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Congresswoman Hilda Solis’s nomination to be Barack Obama’s Labor Secretary seems to be subject to a slow-hold. No one is claiming credit for it. But since the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee hasn’t yet voted to send her nomination to the floor, I wonder if it’s a GOP committee member whose "hold" is being honored.
Senators cannot actually place a "hold" (a notice to the Majority Leader that a Member plans to object to a unanimous consent resolution to proceed to a floor vote on a nomination) until a nomination is actually voted out of committee. And Senator Kennedy’s Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee hasn’t yet voted on Hilda Solis’s nomination.
Is that because a GOP on the HELP committee is threatening a hold if the nomination is voted out to the full Senate? Who might that be?
Spokesmen for both Sen. Mike Enzi, the top Republican on the committee, and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, who is also on the committee and has actively used holds in the past, said neither are responsible.
There have been two meetings of the Committee scheduled, and postponed, during the past week when the nomination could have been voted upon.
The postponements were related to another agenda item, according to a Democratic committee aide. He said Republicans were responsible.
Who’s the source of these postponements, that news outlets are treating as a "hold" even though there can’t be a "hold" yet?
Technically, Solis’ nomination isn’t being "held" — that occurs when a nominee has won committee approval and a senator tries to delay a full vote. Solis has not received a vote yet in the Senate labor committee, chaired by Ted Kennedy (D-MA), but GOPers are slowing down her confirmation over the so-called "card check" bill, a major priority of the labor movement that would allow workers to organize more easily.
The GOP needs to understand that Barack Obama voted for the Employee Free Choice Act (which the Chamber of Commerce calls "card check" instead of "Majority Sign-Up") and his Labor Secretary-designate, Hilda Solis, co-sponsored EFCA in the House. The GOP needs to face facts: this new Administration favors EFCA. A delay in confirming the Labor Secretary doesn’t, and won’t, change that.
And this Labor Secretary-designate is going to be confirmed.
One thing a delay does, though, is further alienate the GOP from Hispanic voters across America. Who are the GOP Senators on the Senate HELP Commmittee who haven’t so far denied their role in the delay?
Judd Gregg (NH)
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
John McCain (AZ)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Is Chairman Kennedy honoring a secret "hold" by delaying a Committee vote on the nomination? Will Majority Leader Harry Reid honor the "hold" on the nomination when it comes to the floor?
Why honor the "hold" by delaying the Committee’s vote? Why honor the "hold" when the nomination reaches the floor? Democrats should not own any part of the delay. Why alienate the Democratic Party from Hispanic voters across America? Why blur the alienation of the GOP from these voters? Senate Democrats will lose the moral high ground if they honor the hold on Hilda Solis’s nomination to be Secretary of Labor.
Hilda Solis’s confirmation needs to happen right now. Democrats on the Senate HELP Committee need to report the nomination to the floor. The Senate needs to move swiftly to confirm her as Labor Secretary. Or else they need to make very clear: who’s the holdup on Hilda?
UPDATE: From the SEIU, a video about the Obama Cabinet’s support of Employee Free Choice Act. Time to confirm Hilda Solis.
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Dugg right here — please join me!
And this Labor Secretary-designate is going to be confirmed.
I really hope that you are right.
Who is the dork playing games with holds? Forget National office Dork the Hispanic vote is not going for you ever if we find out!
The modern GOP, cheap hold up artists.
Damned right Teddy.
Obama is just about to find how important ‘post-partisan’ is to his opponents (and I am not necessarily talking about Republicans). It’s time to brute them into shape, a la “I won.”
Dugg
I have heard this is a result of Solis stand on efca.
There is no Republican in Teamwork.
That could be interesting.
Republicans don’t do bipartisan. Obama needs to warm up the steamroller.
Hastily announced town halls. Use some of that DNC scratch, show some leg.
The public wants a massive effort, and they are waiting for this guy to act. Once he has most of his team in place… RoadTrip.
I think the Zamboni is more fun.
