An old Washington saying is “Show me your budget and I’ll show you your priorities.” Perhaps an appropriate modification when describing the U.S. Senate should be “Show me your floor schedule and I’ll show you your priorities.”
The Senate came into session this week for a vote at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, then left for the weekend after voting Thursday afternoon. In between, the world’s greatest deliberative body approved President Joe Biden’s nominations of five executive branch nominees:
- Philip Jefferson as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
- Lisa Cook as a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
- Adriana Kugler as a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
- Anna Gomez as a member of the Federal Communications Commission.
- Gwynne Wilcox as a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
By Thursday evening, most senators were back in their home states, resting comfortably.
This lethargic tempo is the Senate’s standard operating procedure under Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Wasted floor time and low-level nominees have made up most of this year’s legislative calendar.
One can debate the merits of each of these Biden nominees, as well as the importance of the executive branch agency and role they were chosen to fill. What cannot be debated, based on the mounting pile of evidence stemming from his decisions of how to use floor time, is that Schumer either doesn’t believe his own rhetoric on the much-publicized “holds” on military promotions imposed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., or he doesn’t prioritize America’s military.
Repeatedly, Schumer has excoriated the Alabama Republican for refusing to rubber-stamp high-level military promotions that have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Tuberville objects to the Pentagon’s policy memo that allows the Defense Department to provide paid time off and reimbursements for travel and lodging for service members and their relatives to receive abortions. The policy flatly violates Congress’ long-established Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on federal funding for abortion, but it should no longer surprise anyone when this administration flouts Congress and federal law.
For those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the details of Senate procedure, many noncontroversial nominees are confirmed quickly through a procedure called a request for unanimous consent. As the name implies, the request requires the consent of all 100 senators, meaning that any individual senator has the power to block a nominee’s speedy approval simply by refusing consent, which also is known as a “hold.”
But a single hold doesn’t spell doom for a nomination—it just means the majority leader will have to use Senate floor time (often called the most valuable resource in Washington) to confirm the nominee. After years of escalating attacks on applying the filibuster to nomination votes, all it takes to confirm most nominees is a simple majority vote and two hours of debate. If the majority leader stacks the votes properly, he can confirm four nominees in a single day, although Schumer rarely has shown such urgency.
All of this brings us back to the question of whether Schumer believes that Tuberville’s holds on Biden’s nominees for military promotions are affecting national security.
If Schumer truly believes that not confirming these promotions “puts American security in jeopardy,” he could circumvent the holds simply by filing cloture on the most important promotions and allow the Senate to consider them. All it would cost Schumer is two hours of floor time.
But doing so would force him to shelve the confirmation of nominees such as Gomez, who will tip the Federal Communications Commission in Democrats’ favor and allow the Biden administration a second shot at implementing the Obama administration’s failed net neutrality policy, or Wilcox, who promises to continue Biden’s policies of tipping the scales in favor of unions whenever possible once she’s seated at the National Labor Relations Board.
There is another, more likely possibility: Schumer knows that, despite his doomsday rhetoric, Tuberville’s holds have no meaningful impact on national security.
Perhaps Schumer was listening when John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the holds are having “no impact” on operations. If this is the case, Schumer believes the politics are in his favor and wants to drag out the standoff as long as possible—exactly the accusation he has made of Tuberville.
Senators should continue their support of Tuberville’s mission to rescind the Pentagon’s illegal pro-abortion memo and use the upcoming debate around next year’s National Defense Authorization Act to block the Left’s attempts to put politics into our armed services.
Congress’ top priority should be ensuring the military is able to get back to focusing on its core mission: deterring war and protecting the country.
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