The United States Senate is arguably the least democratic (small “d”) institution in any democracy in the world, with the possible exception of the British House of Lords.
The Senate exists without proportional representation. Every state has two senators without regard to population. Wyoming’s two senators represent 586,000 citizens, while California’s 39 million citizens are represented by two senators.
The Senate has quirky rules: unlimited debate (the filibuster); much happens by unanimous consent (or doesn’t happen when one senator objects); seniority rules, meaning a cranky old senator like Chuck Grassley of Iowa, age 91, will soon chair the powerful Judiciary Committee. Grassley has been a senator since 1981, meaning the youngest senator, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, wasn’t alive when Grassley took office.
The Senate has extraordinary powers, again thanks to the original thinkers who came up with the idea of an institution to balance the rambunctious House of Representatives. Senators have the Constitutional duty to “advise and consent” – or not consent – on presidential appointments to the Cabinet and judiciary. The Senate, by super majority vote, can ratify treaties. The Senate judges, when it cares to, the impeachment of high governmental officials. The Senate traditionally has had a major voice in foreign policy. And the Senate, when it cares to, has the power to investigate. Google Watergate, the CIA, Teapot Dome or even the sinking of the Titanic to see what the Senate has historically done to expose and inform.
Now, as the Founders would certainly have appreciated, the Senate faces an enormous historical test – a power-hungry president committed to vastly enlarging executive power at the expense of the legislative branch. Donald Trump has signaled that he expects a GOP Congress will do his bidding no questions asked.
Questions must be asked.
The widely floated idea that the Senate should allow “recess” appointments to critical executive branch jobs should be dead on arrival, but incoming majority leader John Thune of South Dakota hasn’t ruled out the Senate rolling over for Trump.
“I think that all options are on the table, including recess appointments,” Thune said recently while disingenuously suggesting that Republicans might need to forego advising and consenting because Democrats might not “play ball.” But caving on the Constitutional demand for Senate concurrence in major appointments isn’t about Democrats. It’s about Trump.
Still, there are modestly hopeful signs that Republicans won’t diminish their own and the Senate’s power by simply giving a grasping president who he wants in his Cabinet – a sex abuser, vaccine denier or Russian stooge just to flag three of the worst of the nominees.
Guardian columnist Kate Maltby, reviewing the latest release of the hit TV series “Wolf Hall,” compares Trump’s picks to Henry VIII’s loyal hatchet man, a collection of “Thomas Cromwells: the yes men and enablers who will frame US law to fulfil his wishes.”
The incoming chair of the Senate Finance Committee is one of these modern-day Cromwell’s.
“No, I’ll let that be a decision that President Trump makes,” Idaho Senator Mike Crapo told CNN when asked if he would insist on FBI background checks of cranks like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “My position is what President Trump decides to do is what I will support.”
Idaho’s James Risch, easily one of the most partisan Republicans in the Senate who spent the first Trump term defending the administration’s feckless foreign policy, has – so far at least – refused to commit to supporting some of Trump’s craziest nominees, a group properly termed by commentator Charlie Sykes as a “cabinet of zealots, toadies, and cretins.”
“Ask me this question again after the hearings,” Risch said regarding support for the inconceivable nominations of a Fox New host, Pete Hegseth, to be Secretary of Defense and a Putin apologist, Tulsi Gabbard, to head the national intelligence agencies. “These appointments by the president are constrained by the advice and consent of the Senate,” Risch said.
And demonstrating that he recalls his oath of office, Risch added. “The Senate takes that seriously, and we vet these.”
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