Senate Democrats are signaling they’re not fans of how Republicans are hoping to expedite the confirmation of President-elect Trump’s defense secretary nominee, and say they want a full vetting process to consider retired Gen. James Mattis next year.
Republicans are looking to pass a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, that would change Senate parliamentary rules to fast-track legislation that would allow a retired military officer to be considered as secretary of defense as long as they have been out of service for at least three years. Current law requires officers to be out for seven years, but the recently retired Mattis doesn’t qualify under current law.
Under the GOP’s language, legislation making this change would set up a vote on changing the law early next year, and while it would require a three-fifths vote for passage, debate on the change would be limited to 10 hours.
The language is clearly designed to get the law changed so the Senate can quickly consider and confirm Mattis. Democrats, however, signaled Tuesday that they want to fully vet Trump’s pick, which would take time, and took exception to Republicans’ decision to include the waiver in the must-pass funding bill. If the continuing resolution, which funds the government until the end of April, doesn’t pass by Dec. 9, the government will not have the money it needs to operate and will have to partially shut down.
“I don’t think it should be in the [continuing resolution],” Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner Tuesday evening. He said language expediting legislation to change the law shouldn’t be in the CR, and said he hasn’t committed to supporting it or opposing it yet.
While Republicans are calling it a “waiver” for Mattis, Cardin said that’s too soft a term.
“It’s not a waiver, it’s a change in law,” he said. “It’s a matter that requires consideration by Congress and has no reflection on Gen. Mattis at all. … But it’s something that requires deliberation by Congress and I would hope it gets the attention it deserves and an up and down vote by members.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., told the Examiner that she opposes any effort by Republicans to limit Senate debate on providing Mattis an exception to current law.
“The important thing is that there is time to discuss and debate whether this is appropriate,” she said. “The last time we did this was at the end of WWII, when President Truman was asking that Gen. Marshall serve as secretary of defense, and Congress had a very long debate about that, a very robust debate, and they said it’s okay for this one time. We don’t think we should do it again.”
“So I think we should debate that and that is a decision for the next Congress, not for this Congress,” she said, adding that incoming New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan should have a voice in the process.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Tuesday signaled her opposition to including actual waiver language for Mattis in the end-of-the-year funding bill. However, Pelosi said Wednesday that Democrats in the House wouldn’t oppose language that merely sets up an expedited vote next year on legislation making it possible for him to be confirmed.
With likely passage in the House, that means Senate Democrats will have to decide whether they are willing to shut down the government over an effort to fast-track the popular general’s nomination.
The GOP move is essentially an effort to call Democrats’ bluff on recent boasts that they will use delaying tactics to try to stall or slow-walk many of Trump’s Cabinet nominations as payback for the GOP’s refusal to consider President Obama’s selection of Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.
Using the Senate procedure to extend debate and eat up precious legislative floor time is Democrats’ only option after they changed that chamber’s rules to allow a simple majority vote of 51 senators, instead of 60, to shut down debate on all presidential nominations except those to the high court.
A vote on CR with the Mattis language included, however, would still require a 60-vote threshold, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pointed out late Tuesday.
Because Republicans have 54 seats in the Senate, they’ll need to find at least six Democrats to support the Mattis language and ensure that language, plus the spending bill, can be approved and become law.
But next year, when the actual legislation is on the floor to change the law to allow Mattis to serve as defense secretary, Republicans will have 52 seats, which means they’ll need at least eight Democratic votes. Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul, R-Texas, might also oppose Mattis on the grounds that the Pentagon should require civilian leadership, bringing the number of Democratic votes required to pass the Mattis language to nine.
Given Mattis’ popularity, McConnell will be leaning on a list of red-state Democrats and those from purple states helped hand Trump the election. Many of these senators are up for election in 2018. The list includes Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Jon Tester of Montana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Bill Nelson of Florida and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
So far, all of those Democrats are keeping their powder dry on whether they would vote in favor of moving the CR with the Mattis fast-tracking language. The Washington Examiner reached out to their offices early Tuesday evening but none had responded as of Wednesday morning.
The provision puts Brown in a particularly difficult spot after he pledged last week to give Trump’s Cabinet picks the “Garland” treatment, vowing that Democrats would force time-consuming procedural votes on nominees.
“They’ve been rewarding for stealing a Supreme Court justice. We’re gong to help them confirm their nominees, many of whom are disqualified?” he fumed to Politico. “It’s not obstruction, it’s not partisan. It’s just a duty to find out what they’d do in these jobs.”
Manchin, however, this week warned his party not to engage in payback over Garland or face voters’ wrath in rural and so-called Rust Belt states that helped hand Trump the presidency.
Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday said he was “very worried” about Mattis’ confirmation process and blasted Democrats who are trying to delay or block his nomination because of this past year’s battle over the Garland nomination as “disgraceful.”
