Senate Republicans take first steps to change rules to speed up Trump's nominees

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans took the first steps to change the chamber’s rules on Thursday, moving to make it easier to confirm groups of President Donald Trump’s nominees after last-minute negotiations with Democrats fell apart.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s move is the latest salvo after a dozen years of gradual changes by both parties to weaken the filibuster and make the nominations process more partisan. He has said the Democrats’ obstruction is “unsustainable” as they have drawn out the confirmation process and infuriated Trump as many positions in his administration have remained unfilled.

“We’re going to fix this today, and restore the longtime Senate precedent of expeditious confirmation, and the Senate’s role as first and foremost a legislative body,” Thune said.

The Senate on Thursday evening moved forward on the proposed rule change with a 45-53 party line vote. The new rules proposal would allow the Senate to move some of Trump’s nominees in groups of 48 at a time. The Republican rules change stops short of speeding up votes on high-level Cabinet officials and lifetime judicial appointments.

Republicans will have to go through additional procedural steps next week for the process to be complete. And if all goes according to their plan, the first tranche of Trump's nominees — undersecretaries and staff positions for various agencies across the government as well as several ambassadors — could be confirmed as soon as next Thursday.

The effort to change the rules comes as both parties have obstructed each other’s nominees for years, and as both Republicans and Democrats have advocated for speeding up the process when they are in the majority.

Republicans have been pushing the rules change since early August, when the Senate left for a monthlong recess after a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations over the confirmation process and Trump told Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to “GO TO HELL!” on social media.

Democrats have blocked more nominees than ever before as they have struggled to find ways to oppose Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, and as their voters have pushed them to fight Republicans at every turn. It’s the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn’t allowed at least some quick confirmations.

Schumer has said Democrats are delaying the nominations because Trump’s nominees are “historically bad.”

“We’re supposed to debate and take votes on nominees, especially when the executive branch is grossly breaking norms by sending us woefully unqualified, unscrupulous, and in some cases, deeply dishonest individuals for powerful and important positions,” Schumer said in a floor speech following the votes.

Still, Democrats continued talks with Republicans into Thursday afternoon as Republicans delayed their votes for almost five hours. The two sides discussed a compromise that would have limited the groups of nominees to 15 and shortened the length of debate.

But in the end, they were not able to agree. Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said they had been “achingly close to a deal.”

“But I am afraid my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have run out of patience,” he added.

“The Senate is stuck,” said Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Republican who led the negotiations. “The challenge is this body has just broken down trust.”

Having abandoned the bipartisan talks, Republicans advanced their original plan to hold several procedural votes that allow them to change the Senate rules for confirming presidential nominees. As part of the vote series, they asked to “appeal the chair,” or change the rules, which takes a simple majority vote.

“How much time is enough?” Thune, R-S.D., angrily asked Democrats as he moved to resume votes. He said that the deal under discussion was based on a Democratic proposal when President Joe Biden was in office and that the two parties had already been negotiating for weeks.

“We’ve got to fix this,” Thune said. “It’s time to vote.”

Schumer has told Republicans that they will “come to regret” their action — echoing a similar warning from GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 2013, when Democrats changed Senate rules for executive branch and lower court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations. At the time, Republicans were blocking President Barack Obama’s picks.

Republicans took the Senate majority a year later, and McConnell eventually did the same for Supreme Court nominees in 2017 as Democrats tried to block Trump’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more, to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked,” Schumer said.

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