FORMER SNL WRITER MAKES A FOOL OF THE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER

….Minnesota’s Senator, Al Franken

 

Franken puts McConnell’s logic in perspective.

 

The US Congress has shown that all they really want is to become elected, then to not do the people’s business.

 

Now the Senate has gone even one step further and stated that they don’t want a president with almost a year of his term left, to do his job.  That is because they don’t want to do their job by giving a presidential Supreme Court Justice nominee a hearing and a vote.

 

In the US Senate, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) addressed the new justice vacancy in the Supreme Court, and in his opening, Franken told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “swift action” needed to be taken.

 

The senator also noted with disgust that it took less than an hour after news of Justice Scalia’s death hit the public, for the GOP to announce they would not take up the business of considering a replacement until after the presidential election in November. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice.

 

The only problem with the Majority Leader’s reasoning, Franken added, is that the American people have spoken. And they’ve done it twice. 

 

He reiterated that President Barack Obama was elected and reelected by a solid majority of the American people.  Those Americans understood his role is to uphold his duties according to the Constitution and that includes appointing a Supreme Court justice should a vacancy occur.

 

Then Franken decided to take Majority Leader McConnell’s Supreme Court replacement logic, and he proposed to apply it to the US Congress.

 

If the president should be required to stop doing his job in an election year, perhaps the 28 senators who are now in the midst of their reelection campaigns and the 6 senators who are retiring should not be allowed to do their senatorial jobs.  You know, like being kept from casting their votes in committee or on the Senate floor until after the election. 

 

And perhaps the ten committee chairmen and 19 subcommittee chairs should pass their gavels to colleagues who are not currently running for reelection or preparing for retirement. 

 

Of course, that would also mean that Bill introduction, and the co-sponsorship of bills, should be limited to those senators who are not yet serving in the sixth year of their terms. 

 

Franken was very sincere when he said all he was trying to do was to assert the Majority Leader’s logic to more than just one elected individual (like the president), but to be fair and apply that logic across the board.

 

He then offered another possible approach.

 

How about a Constitutional Amendment that would prevent the president and the members of congress from doing their jobs in an election year?

 

Senator Franken stated that the Supreme Court is a central pillar of our democracy. The women and men who sit on that bench make decisions that touch the lives of every single American. Franken urged his colleagues to “reject the impulse to put politics before our sworn duty” and to uphold the Constitution.

 

But in his presentation, the former humor writer for Saturday Night Live was being deadly serious when he described the hypocrisy, negligence, and obstructiveness of the Republicans that has taken place the entire seven years that President Obama has been in office.

 

It was a privilege to hear what a serious and capable Senator that the former SNL comedy writer has become.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016