Republicans are wisely considering a Senate rules change to speed confirmation of presidential nomination. But that move should be just the beginning of efforts to overcome unprecedented Democratic obstructionism.

On almost every judicial nominee presented by President Trump, and also on many of his executive branch nominations, Democrats are demanding the clocking of the full 30 hours of allowable (post- cloture) debate even if they have no actual objection to the nominee himself. The time required to confirm each nominee has reached levels never seen before, and the number of judicial vacancies has increased substantially.

If anything, the situation is worse with regard to executive branch positions. Surely a president should be allowed to staff his own administration with anyone who could pass a confirmation vote. Yet the Senate Democrats’ blockade is so severe that some 374 nominees never received a vote last Congress (compared to only 176 unfinished nominations at the end of President Barack Obama’s first biennium).

Hence, some Republicans are pushing for a rules change that would cut debate time for most nominees from 30 hours to eight, or even two. This would mirror a less formal agreement from the Obama presidency through which Republicans allowed Obama’s nominees to advance after only eight hours of debate.

Republicans could try to change the debate time via a formal, bipartisan rules change requiring 60 of 100 senators to concur with the alteration. If that doesn’t work, they say they can do it with just 50 votes (plus Vice President Mike Pence) via a new precedent-setting rules interpretation -- a process colloquially known as the “ nuclear option.”

When faced with obstructionism based not on substance but sheer cussedness and political power plays, Republicans would be well justified in changing the debate rule. But there are other potential weapons they could have begun using already — options arguably even more in keeping with the spirit of current rules and traditions than a newly restricted debate limit would be.

First, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has probably already asked the White House to resubmit all the expired nominations, letting them know he wants to expedite them. The White House should quickly oblige.

Then, the first option, messier but requiring no rules change or re-interpretation at all, would be to use the so-called “two speech rule” to wear out Democratic obstructionists by requiring that they actually use the debate time they claim to want. The details are somewhat abstruse, but suffice it to say this option would not be guaranteed to solve the problem — Democrats could conceivably muster the energy to keep their speeches going almost interminably — but it’s at least worth a try.

The second, more efficient, idea would be entirely within the spirit of existing rules. It would allow a floor vote on nominees who reported by the relevant committee in the previous Congress, but who never got their day on the Senate floor.

Since the nominations themselves can be approved with just 51 votes once debate time is all used up, McConnell could say they should be able to be brought to the floor with the same 51-vote margin, without requiring the delay brought about by requiring a second trip to the committees that already reported them.

The mechanism would work as follows:

Senate Rule XXXI says all nominations offered by the president shall be referred to an appropriate committee “unless otherwise ordered.” McConnell, or Pence, or whoever is in the full Senate chair at the time, could so order. Announcing that resubmitted nominations ( not names offered for the first time) that already received committee approval in the last Congress should not need re-approval, the chair could bring them to the floor, and cloture, immediately.

If Democrats object, their objection would be voted on by the full Senate — and, if the objection is defeated by a simple majority vote, the nomination would proceed via this shortcut, sans committee.

Whereas “nuking” a full rules change on debate limits would amount to a clear alteration of both the letter and spirit of existing standing rules, this procedure would clearly be justifiable using the existing rules language (“unless otherwise ordered”). Moreover, it could be described as a mere matter of logical, procedural housekeeping, well within the intent of current Senate operations.

After all, 51 votes are already enough to bring nominees to the floor and to confirm them after they've cleared committee. This doesn't change that. Because former Democratic leader Harry Reid “nuked” the confirmations process to allow a 51-vote (rather than 60-vote) threshold, and because these particular nominees’ full records already have been vetted in committee (albeit in the prior Congress), the Senate majority has every right, and every logical reason, to “order” that any new delaying actions in committee be avoided.

This would be an appropriate reaction to the Democrats' obstructionism, which again has caused twice as many nominations to sit waiting as had been open after Obama's first two years. It would improve efficiency in the Senate, fairness for the nominees, and service to the public that relies on courts and executive agencies to deal with cases and controversies with reasonable dispatch.

With progressives increasingly leaning on liberal judges to rein in Trump initiatives they can’t block legislatively, and with some of those judges breaking tradition by issuing injunctions nationwide rather than merely within their own jurisdictions, every day that passes is a day that more lawsuits can be assigned to leftist judges rather than to newly confirmed conservatives. The Left is wrongly using judges for policy-making; conservatives should expedite confirmations in order to restrain them.