Democrats Fail in Attempt to Thwart Barrett Vote by Staying Away, Preventing Committee Quorum

They should have gone all-out like Wisconsin Democrats did a few years back. They were trying to prevent votes on Scott Walker’s union reforms, and they knew Republicans had the votes, so they tried to stop-the-quorum trick by actually leaving the state and holing up in an Illinois hotel.

That’s dedication. How long are you going to endure being in Illinois for the sake of your ideological agenda?

It didn’t work, of course, and neither did yesterday’s stunt.

The rules say the committee can’t conduct business without a quorum, and the quorum has to include at least two members from the minority party. Amazingly, only one Democrat – Dick Durbin of Illinois, ironically – was present. Durbin proceeded to spend 90 minutes speechifying about how Republicans couldn’t conduct any business because he was the only Democrat there.

Problem was: Other committee Democrats were there. They were just waiting outside in the hallway, refusing to come in. And Lindsey Graham wasn’t about to cater to this nonsense:

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“Under the rules of this committee you cannot proceed with the business of the committee, even with a quorum present, unless there are two members of the minority present as well,” Durbin told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at the start of the meeting. “I want to take official note of the fact that I am the only member of the minority that is here.”

Graham introduced the motion anyway and scheduled a vote on Barrett for 1 p.m. on Oct. 22 before other Democratic senators began to filter in. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., then made a motion to indefinitely delay the vote on Barrett, which tipped off debate from multiple senators, including from Democrats and accusations of hypocrisy, criticism of Barrett, criticism of the process this close to the election and reprisals of Democrats warnings that Barrett might decide to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Blumenthal’s motion eventually failed, but not after the hearing had essentially been delayed for two hours. 

This is what it’s come to for Democrats. Hiding in the hallway and trying to apply a procedural trick to keep the committee from forwarding the nominee to the full Senate.

The quorum rules are designed to prevent the committee from doing business when a significant number of the members are not able to be present. It was never envisioned to be applied when the members are there, but are simply standing out in the hallway refusing to come in.

Once Graham scheduled the vote over Durbin’s objections, wow, all kinds of other Democrats started filtering into the room! Why didn’t they come in before? They’re members of the committee and the committee is conducting business. Isn’t that their job?

Of course it is, but they see their job as using any trick at their disposal – no matter how ridiculous – to keep the committee from doing its job.

And these are the people some voters want to give even more power?