The Non-Silence of Elizabeth Warren The next Democratic President is going to get the Trump treatment.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-non-silence-of-elizabeth-warren-1486598042
The activist base of the Democratic Party is demanding rage and resistance to Donald Trump and all his works, and Senate Democrats are listening. Jeff Sessions was confirmed as Attorney General Wednesday on a party-line vote, though not without more pointless melodrama and the informal launch of Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign.
The Massachusetts progressive’s latest diatribe against her fellow Senator Sessions was interrupted after she repeatedly violated Senate Rule XIX, which prohibits members from besmirching the character and motives of their colleagues. After warnings that she ignored and a Republican motion, the Senate rebuked Ms. Warren 49-43. As a result, she lost her privileges to participate in the rest of the AG debate.
Ms. Warren is now claiming she was “silenced,” which is true if she means the Senate floor for an interval lasting fewer than 24 hours. It is not true if she’s talking about the Facebook Live video she taped outside the Senate chamber on Tuesday night, her live call-in to Rachel Maddow’s prime-time television show, her sundry media appearances on Wednesday or her fundraising emails off the incident.
“This is not what America is about—silencing speech,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday, shortly after Ms. Warren announced an April publication date for her new book, “This Fight Is Our Fight.” For a martyr to censorship, she’s remarkably prolific.
Social media are overflowing with memes featuring the likes of Rosa Parks,Harriet Tubman and various suffragettes along with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comment about the Senate sanction: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” Likening one of the most powerful people in the world to an underground-railroad conductor may be a tad histrionic, but you be the judge.
HRH Warren isn’t a victim, even if she enjoys feeling she is, and Republicans aren’t trying to get her to “shut up,” as if that’s possible. She knowingly broke protocol and said Mr. Sessions was “racist” and prosecuting “a campaign of bigotry,” among other gross, false and personal insults that Democrats now feel entitled to hurl. Our guess is that Ms. Warren wanted to be punished so she could play out this political theater.
A question for Republicans is whether Mr. McConnell enhanced the Warren brand by responding to her provocations in this way. She already has a formidable platform but the story dominated Wednesday’s news. Then again, sooner or later Mr. McConnell had to send a signal that Senate rules can’t be violated with impunity.
The larger context is that Democrats have slowed Senate confirmation of President Trump’s cabinet to the slowest pace since Eisenhower, and by some measures since the 19th century. Though they lack the votes to defeat anyone, they’ve boycotted hearings, maxed out debate time, denied routine courtesies and delayed procedural votes.
New Jersey’s Cory Booker even testified against Mr. Sessions, which no Senator had felt to do against a colleague since Congress was formed in 1789—a period that includes the Civil War and two world wars.
Democrats are within their rights, but at some point they might consider the precedents they’re setting. The Senate is an institution that used to run on civility and comity. Republicans as recently as 2009 confirmed 11 of President Obama’s 15 cabinet nominees by the end of January—even Tim Geithner as the Treasury Secretary who would run the IRS though he hadn’t paid all of his taxes.
Harry Reid’s unilateral destruction of the filibuster for nominees has made it impossible for Democrats to defeat a nominee without GOP help, and the next Democratic President’s cabinet is likely to receive the Trump treatment. If Democrats keep up their misbehavior, Mr. McConnell has plenty of tools he can use to pass legislation they won’t like. If Democrats want to turn the Senate into the House, with its majority rule and restricted debate, they may get their wish.
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