this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
732 points (98.5% liked)
Political Memes
12401 readers
1533 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Can't vote from home.
Other senators have been "voting on his behalf" because apparently that's legal?
That is flatly incorrect for floor votes, only for committee business. While there are three different methods for the US Senate to take a vote, all three require the physical presence of the senator to do so. These rules have remained unchanged since 1798.
Unanimous consent is technically another, but it requires actual unanimous consent, so it is rarely used for anything of importance.
McConnell himself was one of the people being hardline about forbidding proxy/non-physical voting during covid, and the reason there is no absentee voting in the Senate when it came up again, which it does from time to time.
I never thought I'd be grateful, but I guess it's a good thing they never allowed the Herman Cain crowd to perform official acts.
I should have specified that the voting on his behalf is occurring in committee votes, which is still highly screwed up, but Johnson could just fill in his spot at any time anyways.
That is . . . questionable. A committee has a certain number of chairs; whether or not that chair gets an acting substitute is at the discretion of the committee rules and more often than not, the committee chair. Keep in mind that committee and subcommittee assignments are worked toward for years, over the span of multiple elections, and McConnell's own seats are among the most powerful and highly coveted, like Rules, which he chairs.
So sometimes they just sit open, and in this particular case McConnell is one of the most powerful senators in Congress who has friends that are rabidly guarding his assignments, not just for his sake but for purposes of control, with an eye to who will get them if/when an actual vacancy becomes real in legal terms. (They're all lawyers anyway, now turned lawmakers, so it really is all about the letter of the law with them.)
Also, just as a friendly reminder, in the US we have a bicameral (two houses) form of ~~government~~ legislature and Mike Johnson can't do shit in the Senate (the higher house). He's Speaker of the House of Representatives (the lower house). The Senate has different rules and different leaders. Technically it's JD Vance, the vice president of the US, and Chuck Grassley, president pro tempore, but they don't actually have much to do with regular leadership. For leadership in actual day to day business it's the Majority Leader, John Thune, one of McConnell's besties and one of the Republican legislators swearing to have spent 20 minutes on the phone with him after his hospitalization.
Apologies, I know a detailed correction is probably not what you wanted to get back in terms of a reply, but it's worth understanding how the power flows in practice.
Can you tell me where you're getting your information that someone is voting for McConnell in committee? I'd like to know more.
Like most rules, it's almost certain that the fascists make an "unless WE want to" exception.
If the turtle's still alive, that is.