Senate Republicans plan rules change vote to speed up confirmation of Trump's nominees

Senate Republicans are planning to hold a vote in the coming weeks to change the chamber’s rules for processing lower-level nominations in an effort to expedite the confirmation of President Trump’s nominees, whom Democrats are filibustering.

The GOP has not yet settled on the final details of the rules change, but they are discussing proposals to allow groups of nominations to be voted en bloc and potentially to reduce or eliminate the current two-hour debate requirement for lower-level nominees. 

“It used to be that these were done largely by unanimous consent and voice vote,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican.

But Mr. Trump has not had any nominees confirmed through those expedited procedures during his second term, he said, calling it an unprecedented obstruction no other president, going back to Herbert Hoover, has experienced. 

A rules change is necessary because of “the Trump derangement syndrome that afflicts the Democrats in the United States Senate to the point where their hatred of President Trump is borderline pathological,” Mr. Thune said. 

Mr. Thune did not preview the details of the coming rules change, but other Senate Republicans left a GOP conference lunch on the topic Wednesday, saying a leading proposal would allow groups of nominations to be voted on together, or en bloc. 

“En bloc is definitely top of the list,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, Missouri Republican and member of a Senate working group on the topic. “There’s some other things. Further collapsing [debate] time is another possibility.” 

Mr. Schmitt and other GOP senators said the rules change proposals focus on speeding up the confirmation process for nominees to lower-level executive posts that typically earn bipartisan support and in previous administrations would often advance by voice vote or unanimous consent. They are likely to exempt judicial nominations, because those can be more partisan.

“We’re not talking about judges, but we are talking about the vast majority of the ambassadors, the vast majority of the sub-Cabinet-level noms, who normally receive very few no votes, and in fact in the past have always been basically voice votes before you leave a recess,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican. 

Republicans said what they’re considering is similar to a rules change Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar proposed last Congress, when she chaired the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. 

That measure would have allowed up to 10 nominees advanced out of the same committee to be considered en bloc. Her measure excluded positions like Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices and circuit court judges, which Republicans say they also would not touch with their rules change.

The Washington Times reached out to Ms. Klobuchar’s office for comment. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, said it’s worth “dusting off” the Klobuchar proposal.

“I think it’s the better of other options being considered,” he said. “But I will consider other options if I don’t think that people are taking it up on the other side and giving it a fair consideration.”  

Mr. Rounds said he and most other Republicans would prefer not to change the rules without Democratic support — referred to as the “nuclear option” — but they are not confident there will be bipartisan cooperation. 

Mr. Schmitt said Republicans have reached out to Democrats and that, while “some of them say the right things,” they do not seem to be willing to take any steps on advancing nominees that would appear to capitulate to Mr. Trump. 

“I don’t think they’re going to come to their senses,” he said.