To the chagrin of Republican leaders, a number of GOP senators decided there was little purpose in showing up for a two-day work week, choosing to remain back home and on trips abroad instead of traveling to Capitol Hill to cast votes and attend committee meetings when the Senate convened Wednesday and Thursday this week.
Some reasoned they wouldn’t miss much—after all, it’s supposed to be August recess right now, anyway. But Republicans emerged from a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday frustrated that three key absences delayed the confirmation of 12 of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, which was Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s primary motive for canceling parts of the recess in the first place.
It takes nine members present in the committee to establish a sufficient quorum and move forward with nominees. According to a Senate GOP aide, seven Republicans showed up to the Thursday morning executive meeting: committee chairman Chuck Grassley, along with Sens. Orrin Hatch, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Mike Crapo, Ben Sasse, and John Kennedy.
Missing were Ted Cruz, Jeff Flake, and Mike Lee, the aide said.
Cruz actually was in Washington, D.C., and his nonattendance has yet to be explained. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Flake is still in Africa, despite previously telling a reporter that he would be returning this week. And Lee was not in town, either. “Sen. Lee has a near perfect Judiciary Committee attendance record and his absence Thursday did not change any outcomes,” his spokesman said.
But if any one of those senators had shown up, a sufficient quorum would have been present, and the nominees would have been able to move to the next step of the confirmation process. The top Democrat on the panel, Dianne Feinstein, always stays as a courtesy, meaning eight members were present. Senators rotate in and out as some have to attend different meetings, but Democrats are careful not to exceed eight members at any given time, placing the burden on the Republicans to put up a quorum.
In the Judiciary Committee, the minority party often uses procedural tools to prolong consideration time by requiring an intervening week in between placing nominees on the agenda and actually holding a vote to advance them. Because there were not enough members around to override that strategy and cut short the time needed to move the nominees — two circuit court appointments and 10 district court slots— the earliest the judges will be able to advance will be on Aug. 30, a Republican Senate aide told THE WEEKLY STANDARD, instead of when senators return to work next week.
Members were notified on Monday night that the markup would be taking place, the aide said, and such meetings are commonly held on Thursdays. It wasn’t a surprise to anybody.
“Republicans had one job this week: show up to move judges. Nobody is going to miss their made-for-TV moment in September when Kavanaugh is here—everybody ought to show up for work in August too,” he said.
Frustration boiled over into the Senate GOP conference lunch on Thursday afternoon, during which McConnell scolded members about the situation, The Hill reports. “McConnell warned fellow Republican senators at a private lunch meeting Thursday that he would have trouble moving legislation next week if the attendance remains as abysmal as it was this week. He explained they were able to move business on the Senate floor yesterday and today only because they had locked in procedural agreements with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in advance,” Alexander Bolton wrote.
In total, seven Republican senators (not including John McCain, who is battling cancer back home in Arizona) did not cast any votes this week: Lamar Alexander, James Inhofe, Jeff Flake, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Thom Tillis, and Pat Toomey. Two Democrats weren’t present for any votes either—Patty Murray and Dick Durbin.
As Business Insider’s Joe Perticone points out, Lee and Tillis both signed a letter in June calling for McConnell to scrap the August recess in the first place.
“We simply recognize that making America great again requires a certain time commitment. Delivering meaningful results was never assumed to be easy, but the millions of Americans who placed their confidence in our leadership expect our full and best effort,” the letter read.
