Humanities desk
< April 15	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 17 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 16

Aliʻi nui of Hawaii

How strong is the historical record for the list of rulers at Aliʻi nui of Hawaii? It is stronger than the record for something like Xia dynasty? 2601:644:8184:F2F0:E9D9:CDD6:EC5A:D91F (talk) 06:49, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Although that list article is itself unreferenced, the majority of its entries (23 of 27) are linked to articles about the individuals (and the others are redlinked indicating an article would be appropriate). To assess their historicity, check the references used by each separate article, and draw your own conclusions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.2390.195} 94.194.109.80 (talk) 17:42, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

US Congressional confirmation process

When the President makes an ordinary senior appointment, the Senate must concur with the appointment. How is this concurrence typically expressed? On one hand I can imagine it being done through an S.Res. action, since the Senate alone is involved in the process, and all other kinds of actions require House consent. However, normally Res. actions just express the opinion of the originating house, without any practical effect.
Imagine J.D. Vance dies, resigns, or is removed from office, and Trump appoints a new "Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress". How would the confirmation be expressed? Normal bills and J.Res. actions require presidential signatures, whilst Con.Res. actions normally just express the opinion of both houses, and S.Res. and H.Res. actions don't involve the other house. Would this be treated as a J.Res. and presented to the President, who obviously would sign it because he nominated the new vice president? Concurrent resolution mentions a few examples that aren't just opinion, but they're things like adjournments and joint committees that are strictly under the purview of Congress, plus a message to the President of "oops please don't sign or veto this bill; let us do something else with it first".

I suppose the latter question could be answered by examining how Congress handled Nixon's VP appointment of Ford, and Ford's VP appointment of Rockefeller. However, when I was working with this kind of thing routinely, I was spoiled by access to ProQuest Congressional; I lost access to it years ago and don't know what else would be a good way to research in this area. Nyttend (talk) 23:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think any appointment confirmation is expressed through a resolution. Both should go just like normal confirmations: The actual motion adopted by the Senate when exercising the power is "to advise and consent", which shows how initial advice on nominations and treaties is not a formal power exercised by the Senate.[8][9] —Appointments Clause#Advice and consent Aaron Liu (talk) 03:40, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]