Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says he will not try to block the confirmation votes of President-elect Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees.
Speaking to columnist Scott Jennings, McConnell said that Biden’s nominees will all receive votes on the Senate floor, but he is predicting that not everyone will be approved.
Jennings noted that in 2017, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) used the filibuster to hold up President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.
As The Hill reports, by the time Trump was sworn into office in 2017, the Senate had only confirmed two of his nominees — compared to six for former President Barack Obama and seven for former President George W. Bush at the same point in their presidencies.
However, McConnell says he does not plan to copy Schumer’s playbook when it comes to an opposing party’s president’s cabinet nominees.
“[Biden’s Cabinet picks] aren’t all going to pass on a voice vote, and they aren’t all going to make it, but I will put them on the floor,” he said.
So far, Senate Republicans have already signaled their distaste for one of Biden’s nominees. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) argued Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, was the “worst nominee so far.”
“I think, in light of her combative and insulting comments about many members of the Senate, mainly on our side of the aisle, that it creates certainly a problematic path,” he added.
Jennings also predicted that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, nominated to be the secretary of Health and Human Services, will also face difficulties due to his pro-choice stance.
Schumer has urged Senate to begin holding confirmation hearings on Biden’s nominees “immediately” after the runoff elections for Georgia’s two Senate seats “so that key cabinet positions can be confirmed on January, 20 and soon thereafter — which is traditional for a new president.”
However, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned that Republicans “are not going to forget what happened with President Trump’s administration and the delayed process that went through it.”
“If the Republicans are in the majority, these nominees are going to have to run the gauntlet,” he added.
