Senate Democrats’ historic slow-walking of President Donald Trump’s nominees is the culmination of a years-long trend perpetuated by both parties.
And as Senate GOP leaders threaten to keep senators in town and delay the start of the sacred August recess, it’s already prompting a bipartisan discussion about how to repair what’s become a broken process in the Senate.
But that won’t happen anytime soon.
Senate Republicans are now openly contemplating changing the chamber’s rules to expedite the confirmation of Trump’s nominees. They spent their closed-door lunch on Tuesday batting around various proposals — from shortening post-cloture debate time to reducing the number of executive branch roles subject to Senate confirmation.
“On both sides… Dems and [Republicans] are just saying this is a goofy process, we shouldn’t have to do 1,100 of these and then all the judges on top of that,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told us. “But pressure’s gonna grow to take steps to expedite this process if the Dems don’t start playing ball soon.”
Senate Democrats argue there can’t be business-as-usual while Trump is abusing his power on so many fronts and putting forward unqualified nominees. So they’ve forced Thune to file cloture on every Trump nominee, a Senate-speak way of saying they’re running out the procedural clock, even for those whose positions have never required a roll-call vote. The Senate wasn’t built to operate this way.
While Republicans have done their fair share of blocking Democratic presidents’ nominees, which has long been a key leverage point for senators, what Democrats are doing is indeed unprecedented. Not every Democrat is endorsing the tactic, but all it takes is one to deny unanimous consent.
If Democrats don’t agree to quickly confirm a tranche of nominees before the recess — as is customary — then Republicans may be emboldened to allow recess appointments, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch (R-Idaho) warned.
“That is a real threat… If you’re on the other side, you wouldn’t like that. Because that’s not a good deal for you,” Risch said. “And the fact of the matter is, it’s not a good deal for the Senate either.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is among those who have long supported scrapping Senate confirmation for lower-level nominees, telling us he’d back that approach regardless of who’s in power. Former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) tried to spearhead this when he was GOP Conference chair 15 years ago.
Since then, Democrats in 2013 lowered the threshold to a simple majority instead of 60 votes. Republicans then extended that to Supreme Court justices in 2017 and, in 2019, shortened debate time from 30 hours to two hours for most nominees.
Today’s brutally partisan environment could lead to more changes.
“It’s total bullshit,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said. “This is a new level of obstruction. Why? Because [Chuck] Schumer’s scared of AOC primarying him. That’s the only reason. He doesn’t give a shit about the institution of the Senate.”
