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ringwiss

@ringwiss.bsky.social

8.1K followers 59 following 2.2K posts

🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 🇵🇱 🇬🇧 He/him. Armchair parliamentarian. I type at 140 wpm.

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ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 4h

The Executive Calendar is unusually thin this morning.
www.senate.gov/legislative/...

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 4h

…

I guess it’s such a uniquely American concept that it can’t be translated.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 13h

It’s actually kind of jarring now to hear someone like Banks say ‘DemocratIC’.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 13h

The good thing that has come out of this shutdown is the realisation that the majority leader is not the only senator who can offer motions to proceed. Keep it up!

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 13h

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 13h

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 21h

Johnson doesn’t even need to be there; by unanimous consent, a designated speaker pro tempore can swear her in.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 21h

So... tomorrow?

Ryan Nobles @ryanobles.bsky.social · 21h

NEW: Speaker Johnson pressed by Manu Raju on why he doesn’t swear in Adelita Grijalva during a pro forma session responds:

“Look, we'll schedule it. I guess as soon as she wants.”

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

If the House actually refused to seat her, yeah, probably. supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...

Prohibiting the House from adjourning would be something else, though.

In any event, there’s no chance it would get resolved before the House came back.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

You don’t need to use cloture to get to a vote on a bill. If senators are done debating something, the Senate is supposed to vote on it (with only a simple majority required).

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

(3) is the big obstacle here. There is no question about (1).

It’s also true that the approval of the House (usually by unanimous consent) is required to swear in a member before their certificate of election arrives, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue here.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

Things to know:
1. The speaker has no discretion over whether to swear in a member.
2. Unless the House otherwise orders, only the speaker or an elected speaker pro tempore may swear in a member.
3. During a district work period, the speaker has the unilateral power to adjourn the House at any time.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

If Thune just moved to proceed to the House bill and walked off the floor (and the chair enforced the rules properly), the shutdown would probably end tomorrow.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

The presiding officer.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

The Speaker should facilitate Adelita Grijalva’s swearing-in just to put an end to all the horrendous procedural takes floating around.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

You don’t say.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

It’s in cases like this that it’s helpful to distinguish between what members ‘may’ do and what they ‘can’ do.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

(If the speaker wanted to bring the House back earlier, that would not be particularly difficult to do.)

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

Why is the House holding pro-forma sessions more frequently than it needs to? 🤔

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 2d

In 2023, they included it as a separate order in the rules package (giving the speaker the unilateral power to designate district work periods). This year, they moved it to the standing rules.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 2d

Some history:

For about a decade, they did this by a special rule before each district work period (i.e., for a specific amount of time).

They then did it consistently during the pandemic (not just during district work periods), beginning in March 2020 and gradually extending it to January 2023.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 2d

The answer is no.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 2d

(In any event, surely Republicans would not sit there and listen to it; you’d just be playing it to an empty chamber.)

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 2d

The relevant rule:

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 2d

It would require unanimous consent (or a special rule or suspension of the rules).

[clip from 22 June 2018]