By Josh Price

So in the wake of the offensive and frightening Department of Homeland Security report classifying conservatives as “rightwing extremists, I decided to go back and do some research on DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s Senate confirmation vote.

I wanted to find out which Republicans voted to confirm her nomination and the ones who voted against it. Well I ran into a slight problem. Her confirmation vote wasn’t conducted individually, it was done en bloc. In other words, it was a package vote on several of Obama’s cabinet nominees, including Napolitano. Fair enough. I should’ve still be able to see the vote results for the package deal, right? Wrong.

It turns out the her nomination was confirmed through a process known as “voice vote.” Here’s the Senate’s definition of voice vote:

A vote in which the Presiding Officer states the question, then asks those in favor and against to say “Yea” or “Nay,” respectively, and announces the result according to his or her judgment. The names or numbers of Senators voting on each side are not recorded.

That’s interesting. The last sentence is quite shocking to me. I didn’t realize senators could cast votes and not have their names or party attached to those votes.  Now that’s some real accountability huh? That’s a story in and of itself, but the questions here are:

Why was the voice vote used for the confirmation of Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security Secretary and; Why was her nomination packaged with others?

Where were the Republicans while this was going on? 

Waiting for answers…