This happened in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday after the Democrats thought they’d make a scene and boycott a committee vote in order to hold up a Trump nominee. Now it’s happened again as the Senate Republicans begin to grow a brain and a spine after many years of collegial incompetence…

Republicans on a Senate committee on Thursday suspended panel rules to force a vote on President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominee over a Democratic protest.

Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee, led by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), changed the rules governing a quorum so that only the panel’s Republicans needed to be in attendance to approve Scott Pruitt’s nomination to lead the EPA.

The committee’s full roster of Republicans — including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), whose nomination to be attorney general is awaiting consideration on the Senate floor — attended Thursday’s hearing and approved Pruitt on an 11-0 vote.

Democrats protested Pruitt’s hearing for a second straight day, refusing to enter the hearing to deny the committee a quorum. Without them in the committee room, committee Republicans voted unanimously to approve Pruitt’s nomination.

Thursday’s legislative maneuver means Senate Republicans have changed committee rules twice this week to overcome Democratic protests against nominees. The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday changed its rules to clear the way for approval of Steven Mnuchin to lead the Treasury Department, and Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be secretary of Heath and Human Services.

The Democrats’ objections are bogus. They say Pruitt “wasn’t forthcoming” in his answers to their questions at his confirmation hearing. He got 1,000 more questions – that’s an actual number, not a figurative one – than his predecessor did. They’re trying to block him because they know he represents real reform of a runaway tyrannical agency which exists at this point almost solely to push a leftist anti-commercial, anti-industrial, anti-consumer agenda.

Stupid games get stupid prizes. And there is a pattern visible now – they’ll give the Democrats one day where they can stage their little boycott of a committee vote for the cameras, and the next day they change the quorum roles to move the nominee through. And when the Dems whine about it they get a big, fat middle finger for their trouble.

Why? Well, because elections have consequences, that’s why.