I honestly had no idea who the Senate Parliamentarian was before today, but it’s very possible that he’s going to be a lot better known if the Republicans try to execute the nuclear option next week, as planned.<\/p>\n
The parliamentarian (a non-partisan position) has an important responsibility<\/a> that doesn’t come up all that often — he (or she) guides the chair in formulating responses to parliamentary inquiries and rulings on points of order. Almost always, the parliamentarian’s word is golden because lawmakers don’t have the independent body of knowledge regarding the chamber’s procedures necessary to draw accurate and objective conclusions.<\/p>\n When it comes to the nuclear option, the parliamentarian is positioned to be uniquely helpful to lawmakers. This is, after all, the ultimate<\/i> in procedural questions. Because Republicans don’t have the 67 votes needed to formally change the chamber’s rule, their entire tactic is premised on the idea of asking the chair if Senate Rule XXII<\/a> is unconstitutional or not. The parliamentarian’s official opinion would offer senators exactly what they need to know — what the chamber’s rules dictate in this situation.<\/p>\n Except lawmakers won’t get the parliamentarian’s official opinion — because Republicans don’t want to hear it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alan Frumin is not a household name in the nation’s capital. But with a bitter fight over President Bush’s judicial nominations about to reach its climax, Frumin could be thrust into one of the biggest Congressional fights in years. […]<\/p>\n If Republicans move forward with their plan to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees, Vice President Cheney is expected to play a pivotal role. Once Democrats began filibustering a contested nominee, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) would call for a point of order and Cheney, in his capacity as Senate President, would uphold it. At this point, the filibuster would be abolished for judicial nominees, which would be solidified after a few more procedural votes were taken.<\/p>\n Even though [Senate Minority Leader Harry] Reid has claimed that Frumin does not approve of this procedure, he may never get a chance to be overruled if Republicans decide to move forward with it. Cheney is likely to make a ruling without Frumin’s counsel, an action he hinted at during an April 22 speech to a group of Republican lawyers. Cheney told the lawyers he would vote to change the rule requiring judges to need only 51 votes for Senate approval.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Typical, isn’t it? The Republicans hire an expert for objective advice, but then reject the advice when it doesn’t conform to their agenda. His credibility should remind lawmakers that the nuclear option is a terrible mistake. If only they’d listen to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I honestly had no idea who the Senate Parliamentarian was before today, but it’s very possible that he’s going to be a lot better known if the Republicans try to execute the nuclear option next week, as planned. The parliamentarian (a non-partisan position) has an important responsibility that doesn’t come up all that often — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nIn case there were suspicions about Frumin’s political leanings, he was hired for the post by then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Even more importantly, as Roll Call noted<\/a>, Democrats and Republicans alike said Frumin has adhered studiously to the principle of making nonpartisan rulings.<\/p>\n