Senate Majority Leader John Thune is processing President Donald Trump’s nominees at a rapid pace despite historic obstruction from Senate Democrats seeking to grind the confirmation process to a halt.
Though Senate Democrats have sought to hold up virtually all of the president’s nominees from having swift confirmations, the Senate’s quick approval of the administration’s appointees is outpacing the confirmation timelines of the prior two administrations thus far. Thune expressed frustration with Democrats’ delay tactics in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, but reiterated that Senate Republicans will not take their foot off the gas to process the president’s picks.
“They want to block everything, even nominees that have broad, bipartisan support,” Thune said, referring to Senate Democrats’ refusal to grant the president’s nominees speedier floor consideration. “I think that the American people are going to get tired of it.”
The Senate’s confirmation of former Republican Missouri Rep. Billy Long to lead the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Thursday afternoon marked the 80th civilian nominee to be confirmed since January. The Senate under Thune’s leadership has processed more civilian nominees in a timelier manner than during the first year of former President Joe Biden’s tenure or Trump’s first term.
The Senate’s confirmation of Trump nominees as of June 5 outpaced the Biden administration by 16 nominees and the first Trump administration by 33 nominees, according to information compiled by the Senate GOP leadership-aligned Senate Republicans Communications Center (SRCC).
Still, nearly 100 nominees are awaiting floor consideration, according to the Senate executive calendar.
The backlog is due in part to Senate Democrats placing blanket holds on hundreds of Trump nominees, requiring the Senate to use finite floor time to confirm each civilian nominee individually through multiple roll call votes. As a result, nearly 60% of the votes taken in the Senate during the 119th Congress have been related to nominations, according to the SRCC.
Thune criticized Senate Democrats for granting just one Trump civilian nominee — Secretary of State Marco Rubio — a speedier confirmation. Rubio’s nomination, however, was still subject to a roll call vote despite unanimous support for his confirmation.
The majority leader also observed that Trump, in his second term, is the first president since at least former President Herbert Hoover’s term nearly a century ago to not have a single civilian nominee confirmed via voice vote or unanimous consent.
“[This] suggests that the level of obstruction is at a historic and a 100 year-high,” Thune told the DCNF. Thune said Senate Democrats should do what every Congress has done preceding the one that began in January and allow for bipartisan nominees to get expedited floor consideration.
Though Dale Marks, Trump’s nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense received 72 votes — 18 of which came from Democratic senators — in support of his nomination on June 3, Senate Democrats forced the Senate to hold multiple votes to confirm him. Democratic senators have similarly required cloture votes for 18 other civilian nominees that received at least 60 votes in support of their confirmation thus far, according to the SRCC.
The Senate confirmed five civilian nominees, including Long, this past week in addition to teeing up major crypto legislation to a vote on final passage and unveiling text across key committees that will constitute significant chunks of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Thune said in a speech on the Senate floor in May criticizing Democrats’ obstruction that he was prepared to confirm Trump’s nominees “the hard way” if his colleagues did not consent to expedited confirmations for picks with bipartisan support.
The majority leader elaborated on this threat by telling the DCNF that he would consider keeping the Senate in session over weekends or forgoing scheduled recess periods to confirm more nominees if Democrats’ delay tactics do not relent.
But, Thune noted, he has to pass the “big, beautiful” bill first.
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