What happens if the Senate is supposed to meet and there aren't any senators around? The show must go on, as the chamber demonstrated Friday morning, even if a staff aide has to wield the gavel. Nancy Erickson, a Democratic aide who serves as secretary of the Senate, stood in Friday for a tardy Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. It turns out that Senate rules provide for such contingencies, however rare they may be. The secretary of the Senate is an officer elected by the full Senate to help manage the place and has the right under the rules to preside when there are no senators available. A sheepish Lincoln, who said she was victim of a slow-running clock, turned up minutes after the 11a.m. session was to begin. "My clock said five 'til," Lincoln said. Friday's Senate meeting was one of a spate of pro forma sessions designed to block President Bush from making so-called recess appointments of administration officials without requiring Senate confirmation. It was the first time in more than 60 years that someone other than a senator had to fill in. Back in 1947, a spat between the parties blocked the Senate from naming a presiding officer known as the president pro tempore. Then, Leslie Biffle, a confidante of President Harry Truman who was the secretary of the Senate, filled the chair instead. Continued... |