Democrats Uncertain They’ll Take Shot to Block Gen. Mattis From Trump’s Cabinet
Democrats Uncertain They’ll Take Shot to Block Gen. Mattis From Trump’s Cabinet by Byron Tau, Wall Street Journal
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis to be the next secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense has put Capitol Hill Democrats in a bind.
Gen. Mattis has not been out of uniform long enough to qualify for the job in the Trump administration without special approval from Congress to circumvent a rule put in place to preserve civilian control of the military.
As a result, Gen. Mattis’s nomination to the position may effectively require 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to overcome a procedural hurdle, as well a separate vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to grant him a special exemption from the law requiring military officers to have been out of uniform for at least seven years before taking the job of defense secretary…
