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Senate Confirms 48 Nominees at Once 09/19 06:01
The Senate has confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump's nominees at once,
voting for the first time under new rules to begin clearing a backlog of
executive branch positions that had been delayed by Democrats.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate has confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump's
nominees at once, voting for the first time under new rules to begin clearing a
backlog of executive branch positions that had been delayed by Democrats.
Frustrated by the stalling tactics, Senate Republicans moved last week to
make it easier to confirm large groups of lower-level, non-judicial
nominations. Democrats had forced multiple votes on almost every one of Trump's
picks, infuriating the president and tying up the Senate floor.
The new rules allow Senate Republicans to move multiple nominees with a
simple majority vote -- a process that would have previously been blocked with
just one objection. The rules don't apply to judicial nominations or high-level
Cabinet posts.
"Republicans have fixed a broken process," Thune said ahead of the vote.
The Senate voted 51-47 to confirm the four dozen nominees. Thune said that
those confirmed on Thursday had all received bipartisan votes in committee,
including deputy secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Interior, Energy
and others.
Among the confirmed are Jonathan Morrison, the new administrator of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Kimberly Guilfoyle as U.S.
ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle is a former California prosecutor and
television news personality who led the fundraising for Trump's 2020 campaign
and was once engaged to Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr.
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. Both parties have obstructed each other's nominees for years, and
senators in both parties have advocated for speeding up the process when they
are in the majority.
Republicans first proposed changing the rules in 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.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said Democrats are delaying the
nominations because Trump's nominees are "historically bad." And he 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 last week.
Republicans will move to confirm a second tranche of nominees in the coming
weeks, gradually clearing the list of more than 100 nominations that have been
pending for months.
"There will be more to come," Thune said Thursday. "And we'll ensure that
President Trump's administration is filled at a pace that looks more like those
of his predecessors."
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