Patterico's Pontifications

1/18/2017

The Likely Reason Bob Corker Says He’ll Pass on Tillerson’s Nomination to the Floor . . . No Matter What

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:00 pm



Committee chair assures in advance that the vote of his committee will be meaningless. Wait, what?

In an unusual move, Republicans plan on bringing Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state before the full Senate for a vote even if he does not earn the support of the foreign relations panel.

Bob Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN’s Manu Raju Tuesday that he would “absolutely” offer former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for a floor vote even if he is not given the blessing of his committee, which oversees the nomination.

“I plan on moving Tillerson to the floor,” Corker said. “Without getting into all the machinations, I would expect there to be a vote of Rex Tillerson on the floor and I expect him to be confirmed.”

Why is Corker doing this? I have an educated guess.

In recent days, I have gone way out on a limb and predicted that Marco Rubio will be voting “no” on Tillerson.

I haven’t found any talking head, columnist, or blogger who agrees with me. And I could be wrong. But after watching Rubio’s grilling of Tillerson, that’s my prediction and I’m sticking with it.

Wouldn’t that explain Corker’s announcement?

I think this means Rubio has decided he’s going to vote “no” on Tillerson, and Rubio got the word to Corker. (CNN says “Corker said he had not spoken to Rubio recently about his thinking” — but hey. Someone else could have conveyed the message.)

Unless a committee Democrat votes “yes” on Tillerson, Rubio’s “no” vote would put the vote at 11-10 against reporting the nomination to the floor. Absent an announcement like this, the story of the day would be a grand discussion about whether Tillerson would even get a floor vote. After this announcement, Rubio’s “no” vote will engender no such speculation.

I think that’s what’s happening. And I’m sticking with that story until it proves to be wrong.

Then I’m taking it back . . .

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

20 Responses to “The Likely Reason Bob Corker Says He’ll Pass on Tillerson’s Nomination to the Floor . . . No Matter What”

  1. Greetings:

    Things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes, well, differently. Back in the mid-70s, I was using my unemployment insurance and GI Bill dollars to study me some Public Administration because even back then I could see that those folks needed some serious help. One of the topics being bandied about within the guild was how public administration was approaching the complexity of business administration. Being a Bronx boy, I enjoyed both the chutzpah and guild loyalty involved but didn’t join the herd because to me spending up a pot of someone else’s money you’re given at the beginning of the “fiscal” (so named in memory of those who have been fisked) year didn’t seem to me to have nearly the complexity of trying to make money during the “tax” (extraction) year.

    So, then here we are. Now,it seems to me that our rulers have scientifically (and they do do science well don’t they) determined that a man who has run a international company with projects all around the world dealing with all kinds of people and all kinds of political-economies just doesn’t have the right stuff to be given the serious responsibilities of an office recently run by two Secretaries of State who made their monies either by marriage or at the public trough.

    Up is down, left is right, etc., etc. etc.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  2. When I think of bob corker, I don’t think much his collabirationwith cardin legitimizing the Iran deal, not to mention cheerleading the salami Syrian rebels doesnt impress.

    narciso (d1f714)

  3. Thank you for explaining the details of the grinding gears.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  4. So, does this mean a committee chair could do this whenever they wanted, and going by a vote is just an option?

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  5. There is a very good post at Hugh hewitts site with a transcript of his interview with the former US Ambassador to the War Crimes Tribunal who credits Rubio for asking the questions he didn’t, but also said Tillerson was exactly correct in answering them as he did because of international consequences under various UN resolutions that follow from declaring a head of state a war criminal.

    Shipwreckedcrew (d73f93)

  6. SWC
    “asking the questions he didn’t”
    Does that mean the former Ambassador was confused about Rubio’s questions, or that he was critical of Rubio for asking the questions? Or was that merely a typo? (I make enough of them myself, Gutenberg knows)

    Kishnevi (18dae1)

  7. Typo. Shud be did

    Shipwreckedcrew (d73f93)

  8. MD – yes, the Committee vote is not a condition of getting a floor vote.

    Shipwreckedcrew (d73f93)

  9. Why, with a 52-48 advantage, does the GOP let committees go 11-10? The Democrats don’t do that — last time it was close the other way, they stacked the committees more heavily. I guess McConnell likes getting mugged.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  10. He like wedgies I guess, the time to do so, was back in 2014, when the margins were higher both in the house and senate.

    narciso (d1f714)

  11. What is it with guys like Corker, Rubio, McCain and Graham. Not impressed.

    BTW… Tucker Carlson had some fun with Graham on his show tonight. What a putz.

