It’s been a week since Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) “quietly” and unilaterally changed the dress code for the Senate to allow for the sloppy casual look, and I think it’s safe to say at this point that it has backfired on Schumer big time.
The move, of course, was made in an effort to accommodate Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who on any given day arrives for work in the United States Senate looking like he woke up too late to put any effort into how he looks:
But while there are those who might say “eh, it’s not a big deal,” as it turns out, many of Fetterman’s colleagues do think it’s a big deal – and not just on the Republican side of the aisle but on the Democrat side as well.
On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told Politico that he had talked to Fetterman personally and would do whatever he could to “hold the decorum of the Senate”:
It wasn’t long after that statement that we learned Manchin was circulating a resolution among members of the Senate to get Schumer to reverse course with the support of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is Schumer’s second in command as Senate Majority Whip:
But the decision to loosen the dress code is getting bipartisan pushback, including from Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), who says the Senate should have standards.
“The senator in question from Pennsylvania is a personal friend, but I think we need to have standards when it comes to what we’re wearing on the floor of the Senate, and we’re in the process of discussing that right now as to what those standards will be,” Durbin told “The Briefing with Steve Scully” on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel.“I think the Senate needs to act on this,” Durbin said.Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) described the bipartisan group of senators who want to restore the Senate dress code “the coalition of the rational.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview Wednesday that he, too, was not a fan of the change:
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told Axios he felt it was important for Senators to “dress respectfully”:
“I am not going to change what I’m doing, I will just tell you that,” Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana farmer, told Axios. “My personal opinion is, you got to dress respectfully.”
While it’s unknown just how many Senate Democrats disapprove of changing the dress code to allow Senators (but not staffers and visitors) to wear what they want, 47 Senate Republicans are on record as opposing it:
On the Republican side, 46 GOP senators wrote to Schumer, asking him to reverse his decision. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) also said she was opposed but preferred to resolve the issue in private.
In prior interviews, Britt has talked about how she and Fetterman have become friends – especially through his hospital stay earlier this year, so it’s not surprising she’d take the position that while the dress code decision should be reversed the issue should not be played out in the media, either.
The other two GOP Senators who didn’t sign on to the letter, Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Mike Braun (Ind.), essentially said they felt there were more pressing issues to address. I suspect that could change if Manchin’s resolution was a vote or two short of being able to pass.
All of that said, the jokes and suggestions have been fast and flowing on the Twitter machine:
Ouch!
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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