Hookers and kittens
From John Jay Hooker:
Obviously, [the Senate’s filibuster rule] is in conflict with Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 2 [of the U.S. Constitution] . . . It is axiomatic that the rules passed by the United States Senate must not violate the Constitution. The whole concept of constitutional government is that the constitution is supreme, and all laws and rules of government must be subordinate.
Therefore, the notion that the Senate can get around voting one way or another, either — up or down — upon the president’s appointment is a concept that violates the Constitution. Were it otherwise, the President’s power to appoint that comes from “we the people,” the ratifiers of the Constitution, could instead be circumvented by the senators who have adopted a rule that violates the Constitution.
Agree with him or not, you’ve got to give credit to JJH for being intellectually consistent.
BTW, my wife was a little girl during the 1970 Tennessee gubernatorial race. That summer she adopted two kittens and named them “John Jay Hooker” and “Winfield Dunn.” Last year I told that story to Governor Dunn and he got a big kick out of it. But I didn’t tell him the rest of the story. Shortly after she named the cats, she discovered that they were both female, so she renamed them after herself: “Mary” and “Catherine”.
