Also, if a senator refused to swear in then he could be expelled.
Which also requires a 2/3 vote and thus subject to t same dispute if this is being done for partisan reasons. However, siince when is Senate inaction considered a bad thing?
I certainly don't consider MasterJedi's closing of the vote to be a stunt. Both Jcar5's and MJ's POV on when a Senator becomes a Senator make sense. The Senate ahould certainly tighten up the process of appointing a Senator to remove ambiguity. The easiest way would be for it to add a Section 9 to the OPSR, as when the Senate formally recognizes that it has a member certainly falls under the rules for its proceedings which it can set by Article I Section 3 Clause 1.
Frankly, in absence of some precedent that I am unaware of but might well exist, if I were on the court I would likely rule that the Senate didn't receive formal notice of a new Senator until SoS swore the oath, tho if the Governor had mentioned it in the SPAT (Senate Protest and Analysis Thread) earlier that would have constituted formal notice as well. Requiring the Senate to keep track of Regional threads violates the guiding principle of Federalism.