On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported that the Senate is planning to break up the logjam holding back President Trump’s appointments.
The article reports:
Senate Republicans are on the verge of breaking Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s stranglehold over the confirmation process, ending seven months of unprecedented obstruction that has sought to prevent President Donald Trump from staffing his administration.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to invoke the rarely-used “nuclear option” to reform Senate rules allowing for the simultaneous confirmation of lower-level executive branch nominees as early as Monday, a senior Republican aide told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The historic rules change could grant the more than 100 civilian nominees who have been blocked from their postings due to Democrats’ persistent delay tactics a swift confirmation vote before the Senate is scheduled to go on recess on Sept. 19.
…Thune organized a working group in August after negotiations with Democrats to clear the backlog of executive branch nominees collapsed. The cohort included Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Ted Budd of North Carolina.
The Senate is there to advise and consent–not to obstruct.
The article notes:
Senate Republicans’ imminent rules change comes after former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the “nuclear option” during former President Barack Obama’s second term to lower the threshold required to confirm executive branch and judicial nominees. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also invoked the “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees and cut debate time on most presidential nominees.
Though the proposed rules change is likely to benefit Democrats the next time they control the Senate and the White House, Senate Republicans have argued that Democrats’ nomination blockade is not sustainable. Despite Thune holding more votes than any Senate in 35 years, the Trump administration is on track to confirm the fewest nominees in recent memory.
“By the end of the 119th Congress (1/2/2027), the Senate is on track to confirm just 426 nominees, the fewest in history, and less than half of what other Presidents have averaged since 2000,” Britt, a member of the working group, wrote on X on Wednesday.
This is not the kind of history we need to be making.
The article concludes:
“We have never seen a time where the opposition party has literally blocked and forced the president and his team and us here as the majority in the Senate to go through all the machinations of trying to get a nominee across the finish line,” Thune said during a Senate GOP leadership press conference on Wednesday.
“So this is of the Democrats’ making,” Thune continued. “There isn’t anything right now that they want to vote for that he has his fingerprints on, and getting his team in place is absolutely essential. It’s part of governing this country, and we’re going to move forward.”