Which cabinet nominees to REALLY oppose.

[Calista241]

I'm going off two premises here.

1. the Dems can't oppose all the nominees without looking like obstructionists, which WILL hurt us.
2. some nominees are more worthy of opposition than others.

My vote is to offer up serious opposition to the following:

1. Scott Pruitt
2. Jeff Sessions

[rzemanfl]

1. What would the Republicans do if the shoe were on the other foot?

They have been obstructionists for eight years.

[Calculating]

2. Sessions by far

I've never seen anyone LESS qualified to head the department of JUSTICE! After Sessions would be his EPA pick.

[taught_me_patience]

3. Pruitt

The guy is suing the EPA to allow corporations to spew more mercury into the air. WTF!?!?!?!

[Chasstev365]

4. ALL OF THEM:

"Our number one priority is to make Trump a one term president." Let the hypocrites cry obstructionism all they want!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Did obstructionism hurt the GOP?

and their obstructionism wasn't really even based (mostly) on rational concerns but rather out of a desire to prevent Obama from doing anything. There are serious concerns about almost all of Trump's nominees for perfectly legitimate reasons. Almost none of them should get a quick confirmation and should be scrutinized and potentially filibustered if warranted. We don't want Trump to be able to stock every major department with patently unqualified persons and/or persons violently opposed to the agency they are responsible for.

[livetohike]

7. +1000 n/t

[Iggo]

6. Didn't hurt the republicans.

[arthritisR_US]

8. I reject both your premises. If the Democrats voting are guided

by a conscience and ethics they will have to reject every fecking one of the orange shitgibbon's picks so far.

[livetohike]

9. None of them are qualified for their position! I want to see some

fire from the Democrats. I want to see 11 hour long hearings televised on the major networks so Americans who voted for this disaster will see what they have done.

[CentralMass]

10. I wonder how Trump/Tillerson, willl handle Putin's aggression in the Baltics.

They are all NATO member countries and tbe treaty states that "An attack on one is an attack on all".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. jeff sessions is my only priority, rest of cabinet has to go along with trumps desire

AG has a lot of independence and therefore is a role that cannot be given up on easily

[Dream Girl]

12. All of 'em starting with Sessions...

[Bleacher Creature]

13. Pruitt for me.

Then it's toss-up between Sessions and Tillerson.

[Lurks Often]

14. EVERY single one will be confirmed unless enough Republicans decide to reject a nominee

They only require a simple majority to be voted in now and you can thank Harry Reid for that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option#Events_of_November_2013

On edit: Tillerson is probably the only one that stands even a small chance of not being confirmed.

[StevieM]

15. First of all, Reid had no choice. The GOP were filibustering almost everyone. That may be part

of how Obama was persuaded to appoint James Comey as FBI Director (although they actually filibustered him for awhile too).

Second, the GOP would not have tolerated a filibuster, even if we hadn't gone nuclear. So the result would be the same--Trump getting his people confirmed.

The rules changes still allow the Supreme Court nominees to be filibustered. And that will be eliminated by the GOP immediately, assuming we even stand up to them and try to block Trump's nominees.

[Lurks Often]

16. The point I was trying to make is that all this talk about opposing a nominee is just noise

The Republicans control the House and the Senate so there is no viable means of blocking a Cabinet pick.

As for Harry Reid, you're right, but it won't help things. Now the Republicans can push through whoever they want and just say "We're merely working according to the rules of the Senate that Sen Reid pushed through when he was majority leader"

And yes, I fully expect the filibuster to be removed when the new Senate is seated, Reid threatened to do exactly that when it was thought that the Democrats would regain control of the Senate.

[CentralMass]

17. True, but the Democrats need to dig their heels in whenever the battle is worth fighting.

I think that they collectively capitulated far too much during Dubya's tenure. If they dont want to co-own the unfolding disaster, they need to fight it.

[Lurks Often]

19. It won't matter since the Democrats are the minority

The filibuster for everything but Supreme Court Justices ended in November 2013 and I fully expect the filibuster for Supreme Court Justices to be removed once the new Senate comes into office.

Realistically it's likely to get even worse in 2018, since the Democrats have far more Senate seats to defend then the Republicans and at least some of those seats are in states that vote Republican almost all the time.

[onenote]

21. There is another option as well: recess appointments

If Democrats tie up nominees, the repub Senate leadership could call for a recess and it would allow Trump to fill the positions via recess appointments.

[onenote]

23. Actually, when it came to cabinet appointments, the repubs were not filibustering everyone

Quite the opposite.

Obama made eleven "replacement" cabinet nominations between 2011 and 2013 (when the filibuster rule was changed). Most of those nominees had hearings and were confirmed between 1 and 3 months after the nomination was made. Three were unopposed, and two others received more than 90 votes. In fact, only two received fewer than 60 votes.

The problems that led to the change in the filibuster rule were primarily arising with respect to sub-cabinet positions and judicial nominees.

This is significant because cabinet appointments have always been viewed differently than other presidential appointments and presidents are generally given considerable leeway in making cabinet appointments.

That doesn't mean we roll over for Trump's nominations -- just that we develop, through vetting and hearings, a solid ground for opposing the appointee that has more to do with whether there are the kinds of disqualifying conflicts of interests or other failures to follow the law that caused a couple of Obama's nominees to withdraw their names from consideration, than with policy positions.

[aidbo]

18. All of them. When Repubs complain:

[onenote]

20. I agree that we should follow the repub model and be selective in which nominees we oppose

Contrary to what has been suggested in a number of posts in this thread, the repubs did not oppose Obama's first set of cabinet picks across the board. In fact, of the initial fourteen cabinet nominations sent by Obama to the Senate for confirmation, six were confirmed without opposition on the date of his inauguration, three were confirmed within the next two days (two unanimously, one with only two nay votes). Of the remaining five, one was confirmed less than two weeks after the inauguration, two others were confirmed (one unanimously) within a month of the inauguration. Only two nominations were held up for any significant period of time. One position wasn't filled until March, after two previous nominees withdrew themselves from consideration. And one wasn't confirmed until April, after the previous nominee withdrew.

Obviously, there is a very significant difference between Obama's mainstream nominees and the collection that Trump has chosen. But a strategy of across the board opposition, based primarily on policy objections, will only result in all of them being confirmed. Even if the Democrats could hold some of them up via the filibuster, the result would be one of two things: either the filibuster rules being changed or the repub leadership announcing a recess that would then allow Trump to fill the positions via the recess appointment route.

We should aggressively investigate and question the nominees and push hard against them if such investigation and hearing bring out evidence of the kinds of conflict of interest issues and/or other legal issues that led to the withdrawal of three of Obama's nominations. Forcing out nominees based on the same sort of problems that sank Richardson and Daschle is the best way to go. (Gregg is a special case -- he withdrew because the repubs didn't want him to give up his seat and create the opportunity for Democrat to be named to fill it).

http://www.senate.gov/reference/Obama_cabinet.htm

[Calista241]

22. Bravo!