Republicans are pushing forward with a proposal to speed up the Senate’s consideration of President Trump’s nominees.
Currently, a nomination has to have an additional 30 hours of debate time after clearing an initial procedural hurdle. The requirement allows opponents to stretch out consideration of one pick for days.
It would go even further for district court nominees, capping the amount of post-cloture debate time at two hours.
The proposal would be similar to a provision from a 2013 resolution on limiting debate for most nominations. But that proposal only governed the 113th Congress. Democrats at the time held the majority in the Senate.
Lankford’s resolution also includes some major exemptions to the rules change.
For example, it would keep the 30 hours intact for nominations to positions included in “level one of the executive schedule,” which include department secretaries and other top positions such as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The committee vote comes as Republicans are under growing pressure to quickly confirm Trump’s picks.
Trump
lashed out at Democrats this week for “obstructing the process” and urged the Senate not to leave “until our Ambassadors, Judges and the people who make Washington work are approved.”
“Democrats are obstructing good (hopefully great) people wanting to give up a big portion of their life to work for our Government, hence, the American People. They are ‘slow walking’ all of my nominations – hundreds of people. At this rate it would take 9 years for all approvals!” he
said in a separate tweet.
Trump has also had 395 nominations confirmed, compared to 548 for Obama at this point in his presidency. Another 205 of Trump’s picks are stuck in the Senate pipeline.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has increasingly publicly lashed out at Democrats accusing them of needlessly delaying the president’s nominations.
He threatened last week to keep the Senate in session into Friday or even the weekend in order to clear a slate of six nominations.
“Senate Democrats are using the procedural playbook to obstruct and delay,” he said at the time.
With Republicans increasingly anxious about their chances of holding on to the chamber, where they have a fragile 51-seat majority, they’re pointing to their ability to confirm Trump’s nominees as a key reason they should retain power after the midterms.
“Even if we were to lose the House and be stymied legislatively, we could still approve appointments, which is a huge part of what we do,” McConnell told the Kentucky Today editorial board.
Lankford’s proposal is likely to pass the committee
on Wednesday after
getting a positive reception from the GOP members of the panel during a hearing in December.
“Certainly Republicans have every right to be offended by the way the rules have been abused to use up floor time, and I think a number of our colleagues on the other side are also concerned,” Blunt told The Hill late last month.
Because Republicans have a majority on the panel they would be able to send the rule change to the full Senate without help from Democrats.
A Senate aide noted while there had been “very positive talks” with Democrats “it remains to be seen how many will actually vote with us when it’s time to vote.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), the top Democrat on the committee, told The Hill last month that they were continuing to talk about the issue.
A spokesperson for Klobuchar didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday about if she would support Lankford’s proposal during the vote next week.
But Democrats appeared skeptical, or unsupportive, of the rules change during a hearing late last year.
“I just feel this is not the right moment to make these changes as the rule,” Klobuchar said at the time. “This change would only add to the partisan atmosphere.”
Democrats argue there’s a key difference between the 2013 and approving such a proposal now: The Senate has gone “nuclear” on nominations.
Senate Democrats, led by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), nixed the 60-vote filibuster for executive nominations and lower-court nominations in 2013, arguing Republicans were stonewalling Obama’s court picks.
Republicans, in turn, got rid of the 60-vote procedural hurdle for Supreme Court picks after Democrats rejected Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch.
What happens after the committee approves the rule change is unclear.
But with a narrow majority, leadership could have a hard time mustering the votes. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been absent from Washington for months and previously voiced opposition to the plan.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also
told The Hill last year that she would not support the rules change and had voiced her opposition to the caucus.
If Republicans could get support from Democrats — potentially a herculean task in an election year — they could try to change the rules with either 67 or 60 votes, depending on the scenario.
“Privately, many Democrats realize this is a very bad precedent that could come back to bite them if and when they win back the White House,” the Senate aide added.
Asked what happens on the Senate floor, Blunt demurred: “We’ll see. We’ll see.”
Blunt hinted that Republicans could want to implement it as a standing order, adding they would see “what we might be able to do with 60 votes.”
