Senate session saves pending nominations

The Senate held a brief pro forma session on Wednesday to save dozens of President Obama’s pending nominations.

Both chambers of Congress have recessed for more than 50 days to allow members to campaign for reelection in the midterms; forcing the Senate to hold a pro forma session to prevent executive and judicial nominees pending on the executive calendar from being sent back to President Obama’s desk.

{mosads}Under the current rules, if the Senate were to be out of session for more than 30 days, all pending nominations would be sent back to the White House and they’d had to go through the committee process again.

Dozens of nominees are waiting for up-or-down votes — something that will be a top priority during the lame-duck session, especially if Democrats lose control of the Senate.

Republicans have been less willing to advance nominations since Democrats used the “nuclear option” to unilaterally change Senate filibuster rules. With the rule change, some nominations now require a simple-majority to advance instead of the previously needed 60 votes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has suggested he’d change the rule back and said Democrats would regret the decision if they return as the minority party.

When the Senate returns on Nov. 12, it will vote to advance the nominations of Randolph Moss to be a U.S. district judge for D.C. and Leigh Martin May to be U.S. district judge for northern Georgia.