This past weekend, two weeks before a looming government shutdown and while a lone senator held promotions in the upper ranks of the military hostage, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer provided a weary nation some much-needed relief by relaxing some of the chamber’s unwritten rules.
Did he announce plans to end holds on military promotions? Or gut the norms that allow a single senator’s objection to unanimous consent to derail the legislative schedule?
No, Schumer did something else. He got rid of the Senate floor’s dress code.
