How the Senate Stopped Pretending

T who run for the United States Senate overlaps strongly with the kind of people who like to make grandstanding speeches about the sweep of history and the decline of democracy. Senators were in full form today during the close of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination hearings. “There are very few written rules around here. The most important rules are the unwritten ones. Most important of those rules is: You keep your word,” declared Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016 and Republicans refused to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination, the party promised “that never would a Supreme Court nominee be considered during an election year,” Blumenthal said. “You are breaking that word.” Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota summed