Senate Republicans are on the brink of invoking the so-called “nuclear option” to confirm the president’s nominees — and they’re hardly batting an eye about it. They are considering changing Senate rules as soon as next week to weaken Democrats’ role in the confirmation process.
“I’m not the hugest fan of some of the arcane rules in the Senate anyway,” Sen. Josh Hawley told NOTUS.
Senate Democrats have refused to allow their Republican counterparts expedite nominations this term, including for low-level nominations that have been confirmed by unanimous consent in previous administrations.
The Senate only agreed to allow one Trump nominee, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to be confirmed on a truncated timeline this year. That was during the president’s first week back in office. The rest of Trump’s nominees have had to go through every procedural step in full — a process that can often take days.
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Now, Senate Republicans are planning to allow non-Cabinet level nominees to be confirmed en bloc, meaning in groups. It’s not yet clear how many nominees would be confirmed at once, and additional carveouts for any particular kinds of nominees have not yet been finalized. Though GOP lawmakers argue the proposal would closely model one Senate Democrats themselves floated while in power in 2023, spearheaded by Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
“Amy did this in 2023,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin told NOTUS on Thursday. “I mean, it’s dang near the exact same language, except we may not put a limit of 10. We may put unlimited on there.”
Senators anticipate the vote to change the rules will come this month; Mullin said the goal is next week. There’s little time in September to do anything else, given government funding expires on Sept. 30, the annual National Defense Authorization Act is still outstanding and there is a week of recess scheduled later in the month.
What’s more, momentum matters in these sorts of negotiations. Rules changes are not a new discussion in Congress, especially in the Senate. But it’s not often that changes actually come to fruition. More pressing legislative issues, intraparty politics or external pressures often get in the way.
Senate Democrats themselves tried to change chamber rules multiple times during their last stretch in the majority, including a vote to nuke the filibuster for voting rights legislation in 2022. That vote failed on account of two Democrats — both of whom later became independents and retired — voting against the proposal. There was also significant discussion on creating a filibuster carveout for abortion legislation after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that same year, and a number of congressional Democrats have called for nuking the filibuster altogether.
And Klobuchar did propose allowing 10 nominees to be confirmed at once in an effort to speed up confirmations in 2023. Her proposal included carveouts for Cabinet-level positions, some high-level judges and a Supreme Court justice. Republicans hope that Democrats who supported that idea last time around come to terms with the same deal, despite who’s in the White House.
“I think we could have bipartisan support on it,” Mullin said. He later added: “I’d be curious on how many people would vote against the language, now that Trump’s in office versus when Biden’s in office, because it’s the exact same language they supported in ’23.”
Democrats, for the most part, have stuck to their argument that “historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny by Senate Democrats,” as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has put it. A number of Senate Democrats have placed blanket holds on batches of Trump nominees. And they’ve shown little eagerness to change their stance.
Prior to the August break, Senate GOP leadership sought to broker a deal with Democrats that would allow a batch of agreed-upon nominees to be sped up in exchange for leaving town on time for recess. Ultimately Republicans caved on their threat to delay recess, but warned rules changes would be on the docket when they returned.
“This is of the Democrats’ making,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said this week. “It’s not something we can sustain. This business model doesn’t work. This president was duly elected by the American people and they expect him to be able to put his team in place.”
Still, this rules change, if successful, could easily serve to benefit a future Democratic majority or White House. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin on Thursday noted that “if we’re going to come up with rules, they’ve got to apply to Democrats and Republicans as well.”
Republicans say they’re aware of that threat.
“When they get there,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said of a future Democratic majority, “they’re gonna do it. So we gotta take advantage of what we got.”
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