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> Not relevant—they held the Senate. Sort of. McConnell found it necessary to prevent some of the nominations from coming to a vote, because he didn't have th

> Not relevant—they held the Senate. Sort of. McConnell found it necessary to prevent some of the nominations from coming to a vote, because he didn't have the votes to stop them. So, yeah, they held enough of the Senate to dick around procedurally, but not enough to win an up or down vote. Which is kind of not that different from a filibuster, which is also a procedural move you use when you'd lose an up or down vote. And it's one thing to vote down a single nomination, and a different thing to categorically state that you're going to torpedo all of a President's nominations. If there's a Constitutional requirement for "advice and consent", then the Senate has a duty to engage with that.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Sort of McConnell had a majority in the Senate. That's a huge difference from Democrats today. The relevant examples should come from when Democrats had a federal trifecta. The GOP still managed to fuck things up. That should be the inspiration. (But not limit.)
- Hizonner 1y ago
  > McConnell had a majority in the Senate. If he'd been confident in his majority, he would have just taken every nomination to the floor and had them voted down. He didn't do that because he didn't think he'd win. I mean, losing a floor vote is kind of the opposite of "having a majority". And I don't think the Democrats in recent memory have had as strong a whip as the Republicans.