    Colonel Haiku (603887)

  12. Yes they are the board of 20th century vole, (I realize it is a caricature of outfits like mgm and fox but there is more than a little truth

    narciso (d1f714)

  13. Tucker Carlson’s ratings are up 10% over what Megyn was getting.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  14. Well megyn was ahead when she smashed the silly liberal argument, when like logo she became like them, she lost the allure,,imho

    narciso (d1f714)

  15. When I think of bob corker, I don’t think much his collabirationwith cardin legitimizing the Iran deal,

    He did no such thing. No matter how many times ignorant people make this claim it won’t get any truer.

    The plain fact is that 0bama had the legal authority to make and implement the deal that he did, and the only possible way to stop him was to pass a law stripping him of that authority. Passing a law over the president’s veto takes 2/3 of each house, so that’s what Corker tried his hardest to get.

    He couldn’t persuade enough Democrats to vote with him, but he did squeeze one tiny concession out of 0bama, that when the deal was finalized he would hold off on implementing it to give Corker another chance to put together the votes to stop it. 0bama didn’t have to agree to even that. In the end it didn’t matter, because the deal didn’t come into effect until the IAEA said so, and that took longer than the waiting period anyway.

    The only possible alternative to Corker’s efforts was that there wouldn’t even be a waiting period. There was no other possible way to prevent it. Bringing it up in the senate as if it had been a request for consent to a proposed treaty would have done absolutely nothing, because defeating a proposal has exactly the same effect as not voting on it in the first place. All it would have meant is that the senate does not consent, which is the case anyway; since its consent was neither needed nor asked for, the refusal would have had no effect.

    Milhouse (40ca7b)

  16. There was a report on MSNBC/Maddow on Tuesday evening as well regarding Corker’s intent that no matter how the committee vote goes for T-Rex they were going to take it to a full vote on the Senate floor. According to Maddow, apparently it hasn’t been done since the FDR Admin.

    That would give ideologues like Little Marco wiggle room to vote ‘no’ — if he shows up for his job, which would be something new– but Trump has a long memory and crossing the new Chief Executive at the start while still having T-Rex get Senate approval might make for a four year winter in Florida and keep ‘Little Marco’ banished to the mail room.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  17. The Distinguished Gentleman from Florida will guarantee that he will never have a Senate leadership position if he votes against Mr Tillerson. No matter what you think about the incoming President, his cabinet nominees have been uniformly excellent choices.

    This might be a first shot at Senator Rubio challenging Mr Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, but why anyone would do that is beyond me. If Mr Trump is a successful President, he’ll be unbeatable for the nomination, and if Mr Trump is a poor President, the Democratic nominee will win the 2020 election.

    The politician Dana (1b79fa)

  18. This might be a first shot at Senator Rubio challenging Mr Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, but why anyone would do that is beyond me. If Mr Trump is a successful President, he’ll be unbeatable for the nomination, and if Mr Trump is a poor President, the Democratic nominee will win the 2020 election.

    Rubio, Graham, McCain, et. al.; are those long serving DC types who haven’t notice that the power of the MSM has faded. They believe if they’re praised in the NY Times it actually means something beyond the Northeast and the West Coast.

    Mike Giles (4cf78b)

  19. well Rubio is a relative newcomer, but his advisers like cesar conda, have a very conventional view of how policy is handled, which is a little surprising because he worked for cheney,

    narciso (d1f714)

  20. Shipwreckedcrew (d73f93) — 1/18/2017 @ 7:41 pm

    because of international consequences under various UN resolutions that follow from declaring a head of state a war criminal.

    Well, the ruler of Sudan has been declared a war criminal, and not just by the United States, and that didn’t prevent the Obama Administration from pathetically negotiating with him.

    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/01/13/us/politics/ap-us-united-states-sudan.html

    Last fall, the State Department issued an out-of-the-blue statement welcoming Sudan’s cooperation in fighting Islamic extremist groups, even as it expressed grave concerns about Sudan’s handling of unrest in the western Darfur region. It surprisingly described normalized relations as a possibility.

    The department first labeled Sudan a terrorism sponsor in 1993. Among those Sudan harbored was Osama bin Laden, prompting President Bill Clinton to launch airstrikes in 1998.

    Sudan’s changes have largely occurred beneath the radar. But the U.S. credits the country with limiting travel of Islamic State militants and shifting toward greater alignment with Saudi Arabia, and less with Iran. Israel also has pressed the U.S. to adopt a friendlier relationship with Sudan after it cracked down on shipments of suspected Iranian weapons to groups hostile to the Jewish state.

    Still, Washington’s outreach will be limited. It’s unlikely that the U.S. would commit to any engagement directly with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide charges.

    Sudan cracked down on Iranian shipments to Hamas in Gaza after, and only because, the convoys got bombed a few times, by Israeli planes, but Sudan thought the USA was behind it, and even did the bombing itself, and the U.S. Ambassador did not deny it. Israel didn’t want to bomb the convoy in Egypt because of the peace treaty with Egypt.

    Sammy Finkelman (8b8667)


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