Who died and made Jim DeMint the King of America?
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint warned Monday evening that he would block all legislation that has not been cleared by his office in the final days of the pre-election session.
Bret Bernhardt, DeMint’s chief of staff, said in an e-mail to GOP aides that his boss would place a hold on all legislation that has not been cleared by both parties by the end of the day Tuesday.
Any senator can place a hold to block legislation – and overcoming that would require the Senate to take time-consuming steps to invoke cloture, which would require 60 votes.
With the Senate slated to adjourn Thursday untiil after the elections, DeMint’s stance could mean trouble for Democrats if the two parties don’t quickly agree on a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating past Sept. 30. And that could mean the demise of a slew of other stalled and largely non-controversial bills that both parties are looking to clear before Election Day.
Because our Senate is so ridiculous, one Senator could actually shut down the government. All it takes is the will to do it. The Senate could get the bills moving by invoking cloture but that takes a lot of time – they have to wait 30 hours for a vote after cloture passes to vote on the bill. Our country can not continue to operate this way – we have real issues that need to be addressed but instead politics has turned into a football game.