Seasonally appropriate, as well. He just needs to keep reminding them that he won and that the Democrats in Congress won. His policies will get enacted regardless. If they play nice he might throw them a bone. If not, he will cut them off at the knees and bury them.
Teddy, do you think if the President (I can’t believe how that sounds) hit in, say, Ohio and Florida and Indiana, that he could not summon the pressure needed to quell those critters? Get the rest of his appointments and a better deal on the stim? That’s what those campaign lists were for.
Good lord. McCain will behave as a child until the day he dies.
Evening Teddy!
a really OLD child!
Yup. Obama’s got something nobody else does…
If all else fails use a chipper.
But still spoiled and pissy. Just as he always has been. I’m thinking Obama’s learning a lesson about bipartisanship.
I think if they continue obstructing (and they will) that he needs to hammer them on the fact that their policies have failed disastrously for the past 8 years and putting partisan politics above the interests of the country and the American people.
McCain knows since Janet is now with DHS he doesn’t have to worry about 2010…. there is no one here that I know of that has the chops to beat the crap out of him in a race except her…….
Can’t she school someone? People will still be pissed in 2010.
Thus ends the ‘post-partisan’ dream. It was bound to go away, better to beat them over the head with it instead of letting himself be plundered for 18 months before abandoning it.
Well, yeah, of course it is, but that makes no sense. Obama is not going to choose a Labor Secretary opposed to EFCA.
Frankly that dream was stillborn long ago. Modern Republicans do not do bipartisan and not even their disastrous showing in the past two elections can persuade them of the error of their ways.
Well, if we could find out whose hold it is (hello, Ted & Harry?) then Obama could turn up the heat. It’s important to remember that he’s got names and emails in every state, not only the states he won.
hiya Betsy
Actually yesterday the AZ Democratic Party had their Bi-annual election of officers and we had a sweep of all the offices with progressives. It is the first election that has NOT been influenced and Janet’s hand picked DLC crony forced on us as chair.
How are you my friend?
Better. Yeah.
Dr. Dean would be of some help…
And he should start using them yesterday. Light a fire under all of the Rethugs on the committee.
I can’t read Obama’s mind any better than anyone else here. But the possibility that he’ll abandon postpartisanship and smack down misbehaving Rs seems completely inconsistent with who he claims to be. I’ve been thinking a bit about the generation change, that his experience with the Rs is so limited and that he really thinks the way the boomers fight is silly. Thus, I expect he’ll keep trying for quite awhile, at the expense of a lot of what liberals would want.
“Growth is deadThe days of 5%, even 3% GDP growth are over. In a country that produces virtually nothing, and in a country in which 72% of GDP is a measure of debt-based consumption, growth is a misnomer, a fallacy, an illusion created by those in power to perpetuate a system that makes them rich whilst simultaneously robbing the rest of us of our futures. Any attempt to “return” to the days of growth is but a lie—it is fighting against the realities of the current: sure suicide. And the choice of a few to fight against this reality eventually leads the rest of us into the waters against our will. Many of us are willing to accept smaller lifestyles, smaller homes, less in the way of uniquely American extravagances. But many are not. And of course the majority of those who are not willing to accept such new realities are the ones on Capitol Hill and on Wall Street, and they’re killing us. They are going to fight for their mansions and HD TVs and their lattes at Starbucks and their 8-cylinder sedans and their central air-conditioning , and when they eventually drown—which is mathematically inevitable—they’re going to take us down with them.”
“Banking is dead. Banks have been exposed to the world as usurious middlemen who play absolutely no productive role in society. In a smaller world, communities will develop their own “banking” solutions to help facilitate commercial interactions without levying useless, criminal interest rates upon participants in the system. Attempts to revive and save the global banking system will be met with violent revolution.”
Has Obama unleashed Rahm yet?
