President Trump will never have a full complement of political appointees if the Senate doesn’t start voting more quickly, according to a Republican who thinks he can convince Democrats to speed up the process.
“We may disagree on the exact solution or the exact timing of the solution but, we understand there is a real problem,” Sen. James Lankford told the Washington Examiner.
The nature of that “problem” lies in the details of the Senate rules; or, rather how the two parties have used those rules to block their opponents’ priorities and retaliate against past abuses of power. It’s a byzantine topic — case in point: Lankford wants to shorten the amount of post-cloture debate on presidential nominees — but the clash has a major influence on the day-to-day operations of government. If unresolved, it threatens to force a subtle but significant change to the structure of the United States Congress.
“The Senate has hit a point of gridlock and we are currently spreading our gridlock to the executive branch by not confirming nominations that require advice and consent,” he told the Senate Rules Committee during a Tuesday hearing. “We are on a trajectory that frustrates the American people, the Senate and every agency … To get a full contingency of staff, it will take over 11 years.”
Simply put, Lankford wants to move more quickly from debating a nominee to confirming the nominee. The vote to end debate on a nominee is called a cloture vote, in Senate parlance. As it stands, even after the debate has ended, the minority can delay the confirmation vote for another 30 hours. Lankford has proposed a resolution that would cut that 30 hours down to eight hours for most executive branch nominees, and just two hours for most federal court nominees.
“What’s difficult to explain is when you demand 30 hours of debate and there is really only 20 minutes of debate on a person during that time period,” he told the Washington Examiner. “The rest of the time the floor is empty or people are talking about something different.”
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, replied skeptically on Tuesday when Lankford made his pitch. She noted that the Senate has already eliminated the practice of requiring a 60-vote threshold to end debate on a president’s nominees; this was done through the nuclear option in 2013, when Democrats changed the rules for lower court judges and executive branch nominees, followed by a Republican decision to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017. So, the adoption of Lankford’s proposal would simply make it quicker for Trump’s nominees to win confirmation.
To her point, the rule change Lankford envisions would pay significant dividends for Trump and the Republican majority. First, it would accelerate the confirmation process. Perhaps more importantly, it would allow the Senate to devote more time to passing legislation. And Democrats know it would have that effect, Lankford acknowledged, although he stopped short of accusing them of slowing down the nominations in order to impede the GOP legislative agenda.
“I’m not sure that’s the real reason, I’m saying that’s the result of [the delays],” he said. “That is certainly one of the consequences, and they’re fully aware of it, but there are other consequences as well.”
Lankford argues to his Democratic colleagues that the Senate must find a way to change their current practices, or the predictable Republican retaliation will deepen the gridlock, as would the likely Democratic counterattack.
“This is a problem that will continue to get worse over the next several years and there is no end to how much worse it can really get,” he said.
