Veto

Well, Congress finally did it. They passed something opposing Trump’s power grab by condemning this fake national emergency. Of course, Trump immediately vetoed it. But at least they forced him to do that. Will Congress override the veto? Doubtful but at least they got this far for a change.

To often, the checks and balances built into the system are circumvented or not allowed to work. McConnell doesn’t want a vote on something in the Senate, they don’t vote. This was one of the few times he didn’t get a choice in the matter. The House recently passed a resolution, 420 to 0; ie even the Republicans voted for it, calling for the Mueller Report to be made public. McConnell won’t even hold a vote on it.

Turns out, Trump isn’t the only one with veto power. Unfortunately, while Trumps could be overturned, there’s no real system in place for vetoing McConnell, or Pelosi for that matter. Aside from replacing them as leaders of their chamber but that’s never done. I don’t even know the rules for it.

There’s always next election but we’ve talked about how messed up the election system is. Those in the Republican party mostly like that McConnell does things like this. They don’t want to vote against measures like releasing the Mueller Report or condemning the national emergency because their constituents support those things. So they’d much rather not vote. But that’s their goddamn job.

Now, I know requiring ever measure put before Congress to receive a full floor vote would be chaos. There are so many things that legitimately die in committee. Voting on everything would mean nothing is scrutinized very well. But requiring everything passed by the other chamber requiring a full vote? That doesn’t seem unreasonable.