A lack of quorum caused the Senate Judiciary...
A lack of quorum caused the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone its National Security Agency oversight hearing scheduled for Thursday. “Apparently this is another example of how we try to block the president’s judges and I'm sorry for that,” said…
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Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., when he recognized the committee was one senator short of quorum and it appeared only Democratic senators had shown up. In the past three weeks, Senate Republicans have blocked three presidential court nominees, said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., during remarks on the floor Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/19Lf71I). After Leahy recessed the hearing, he made his way to the Senate floor and a few hours later the upper chamber voted 52-48 to change the nomination rules to allow most judicial and executive branch nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority vote, instead of the 60-vote level previously required (http://1.usa.gov/18rm7EU). The hearing had been scheduled last week, well before it was known the Senate would be voting on rules changes Thursday. After briefly considering rescheduling the hearing for Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, the committee pushed it back to sometime in December, said a spokeswoman for the Computer and Communications Industry Association. CCIA President Ed Black was to testify during the hearing, along with representatives from the NSA, the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.