While the move by Schumer had come as good news to some lawmakers, including Sen. John Fetterman , who frequently dons hooded sweatshirts and basketball shorts while working — though not while on the Senate floor — other senators were incensed by the idea of weaker sartorial requirements in the chamber.to overturn Schumer’s decision.
Schumer’s request that the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms stop enforcing the policy would have meant that the country’s 100 senators would have had free rein to choose how they dressed while conducting some of the nation’s most important business. Before Schumer’s move, the Senate had followed an unwritten and unevenly enforced policy that encouraged men to wear suits and ties and women to cover their arms.
Manchin on Wednesday said that he learned about a week ago that “there were not in fact any written rules about the senators, and what they could and could not wear on the floor.”The debate over the Senate’s dress code — which unfolded as a government shutdown ticked closer — quickly drew attention online, where many zeroed in on Fetterman’s fashion choices.