“Money as debt is dead This is the biggie. In the same vain as #2, the system of “money as debt”, the system that has brought us to the point of societal collapse, is also dead in the water. And yet everything we hear from the powers that be is that our economic recovery is entirely based upon our ability to not only get the system of credit and lending and debt flowing again, but to find ways to expand this system so that “growth” can occur. Of course this is the penultimate delusion, as lending and debt and credit have absolutely nothing to do with growth; in fact, the current system of “money as debt” is productive of collapse rather than growth in that it is a total fallacy; growth based upon consumption of goods and services whilst simultaneously all capital is summarily destroyed.
A system based upon lending and credit and debt implies several apparent realities: (a) That the economy experiences growth, and the subsequent creation of “wealth”, based predominantly upon charging interest on the monies created and lent out, (b) that the system functions when those receiving said loans are both willing and able to service both the principle and interest of those loans, and (c) that the system perpetuates “successfully” when the exponential growth of debt can be serviced through the production of concomitant amounts of fungible capital. But as has been demonstrated on several previous occasions, the aforementioned characteristics that drive a “money-as-debt” society are fatally contradictory. Maintaining serviceable debt in an economy in which REAL growth is a fallacy is a mathematical impossibility. It is, as the metaphor demonstrates, suicidal.”
SanderO, you have links and/or attributions for the above? Much appreciated.
I don’t know about that. He came up through the Chicago Machine and they play hardball politics there. I think he learned to do the bipartisan thing in the Illinois legislature, where it is generally necessary. We will see, though I think I have seen some encouraging signs.
I agree with both of you. Hardball ChiTown-style, but also strongly Democratic. Remember his Republican opponent, Alan Keyes? He would likely lose to a potted plant before Keyes.
What’s that from, SanderO?
So this is happy news, I assume?
I agree. And gee, it seems so long ago already, but which issue was it that he just shut down the talk, like hey, I’ll play nice but I’m not going to allow you to talk smack about me…dang, it was something more important than Ayres…
were kind of screwed as there are Republicans in every major office except the AG and they have huge majorities in our senate & house…. there was a McCain coattail here….. candidates that polled even or beating repugs….. lost….. OR maybe funny stiff with the election, after all Sheriff Joe’s deputies guard the ballots….
Judd Gregg (NH) 11.2.10
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC) 11.2.10
Johnny Isakson (GA) 11.2.10
John McCain (AZ) 11.2.10
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Lisa Murkowski (AK) 11.2.10
Pat Roberts (KS)
Of these charmers, only Alexander, Hatch and Roberts don’t have terms expiring in ‘10.
that’s a lot of needs, Teddy!
I think we may have the leverage to make these asshats play nice. Of course they may think the only way to mobilize their base is to loudly oppose everything.
“Republican obstruction” needs to become a daily talking point for Democrats with a voice in the media. Keep reminding the “Yes we can” majority of American voters that Republicans are just getting in the way of getting the public business done.
another “need” LOL
Shrinking since at least ‘06, and inaction by obstruction, if handled competently, will shrink it further.
This really is unAmerican, and they need to be made to pay, since we seem to be cutting them slack on the last 8 years of it.
yeah, remember what Lee Iacocca used to say on his Chrysler ads?
You can lead, follow, or get out of the way…
Yes, but republicans have lost their shine. Dems have to remind people in’10 who started (and obstructed Obama?) wrt this economic mess.
where did everyone go?
DEms need to make the Rethugs own the economic collapse. Every time they complain or winge about tax cuts the Dems need to point out that these are the same policies that created this mess.
My though as well.
Current budget being proposed cuts 40% from the school system, today there was a protest at the capital which included both Dems & Republicans. Several Republican school superintendents are fighting this. AZ is 49th in the nation for education, great way to put us at 51st….
Dems finally have a competent media operation. I hope they are spooling it up for battle.
why should we have things like secret holds on congress anyway? It seems to me if there is any single lesson we need to leearn from the last eight years it’s that our elected government needs to be transparent and accountable. Byzantine parliamentary maneuvers should go out along with secret vice presidential energy taskforce meetings, secret prisons and secret extrajudicial trials of alleged enemies of the state.
Good evening all — I’m watching “Across the Universe” again. The Beatles music is so wonderful.
Agreed. You should have to publicly put your name on everything you do.
Chris!
