AAA300 said:
JWeinCom said:
No... the people have not spoken. More democratic seats happened to be up that year (21 to 15) and fewer of the seats for democrats had incumbents. The seats up for reelection happened to be largely in the south, Less people tend to vote during election years. And of course, there are many factors that go into the senate races.
Most importantly though, only 1/3 of the seats of Senate ar up at any given time. So, whereas every person had the opportunity to vote for Obama or Romney, only 1/3 of the country had a chance to vote for a senator that year. By the way, the Senate currently has a 14% approval rate. To say people voted to go in a different direction just doesn't really make sense.
In the house, the republicans already had a majority there. So that wasn't a change of direction. The people voted for a republican house in 2012, and also voted for a democratic president, so people's votes for president and congress can be different.
And who the people voted for in the house is irrelevant. Because the house and Senate do not make judicial appointments. That's the president's job in accordance with the constitution. The constitution doesn't say "It's the President's job until year 7" or "it's a president's job unless seats change in congress". It's the president's job. I don't see how the president doing exactly what his job is according to the constitution could be considered hijacking in any way.
The Senate's job is to judge nominees. If they do this in good faith, then fine. But if they, as they have stated they would, simply reject anyone who is suggested, that is hijacking the political process.
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The Senate never has high approval rating so that proves nothing. Everybody disapproves the masses in the Senate/house but yet will approve of there local senators job. It's easy for the president to have better numbers than a faceless Senate. And as for the seats that were up for grab in 2014 the left could have won them back but didn't so stop trying to spin that! The people voted them out for a reason just because the seats were open for election isn't a good excuse for the left to lose control .
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Yeah, actually it's a pretty good reason. If one side has more seats to lose, than that increases the likelyhood that they'll come out behind. And again, that's out of only 1/3 of the country. Plus the seats were mainly located in the south, and fewer incumbents were running from the democrats (incumbents win about 95% of the time or so regardless of party).
So, if you're going to want to throw out the senate approval rating (which is low even by historical standards), then fine. Just don't throw in something just as meaningless to try and give a reason why the president shouldn't do the job according to the constitution, and why the senate should refuse to do theirs. When you vote for a senator, you're voting for who should gain the powers of a Senator. You're not voting to strip the current president of their power.
