^^^ The
above collage of white men over 40, who just happen to be anti-U.S. Government
Republicans, could be a large part of Republican control of the United States Senate re chairmanships of committees
with subpoena power if Democrats do not stop them on Tuesday, November 4th
at ballot boxes across the country!
Senators
Orrin Hatch, Thad Cochran, John McCain, Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, Jeff
Sessions, Richard Shelby and Chuck Grassly are all potential chairmen per a
great food-for-thought article in Politico (which leans right and has more insight
into the GOP than I do)!
“Anti-U.S.
Government Republicans,” by the way, are defined by me for me as:
Republicans
who do not adhere to some of my favorite, basic concepts of the United States
Constitution ~ Compromise (not my way or the highway); United States (not 50
sovereign states); and The Common Good (not “starve the beast” and the
surpluses will “trickle down”).
Focused
on the point of its article, Politico makes it’s guesses and provides some
grist for the mill as to how the potential future chairmen might use their
positions of power but it does not highlight the power of the subpoena, nor does it provide the same grist for the mill as to how the potential past chairmen have used
their positions of power.
So,
let’s do just a bit of that: First, defining Senate subpoena power and Second,
using five Senate Committees as examples, demonstrating who/what might be lost if
the Senate majority goes from Democratic to Republican.
Senate subpoena power (or House investigations on steroids!):
Any of
the above referenced committees, including subcommittees thereof, or any
special committees created by the senate, may have the powers of subpoena, the
power to administer oaths, and the power to issue commissions for the
examination of witnesses in accordance with the provisions of chapter 44.16
RCW. The committee chair shall file with the committee on rules, prior to
issuance of any process, a statement of purpose setting forth the name or names
of those subject to process. The rules committee shall consider every proposed
issuance of process at a meeting of the rules committee immediately following
the filing of the statement with the committee. The process shall not be issued
prior to consideration by the rules committee. The process shall be limited to
the named individuals and the committee on rules may overrule the service on an
individual so named.
Five Random Senate Committee examples (or some of what Democrats risk losing!):
The SenateAppropriations Committee has jurisdiction over all discretionary
spending legislation in the Senate.
Currently under the leadership of Chairwoman Mikulski
who, could be replaced by GOP-ER Thad Cochran:
was first appointed to the Committee in 1987 became the first woman and first Marylander to chair the
Committee on December 20, 2012.
.
Senator Mikulski graduated from Mt. St. Agnes
College and earned a Masters of Social Work from the University of
Maryland.
Determined to make a
difference, she began her career in social work helping at-risk children and
educating seniors about Medicare. Social work evolved into community
activism when Mikulski successfully organized communities to defeat a proposed
16-lane highway through Baltimore's Fells Point.
Senator Mikulski has a
long record of public service, starting with her election in 1971 to the
Baltimore City Council. In 1976, she was elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives, where she represented Maryland’s 3rd District for ten
years.
She became the first
Democratic woman Senator elected in her own right in 1986 and in 2012, Senator
Mikulski became the longest serving woman in the history of the United States
Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_Appropriations
TheSenate Budget Committee is responsible for drafting Congress’s annual budget plan and monitoring action of the budge for the Federal Government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_Appropriations
TheSenate Budget Committee is responsible for drafting Congress’s annual budget plan and monitoring action of the budge for the Federal Government.
Currently under the
leadership of Chairwoman Murray who, could be replaced by GOP-ER Jeff Sessions:
was originally known
for her work on education and children’s issues, she has become a leading
figure on the nation's budget, transportation, border and port security,
healthcare, economic development and veteran's issues. Senator Murray is
serving her fourth term in the U.S. Senate as a member of the Democratic
Leadership.
In 2013, Senator
Murray became the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. She has consistently
fought for budgets that work for families and communities, cut spending
responsibly, and call on the wealthiest Americans
and biggest corporations to pay their fair share. As the chair of the
committee, she is committed to bringing more Americans into the budget process,
giving them a seat at the table to share their stories and budget priorities.
Patty Murray never
planned to enter politics. But in the 1980’s, when a state politician told her
she “couldn’t make a difference,” Murray led a grassroots coalition of 13,000
parents to save a local preschool program from budget cuts. She went on to
serve on the local school board, and in 1988 was elected to the Washington
State Senate.
In 1992, Murray ran
for the United States Senate as a voice for Washington families who were not
being heard in the Senate. Dramatically outspent, Murray ran a grassroots
campaign of family, friends, supporters, and public interest groups to beat a
10-year veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives and became the first woman
to represent Washington state in the U.S. Senate. Senator Murray was re-elected
in 1998, 2004, and 2010 and is Washington’s senior Senator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_the_Budget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_the_Budget
TheSenate Finance Committee is responsible for matters related to
taxation and other revenue measures, generally, including health programs under
the Social Security Act (notably Medicare and Medicaid) and reciprocal trade
agreements, etc.
