Like Father, Like Son

BooMan takes a look at the KY Senate race for Jim Bunning's seat in 2010 and Republican candidate Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul.

Take a look at any number of House roll calls and you'll notice something a bit odd. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul are very frequently listed as voting with the opposition, even though they are ideologically on the far wings of their respective parties. Kucinich is unlikely to vote for any defense spending, no matter which party crafted the bill, but he takes any number of idiosyncratic stands against his own party. Ron Paul is unlikely to vote for any exercise of federal government power, and he doesn't care if it is the Republicans who are pushing that power.

In the House, these tendencies mean next to nothing. But the Senate works by unanimous consent. And a Senator Kucinich or a Senator Ron Paul (using the same strategies) would be the least likely members to grant their consent. If Rand Paul is like his father, he'd probably become the most obstructive senator in the history of that body. A single senator, by repeatedly refusing to grant their consent to proceed to the next order of business, can dramatically reduce how much work gets done in the Senate in any given year. When a senator refuses their consent, it takes sixty votes to override their objection, and it takes a couple of days before the Senate is allowed to vote for the override. This is what is colloquially referred to as a Hold (which need not be secret). When a senator objects to a nomination, for example, they signal this by telling the Majority Leader that they will refuse to give their consent for a vote on their confirmation. The reason this so often results in killing off a nomination is that it costs a couple of valuable legislative days to overcome their objection, and with dozens of nominees, only the most urgent are worth the effort.

In other words, Rand Paul would effectively shut down the government from 2011-2017, and we'd have my current home of Kentucky to thank for it. And that's perfectly acceptable to a lot of folks around here.