Patterico's Pontifications

6/20/2010

The End of the Anonymous Senate Hold?

Filed under: Government — DRJ @ 11:20 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

Senator Claire McCaskill says she has the votes to end the anonymous Senate hold.

The rule change reportedly applies only to anonymous holds — which are anonymous only in the sense they are not public, but the Senator placing the hold must notify his or her Party’s leaders for the hold to take effect. The change would not impact a Senator’s ability to place a public hold on legislation.

There is precedent for this change. The Senate eliminated the anonymous hold in 1997 but it was soon abandoned because it made things even worse.

Rules changes that ultimately delay more federal laws may be a good thing, especially since the U.S. government’s “regulatory budget” is growing even faster than the explosive federal budget.

— DRJ

7 Responses to “The End of the Anonymous Senate Hold?”

  1. What’s worse than that growing Regulatory Budget, is the fact that this Congress refuses to pass any Budget at all for FY-2011, until after the November elections.
    Which will mean, that come late September, there will be a flurry of Continuing Resolutions maintaining spending at today’s ruinous rates,
    and appropriations bills could be passed without any budget targets at all, leading to further escalations in spending.

    Hey, we’re all Greece now!

    AD - RtR/OS! (71ba66)

  2. my country tis of fail
    can I get you a pail
    you ‘ve pissed yourself

    happyfeet (19c1da)

  3. Verrry good, ‘feets!

    AD - RtR/OS! (71ba66)

  4. McKaskill smudge seat
    for Mitt in two thousand eight
    only thing good for:

    “After a recent MSNBC interview featuring Obama hand Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the classy guest handed her earpiece to next up Mitt Romney, saying “I spit on this before I put it in.” Even worse was Ben Smith’s response. Where has civility gone?
    From Ben Smith’s blog at Politico, via Drudge:

    I mentioned a few days ago that Claire McCaskill’s mild affect masks a bit of a killer, and perhaps the Obama campaign’s deftest surrogate on the attack.
    But I was still kind of amused by her brief interaction with Mitt Romney in the press file just now.
    McCaskill was stepping out of her chair at the end of an MSNBC interview, and Romney was up next. She and a staffer unplugged her various wires, and she handed Romney the earpiece the guests use to hear the host.
    “I spit on this before I put it in,” she said to Romney, with a sweet smile.
    UPDATE: Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom emails: ‘You should have seen what she did to the chair.’ “

    ColonelHaiku (2ce3dc)

  5. For clarity and consistency, I added “Anonymous” in the title.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  6. but it makes it hard to get stuff done.

    That is a feature, not a bug!

    Loren (af2946)

  7. The idea that McCaskill is anything other than a partisan hack is frankly, laughable. She was one of the go-to mouthpieces for Barcky during the campaign.

    JD (d55760)


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