New House bill would block pay for members of Congress if the U.S. defaults

[BumRushDaShow]

18. You know how Congress

has "stopped the clock" over weekends when they are finishing up appropriations that have gone beyond the previous appropriations expiration date?

Riddick’s Tome Unlocks Quirky Senate Powers

By Niels Lesniewski
Posted October 11, 2011 at 5:37pm




In the 19th century, whenever the Senate ran dangerously short on time to pass critical legislation, Isaac Bassett would extend a pole to the official chamber clock and perform a feat most mortals only dream of. As the assistant doorkeeper from 1861 until his death in 1895, he would push back the hands of the clock at the request of the vice president to forestall adjournment.

The task stirred a mixture of awe and consternation in him. “I wish it distinctly understood that I never did so until I received the order from the vice president or president pro tem of the Senate,” Bassett wrote in personal notes, now recorded on a Senate Historical Office website.

“A number of the most important appropriations bills have been saved and an extra session avoided,” Bassett wrote. “I have nothing to say whether it was constitutional or not, but never in my life while in the service of the Senate (have I) disobeyed an order from the vice president.”

Both chambers of Congress have procedural tricks that allow the majority to circumvent dead ends and strengthen its position. But while the Speaker can pluck his out of thin air, the Senate is beholden to its own restrictive rules and precedents, all of which have been recorded in the 1,608-page tome Riddick’s Senate Procedure.

(snip)

https://rollcall.com/2011/10/11/riddicks-tome-unlocks-quirky-senate-powers/

IOW, they can reference a manufactured trick when needed, and the Senate has actually codified theirs.



Riddick's (Rules for) Senate Procedure