Senators nix casual clothing as bipartisan resolution sets new dress code for Senate floor

WASHINGTON — No shorts on the Senate floor. The Senate voted Wednesday evening to reverse an informal guidance issued by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last week that senators could wear what they want when voting or speaking in the chamber. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah, comes after backlash to Schumer’s announcement that staff for the chamber’s Sergeant-at-Arms would no longer enforce a dress code on the Senate floor. “Though we’ve never had an official dress code, the events over the past week have made us all feel as though formalizing one is the right path forward,” Schumer said Wednesday evening, as the resolution by Manchin and Romney passed. Schumer also thanked Fetterman for ”working with me to come to an agreement that we all find acceptable.” The majority leader’s original guidance last week was met with immediate pushback in the more formal Senate, with many lawmakers in both parties arguing that the Senate floor should have some standards for dress.