After an attempt to secure a bipartisan deal failed, Senate Republicans went nuclear for the fourth time in the Senate’s history Thursday to speed up confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees.
Republicans had threatened turning to the ‘nuclear option,’ which would allow for a rule change with a simple majority vote, to blast through the blockade from Senate Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Lawmakers were frustrated that, through the first eight months of Trump’s presidency, not a single nominee had moved through fast-track unanimous consent or voice votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Democrats what Republicans intended to do.
‘I’ve been saying all week, ‘We’re going to vote on this on Thursday, one way or the other,” Thune said.
‘We’re going to change this process in a way that gets us back to what every president prior has had when it comes to the way that these nominees are treated here in the United States Senate — by both sides, Republicans and Democrats; both presidents, Republicans and Democrats.’
The GOP’s rule change, which was born from a revived Democratic proposal from 2023, will now allow lawmakers to vote on Trump’s nominees in batches.
Senate Republicans’ rule change, which has been pitched as beneficial to the current and future administrations, would only apply to nominees subject to the Senate’s requirement for two hours of debate, which includes sub-Cabinet-level positions and executive branch picks.
Judicial nominees, like district court judges and district attorneys, don’t fall under the rule change. Lawmakers are expected to plow through dozens of nominees early next week under the new rules with the intent of clearing the backlog of Trump’s picks, which grew to more than 140 and counting.
With the change in place, it will only take a simple majority vote to confirm the picks. Still, the decision to do bloc packages will require 30 hours of debate before a final confirmation vote.
Schumer panned the move and contended Republicans had turned the Senate into ‘a conveyor belt for unqualified Trump nominees.’
‘This is a sad, regrettable day for the Senate, and I believe it won’t take very long for Republicans to wish they had not pushed the chamber further down this awful road,’ he said.
However, before resorting to the nuclear option, lawmakers were close to a bipartisan deal that would have allowed for 15 nominees to be voted on in groups with two hours of debate.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, blocked the new proposal on the floor and argued that Senate Republicans were trying to rush through the negotiating process ahead of their plan to leave Washington for the weekend.
‘What they’re asking for is unanimity, and we don’t have it,’ he said. ‘And, so, if you’re interested in enacting this on a bipartisan basis, the process for doing that — it is available to you. But, again, it’s more a matter of running out of patience than running out of time.’
A frustrated Thune fired back, ‘How much time is enough?
‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘Two years. Not long enough. How about eight months? Eight months of this.’
The nuclear process began earlier this week when Thune teed up 48 nominees, all of which moved through committee on a bipartisan basis, for confirmation on the floor.
‘It’s time to move,’ Thune said. ‘Time to quit stalling. Time to vote. It’s time to fix this place. And the ideal way to fix it would be in a bipartisan way.’
Both parties have turned to the nuclear option a handful of times since 2010. In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used the nuclear option to allow for all executive branch nominees to be confirmed by simple majority.
Four years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., went nuclear to allow for Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority. In 2019, McConnell reduced the debate time to two hours for civilian nominees.