Cant a bonafide Liberal senator just place "a hold" on Kennedys replacement?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. No - "cloture" is not involved with a "hold"

It's more of a Senate "courtesy" rule to allow some amount of time to pass so that a Senator "can get more information" about a particular subject or nominee (or so that was the original intent).

But what has happened is that the rules allow for the Majority Leader to decide whether to "accept it" or not and in the past, in order to show "courtesy" and "bipartisanship", the "hold" was permitted to go forward as there was a definite potential threat of a filibuster, so there was some leverage from the side doing the "hold" (usually the minority party but not always).

However now that nominees can be approved by simple majority, the "hold" doesn't have as much power as it used to. Although note that Elizabeth Warren currently has a "hold" on the next CFPB nominee and apparently Turtle has allowed the "hold" to go forward.

You have this issue - and I have posted this before - This system of government is operating under an "honor system". The GOP has now started breaking that down and if Turtle starts ignoring or waving away a "hold" as the Majority Leader, then when the tables turned, he might be screwed. This is why they tried to allow the rules to play out, but things are so fragile nowadays, and with this SCOTUS thing being the gold ring on their merry-go-round, they may be willing to destroy the Senate to get what they want... although a few GOP Senators might disagree with changing a rule and thus there would not be enough votes to change such.