By Rounak Bagchi
Copyright timesnownews
The Senate on Thursday confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a single vote, the first test of new rules Republicans pushed through last week to accelerate the confirmation of executive branch officials. The rule change, adopted on a party-line vote, allows the majority to move groups of lower-level, nonjudicial nominees with a simple majority, circumventing Democratic objections that had previously forced the chamber to take up nominations one at a time. The new process does not extend to judicial appointments or high-level Cabinet officials. Republicans said the step was necessary to overcome what they described as unprecedented obstruction by Democrats. “Republicans have fixed a broken process,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican whip, who led the effort. “And we’re going to make sure that President Trump’s administration is filled at a pace that looks more like those of his predecessors.” The chamber voted 51 to 47 to confirm the slate, which included Jonathan Morrison as administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle, a former California prosecutor and television personality who later helped lead fundraising for Trump’s 2020 campaign, was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr. Other confirmations included deputy secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Interior and Energy. All of those nominees had cleared their committees with bipartisan support, Thune said. The move represented the latest step in a yearslong erosion of Senate rules governing nominations, as both parties have repeatedly weakened the filibuster to advance their agendas. Democrats first changed the rules in 2013 to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for executive branch and lower-court judicial nominees, after Republicans blocked scores of President Barack Obama’s picks. Four years later, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, then the majority leader, extended that change to Supreme Court nominees to ensure the confirmation of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. This time, Democrats were the ones slowing the process. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the delays reflected the poor quality of Trump’s choices. “Trump’s nominees are historically bad,” Schumer said, warning Republicans that they would “come to regret” the decision to push through the rule change. Schumer’s language echoed McConnell’s own warning to Democrats in 2013, when Republicans were in the minority. At the time, McConnell told Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, then the Democratic leader, that Democrats would rue their decision to weaken Senate norms. Democrats argue that Republicans are now handing Trump unchecked power to install whomever he wants in key posts. “What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more, to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked,” Schumer said. Republicans counter that Democrats have engaged in blanket obstruction, refusing to allow even routine confirmations that in previous administrations were handled swiftly by unanimous consent. The fight escalated in August when the Senate left town without a deal and Trump lashed out at Schumer on social media, telling him to “GO TO HELL!” Thursday’s vote was the first effort to clear the backlog of more than 100 nominees awaiting confirmation. Thune said additional groups would be moved in the coming weeks. “There will be more to come,” he added. Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from US News and around the World.
