Senate Republicans, frustrated with delay tactics by Democrats, may soon vote unilaterally to change the chamber rules in order to speed through President Trump’s judicial nominations.
Republican lawmakers told the Washington Examiner they expect Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to call up a vote that would reduce the 30 hours of debate time lawmakers can now expend before a vote to confirm a judge to the federal bench.
The change in debate time would require a simple majority to pass, rather than the typical 60 votes, in a procedure termed the “nuclear option.”
Democrats, Republicans complain, have been requiring the Senate to use up the maximum debate time, even when they do not object to the nominee. It’s a time-wasting tactic aimed at keeping as many Trump picks off the federal bench as possible, the GOP contends.
“I think we’ve all been very patient,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a member of the Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “But when somebody refuses to allow us to proceed … and then a nominee gets an overwhelming vote, that’s a pretty good indication of game playing. And there’s no place for that.”
McConnell has been under increasing pressure to confirm judges in the new Congress after a batch of nominees stalled at the end of 2018. At the time, outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona blocked the Judiciary Committee from advancing a group of judicial nominees. Flake was protesting the GOP leadership’s refusal to allow a vote on a bill to protect the special counsel probe into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., subsequently blocked an end-of-year package of judicial nominees that McConnell hoped to pass by voice vote before ending the 115th Congress.
There have also been a number of judicial retirements.
The Trump administration announced 51 new judicial nominees last week, including two to fill vacancies on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Conservative groups point out that there are now more vacancies on the federal bench than when Trump took office.
“It is imperative that Senate Democrats stop their obstructionist tactics, stop bullying judicial nominees, and instead focus on filling the over 160 federal court vacancies so the judicial system can do its job and effectively serve the American people,” Judicial Crisis Network policy director Carrie Severino said.
It’s not clear how the new debate time would be structured.
[Opinion: Republicans should accelerate confirmation of judges in 2019]
Last year, Senate Republicans proposed reducing debate time from 30 hours to eight hours for most executive branch nominations and from 30 hours to two hours for lower judicial branch nominations.
That would mimic a similar change the Senate put in place in 2013, when Democrats were in charge and President Barack Obama was in the White House.
The agreement was put in place with cooperation from Republicans who at the time were hoping to stop a move by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid to lower the threshold for confirmation from 60 to 51 votes. But Reid eventually made that rules change, using the “nuclear option.”
An aide to McConnell said GOP lawmakers “are discussing the options.”
Democrats have no way to stop the majority GOP from confirming judges now other than to slow down the process by dragging out the debate.
“What we’re talking about now strikes me as wasting the Senate’s time,” McConnell said during a Rules Committee hearing on the matter that was held last spring.
Democrats are opposed to the move and point to the success McConnell has had confirming what has been a historic number of judges.
“I don’t see why it’s necessary,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said. “We haven’t had any prodigious debate time on nominees.”
