Prior to the Rules Committee vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decried a “crisis” on the Senate’s executive calendar. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Congress GOP plots to confirm Trump nominees more quickly Senate Republicans are preparing to use the ‘nuclear option’ to sideline Democrats.

Senate Republicans are moving to speed up the confirmation process for nominees, in an aggressive bid to stymie Democrats’ ability to delay President Donald Trump’s appointments.

The GOP-led Senate Rules Committee approved procedural changes on a 10-9 party-line vote Wednesday that would limit debate time for most nominees. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn't made a final decision on the measure but is expected to bring it to the floor within the next few weeks, senators said.


Republicans may need to use the unilateral "nuclear option" to pass it, in what would be the latest instance of a Senate majority sidelining the minority party to change the chamber’s rules.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is close to McConnell and worked on past rules changes to move confirmations more quickly during Barack Obama's presidency, said McConnell is expected to move imminently on the Senate floor.

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“My instinct is that the problem needs to be solved and it will be solved soon after [next week's] recess,” Alexander said. “I don't see any appetite for delaying it. I think it will be decided, probably, by the end of March.”

In the short term, the move would dramatically aid the Senate GOP at a time of divided government and when confirming nominees is a top priority. The measure would limit debate time after procedural votes to two hours for most nominees once cloture is invoked. Under current rules, the post-debate time is 30 hours.

Republicans have tried to convince Democrats that the change would also help them when they win the White House and Senate in the future, allowing them to similarly steamroll the minority's procedural power.

"The leader wants to be able to bring this to a vote, set a date for it and then have broad conversations across the whole [Republican] conference and Democrats. ... It's hard to get anyone to talk seriously until you know there's a debate," said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.).

Democratic suggestions that the Senate wait to enact the change until 2021 after the next presidential election are “absurd on its face,” Lankford added.

Republicans' preference is to get 60 votes for the proposal, which would mean finding at least seven Democrats to support the change. But Democrats may have little incentive to cooperate, given the long-running nomination wars and increasingly partisan votes on presidential nominees.

If Democrats resist, Republicans could still change the rules via the nuclear option by a simple majority, which would require 50 of the GOP's 53 senators.

Even senators who hate those types of rules changes are frustrated with the Senate's confirmation pace.

"I don’t like to break the rules to change the rules," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in a recent interview. "We have gotten to a point where it almost borders on the ridiculous with how our rules have allowed for such a dilatory process, that it doesn’t benefit anyone. And I regret that.”

Prior to the Rules Committee vote, McConnell (R-Ky.) decried a “crisis” on the Senate’s executive calendar — not with judicial nominations, but with positions that remain unfilled within the executive branch. GOP aides cited statistics showing that Trump's nominees have had to overcome more procedural hurdles than previous presidents.

“The real crisis here is the administration itself below the Cabinet level has an enormous number of vacancies,” McConnell said. “Once we get to cloture on a number of these nominees they aren’t even controversial. So it’s pretty obvious the whole purpose is just to eat up floor time.”

Democrats rejected the charges. Senate Rules Committee ranking member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) blasted the proposal, arguing that it would remove “important checks and balances” from the nomination process and make it easier for the Senate to confirm unqualified nominees.

“If this passes, roughly 80 percent of all Trump administration nominees will be able to be confirmed with just two hours of debate time,” said Klobuchar, who is running for president in 2020. “In Minnesota, that’s about the amount of time it takes to make a hot dish.”

The proposal, introduced by Lankford and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has been in discussion for years.

For the judiciary branch, the proposal applies only to district judges. In addition, it would not apply to Cabinet secretaries or Supreme Court nominees.

But Trump could see an immediate benefit: The Senate Judiciary Committee just advanced 34 district-level judges to the Senate floor, and they would be able to be confirmed much more quickly.

McConnell argued that the rule change was in “the best interest” of the Senate and would benefit both parties.

“Let’s imagine a President Amy Klobuchar in 2021 and a Democratic majority in the Senate,” he said. “Our view at that point is going to be, well we should act just like you did in the previous Congress, so the genie never gets back in the bottle.”

McConnell has made moving judicial nominees a top priority. And with Democrats in control of the House, the Senate is expected to focus even more on nominations this session.

