Would the US Senate Once Again Fall into Division?

by Jacob Wong

For the final session of debate for this hearing of the United States Senate, we start with entertaining the Republican Bill submitted by the Majority Party. This Bill is impressively long despite the lack of Senators who have been seen to work on it, mostly consisted of amendments to the original War Powers Resolution to affirm, and even increase the political leeway of the Commander-in-chief.

This Bill was tabled by Senator Marsha Blackburn, who claimed that the current state of the US needs these solutions. Once again, just as before, the Republican statement was met with significant opposition from the Minority Party. Much of the Senators were quick to dart up their placards to make blithering against speeches, while the Bill was supported and backed up by Senators Cotton, Rubio and (in a show of defiance at previous discontent from his own Party,) Schumer - the Minority Leader himself. This can be seen as a dishonest pattern, seeing as the Minority Leader has had a consistent history of ‘strategic’ anti-Party votes.

Senator Sanders claimed the Republican Senators to be akin to ‘Hansel and Gretchen’, seemingly rushing into solidarity with their Party without fully considering the consequences. The Bill’s content itself, besides amendments to the original resolution, establishes a 30-man committee of various party members. These solutions claim to address executive transparency, although Sanders claims that there has never been a transparency issue.

We were able to secure another round of interviews. We asked Senator Warren on which grounds compromise could be achieved, and she continued a rather mediatory stance in that a balance must be struck in this Bill between congressional authority and Presidential powers. Senator Coons, however, boasted an entirely separate stance, stating that ‘this Bill entirely fails to address the questions we actually need to answer’. 

Senators Murphy and Sanders were also asked to outline what they believed were the largest deterrents from supporting this Bill. Senator Murphy pointed to the ambiguity in sunset clauses, claiming that the repercussions were insufficient, while Sanders re-iterated the blanket uselessness of the Bill.

Senators McConnell and Rubio defended the Bill, mainly referring to the new world order, and the need for urgency and Presidential consolidation. Ultimately, Bill debate came to an end prior to voting with Senator Warren calling for a filibuster. 

The filibuster lasted around 10 minutes, comprising of Senator Warren’s 3-minute contemplative discussion on why Donald Trump was so orange, Senator Rubio and Coons reading the Declaration of Independence, of which the former did so in a Scouse accent, and a guest from SC making a motivational speech on how Edison invented the light… bulb. Unfortunately the filibuster came to an abrupt end.

At the end of the day, the Bills still need to be voted upon. Despite the best efforts of the 4-man Republican Party, the Democrat’s overwhelming attendance in the council led to the Bill not passing, so all good things must come to an end. In conclusion, we saw two bills tabled and one Bill passed - frankly, from the Minority Party.

Some may deem this session as a success due to the new regulations established upon the President and the executive branch, while critics would deem the new laws as restrictive and ‘unconstitutional’ as they have in the past. At the end of the day, it’s night time, and as we see our Senators disperse to their home states, we hope that our government has delivered for our citizens.