Senate Republicans are mulling various strategies to circumvent Democrats’ unprecedented roadblocks slowing the confirmation process of President Donald Trump’s nominees.
Trump has urged Senate GOP leadership to make significant progress clearing the backlog of roughly 150 nominees awaiting floor consideration or forgo the traditional August recess to continue plowing through confirmation votes. Many Senate Republicans suggested Tuesday that the conference may pursue changes to Senate rules to allow the upper chamber to quickly confirm Trump’s picks rather than let Democrats’ roadblocks continue to delay the confirmation process.
“Everything is under consideration,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This has been an unprecedented, historic blockade by the Democrats. Presidents deserve to get their team in place as does President Trump.”
“If the Democrats don’t change their behavior, we’re going to need to change the way things are done,” Barrasso added.
Senate Republicans’ vow for action comes as Republicans have said they are done putting up with Democrats’ delay tactics after the caucus has thus far refused to grant any of the president’s appointees an expedited confirmation process.
Former President Joe Biden had 44 nominees confirmed via voice vote by July 29 of his presidency. Senate Republicans ultimately signed off on allowing 57% of his nominees to be confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent during his presidency, according to the Senate GOP-aligned Senate Republican Communications Center (SRCC).
Senate Democrats, however, have permitted zero of Trump’s picks to bypass a roll call vote that would allow for an expedited confirmation. Additionally, Democrats have agreed to allow just one of the president’s nominees, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to skip a procedural vote. The caucus, however, still forced Rubio to be subject to a final confirmation vote despite no senators voting against his nomination.
The other 109 nominees that have thus far been confirmed have been forced to go through multiple roll call votes, requiring Senate Majority Leader John Thune to burn through hours of floor time. Democrats’ stalling tactics have created considerable delays with some nominees that were appointed in January still waiting for floor consideration to be approved for their role.
“What we’re seeing is so much obstruction, historic obstruction, that I think we’ve got to find a better way to get these [nominees] done,” Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a member of Republican leadership, told the DCNF. “We can’t keep going on like this. It’s not fair to the president.”
The conference is considering various methods to expedite the confirmation process for some Senate-confirmed positions. Some of the rules changes could be approved by a simple majority vote.
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said that he would be on board with revising the Senate’s rules to dramatically expedite the confirmation process.
“One change would be to eliminate cloture motion on nominees and eliminate a motion to proceed and just have one vote and leave committee and have one vote,” Paul told the DCNF.
“And I think, really, the caucus is inclined to do something like that,” Paul continued. “The push is going to come to shove if there is no negotiation and no settlement before that — I believe that the rules will change.”
Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told the DCNF that he would like to change the number of positions in the executive branch that require Senate confirmations, proposing to slash the thousands of Senate-confirmed positions by at least a few 100 people.
Senate Republicans have also discussed altering the upper chamber’s debate rules to quicken the process for each nominee under consideration on the floor.
“We need to find ways like we’ve reformed in the past to get to simple 51 votes for the Supreme Court, to get to 51 votes for two hour cloture [votes] for some lesser important positions,” Daines told the DCNF. “But I think for some of the other nominations we should continue to reform the rules of the Senate that allows the Senate to move faster.”
Senate Republicans’ enthusiasm for revising the upper chamber’s rules comes as many members of the conference have also said they are willing to stay in session during the planned August break to continue plowing through confirmation votes.
“[I] hope that my Democratic friends come to their senses and cooperate, which is unlikely,” Kennedy told the DCNF, stating that he’s prepared to stay in session during August if necessary.
As Senate Republicans debated the best path forward to circumvent Democrats’ stalling tactics, the upper chamber continued to plow through confirmation votes Tuesday.
“We’ve had to kind of grind through, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at the Senate GOP leadership press conference Thursday. “It is the far left of their caucus that is preventing even good government people, people who are bipartisan, from getting confirmed. So that’s got to change, and if it doesn’t, we’re going to be here a while.”
Andi Shae Napier and Caden Olson contributed to this report.
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