Maybe The Greatest Senate Floor Debate Of All Time

Robert Byrd gives Jim Bunning exactly the respect he deserves.

Oh, the full dialogue from the blogpost below according to WaPo's Paul Kane (and other reporters in the gallery) who heard the full shouting match between Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Sen. Jim Bunning, shouting from their seats across that aisle at each other:

Bunning: "Regular order!"

Byrd: "Who said that?"

Bunning: "I did."

Byrd: "Who are you?"

Bunning: "I'm a senator."

Byrd: "You're a great baseball man."

Bunning: "I'm a senator; I have the same rights as you."

Byrd: "Yeah, man, you're a senator." [Ends by laughing hysterically at Bunning.]

I'm guessing this is about the pro forma sessions that Harry Reid has been insisting upon to block the President from any recess appointments. Which are fully legal, by the way. But that's besides the point. Jim Bunning isn't fit to shine Robert Byrd's shoes, and Republicans in general have pretty much no credibility to discuss the "rules" after what they've done the past 7 1/2 years.

9 Seconds

Whatever you want to say about Harry Reid and his, er, uneven stewardship of Senate Democrats, he sure got this right.

A nine-second session gaveled in and out by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., prevented Bush from appointing as an assistant attorney general a nominee roundly rejected by majority Democrats. Without the pro forma session, the Senate would be technically adjourned, allowing the president to install officials without Senate confirmation.

The business of blocking Bush's recess appointments was serious. It represents an institutional standoff between Congress and the president that could repeat itself during Congress' vacations for the remainder of Bush's presidency.

In such situations, pro forma sessions also could give Bush some political cover on popular legislation he doesn't want to sign. When Congress is holding pro forma sessions and is not formally adjourned, a bill sent to a president automatically becomes law 10 days after he receives it - excluding Sundays - unless he vetoes it.

That could be the fate of two bills Congress passed last week. One growing out of the Virginia Tech massacre makes it harder for people with mental illness records to buy guns. The other makes it easier for journalists and others to obtain government documents through the Freedom of Information Act. The FOIA bill, for example, would become law on New Year's Eve if not vetoed before then, according to Senate Judiciary Committee officials.

What goes unsaid is that this doesn't just give Bush political cover, but it prevents the possibility of a pocket veto of that legislation.

The recess appointment was instituted in a time when the fastest modes of transportation were sailing ship and horseback, in case Congress couldn't get back to the capital to respond to an emergency. Every President, Democratic or Republican, has abused the privilege, and if you can't eliminate it through Constitutional amendment, then I completely support making it irrelevant through pro forma sessions. In addition, this is the kind of "block Bush" strategy progressives would like to see on a whole host of other issues.

Reid's getting a lot of goodwill out of 9 seconds. Would that he would do something constructive with the other 31,556,917.

I Smell Backbone, Do You Smell Backbone?

Harry Reid is seeing the President's procedural trick and raising him one.

The Senate will be coming in for pro-forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments.

My hope is that this will prompt the President to see that it is our mutual interests for the nominations process to get back on track.

While an election year looms, significant progress can still be made on nominations.

I am committed to making that progress if the President will meet me half way.

But that progress can’t be made if the President seeks controversial recess appointments and fails to make Democratic appointments to important commissions.

Why Reid didn't do this sooner is depressing, a bit, but clearly he's lost his patience. Recess appointments are a relic of when there weren't airplanes and Congress couldn't get back to session in an emergency. It'd be a small fix but I would absolutely support a Constitutional amendment banning them, period.

Recess

The reason the Founders granted the Presidential power of the recess appointment is because Congressmen would have long periods outside of Washington and there was no bullet train or airplane to get them back quickly if an important position needed to be filled. Surely the recess appointment was not supposed to be an end run around the advise and consent clause of the Constitution. Yet George W. has used the recess appointment clause over 100 times to put through radicals who would not win a vote of confirmation in the Senate. Not only was Sam Fox, Swift-Boat funder, made ambassador to Belgium on this recess appointment, but an advocate for Social Security privatization was made deputy commissioner of Social Security, and an anti-regulatory maven put in charge of regulatory policy at the Office of Management and Budget.

Bush may be a CEO President, but he certainly governs like a lawyer, looking for any loophole in the Constitution to allow him to do what he wants. These loopholes are seen as idiosynchracies from a bygone age, but shouldn't they be closed by now? Would there EVER be a situation when an emergency recess appointment would have to be made? When you couldn't get the Senate back in session for its confirmation duties? Of course not.

We pretty much need a new Constitutional Convention in this country to take a look at everything once again. That's the REAL legacy of this President.

P.S. Apparently the Sam Fox appointment may be illegal:

To fight the Fox appointment, Democrats are questioning the Bush administration's plan to have Fox serve in a voluntary capacity -- receiving no pay for his duties as ambassador. This is an important legal technicality, as federal law prohibits "payment of services" for certain recess appointments. However, if the recess appointee in question agrees that he or she will take an unpaid position and not sue the government at a later date for compensation, then the appointment can go forward, at least as the White House sees it.

So as long as Fox -- a multi-millionaire -- agreed not to sue the Bush administration later for not paying him, the White House would be comfortable with giving him an unpaid, "voluntary service" recess appointment as ambassador to Belgium.

But here's the rub that makes Democrats view Bush's recess appointment of Fox as a major-league no-no: Federal law prohibits "voluntary service" in cases where the position in question has a fixed rate of pay, as an ambassadorship does. That's how the Government Accountability Office, an arm of the Democratic-controlled Congress, interprets the law.

In other words, according to senior Democratic Senate aides, the salary is a "statutory entitlement" and cannot be waived. While Fox would not be receiving a salary, he would still be entitled to live in government-owned housing and receive other benefits due any ambassador.

"How to reconcile this clear conflict between the pay restriction, which says that Fox cannot be paid, with the voluntary services provision, which says that the State Department cannot accept voluntary services from Fox?" queried one senior Democratic aide who asked for anonymity to speak frankly about the matter.

"That is the $64,000 question," he added.