Another move by a party that doesn't seem likely to voluntarily give up power.
Senate Republicans used what is known as the nuclear option to break a Democratic blockade of President Trump’s nominees, weakening Congress’s vetting role.
www.nytimes.com
Senate Republicans on Thursday bulldozed past Senate precedents and changed the rules to break a Democratic blockade of President Trump’s nominees, in an extraordinary move that is likely to undercut Congress’s future role in vetting executive branch officials.
The change, pushed through along party lines, lowered the existing 60-vote threshold for considering a group of presidential nominees to a simple majority, weakening the ability of individual senators to block nominees they find objectionable. It was the latest step in a yearslong back-and-forth between the two parties that has
eroded the filibuster, a once-potent Senate tool to protect the rights of the minority and force consensus.
In this case, Republicans resorted to the move in an effort to steer around Democratic obstruction of Mr. Trump’s nominees, which has created a backlog of more than 100, angering the president and frustrating his allies in Congress. They framed it as a necessary step to grease the wheels of a chamber mired in partisan rancor and to return the Senate to its longstanding norm of confirming lower-level nominees without individual votes.
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Now, the party in power will have the ability to unilaterally approve dozens of executive branch nominees with little resistance. And while nominees must still win approval from Senate committees, there will be even less incentive for presidents to choose people who can draw bipartisan support, since members of the minority party will be presented with even fewer opportunities to delay or block anyone’s confirmation.
