Dave's Verse

Republicans in the Senate have filibustered the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. This has never happened before. While there isn't an explicit rule that would prevent Republicans from doing this, it does violate the norms of the Senate's role as the advisor when it comes to cabinet nominations. The reason this is interesting is because the language in the constitution is pretty vague. It just says that the Senate should advise and consent on these nominations. It gives no further guidelines. So what should be the defined role of the Senate here? I'm not going to research the entire history of this issues. In all my readings about the constitutional convention I don't recall this specific issue coming up. But in having a framework for what the different factions at the constitutional convention wanted, I think we can come close to figuring out what they meant the passage to mean. Many of the founders were worried about giving the executive too much ...