young men and women who believe in the fundamental notion that the job of a judge is to interpret the law as it’s written.” It’s by far the most confirmations on the powerful circuit courts in modern history. And a reminder of the stakes of the upcoming election: If Democrats can pull off an upset win and take back the Senate, they can move to slow Trump’s nominations and set the table for the next president from their party, just as McConnell did to President Barack Obama in 2015 and 2016. McConnell compared the Senate races to a “knife fight in an alley” during an appearance in Kentucky on Tuesday. Republicans are favored to keep the Senate, but if Democrats run the t able in conservative states like Texas, Tennessee and Arizona and protect their incumbents they could take back the chamber. “All of them too close to call,” McConnell said Tuesday. “I hope when the smoke clears we will still have a majority in the Senate.” The Senate is scheduled to be in for four weeks in October, though some senators and staffers had hoped that would be eliminated before the election, as it was in 2016 and 2014 when the majority parties were defending many incumbents. Whether the chamber will actually stay in that long might depend on attendance: With just 51 GOP senators, Republicans can’t risk many absences on tough judge votes. Some in the GOP who had called for no August recess missed votes, like Cruz. The Texas senator has missed 13 votes since July, the most he’s missed since his presidential run in 2016, according to GovTrack. Democrats also could cut a deal with Republicans to confirm some less controversial executive branch nominees and judges and win a longer fall break, allowing their incumbents more time on the campaign trail. But when Democrats agreed to a confirmation deal of eight district court judges in August to gain back a few days of recess, liberals like Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon called the move “pathetic.” I loathe that they found a way to infect the courts with conservative bullshit with originalism.

McConnell is trying to confirm as many Republican judges as possible but he didn't see room to have a hearing for Garland for almost a fucking year. I hope the Dems retake both houses, because McConnell is clearly trying to pack as much of the Federal government with right-wing activist judges.

Won't staying in session throughout the fall also hurt the GOP on the campaign trail as well, though? I can see how it'll hurt the dems but I don't understand how the GOP can avoid the same issues?

Moreover, the Senate GOP has only two members who are considered vulnerable in the election: Ted Cruz of Texas and Dean Heller of Nevada. Democrats, meanwhile, are defending 10 seats total in states that Trump won in 2016, with at least four considered extremely competitive. Hurts the Democrats more.

The Dems are defending more incumbent seats, meaning they're put at a disadvantage in not being able to campaign. I'm going to laugh if red seats flip and Dems managed to mainly hold the line, and Repubs lose control despite their dirty tricks. They have a reason to fear Dem control, and they're going all-in and banking on doing as much horrible shit as they can to avoid being held responsible for any of it. If at any point they don't win hard enough, their bets backfire on them. Get out and vote this midterm, Americans, I beg of you. Punish these fools for their hubris.

While it's a disgustingly underhanded tactic, it is clever. Still fuck off turtle man

It's horrible, anything to make the Senate less at the whim of the majority leader will backfire when Democrats take control. If the majority and minority leader both need to agree to a session, the GOP will just refuse to do sessions with hearings on Democrat court picks, if a vote of 60 is needed for confirmations, that essentially gives Republicans control when they're in the minority but Democrats don't have a supermajority

At a distant view, it's kind of funny that they're stalling campaigning by making politicians actually work.

Traitor.

Can't be traitors if you control the government -GOP soon

We need a bill that requires McConnell to be put on a spit and roasted for the rest of his turtley life

That's inhumane, he needs to be put in a terrarium with a little log and a puddle at least.

McConnell is gonna be one of those politicians that you read about in history books 100 years from now because of how emblematic he is of the corruption in the senate. He absolutely will go down as one of the biggest politician assholes in American history

People can blather about both sides being bad all they want and it's true that Dems have their faults, but Republicans are consistently and obviously anti-democracy.

Welcome to the new america, i fucking hate everything.

newt has gone down as being the asshole who broke the house, as much as they shout "but harry reid!" Mconnell will go down as the senator who broke the senate.

So who are the four extremely vulnerable seats? I wanna donate to their campaigns.

Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota), Joe Donnelly (Indiana), Claire McCaskill (Missouri), and Bill Nelson (Florida) If you're serious you might wanna also donate to the candidates in states most likely to go blue from red, Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Kirsten Sinema (Arizona) if they both win Dems get a one person majority

I'm deathly serious. I've given Beto and McCaskill like thirty bucks each so far.

Heitkamp is already done for. Lot of the folks hate her in NoDak, and want to see her out. Not to mention Trump has literally visited North Dakota about three to four times in the last year in order to boost Kramer.

Shame, 538 gives it a 60ish percent chance of her winning, one North Dakotan has 26 times more voting power than the average

That's technically true, but remember that tie-breaks can be broken by the VP and that Joe Manchin is a Republican in all but name.

It does mean that McConnell can't work his magic and Democrats become the chairpeople of all the committees.

nice porn title

to take the senate the democrats need 51 solid votes over the gop's 50 to reorganize the senate

Exactly, but that's basically impossible. Joe Manchin has even said some really positive about Trump - he makes me nauseated. Susan Collins has proven herself to be one of the only Republican moderates, or at least the only one who votes against Trump not out of personal dislike for Trump, but due to having constituents who are from Maine, a reasonably liberal place from what I gather.

Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkemp, Doug Jones, Angus King, and Claire McCaskill all vote with Trump over 45% of the time, Manchin does 60%. Note that even the senator that votes the least with Trump still does 7.9% of the time.

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with voting with Trump, as nobody is universally wrong on literally every issue, however I am very suspicious of Democrats voting with him more than 25% of the time.

Thb, 34 of the 49 Democrats vote with him 25% or more, Bernie Sanders votes with him 10.5%. I assume it's mostly budget bills and appointments like Mattis that aren't garbage, and uncontroversial judges.