146 Congressional politics
forty-nine against confirmation and forty-six in favour. Two Republican Sena-
tors voted against their president’s nomination. If they had voted the other
way the nomination of Strauss would have been confirmed.
President Bush’s nomination of John Bolton as Ambassador to the
United Nations in 2005 was strongly opposed by Democrats in the Senate,
who mounted a filibuster to prevent his confirmation. Twice the Republican
leadership attempted to close debate on the nomination, but failed to get
the necessary sixty votes. However, under Article II of the Constitution the
president may fill vacancies in such offices during the time when the Senate
is in recess. Such appointments expire at the end of the next session of the
Senate. So, when the Senate took its recess in August 2005 President Bush
appointed Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations. Unless confirmed by
the Senate in the meantime, Bolton would lose his post at the end of 2006.
Because of their importance in the development of constitutional law, ap-
pointments to the Supreme Court are scrutinised very closely by the Senate;
the details of this process are discussed in Chapter 10.
Another field in which the Senate is given special powers is that of foreign
policy. The Constitution requires that treaties made on behalf of the United
States shall be subject to ratification by two-thirds of the Senators present
and voting. Perhaps the most shattering exercise of the power of the Senate
was the rejection in 1919 of the Treaty of Versailles, which had been largely
moulded by President Woodrow Wilson. By so doing the Senate prevented
the United States from becoming a member of the League of Nations. The
power of the Senate in this field has declined, however, owing to the practice
of concluding ‘executive agreements’ between the president and foreign gov-
ernments, agreements that do not require senatorial confirmation.
Traditionally, the conduct of war was an area that Congress left almost
exclusively to the president. The Constitution gives Congress the power to
declare war, but in practice this has been far overshadowed by the president’s
role as Commander-in-Chief, and the consequent ability to order troops into
action in any part of the world. This aspect of presidential power is discussed
in Chapter 12 below.
Congress and policy-making
The structure and operation of the Congress of the United States closely
reflect the decentralised and heterogeneous character of the American po-
litical system. All the threads of class, pluralistic and sectional politics can
be found in the operation of its committee system and in the changing pat-
terns of voting as different issues come up to be decided. The sectional el-
ement in the American political scene is exaggerated in Congress by the
way in which Congressmen and Senators react to the views of a majority of
their constituents, although a sizeable minority in the region may have a
different opinion. The representative system in Congress does not claim to
produce a proportional representation of opinion throughout the country,