5 ms·
Honestly very surprised this was unanimous. Maybe a lot of the people I would have thought would vote nay were conveniently absent for the vote?
by chadlavi 5y ago
Honestly very surprised this was unanimous. Maybe a lot of the people I would have thought would vote nay were conveniently absent for the vote?
- standardUser 5y agoIt wasn't a roll call vote. It's a maneuver wherein the measure passes as long as no one present chooses to object.
- andy_ppp 5y agoTo say it is Unanimously Approved is a rather big stretch then.
- jeffbee 5y agoMost Senate business is unanimous consent. I don't think it's misleading.
- andy_ppp 5y agoThat’s fine, I’m from the UK and didn't get that the Senate uses words to mean completely different things from the actual meaning in certain contexts. We do it too, I’m certain.
- arrosenberg 5y agoThe technically correct term is "approved by unanimous consent", which makes perfect sense. Just the media changing it.
- andy_ppp 5y agoBut how is it unanimous? It literally is whoever was there (which is not all senators) and they did not actively approve of the motion (just didn't disapprove). I realise this is semantics but it seemed strange to me.
- orf 5y agoSeeing as the initial sanity check before going to a vote is “do nays and ayes both shout at the same volume?”, bills are often unanimously approved because “nobody shouted nay” rather than forcing a lengthy vote for every single motion.
- andy_ppp 5y agoSo if you were told the board of a company Unanimously Approved something, would it be secretly understood by you to mean there might be only a handful of board members present and that they didn’t actively agree to the motion, they were just playing with their phones or something and ignored it? All I was trying to say was I’m fine with it if this is understood to be how things are done in the US, but it’s not correct use of the terms unanimous or approved, certainly in the way they are used in day to day English.
- quesera 5y agoIt's not unanimous approval, it's unanimous consent. If you do not vocalize objection, you are counted as consenting. And you can certainly give consent to something you would not approve. It's semantics, yes, but the definitions seem to align also.
- returningfory2 5y agoEach senator is given advance notice of all bills that are proposed to be be passed using the unanimous consent procedure. This being passed meant that each senator affirmatively decided not to stop it. Their presence or otherwise in the chamber is not really relevant.
- zrail 5y agoWestminster systems use the exact same process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unanimous_consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unanimous_consent
- ralusek 5y agoWho would you have expected to vote "nay?"
- quesera 5y agoThe people who prefer not to confront the ugly parts of history directly. There are many.
- ralusek 5y agoThere are people who would not celebrate the emancipation of slavery?
- quesera 5y agoAbsolutely, yes. A disturbing number of fairly vocal people. Probably none in the Senate who are the voters in question here, but a non-zero number of them who are influenced by a minority of their constituents. I've met and spoken to these people in real life. Perhaps you have not had the privilege. And it is worth noting that it took more than 150 years for something so obviously correct and worthy to be commemorated. We don't even celebrate the end of the Civil War. Some people still earnestly call it the War of Northern Aggression. These things all mean something.
- quesera 5y agoPS to yesterday's sibling comment: Today, the House voted on the same bill. It passed overwhelmingly 415-14. The 14 representatives who voted "nay" to the celebration of the end of slavery came from exactly the usual suspects. So, again, yes.
- koheripbal 5y agoWhen it comes to virtue signaling, everyone is onboard.
- quesera 5y agoAre you implying that making Juneteenth a Federal holiday is virtue signalling? Some things are both virtuous, and worth signalling to others.