The push to expedite the confirmation process for President Donald Trump's nominees by altering Senate rules has gained traction.
This comes after Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso threw his weight behind the initiative on Tuesday.
According to the Daily Caller, Barrasso, who holds the second-highest position among Senate Republicans, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In it, he advocated for a reform of the upper chamber's rules to dismantle the unprecedented logjam created by Senate Democrats.
This logjam has been obstructing the confirmation process for almost all of the President's nominees. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has been celebrating his success in using various procedural roadblocks to prolong the confirmation process for Trump's picks.
"President Trump has more than 1,000 senior-level appointments that require Senate confirmation. Under a radical Democratic resistance strategy, the Senate has so far confirmed only 135," Barrasso wrote.
He further noted, "Confirming even the most routine nominees is now a bitter fight." Barrasso concluded his piece by stating, "It is time to change Senate confirmation rules."
Barrasso has been highly critical of Schumer for compelling Senate GOP leadership to expend hours of floor time to process nominees. These nominees would have been confirmed swiftly via unanimous consent or voice vote under previous presidents.
"Democrats have forced multiple roll-call votes on more than 40 nominees for posts never subject to a single one," Barrasso wrote. "These confirmations used to take seconds. Now, each can take days."
However, Schumer has shown no remorse for prolonging the confirmation process by requiring multiple roll call votes to approve each nominee individually. He openly boasted about his caucus' obstruction after a deal with the President to expedite the confirmation process for certain nominees fell through. Trump had objected to Schumer's demand to unfreeze funding for certain agencies in exchange for providing consent.
"Damn straight we're blocking these nominees," Schumer told "The Parnas Perspective" podcast on August 14. "We can use every tool in the toolbox to delay them, and we have."
He added, "Historically bad nominees need a historic response. And so we did. We blocked them all, and they were frustrated. Trump howled."
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has also indicated a willingness to reform Senate rules to accelerate the confirmation of the president's nominees. "If you're sitting here in August and you've only got 10 or 11 percent of the people that you've nominated for these positions actually confirmed, something is broken," Thune told ABC affiliate KOTA-TV.
While Barrasso did not specify the rule changes he would support, GOP senators proposed a range of potential reforms before leaving Washington for the August state work period. "One change would be to eliminate cloture motion on nominees and eliminate a motion to proceed and just have one vote and leave committee and have one vote," Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told the DCNF in July.
He added, "The push is going to come to shove if there is no negotiation and no settlement before that I believe that the rules will change."
The conservative perspective on this issue underscores the need for a more efficient confirmation process. It highlights the importance of maintaining the integrity of the Senate's role in confirming presidential nominees, while also acknowledging the potential for reform to streamline this process.
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