Senate Republicans Finally Wake Up and Play Hardball With Democrats Over Trump Nominees

RedState 

Republicans are finally waking up and putting a plan together to stop Democrats from continuing to obstruct President Donald Trump's nominees, with the most crucial being a backlog of judicial appointments. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who also serves as the Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, gave a speech on the floor detailing several steps he and his colleagues are preparing to take. 

That comes after not a single nominee has been confirmed by a voice vote or unanimous consent since Trump took office, a sharp departure from tradition. As a chart Cotton had behind him showed, Joe Biden had 57 percent of his nominees confirmed in that manner, while even Trump's first term saw 65 percent make it through. In other words, the Democrats are propagating an unprecedented campaign of partisan obstruction, spitting on the tradition of the Senate in the process. 

COTTON: The Democrats, having lost again last year, the White House and the Senate, have brought us to this point. Zero nominees confirmed by voice vote or by unanimous consent, an unprecedented blockade. All traced back to Chuck Schumer's decision when he got in the Senate to break the norms, the practices, the traditions of the U.S. Senate. Well, this is not going to stand for much longer.

It's up to our Democratic friends to decide how they would like to proceed. Do they want to follow Chuck Schumer off the cliff? Because if so, we'll be happy to use the Harry Reid precedent again. We'll eliminate two hours of debate time. We'll eliminate motions to go in and out of executive session. We'll eliminate cloture motions entirely for nominees that currently take two hours to debate. Or today, maybe we'll make a motion to adjourn, and when the House returns and votes on that motion, Donald Trump can appoint this backlog of over 150 nominees in a recess appointment. It's the Democrats' choice. 

They have a third choice. They can return to historical precedent. They can agree to a voice vote today in the next few minutes. More than 150 nominees, at this point, most of whom came out of our committee on a bipartisan basis, many of whom are nominated to offices that have literally never had a recorded vote on the floor of the United States Senate. The question is up to the Democrats. Do you want to do this the easy way, or do you want to do it the hard way?  

In the aftermath of Cotton's threat, which carried the weight of Republican Senate leadership given his position, Democrats suddenly decided they wanted to make a "deal."

GOP senators, emerging from a closed-door conference lunch on Saturday, said they wanted a resolution by the end of the day to the standoff over nominations, which is the last item on the Senate’s to-do list before leaving for a weekslong break.

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That offer would trade a small tranche of nominations now for the administration unfreezing certain funding. Democrats are then offering to do another tranche later this year, but the deal would be off if the administration transmits another request to the Senate to claw back more spending. That understanding would need to be formally locked in on the Senate floor, which would also require it to be blessed by all senators.

Not to be too dramatic, but if Republicans agree to that dumpster fire of an offer, just cancel the party. The only reason to work with Democrats here is if you get a significant number of nominees through, not a "small tranche." There's also no reason to give away priorities such as spending cuts when Republicans already have the power to bypass Democrat obstruction. 

I understand wanting to conserve some semblance of tradition in the Senate, and in simpler times, that would be something that pays dividends down the road. We do not live in simpler times, though. Democrats will not honor any deal, nor will they preserve any norms agreed to, once they regain power. We've seen them nuke Senate procedures time and again in naked power grabs. Well, Republicans won the election. It's their turn to show some backbone. 

That means Cotton and company need to do exactly what he said in his speech. Get rid of the two-hour debate rule, scrap the cloture votes, and bring these nominees to the floor for an up or down vote. It's already six months into Trump's term. The clock is ticking, and there's no guarantee the GOP will have both chambers of Congress after 2026.