I’ve finally got some good news for you.
Republicans in the Senate are planning to make a rule change that will help expedite the approval of both judicial and executive branch nominees, so that they can get past the backlog caused by Democrat stone-walling over the last two years.
Republicans would like the rule change to be made on a bipartisan basis, but are prepared to use the nuclear option to make it happen in the next couple months:
POLITICO – Senate Republicans are intent on making it easier to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominees. And they’re going to make a move with or without Senate Democrats.
The GOP is planning to make a significant change to cut debate time on some lower-level nominees and accelerate confirmation of Trump’s judicial and executive branch picks, and Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said his committee will likely take up the measure sometime before the end of March. He hopes to work with Democrats on a bipartisan change, but Republicans are also prepared to use the “nuclear option” and act unilaterally if they can’t get buy-in from Democrats.
“We’re going to deal with this issue, I think. We’re going to try it [bipartisan] and I think our Republican members would want to see an effort … and we would want that to be a genuine effort. So let’s see,” Blunt said in an interview on Monday. “It’s clear that if we don’t change this, some Democrat president in the future is going to deal with exactly what President Trump and the Republican Senate has had to deal with.”
Here’s more on the potential rule change…
The change would likely shave debate time for sub-cabinet and District Court nominees, though no final decision has been made. Under current rules, any one senator can demand as much as 30 hours of debate time for each nominee. And since the Congress is now split between a Democratic House and GOP Senate, the Senate Republicans are already signaling they will expend much of their energy on nominations given the ideological clash on legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top priority is installation of lifetime judgeships, and a change to the rules could have a dramatic effect on how quickly he can fill the 121 District Court vacancies. Last year, Republicans essentially ran out of time to confirm more judges in the lame duck, and a rules change could help make up ground.
This isn’t the first time debate time has been reduced for nominees. It happened under the Obama administration:
Senators in both parties agreed to cut debate time on nominees temporarily during two years of Barack Obama’s presidency. A permanent redux of that effort would most immediately aid Trump but could help Democrats if they win the presidency and the Senate in 2020.
What does the nuclear option mean in this case?
However, a bipartisan deal could be difficult considering all the pressure Democrats face to fight Trump as hard as they can. Republicans can invoke a unilateral rules change by a simple majority, also known as the “nuclear option,” if they can’t get any Democratic support.
Yeah I doubt Democrats are gonna do anything that will help Trump just a year before the 2020 elections. So you can expect to hear their weeping and gnashing of teeth all over the media when Republicans decide to go nuclear on this.