Word: voting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...admit defeat on Tower and stubbornly insisted that his nomination be debated before the full Senate. On the morning after the committee turned thumbs down on him, Tower reported to work at his temporary office at the Pentagon. In a meeting convened in Tokyo shortly before the committee vote, Bush forbade his aides even to speculate on possible successors to the Pentagon job. If any violators of that rule could be identified, the President declared, "I would like to kick some serious hide." Though a barrage of calls on Tower's behalf from Quayle in the White House failed...
...odds are poor. To begin with, the White House would have to retain all 45 Republican votes. It might do so, but with difficulty; at least some Republicans are likely to be torn between party loyalty and their dislike of Tower. Then, presuming all 100 Senators voted, Bush would have to win over at least five Democrats to produce a 50-50 tie, which Vice President Quayle could break in Tower's favor. That also looks like a long shot. Aides at week's end could produce the names of only three or four Democratic Senators susceptible to conversion. Besides...
Last Thursday evening Gorey watched it happen again. A Senate aide told him that the Senate Armed Services Committee was about to hold its momentous vote on whether John Tower, the former G.O.P. Senator from Texas, should be the nation's next Secretary of Defense. Gorey hustled over to Room 608 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. But he knew the outcome even before the vote was taken. "After I got there, two Senators, Republicans John McCain and Pete Wilson, arrived," Gorey recalls. "I could see by their glum expressions that they knew Tower did not have the votes...
That kind of prescience comes with the territory. Gorey is, after all, no stranger to Capitol controversies involving senatorial indiscretions. Since he last covered Congress, he has kept TIME's readers abreast of a number of national scandals, from Chappaquiddick to Watergate to Iran-contra. Although last week's vote against Tower ran strictly along party lines, Gorey hastens to point out that the flap is not as partisan as it may seem. "Senators are co-workers who see one another daily, travel together and become friends," Gorey explains. "Senators do not exult in the fall of a colleague...
Only eight times in 200 years has the Senate refused a President his choice for a Cabinet post. Here are a few of the more notable rejects -- and one nominee who, although rebuffed by a Senate committee, was later confirmed by a vote of the full Senate...