Joe Manchin Starts a Rumble With Schumer, Fetterman as Dress Code Change Becomes Bipartisan Issue

Though there are obviously more pressing issues going on in Washington, D.C. right now, the debate over Chuck Schumer's quietly implemented dress code change is still raging as we speak - and has now turned into a full-blown bipartisan problem for the Democrat Senate Majority Leader.

When last we left you on this issue, Sen. John Fetterman - for whom the rule change was implemented - was presiding over the United States Senate wearing what appeared to be a rumpled short-sleeved button down-and-shorts combo in a slovenly, just rolled out-of-bed display, a sharp and disgraceful departure from Senate norms.

That same day, he took to the Twitter machine to call House Republicans "jagoffs" over their alleged attempts to "shut the government down," saying if they could come to an agreement on a spending deal and also support Ukraine funding then he'd wear a suit and tie again.

Not widely reported in the midst of all of this was Sen. Joe Manchin's reaction to Schumer's change. On Tuesday, he told Politico that he had talked to Fetterman personally and would do whatever he could to "hold the decorum of the Senate":

Manchin tells me he spoke to Fetterman today about the Senate dress code change “I said ‘John, I think it’s wrong & there's no way I can comply with that’…Wanted to tell him directly that I totally oppose it & I will do everything I can to try to hold the decorum of the Senate”

As it turns out, it wasn't an empty declaration. Manchin is now circulating a proposal to get the dress code back to what it was, and he apparently has the approval of the Senate's second in command - Majority Whip Dick Durbin:

But the decision to loosen the dress code is getting bipartisan pushback, including from Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), who says the Senate should have standards.
“The senator in question from Pennsylvania is a personal friend, but I think we need to have standards when it comes to what we’re wearing on the floor of the Senate, and we’re in the process of discussing that right now as to what those standards will be,” Durbin told “The Briefing with Steve Scully” on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel.
“I think the Senate needs to act on this,” Durbin said.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) described the bipartisan group of senators who want to restore the Senate dress code “the coalition of the rational.”

Very Online Leftists, naturally, aren't too happy with Manchin and are accusing him of having a Priorities™ problem, which is somewhat amusing considering their priorities revolve around enshrining into law what they call the so-called "right" to terminate the lives of unborn children and punishing conservative Supreme Court Justices for WrongThink.

In any event, it will be interesting to watch this debate play out and to see who falls on what side. My hope is that if the resolution comes to the floor for debate we see someone like maybe Sen. John Kennedy step up to the mic wearing a flashy white suit a la Rick Pitino's from his days as Louisville's basketball coach because if there's anyone in the Senate who can pull a suit like that off, it's Kennedy.