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Scheduling of legislation is the job of the Majority Leader. Bills can be brought to the floor whenever a majority of the Senate chooses. So, as per the senate rules, ML can indeed decide what is allowed or not allowed to be voted on, by controlling the schedule. Note that the Majority Leader only has control over votes on the bills. Not over ...
So, a Motion to Discharge is more often used when the Majority Leader wants to override a non-compliant committee chair whose committee has had a bill referred to it for consideration upon introduction in the Senate, than it is to circumvent the Majority Leader's power to schedule when matters will be considered by the Senate. Non-Germane ...
The current congressional term (117th Congress) started on January 3, 2021 with a Republican majority in the Senate, hence Mitch McConnell is the majority leader. As the Democrats have won both Georgia runoffs, the Senate will have a 50–50 majority in favour of the Democrats after January 20 as VP Harris will be able to break ties.
Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as "cloture." The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the ...
As a result, a Democratic senator, Harry Reid, became Majority Leader. Given this precedent, we can conclude that in the 50(52)-48 scenario you describe, a Democratic senator would serve as Majority Leader. However, even if the independent senators didn't caucus with the Democrats, a Democrat would still become Majority Leader.
To more directly answer the question of why Democrats are considered the "majority" party in the Senate (and thus, why Schumer is considered the Majority Leader,) it's because the two technically "independent" Senators (Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Angus King from Maine) caucus with the Democrats and, as such, agree to vote in favor of ...
If the Majority Leader began attempting to block and interfere with the will of a supermajority of the Senate, who can (as shown below) bypass the Majority Leader, they are effectively weakening their own position and control over the Senate and schedule. With the 74 votes the Senators would be able to not only move and pass a motion to proceed ...
Probably worthy of a full answer, but the blog post What makes Senate leaders so powerful? thoroughly addresses this: "In reality, any rank-and-file member, or the minority leader, can make a motion to proceed to a bill or nominee on the Senate floor. They simply choose not to and instead defer to the majority leader to do so."
Since the Senate relies heavily on the majority party's leader, what would happen in the unlikely event that the two major parties are tied in the Senate, and the President/VP are third-party or independent? Would they have to elect a President Pro Tempore that would actually do work, and have that person act like the Majority Leader does now?
Under the Senate rule requiring the presiding officer to "recognize the Senator who shall first address him," Garner established the precedent of giving priority recognition to the majority leader and then to the minority leader before all other senators seeking to speak.