I’m waiting for the right peaceful couple of hours to watch it.
I should go to bed. New semester and a whole new crop of young minds to corrupt tomorrow. Take care all and keep their feet to the fire.
evening christine.
i watched 3 episodes of west wing tonight. couldn’t bear to watch during the 2nd term of chimpy
nite doctor
heading off to bed…… have a good evening…… again…Ginger works wonders on the nausea from the chemo….. Nite everyone
sleep well Dr d!
Secret holds do seem very BushCheneyian. I think we Democrats should make an effort to get our esteemed Majority Leader to end them. If a Senator wants a hold, make him/her put his/her name on it. Why not be proud of your obstruction? Surely you’re not ashamed of it?
I agree. Dems need to put it squarely where it belongs, and unapologetically.
newt,
It brings the 60’s right back into one’s face.
that’s great
nite katymine
I *should* go to bed too. But I won’t!
Hey Betsy,
The last year was hard to watch, but we sure did love the West Wing.
Night, sweets.
The Secretary of State, the Secretary of HHS, the Vice President and the President support EFCA. Why hold up the Labor Secretary, where the EFCA matters most?
Watch it here
I have been on a sort of Beatles jag recently, having stumbled onto the rooftop concert rehearsal tapes (they are amazing!), so anything by, but not performed by The Beatles, is a bit of a stretch. But I’ll come around soon.
At first I thought that it was campy, but I’ve come to love it. Sure wish I’d saved those Beatles cards…
I don’t have any of the memorabilia except original vinyl. Some playable (on very special occasions, like when Scooter got convicted), some not.
Heh,heh, “like when Scooter got convicted” — that, newt, is indeed a very special occasion.
I bet Harriet Grant (Mrs Scooter) has been chewing on some scenery since Inauguration Day came and went without a pardon.
Still don’t get the “naive post-partisan” meme re Obama. To me it feels more like a very canny strategy: EVERYONE would love post partisanship if it actually could happen, and most Americans who aren’t as savvy as FDL regulars, for example, think that it’s an ideal worth striving for. If Obama could achieve it, if Repubs actually cooperated, great! Not gonna happen? Okay. Then some moderates peel off and weaken the GOP? Great!
Not gonna happen? Well give them enough rope, let their idiotic obstructionist policies get plenty of air, then label them as such using the unprecedented bully pulpit he has and pass the legislation without them, if possible. Great!
At this point, no one can say he hasn’t made a good faith effort to include them in the process, giving him plenty of cover and by the way — fulfilling his campaign promises of bipartisanship. Everyone thought he was a mealy-mouthed kumbaya singer up against Hillary and McCain, and what happened? He didn’t even NEED to hit back. They literally punched themselves out because he didn’t flinch from his stated principle and people saw it. His words actually matched his deeds.
His first actions in office have been in the right direction thus far — why would he fatally compromise on something as big as the economic package when he’s demonstrating smarts on EFCA, on emissions, on Guantanamo — JUST to ‘appease’ Repubs? He’s got a 71 percent approval rating. He’s got the wind at his back.
I can’t imagine that he and his team haven’t been gaming out mulitple scenarios here. There’s no reason, with the hand he’s got, that his first thoughts would be abject capitulation before he’s even been in office a week.
I know many of you think this is yet another ‘HE’S SMARTER THAN US!!’ post, but really, do you have to be that smart to work this out? Anybody who read a few books on strategy could do it, and I’m pretty sure that both Obama and Axelrod have.
It didn’t take, sure. And we always knew that was possible, damned likely in fact. But still… That was the last time I drank tequila.
So if Shooter gets snagged, it’s Revolver, Rubber Soul, Abbey Road and Herradura.
So, Teddy,
Perhaps a book deal might be in the works — boy I’d love that day.
Oh, Rubber Soul, nice!
OT — Cuddly Rumsfeld, shudder!!!
Indeed. Forgot about her.
late late nite upstairs
That’s really good news. But I didn’t know Napolitano had DLC ties.
Bob in HI
Formerly of AZ