A majority of senators should be able to adopt rules at the beginning of each Congress.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Senators will do what they think they need to do to represent their constituents.
The United States Senate wasn't designed to be a majority-rule institution. It was designed to include and accommodate the rights of the minority in small states as well as large states.
Senators, in the end, must be elected.
Senators, like everyone else, want to feel a part of this decision-making process. They want to feel included.
Every member of the Senate has a constitutional duty to follow the Constitution and to uphold the Constitution.
The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint, upon the advice and consent of a majority of the Senate, and it plainly does not give a minority of senators any right to interfere with that process.
Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.
Improving some of the rules under which the Senate functions can begin to replace some of the bad habits Washington has developed with better ones.
If you read the Senate rules, there are provisions where the Senate parliamentarian can be overridden.
Let there be no reservation or doubt that I believe the Senate should vote on each and every judicial appointment made by the President of the United States and that no rule or procedure should ever stop the Senate from exercising its constitutional responsibility.