At 6 PM today, I posted an insight explaining that while Majority Leader McConnell successfully pushed through approximately 65 of the President’s appointees pending before the Senate, the Chatterjee and Powelson nominations were NOT among them. Several other key positions, including FCC and CFTC Commissioners were cleared. These nominations were made “on block,” meaning there was no individual vote or floor debate as to each. It also meant that the Senate Democrats consented to those nominations. I sent the post, jumped in my car and headed home, thinking that we’d be without a quorum for several more weeks until the Senate reconvened.
Shortly before 7 PM, the Senate did push Chatterjee and Powelson through! The Washington Examiner and Politico separately reported that Senate Democrats were holding up the FERC nominations. The reports also indicated Democrats were first waiting for the official nomination of Richard Glick to materialize, which it did. Apparently, content with promises that the Glick nomination would be brought to vote, the Chatterjee and Powelson nominations were brought to the floor of a largely empty Senate chamber.
So ends the drama of the quorum-less FERC and my one hour of being #FAKENEWS.
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