Quote (Goomshill @ 2 Feb 2022 20:10)
https://www.businessinsider.com/sen-lujan-stroke-democrats-majority-senate-empowers-gop-2022-2As long as Senator Lujan remains hospitalized he can't vote in the Senate, making it a 50-49 Republican majority instead of 51-50 Democrat majority. Any legislation or lets say a supreme court nomination will have to wait or get Republican support. The Senate has no proxy voting, as Ted Kennedy demonstrated in 2009. Technically the Democrats have a 49-48 majority while Romney and Hoeven stay on Covid quarantine, but if Democrats schedule an important vote they could choose to break quarantine, while Lujan isn't going anywhere, and it would be a dick move to their own guy. If Lujan winds up retiring, Gov Grisham could appoint a Democratic replacement, but then trigger a special election that could lose the seat after only 2/6 years.
With any luck, Lujan will just have one of those "I had a stroke and now I'm back and ready to go" recoveries, before anything important can reach the senate again.
Has it really come to the point where we glee over personal tragedy and health issues just because of a temporary gain in partisan power?
Also, I see no way the senate gop exploits this situation to actually block the confirmation of Breyer's successor. Institutionalists like Romney, Collins, Graham or Murkowski would definitely provide the missing vote. It would also be foolish, politically speaking, for the GOP to energize the Dem base with antics like these ahead of the midterms. It is indeed the final nail in the coffin for Biden's legislative agenda though.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 2 2022 01:30pm