Today Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the era of Democrat obstruction on Trump administration nominees and judges was over:
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has taken his hardest line yet in the face of what he called Democratic “obstruction” of Trump administration nominees to the judicial and executive branches.
McConnell on Thursday announced that the Senate will stay in session for as long as it takes to approve twelve of Trump’s judicial nominees as well as four executive-branch picks.
“No more obstruction, no more delays. It’s time to confirm them all,” McConnell said. “The Senate will continue to work right through August until every single one of them is confirmed.”
McConnell plans to explode Democratic filibusters on every one of the next 16 nominees, and has scheduled votes on them for this week.
Democrats’ own 2013 amending of the filibuster rule has prevented them from stopping the votes. Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid spearheaded the effort to cancel the filibuster option for most nominations by presidents. Instead of the 60-vote supermajority previously required to confirm administration nominees, the razor-thin Republican majority can confirm them with zero Democratic votes.
So far 110 Trump nominees have had to deal with a filibuster threat from Democrats, McConnell said on Twitter.
Who knew McConnell had a spine?
This sounds like good news for the President and the American people:
Among the executive nominations are Joseph H. Hunt of Maryland, who Mr. Trump nominated to serve as assistant attorney general at the Justice Department; Lynn A. Johnson to serve as an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, Richard Clarida to serve as vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Isabel Keenan Patelunas to serve as an assistant security at the Department of Treasury will also soon get a confirmation vote.
As of the beginning of August, Mr. Trump had won confirmation of 347 nominees, but 170 were still in the pipeline awaiting votes.
Republicans have put a particular focus on filling out the federal judiciary with the president’s picks. They’ve confirmed one Supreme Court justice, 26 circuit court judges and 26 district court picks.
Eight circuit nominees are still pending, as are more than 70 district judge nominees.
If Democrats continue their obstruction they can stay in Washington D.C. instead of going home to campaign for the upcoming November elections.
My guess is they’ll cave.
Lets see if McConnell agrees to accept a limited number of nominees or if he holds firm for the whole slate of backlogged nominees.
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