Today, my friend the Democratic leader is proposing to add a Senate shutdown to the partial federal government shutdown and block even more of the people’s business, all to avoid more of what he already voted for. The only things that have changed between then and now are the political winds and of course the occupant of the White House. So this is no newfound principled objection. It’s just political spite. A partisan tantrum being prioritized over the public interest.
Dov Fischer, writing in The American Spectator, tells us...
The current Senate term has two years to go. Even at the pace of a 24/7 full-court press, it will take more than three months to get the current six dozen judges and federal cabinet appointments through. By then, a whole new crop of judges will have been named, too, and they also will need time at 30 hours per. That is what the Republican response must be: not words, not threats, not vituperation. Just keep the darned Senate open and in session non-stop for the next several months, and get those judges and other Presidential appointments through. Thereafter, when the Democrats and the President finally figure out how or whether to resolve the standoff over the Wall, the Senate can return to regular order and do that thing they do best: white-out all other urgent matters of business and return to naming post offices — or as the intersectionalists might say, “white Mail privilege.”Read more here.