Ventura was so sickened by wellstone's political rally (aka memorial) last night, that he and his wife walked out.  He was going to appoint a democrat to preserve the balance in the senate, but now he says he'll look for an independent.

[url]http://www.kstp.com/article/view/53057/[/url]

BWAAHAAHAAHAA!!

[img]http://img.kstp.com/img/GovonMem1.jpg[/img]

[size=5][b]SWEEEEEET![/b][/size=5]

The demoncrats have truly sunk to new lows.  

Ya know, this is the first time I hear of this.  The Liberal press must want to keep it under wraps....

Imagine that....The Dems using the memorial for a dead congressman as a political soapbox.

I'll say it again. THEY HAVE NO SHAME!!!
Jimno

Independent sounds suspiciously like liberal to me.

Yes, the link I posted was the only one I could find at any of the local media websites.  There was plenty of mention about how coleman (the republican running against wellstone, now mondale) is starting up his campaign again today, after taking a break when wellstone died.  I don't know if that is an attempt to make him look callous, or what.  Very interesting that no one is mentioning how the governor of our state got up and walked out in disgust.



To [b]NevadaARShooter[/b]:
In case you didn't know, governor ventura is an independent.  He was elected that way, he didn't jump ship like jeffords.  Anyway, it doesn't matter how liberal the independent appointee would be.  If I understand things correctly, the senate would then be made up of 2 independents, 49 dems, and 49 republicans.  Cheney would get the tie breaker, and the republicans would again control the senate.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

What are the rules regarding delaying the transfer of control?  It seems to me that the democrats would not have to turn over the senate right away.  In fact, they might be able to hold on until the newly elected are back in place.

Jumpin' Jim Jeffords is the other Ind, after switching from R, and he voted for Dashle for senate majority leader.  If whom ever Ventura appoints is a liberal Ind he will support that POS democRAT Dashle.  Only if the guy votes Repub would there be a tie which would be broken by the VP.

NevadaARShooter,
I'm not sure you get it.  Even if the guy is a liberal, as long as it's 49 DemocRATS to 49 Republicans, the Repubs will have control of the Senate and will be able to move judiciary appointments out of committee (among a shitload of other things) and there will be a confirmation vote. As it is, NOTHING is making it out of committee because of the DemocRATS.

SJSAMPLE, I'm not sure you get it.  NevadaARShooter is correct.  The independents don't get excluded from the votes on selecting the Majority Leader and committee chairman.  Being members of the Senate, they get to vote, too.  So it does matter which way the independents vote.  In Jeffords' case, we know.  How the Minnesotan would vote would be an important question.

This all assumes that there are any important votes left between now and the installation of the newly elected senators.  Does anyone know when the new senators are installed and whether the Congress is in session between now and then?

When Jeffords jumped, he didn't change the way he voted, he merely changed the ratio of DemocRATS to Republicans.  The party with the majority gets to select committee assignments, so the Repubs can move assignments as they wish.  There are more than enough votes (on the DemocRAT side) to get the vast majority of judicial appointments confirmed.

No, he's not.  You aren't getting it.  They are talking about who controls the senate, not how they vote.  It makes a difference on who controls the senate, not just how they vote.  The Dems control the senate right now, because they have the majority.  Remember Jeffers(sp?)? He went from Rep. to Ind. which gave the Dems the majority, not just because of how Jeffers voted.  Get it????

Remember, guys, this is a disagreement among [i]friends[/i].  We all want the same thing, and I certainly didn't mean to imply that anyone was ignorant or anything like that.

I can't find anything so far in the Senate rules about how the Majority Leader is selected, so it may well be that that vote is taken independently in each party's caucus.  However, the Senate rules are very clear that committee chairmen are chosen by the [b]whole[/b] Senate.  See [url]http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule24.htm[/url].  The Senate rules require an organizing resolution to choose committee chairmen.  I can't find the resolution that chose the current Senate committee chairmen, but the one that chose the chairmen for January, 2001, was [url=http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:sr7ats.txt]S. Res. 7[/url], which was "agreed to by the Senate".  There was no roll call vote because the outcome was negotiated ahead of time, but you can bet if they tried to exclude the independents from this process, they would ask for a roll call vote.  The Senate can't pass resolutions and exclude Senators from voting on them because of their party.  It's true that all the real negotiations happen before the vote, so the vote on the resolution is meaningless, but that's only because everyone knows how everyone would vote if there was a real vote.  It's not because Independents are excluded from voting on Senate organizing resolutions.

The Majority Leader is chosen by the party caucus:

"The floor leaders of each party today are elected by a majority vote of all the Senators of the said party assembled in a conference or, as it sometimes is called, a caucus."
(from [url]http://www.senate.gov/learning/learn_leaders_leadership_responsible.html[/url])

However, Jim Jeffords is a member of the Senate Democratic caucus, even though he is not a member of the Democratic party.

The resolution authorizing the selection of the current Senate committe chairman was [url=http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:sr120ats.txt]S. Res. 120[/url].

More from Ventura:

[b]"Democrats should hang their heads in shame"[/b]