For many on the left, the Senate Democratic minority simply hasn’t gone far enough to stand up to Donald Trump and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill, but in one specific area, the party has gone to unusual lengths: the confirmation process for White House nominees.
Senate GOP leaders have complained bitterly for months that Democrats have used unprecedented tactics to delay confirmation votes for many of the president’s nominees, including picks for lower-level offices. Those Republican complaints are rooted in fact, and Democratic leaders have largely conceded the point, arguing that Trump is a uniquely radical president; that his nominees tend to be uniquely unqualified; and so these picks require unique scrutiny, regardless of the traditional process.
On Thursday, the Senate GOP majority took a dramatic step to overhaul how the institution functions. NBC News reported:
Republicans triggered the ‘nuclear option’ to change the rules of the Senate on a party-line basis Thursday, a move that will allow them to speed up confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees for key executive branch positions. The vote was 53-45 to establish a new rule that allows the Senate to confirm an unlimited number of nominees en bloc, rather than process each one individually.
Ordinarily, changing the rules of the Senate involves a long and laborious process that requires bipartisan support. But the “nuclear option” expedites matters, as one party uses its majority to overrule the chair, set a new precedent and effectively establish a new rule.
Going forward, senators can now vote to confirm nominees (including sub-Cabinet picks and ambassadors, but not judicial nominations) as a group, which will naturally expedite the overall process. NBC News’ report added, “Republicans say they’ll allow their own senators to object to individual nominees in any given block, but the rule will strip away the power of the minority party to do the same thing.”
The recent history is relevant. Democrats first executed the “nuclear option” in 2013 when Republicans didn’t leave them with much of a choice: The GOP minority said it would impose a yearslong blockade on any and all D.C. Circuit judicial nominees, regardless of merit, which was obviously untenable. Democrats responded by creating a new model, which restored majority rule on nearly all confirmation votes.
Four years later, during the first year of Donald Trump’s first term, Republicans went “nuclear” and allowed the Senate to confirm U.S. Supreme Court nominees by majority rule, too. In 2019, Senate Republicans again used the tactic to reduce the number of hours of debate needed for most confirmation votes.
Or put another way, GOP senators have now triggered the “nuclear option” three times (and counting) in the last eight years.
I emphasize this for a couple of reasons. First, when Democratic leaders considered using this procedural tactic during Joe Biden’s presidency, Republicans and former senators such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema insisted that going “nuclear” undermined the institution. Norms, they said, needed to be preserved and protected.
But as this week’s developments remind us, the “nuclear option” — once seen as a dramatic abuse, resulting in a partisan fallout with lasting consequences — is quietly becoming routine.
Which leads to the other angle worth keeping in mind: The Senate has become slow, stagnant, ineffective and sclerotic. Significant reforms are, by most measures, absolutely necessary.
Rewriting institutional rules is profoundly difficult in the chamber, but the more both parties see value in going “nuclear” and making changes quickly, the easier the path for reforms that would make the Senate a better, more efficient body.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
