Schumer tees up nominations marathon as deal with Cruz elusive

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a warning shot to Republicans on Wednesday night: Cut a quick deal on more than 20 Biden nominees or prepare to work into the week of Christmas. 

Schumer, from the Senate floor on Wednesday night, teed up votes on 22 nominees, including several judicial picks and long-stalled ambassador nominations. 

The move, which sets up a marathon series of votes to start on Friday absent an agreement, comes as Schumer and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are in a standoff over confirming Biden’s ambassador nominees, dozens of whom are awaiting a vote in the Senate but being held up by Cruz. 

Cruz, according to GOP senators, had offered to lift his hold, which prevents quick confirmation of a nominee, on 16 of Biden’s ambassador picks in exchange for getting a vote on Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions, his long-held goal. 

Schumer, during a speech from the Senate floor on Wednesday morning, said Cruz had to drop his holds on any State Department, Treasury Department and U.S. Agency for International Development nominees for a deal. 

“We have been working over the past day to secure a lift on many of these holds. I want to echo what Sen. [Bob] Menendez [D-N.J.] has made clear: If the Senator from Texas offers a proposal that does not include lifting all State, Treasury, and USAID nominees holds, we cannot come to an agreement,” Schumer said. 

But Cruz rejected that, questioning why Schumer would draw that line when, he says, they had previously agreed to a deal for a Nord Stream 2 vote as a defense bill amendment in exchange for Cruz dropping his holds on seven nominees.  

In addition to disagreements over the number of nominees Cruz would need to drop his holds on, senators say there are also disagreements about who would be on the list to get a vote before the end of the year. 

“That was just silliness and he knows that,” Cruz said about Schumer’s demand. “If he wants to engage in partisan posturing, he can.”