CMC Congress Course: Senate Procedure for Props on the Floor

ABOUT THIS BLOG

I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:

To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
To post relevant news items or videos.

There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Senate Procedure for Props on the Floor

Today, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma brought a snowball to the Senate floor to make a point as he argued against climate change. Inhofe is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. He said, "we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record. I ask the Chair, do you know what this is? It's a snowball--just from outside here. So it's very, very cold out."

The purpose of Inhofe's demonstration was to prove his belief that human activity is not causing global warming. Senate procedure requires a unanimous vote for the use of a prop on the floor, which was granted to him retroactively.