Senate GOP poised to change rules to force some Trump nominees through Democrats' roadblocks

Senate Republicans on Thursday will give Democrats one final chance to quickly advance some of President Trump’s nominees before they change the chamber’s rules to remove the need for the minority party’s cooperation.

Democrats do not appear willing to acquiesce. If they block the effort to confirm four dozen Trump nominees on Thursday, the GOP will deploy the “nuclear option” to change the rules.  

The proposed change would allow a simple majority vote to end a filibuster on a group of nominees, instead of requiring an individual vote for each nominee, if any senator objects to their confirmation.

It would only apply to sub-Cabinet level executive nominees — picks for the president’s Cabinet, the Supreme Court and other federal judicial posts would still be subject to individual scrutiny.

Republicans say the rules change is needed because Democrats have universally filibustered Mr. Trump’s nominees and forced roll call votes on each one to drag out the process. 

They argue that obstruction is unprecedented in the modern era, where every other president — and even Mr. Trump during his first term — had some of their nominees confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote, often in groups with agreement from all 100 senators. Democrats have not allowed that for a single civilian nominee during Mr. Trump’s second term.

“After years of partisanship and slowly eroding the confirmation process, they finally went all-in and broke it,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican.

Democrats say Mr. Trump’s picks are “historically bad” and deserve extra scrutiny and a full debate on the Senate floor.

“To lump these nominees together into groups of 30, 40 and 50 and say to the members of the Senate, ‘take it or leave it,’ is a dereliction of duty, an abdication of our constitutional responsibility,” said Illinois Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the minority whip and top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Democrats accused Republicans of hypocrisy. They pointed to examples of Republicans obstructing nominees during President Biden’s term: Then-Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, now the vice president, objected to U.S. attorney nominees. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville held up military nominees for months, including routine promotions that are the current exception to Democrats’ universal filibuster.

“Now there’s this Republican outrage for nominees having to wait a couple of months to go through the process?” said California Sen. Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Rules and Administration Committee.

The Senate on Thursday will take a series of procedural votes expected to culminate with the rules change.

The first vote will be on invoking cloture to end a filibuster on a package of 48 Trump nominees, all of whom were voted out of committee with bipartisan support.  

The package includes picks for important roles, like under secretary and assistant administrator, across multiple executive agencies, including the Defense, Energy, Interior and Labor departments. One such nominee is former New York Rep. Brandon Williams, whom Mr. Trump nominated to serve as under secretary for nuclear security.

There are also eight nominees who, if confirmed, would hold the rank of ambassador. That includes Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., who the president nominated to lead diplomacy in Greece, and Callista Gingrich, the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who would serve in Switzerland after a previous stint as ambassador to the Holy See.

If Democrats block the cloture vote to advance the four dozen nominees, then Republicans will argue the procedure should be subject to a simple majority vote, instead of 60.

The chair will say that’s not in compliance with the chamber’s rules and Republicans will move to overrule the chair. Rules changes typically require a two-thirds supermajority vote, but Republicans can use the so-called nuclear option to overrule the chair and change the rules with a simple majority.

In the end, Republicans expect to formalize the rules change that will allow sub-Cabinet-level nominees to be voted en bloc with a simple majority vote.

Republicans say their rules change is based on a proposal from Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar last Congress, when she chaired the Rules Committee, to allow simple majority, en bloc votes on groups of up to 10 nominees reported out of the same committee.

Democrats said that her proposal was intentionally brought up when it was not yet clear which party would win control of the White House and Senate in 2024. They hoped it would earn bipartisan support with the normal supermajority two-thirds vote required for a rules change.

Mr. Padilla said Republicans “wouldn’t play ball” at the time because they were busy obstructing Mr. Biden’s nominees. Now, with Mr. Trump in office, he said, Republicans are suddenly interested in the idea and willing to go “nuclear” and use a simple majority to change the rules.

“You have to wonder why,” Mr. Padilla said. “Maybe because they want to hide some of Donald Trump’s most controversial nominees.”