Tag: U.S. Senate

Senate Republicans move against ‘nutty’ House member in widening GOP rift

Washington Post logo

A growing number of Republicans took sides Tuesday in a brewing House battle over the shape of the GOP after the Donald Trump presidency, amplifying pressure on Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as he decides this week whether to sideline conspiracy theorists and secure a place for anti-Trump voices in party leadership.

Leading the charge was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who made an unusual detour into the other chamber’s affairs by denouncing the extremist rhetoric of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene while offering a gesture of support for Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House GOP leader, who voted last month to impeach Trump.

He was joined Tuesday by several other Republican lawmakers, as well as pillars of the conservative establishment, who together warned that sidelining Trump critics from the party while tolerating purveyors of social-media-driven paranoia would spell long-term disaster — a “cancer for the Republican Party and our country,” as McConnell put it. Continue reading.

Republicans Insist On Preserving Filibuster (Except When They Don’t)

Senate Republicans are mounting an aggressive campaign to keep their power to block nearly all of the new Democratic majority’s legislative proposals.

But while they now defend the Senate’s filibuster rule as vital for “bipartisanship,” they unanimously voted to eliminate it for Supreme Court nominations less than four years ago.

While it only takes a simple majority in the 100-member U.S. Senate to pass legislation, with few exceptions it takes a three-fifths supermajority — 60 votes — to end debate and actually hold a vote. Segregationists long used those cloture rules to block civil rights legislation and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell used them a record-breaking number of times to obstruct President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Senate rules would allow just 51 senators to change that 60-vote threshold. After Democrats retook a narrow majority in the chamber on Wednesday, McConnell (R-KY) and his colleagues began demandingDemocrats agree in advance not to do so. Continue reading.

Democrats file ethics complaints against Hawley and Cruz, but action unlikely

Secretive ethics committee last took public action in 2018

Seven Democratic senators are asking the chamber’s ethics committee to investigate Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley for objecting to the Electoral College certification of President Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, a day in which a violent pro-Trump group of insurrectionists invaded the Capitol.

It is doubtful that the committee, which took no disciplinary actions in 2019 — the most recent year for which an annual report is available — and dismissed almost all of the 251 complaints it received that year, will venture into a complaint that is light on alleged ethics violations.

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Tina Smith of Minnesota, with five of their colleagues, wrote to Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., and Vice Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., alleging that Hawley and Cruz “lent legitimacy to the mob’s cause and made future violence more likely.” Continue reading.

Senate confirms Austin to lead Pentagon under Biden

The Hill logo

The Senate has approved President Biden’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, paving the way for retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to make history as the nation’s first Black secretary of Defense.

The Senate confirmed Austin in a 93-2 Friday morning vote, giving Biden his second Cabinet member two days after his inauguration.

Presidents typically have key national security nominees confirmed on Inauguration Day, but a combination of factors — including the Trump administration delaying the transition, control of the Senate being up in the air until the Georgia runoffs in early January and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — meant Biden only got one confirmed on his first day: Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Continue reading.

Democrats win control of Senate after Warnock, Ossoff victories

The Hill logo

Democrats have won control of the Senate after securing victories in two runoff races in Georgia, a historic shift that will effectively give the party full control of the government under President-elect Joe Biden.

Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), while Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated Sen. David Perdue, in hotly contested runoff races, giving each party 50 seats in the Senate. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will cast the tie-breaking votes, giving Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since 2014.

Warnock’s victory over Loeffler was called early Wednesday morning. The race between Ossoff and Perdue was closer and was not called until the afternoon, as police clashed with a right-wing mob that stormed Capitol Hill to disrupt the Electoral College vote count. Continue reading.

Rand Paul gets hammered after making bogus claim that the election ‘was stolen’

AlterNet logo

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and fellow Republican Christopher Krebs — who formerly led a cybersecurity office at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — expressed very different views on the security of the 2020 presidential election. Krebs, during his testimony, emphasized that the election was quite secure, while Paul echoed the baseless claims of widespread voter fraud that President Donald Trump’s campaign and legal team have been promoting. And Paul’s comments are getting a lot of reactions on Twitter.

Paul told Krebs and senators on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, “If you’re saying that it’s the safest election based on no dead people voted…. no people broke the absentee rules, I think that’s false. And I think that’s what’s upset a lot of people on our side — is that they’re taking your statement to mean, ‘Oh well, there was no problems in the elections.’ I don’t think that you’ve examined any of the problems that we’ve heard here.”

Paul insisted, “The fraud happened. The election, in many ways, was stolen.” Continue reading.

Senate GOP to Trump: The election is over

The Hill logo

Senate Republicans are sending a clear message to President Trump: The election is over and Joe Biden won. 

While Trump is digging in and showing little sign of ending his public campaign despite a long losing streak in the courts, GOP senators — from leadership on down — are signaling they view the election result as settled and want to move on without a messy weeks-long fight. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) publicly congratulated Biden during a Senate floor speech, in his first public acknowledgement of the former vice president’s victory.  Continue reading.

Mitch McConnell Warns Republicans Not to Fight Biden’s Electoral College Win

WASHINGTON — Fending off a messy fight that could damage Republicans ahead of Georgia Senate runoffs, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned fellow GOP senators on Tuesday not to join President Donald Trump’s extended assault on the Electoral College results.

In public remarks and private warnings, McConnell worked to push ahead to the Biden era and unite a fractured Republican Party ahead of the runoff elections that will determine Senate control.

First, the Republican leader heaped praise on Trump’s “endless” accomplishments as he congratulated President-elect Joe Biden during a morning Senate speech. Then he pivoted, privately warning Republican senators away from disputing the Electoral College tally when Congress convenes in a joint session Jan. 6 to confirm the results. Continue reading.

Window quickly closing for big coronavirus deal

The Hill logo

Congress is quickly running out of time to cut a year-end deal on a big coronavirus relief package, with only a matter of days left before the next funding deadline.

Lawmakers have been holding talks for weeks but are struggling to close the gap on the biggest issues — state and local aid and legal protections for businesses from coronavirus lawsuits — even as pressure grows for more resources to prevent a sustained spike in COVID-19 cases and cities reimpose restrictions.

There’s now growing skepticism about the prospects for a sweeping agreement. With the clock ticking, lawmakers are warning there are too many moving parts and too many competing factions. Continue reading.

Senate overwhelmingly passes defense bill despite Trump veto threat

Axios logo

The Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by an 84-13 vote on Friday, defying President Trump’s threat to veto the bill if it does not repeal liability protections for social media companies.

Why it matters: Both the House and Senate have now passed the bill by a veto-proof two-thirds majority, though it’s unclear if the same number of lawmakers that voted to pass the bill would vote to overturn a Trump veto. Overriding Trump’s veto would serve as a rare Republican rebuke to the president in his last weeks in office.

  • The NDAA, which this year authorizes a $740 billion budget for essential defense spending, will now head to Trump’s desk. It has been passed by Congress every year since 1967.
  • The bill includes provisions that would grant a pay raise for troops, allow paid parental leave for federal employees and boost anti-discrimination protections for federal employees. Continue reading.