Sen. John McCain has an explanation for Obama administration appointees whose confirmation votes are languishing in the GOP-led Senate: It’s payback for Democrats using the so-called nuclear option to push through scores of nominations in the previous Congress.

“I told ’em: ‘You jam them through, it’s going to be a long time before I approve of them,’” McCain said, recounting what he told Democrats after they changed the rules in 2013 and confirmed dozens of lifetime judicial appointments and several high-profile Cabinet nominees. “It’s affected me as chairman of the Armed Services Committee.”


McCain did help shepherd Defense Secretary Ash Carter through confirmation — the only Cabinet nominee approved by the GOP Senate. Since then, the Arizona Republican has refused to move 10 civilian nominations that have landed in his committee.

There are 18 nominations waiting for a vote on the Senate floor — including Loretta Lynch’s nomination to be attorney general — and more than 130 idling in committees. So far, though, only McCain has admitted to deliberately stymieing President Barack Obama’s picks. But even as the GOP Senate Judiciary Committee moves at a pace similar to that of last year’s Democratic Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has done little to bring up nominations for a vote by the full Senate.

That has Democrats accusing Republicans of slow-walking the nominations amid lingering anger over the nuclear option.

“It’s appalling,” groused Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat. “I mean, how many times are they just going to throw logs on the process of government? I mean, even district court judges, for lord’s sake.”

The pace of action on confirmations stands in contrast to legislative action, where Republicans have considered more than 100 amendments this year and passed a budget, and are hoping to soon push through major trade and foreign policy bills.

But they’ve shown little interest in Obama’s nominations, particularly because then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pushed through 96 judges and 302 executive nominees after using the nuclear option on most executive and judicial nominations in November 2013, according to the Congressional Research Service.

With a simple majority vote on the floor, Reid changed Senate rules to make all nominations, aside from those to the Supreme Court, subject to a simple majority vote. Prior to that change, all nominations needed 60 votes to end a filibuster. Republicans could undo the rules change, but they’ve shown no inclination to do so while Obama is still in office. And if the GOP can retake the White House and retain control of the Senate in 2016, they could take advantage of the lower threshold to speed their own picks.

Still, Republicans warned that after going nuclear the Senate would never be the same, and it hasn’t been. They forced legions of time-wasting procedural votes on nominees when Democrats were in the majority, and they are in no hurry on other appointees now that the GOP controls the chamber.

Carter was quickly confirmed in February with little dissent. But the other Cabinet appointee — Lynch to lead the Justice Department — has languished since early November. McConnell has taken the unusual tactic of tying her nomination to a human trafficking bill that’s been stalled for more than a month, though aides predict that logjam may finally ease this week.

McConnell’s insistence that the trafficking bill be dealt with before Lynch angered Democrats so much that Reid has threatened to usurp McConnell’s power to control the Senate agenda and attempt to call up Lynch’s vote on his own — a major breach of Senate protocol.

After three months of no new judges on the federal bench, the full Senate got the trains going on judicial nominations last week, when it installed Alfred Bennett as district judge for the Southern District of Texas — the first judge confirmed under the new Republican majority this year. A second Southern District judge, George Hanks, is slated to be confirmed Monday evening.

By comparison, when Democrats controlled the Senate in 2007 at the start of President George W. Bush’s last two years in office, the chamber confirmed 15 judicial nominees in the first quarter of the year, according to CRS.

“It’s totally different than what we had for President Bush, that’s for sure,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). “There hasn’t been the same respect for the fact that when a president wins an election, they have the right to have their team.”

Republicans don’t pinpoint one reason for the major logjam at the judicial level, which has infuriated outside groups intent on seeing the Senate fill 23 judicial emergencies across the nation’s courts. Some argue that Senate Republicans are still getting up and running, while others say the delay is retribution for Democrats’ power play with the nuclear option.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the GOP-led Senate’s pace on nominations lags because Democrats already approved all of the nominees in December that Republicans would have been working on this year.

“In November and December — contrary to tradition — the Democrats cleared the slate of nominees that were on the calendar after the election,” Grassley said. “We would have actually moved them through and had them through the Senate right now. So it was done in December instead of now.”

A spokeswoman for Grassley also noted that so far in his presidency, Obama has had 308 judicial nominees confirmed — while Bush had 273 judges confirmed at the same point in his White House tenure.

There are nine other judicial nominations waiting on the Senate floor, while 11 are pending in the Judiciary Committee. That powerful panel — the epicenter of many major nomination fights in the Senate — will vote this week on confirming deputy attorney general nominee Sally Yates (who would be Lynch’s No. 2) and two more judicial nominees.

And at least for the Judiciary Committee, the rate of processing nominations has been similar under Democrats and the GOP. Under former committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in 2007, the panel had held three nomination hearings for 10 judges. So far under Grassley, the committee has had four nomination hearings — for six judges, Lynch, Yates and two other executive nominees.

Aside from the court battle, the Obama administration could see another controversial nominations war against Senate Republicans if Obama picks someone permanent to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after the resignation of director Todd Jones.

Jones, who is now at the National Football League as its special counsel for conduct, stepped down from the ATF last month. The resignation came just after the ATF backpedaled from a proposed ban on a popular type of ammunition following a furor from congressional Republicans and the public.

The fight to get Jones formally installed under a Democratic Senate was already epic: Democrats flew in an ill Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and twisted the arm of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to get Jones over a filibuster and make him the first Senate-confirmed head of the ATF. He was approved 53-42 after the dramatic procedural vote — closing out a fight in which the National Rifle Association stayed neutral.

A fight over a new ATF director, should Obama send one to the Senate, could spark another battle over gun control and lingering questions about Fast and Furious, a botched gun-tracking operation that the ATF oversaw.

“I think the nominee is going to be scrutinized,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said of a prospective ATF nominee. “I think there are a number of concerns out there, and senators are going to want to know where this nominee is on a lot of these controversial issues, and it could impact his ability to be confirmed.”

In other words, it will be a while before Obama can confirm a new ATF director — if he ever can. And though Lynch may be confirmed as soon as Reid and McConnell can strike a deal on the trafficking bill, statistics from past Congresses indicate it’s highly unlikely this GOP Senate will be among the most productive when it comes to presidential nominees.

Republicans say that’s not by design. They say there is no grand plan to stall Obama’s nominees, even though the data suggest that’s exactly what’s happening.

“We’re demonstrating an interest in moving forward on nominations,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said. “I’ve never been in any meeting or had a conversation with any other senator where the conversation was payback or intentional slowing of the process.”

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