The incoming Senate Republican majority is already showing some division in its ranks over how to deal with the Democrats’ filibuster rules change.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) argued for the former on a radio show Monday night. Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), in a cantankerous speech, said Republicans should give the new minority "a taste of their own medicine."
The "nuclear option," which allowed Democrats to cut off a filibuster on White House nominees with 51 votes instead of the usual 60, helped President Obama with Democrats in the majority. But Graham argues that it's in Republicans' interest to switch it back.
"If you keep it at 51, all they have to do is pick up three, four Republicans and I'm worried that you're no stronger than your weakest link. Having to get to 60 is a much more collaborative process. I want to have the ability to say no to executive appointments and judicial appointments with a 60-vote hurdle as it stood for over 150 years," Graham said on "The Hugh Hewitt Show."
But Hatch, speaking to the Federalist Society last week, is in the camp pushing to keep it. Their argument is that if a Republican wins the White House in 2016, they’d want their president to have the same advantage pushing through executive and judicial nominations.
"We should not return to the old rule," Hatch said, according to the Huffington Post. "We should teach those blunderheads that they made a big mistake."
Cruz’s own nuclear option
Speaking of nominations, the Senate on Wednesday continued moving through its long-standing backlog, confirming an additional five ambassadors and five more federal judges.
But if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) ran the Senate (and some say he does), they'd be among the last Obama White House nominees to be confirmed.
In an op-ed in Politico on Wednesday, Cruz said the Republican response to President Obama's planned executive action on immigration should be to refuse to vote on any more of his nominees.
“If the president announces executive amnesty, the new Senate majority leader who takes over in January should announce that the 114th Congress will not confirm a single nominee — executive or judicial — outside of vital national security positions, so long as the illegal amnesty persists,” Cruz wrote. “This is a potent tool given to Congress by the Constitution explicitly to act as a check on executive power. It is a constitutional power of the majority leader alone, and it would serve as a significant deterrent to a lawless president.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked during a news briefing about Cruz's threat. Earnest did not directly respond, instead simply saying that the American people want Washington "putting the interests of the nation ahead of partisan political ambition or political interests."
President Obama is set to sign the executive order on Friday.
Lest anyone dismiss Cruz’s words as the ramblings of a freshman senator, we should recall who originated the idea of funding the government only if Obamacare was defunded (a.k.a. the government shutdown).
But for now, the following diplomats — who have been waiting months — can dust off their suitcases and book their flights: Maureen Elizabeth Cormack, who on Friday will have been waiting a year since she was nominated, to be ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina; Allan P. Mustard to be ambassador to Turkmenistan; Earl Robert Miller to be ambassador to Botswana; Judith Beth Cefkin to be ambassador to Fiji, and also to the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu; and Robert T. Yamate to be ambassador to Madagascar, and to the Comoros.
Wait, don’t answer that
Sometimes it’s better not to ask questions.
Our old pal Rich Grenell, the longest-serving U.S. spokesman at the United Nations and, for a very short time, national security spokesman for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, tweeted Tuesday that some State Department reporter should look into why the department paid Jonathan Gruber $103,000.
Gruber, of course, is the now-famous MIT professor and White House health-care consultant who got caught on a video implying that Obamacare passed because of the “stupidity” of the American people.
Well, we don’t cover the State Department anymore, but here’s what it says:
The State Department retained Gruber in 2008 “to provide an expert opinion and expert testimony in the NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] Chapter 11 investment claim (Grand River Enterprises v. United States of America).”
In 2008? So, he was hired by President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice? Gruber finished up his assignment in 2010, State says.
Well, as the late, great Gilda Radner, as "Saturday Night Live's" Emily Litella, used to say: "Never mind."
Delete, delete!
File this under always double-check before hitting send.
As reporters fell all over themselves Wednesday morning to confirm the breaking news that President Obama had plans to announce his immigration executive order Thursday and expand upon it Friday, some received an errant e-mail confirmation.
AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser inadvertently forwarded an e-mail intended for immigration activists to a long list of national reporters, including several at The Washington Post.
The original e-mail from Dawn Le at the Alliance for Citizenship was sent to a Google groups list "Ready4Fight." The subject line was: "UNCONFIRMED."
“We hear there will be a prime time Thursday evening announcement (to preview) and full unveiling in Vegas on Friday. Can folks begin to work and plan watch parties for Thursday and/or Friday? Unclear whether Thursday night content will be what is “celebratory,” but Friday will be where we need a lot of energy guaranteed. Need to get a FULL list of locations, key spokespeople you want to lift up (please specify English/Spanish capacity) ASAP. And again, let’s get your booking memos finalized and out. Please send my way,” Le wrote.
Hauser then forwarded it to his media list. He tried to walk it back, asking them to ignore, but you can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
— With Colby Itkowitz
Twitter: @KamenInTheLoop, @ColbyItkowitz.