Currently under the leadership of chairman Ron Wyden who, could be replaced by
GOP-ER Orrin Hatch :
believes the nation’s biggest challenges can only be
solved by what he calls “principled bipartisanship,” solutions that allow all
parties to stay true to their respective principles while taking the best ideas
from all sides.
In 2010, he authored the first comprehensive bipartisan
tax reform bill in more than 25 years. His plan would lower rates, eliminate
loopholes and tax breaks for special interests, and simplify the tax code so
that individuals and families can file a one-page tax return.
Wyden has taken the lead on policies that are helping to
grow the economy in areas like improved infrastructure through his Build
America Bonds program, micro and nano-technology, e-commerce, and incentives
for cleaner sources of energy.
As former chair of the Finance Committee’s Subcommittee
on International Trade, Ron fought to ensure America’s ability to compete in a
free and fair global marketplace.
He served as the director of Oregon Legal Services for
the Elderly from 1977 to 1979 and was a member of the Oregon State Board of
Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators during that same period. He served in
the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until his election to the U.S.
Senate in 1996.
TheSenate Armed Services Committee is responsible for
legislative oversight of the military.
Currently under the leadership of Chairman Carl Levin,
who could be replaced by John McCain, whose:
top priority has been the economic well-being of Michigan
families and policies that would help
American manufacturers compete globally.
Since joining the Senate, he has been a member the Armed
Services Committee. From 2001 to 2003 and again from 2007 to the present, he
has been the committee’s chairman.
He has focused on taking care of the men and
women of our military and their families, supporting much-needed pay raises and improvements
in treatment and other policies for wounded warriors. He opposed the resolution
giving congressional authorization to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, offering an
alternative resolution that would have given time for weapons inspectors to do
their work.
His legal background runs through his career: tough,
vigilant oversight of powerful institutions in government and the private
sector. He has led investigations of the 2008 financial crisis, abusive
credit card practices, the Enron collapse, speculation in energy and food
markets, abusive offshore tax havens and money laundering by corrupt
foreign leaders.
He established an investigative team on the Armed Services
Committee that has probed treatment of detainees in U.S. military custody and
abuses by security contractors in Afghanistan. Whether questioning Wall
Street executives or top generals, he has earned what Congressional Quarterly
called a reputation “for a tough, prosecutorial style of questioning witnesses
at hearings that rarely, if ever, comes across as grandstanding.”
TheSenate Judiciary Committee conducts hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal
judges (including Supreme Court justices) nominated by the president.
The committee also has a broad jurisdiction over matters relating to federal
criminal law, as well as human rights, immigration law, intellectual property
rights, antitrust law, and Internet privacy. It is also Senate procedure that
all proposed Constitutional Amendments pass through the Judiciary Committee.
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Currently under the leadership of Patrick Leahy, who could be replaced by GOP-ER Chuck Grassley:
was elected to the
United States Senate in 1974. Leahy is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, a position he has held since January 2007. He also served as
Chairman from June 2001 through January 2003.
He served for eight years as State's Attorney in Chittenden
County, Vermont.
A former prosecutor, he has championed those
serving in law enforcement, first responders, and victims of crime. He is
the author of the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women Reauthorization
Act of 2011 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which
were signed into law in 2013.
Leahy is a longtime protector of civil rights and civil
liberties. As Chairman, in 2009 he led the effort to pass the Matthew
Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act to broaden federal hate crimes
law so that those targeted because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity or disability would be protected.
In 2011, Leahy chaired the
first-ever congressional hearing on proposals to repeal the Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA. He has also been a steadfast champion for immigration reform,
managing the Senate’s consideration of the Border Security, Economic
Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act in 2013.
Leahy created the Judiciary
Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, now encompassed in
the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, and
has established the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.
Leahy has also been a leading voice in protecting the nation’s
intellectual property and promoting innovation. Chairman Leahy authored the PRO-IP Act, which
was enacted in 2012, to strengthen tools used to prosecute the theft of
American’s intellectual property, and he is a strong proponent of open Internet
rules designed to prevent discrimination against lawful Internet content and
promote competition in the online marketplace.
Leahy has long fought for the protection of privacy rights and
freedom of speech on the Internet. He is the co-founder and co-chair of
the Congressional Internet Caucus.
As a senior member of the Senate, Leahy is one of few Senators
to have voted on the confirmation of every sitting member of the current
Supreme Court.
Personally, I know all I need to know because I know I am not voting for anyone who does not share my view of the United States of America and her processes.
But, if you need to know more, I highly recommend checking the Senate committees through the links provided, reading more about the committees through the Wikipedia links providing and reading about the men Politico is predicting will be in charge of our Senate if Democrats lose it to Republicans on the 4th:
Past and current policy-related biographical information tells a lot about a person.
Then, decide ~ & vote for the party wired for The People not the party wired like this:
G.
(* A shout out to the AP for the collage photograph of Republicans!)
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