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View Full Version : McConnell sets stage for 'nuclear option' to change rules on judges




Swordsmyth
03-28-2019, 05:24 PM
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (https://thehill.com/people/mitch-mcconnell) (R-Ky.) filed a procedural motion Thursday to set up a rules change in the Senate next week that will speed up votes to confirm President Trump (https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump)’s nominees to federal district courts and sub-Cabinet-level executive branch positions.
McConnell filed cloture — a motion to cut off dilatory debate — on a motion to proceed to Senate Resolution 50, (https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-resolution/50/all-info) which would dramatically reduce the amount of time Trump’s nominees have to spend on the floor and let Republicans confirm more of his picks.


The resolution would reduce the amount of floor time that must elapse between when the Senate votes to invoke cloture on a nominee and when a final vote is held from 30 hours to two hours.
“I come to the floor to discuss the unprecedented obstruction that has faced President Trump’s nominees for the past 26 months and counting and to announce the Senate is going to do something about it,” McConnell said on the floor.
McConnell’s action Thursday sets up a vote next week on what would be a permanent standing order to reduce debate time for district court and most executive branch nominees. It needs 60 votes to pass.
Senate Republicans say if Democrats stop the resolution from getting 60 votes, they will go ahead with the nuclear option, a controversial tactic used to set a new Senate precedent, and essentially rewrite the Senate rules, with a simple majority vote.
It’s called the nuclear option because it’s viewed as a drastic escalation of partisan warfare.
“The status quo is unsustainable for the Senate,” McConnell said. “It’s unfair to this president and the future presidents of either party. It cannot stand … it will not stand.”
McConnell noted that the Senate has held 128 cloture votes to overcome Democratic delaying tactics for 42 different executive branch positions, including for “uncontroversial assistant secretaries [and] agencies’ general counsels.”
He said the Senate has confirmed 22 percent fewer nominations during Trump’s first two years in office compared to President Obama’s first two years in office.


At least three Senate Republicans, however, say they haven’t yet decided whether to vote for a rules change by simple majority: Sens. Susan Collins (https://thehill.com/people/susan-collins) (R-Maine), Cory Gardner (https://thehill.com/people/cory-gardner) (R-Colo.) and Lisa Murkowski (https://thehill.com/people/lisa-murkowski) (R-Alaska).
Collins and Gardner face reelection next year in states that Democrat Hillary Clinton (https://thehill.com/people/hillary-clinton) won in 2016.
Collins said she had not yet made a decision and is meeting with her staff “to find out the specifics on it.”
“It’s my understanding that Sen. McConnell is trying to reach out to the minority leader on the issue. So I want to see what the results of that are,” she said.
Schumer has tried to negotiate a deal with McConnell that would lower the post-cloture time that must elapse for most judicial and executive branch nominees but win concessions for the minority party, according to sources familiar with the talks.
Schumer has proposed postponing the rules change until 2021, after the presidential election, or to limit the change to sub-Cabinet-level executive branch nominees but exempt district court judges, according to a source familiar with the negotiation.
The third proposal from Schumer would lower floor time for judges and executive branch nominees but restore the Senate’s so-called blue slip tradition under which both senators from a judicial nominee’s home state must give a green light before the nominee can proceed, the source said.
McConnell, however, has rejected all three offers.
A Senate aide said Thursday afternoon “the talks are breaking down.”
Murkowski and Gardner on Thursday said they support speeding up consideration of Trump’s nominees but stopped short of saying they would vote for the nuclear option. They want to first see if the resolution can win over seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold.
“We have seen that there have been abuses of the process and I’d like to see us change that with a full 60 [votes]. If we can’t, then we’ll have to consider what we’re doing,” Murkowski said.

A Senate Republican leadership source on Thursday predicted that McConnell will have enough GOP votes to change the rules unilaterally.

More at: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/436332-mcconnell-sets-stage-for-nuclear-option-to-change-rules-on-judges

Swordsmyth
04-03-2019, 11:06 PM
Senate Republicans used the “nuclear option” Wednesday to unilaterally reduce debate time on most presidential nominees, the latest in a series of changes to the fabric of the Senate to dilute the power of the minority.
The move by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately paves the way to expedite confirmations of President Donald Trump’s judicial and executive branch picks and comes amid deep GOP frustration with Democrats’ delays. Future presidents will benefit, too, though McConnell and Trump stand to gain inordinately as they seek to fill 130 District Court vacancies during the 18 months before the 2020 elections.


McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) engaged in an ugly round of recriminations ahead of the rules change, barely able to make eye contact as they groused at each other.
Schumer asserted that he was “so sorry that my Republican colleagues have gone along with Sen. McConnell’s debasement of the Senate.” The New York Democrat called the change “disgraceful” and said it was a “sad day in the Senate’s history.”
McConnell absorbed the criticism, cracking a smile at times as Schumer castigated him. Then he stood up and said Schumer was responsible for the quagmire, having launched filibusters of President George W. Bush’s nominees.
“He started this whole thing,” McConnell said, pointing at Schumer. “This is not a sad day. This is a glad day.”
Republicans first sought to cut debate time on executive nominees, with the Senate voting 51-48 to overrule existing precedent. It then did the same to judicial nominees a couple hours later with another 51-48 vote.
Two GOP senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, voted with Democrats to preserve the current rules.

More at: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/03/senate-republicans-trigger-nuclear-option-to-speed-trump-nominees-1253118



Mike Lee of Utah
WHY?