GOP senators eye 'nuclear' move to change rules on Trump nominees

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post


Jordain Carney 8 hrs ago

Senate Republicans are preparing to change the rules to cut down on the time it takes to confirm hundreds of President Trump's nominees later this month.

GOP senators said Monday that they expect the rules change proposal will come up this month as the caucus mulls deploying the "nuclear option" to force the measure through with only a simple majority instead of 60 votes.

"Sometime this month," Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), a member of GOP leadership, asked about a timeline for the rules change as he headed into a weekly meeting in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office.

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a member of GOP leadership, said he expected the the rules change proposal to be brought to the floor "pretty soon."

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-senators-eye-nuclear-move-to-change-rules-on-trump-nominees/ar-BBUEu1F?li=BBnb7Kz

[NanceGreggs]

1. In other words ...

... they know Trump is going down, so the GOP agenda has to be sped-up before it's too late.

[True Blue American]

2. Just what I was thinking!

They are running out of time to do their dirty work!

[crazytown]

3. Dems must give all priority to winning the Senate in 2020

and might as well end the filibuster while they are about it.

[DeminPennswoods]

4. Weren't the rules already changed

by Dems to get Obama's nominees through easier? Since Trump is having trouble even finding nominees, I'm not sure what difference this change will make.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

5. With the DAMAGE done now in the Courts......

I fear for my daughter and 3 granddaughters as to how Judges are going to rule in regards to Reproductive and Voting rights. We are talking a generation here with judges too young getting on the courts.

[lancelyons]

6. Then when the Dems take the Senate, we will change the rules back to make it 60 for good partisanshi

Then when the Dems take the Senate, we will change the rules back to make it 60 for good partisanship.

Serious, this is something our leaders would do.

"In an effort to bring back more partisanship we Dems are going to get rid of the nuclear option and make all nominations require 60 votes and will will go back to the pink slip option to allow Senators to balk at a nomination"

[defacto7]

7. At least my grand children would benefit from that.

In the meantime democracy dies and it won't matter anymore.

[yaesu]

8. By taking impeachment off the table the fascists feel emboldened, ready to spread their fascist

wings even wider, this is only the beginning of rightwing shit storm part 2.

[FiveGoodMen]

13. And we NEVER pass up a chance to take impeachment of the table!

It's one of our specialties.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Had to dig through the article to see what the heck they DID want to change

given the fact that they only need a simple majority to confirm any nominee (i.e., there is no more 60 vote cloture threshold for any nominee).

Here is what the article OP says -

The rules change, spearheaded by Blunt and GOP Sen. James Lankford (Okla.), would reduce the amount of debate time required for district court judges and hundreds of executive nominees once they've shown they can break a filibuster and have the support needed to be confirmed.

Currently nominees face up to an additional 30 hours of debate after the initial procedural hurdle. Under the rules change resolution that would be reduced down to two hours for district court judges and most executive nominees.

The 30-hour requirement would remain in tact for Supreme Court nominees, circuit court nominees, Cabinet picks and roughly a dozen board nominations.

So basically, they want to reduce their standard "debate time", which is the 30 hours (15 hours for each side), down to 2 hours (meaning 1 hour of debate for each side) per nominee.

So this is basically killing the whole notion and tradition of the Senate being "the deliberative body" and essentially makes them, as the "Upper Chamber", no better than the House, which is considered the "Lower Chamber" (where House bills usually have no more than 1 hour of debate per bill/resolution divided equally).

The downfall of the Senate would be under Turtle's watch.

And as a note, most "Executive nominees" generally ended up getting confirmed via "Unanimous Consent" motion requests, which basically means they will "dispense with debate" and the person will be automatically confirmed "without objection" (as long as no one is in the chamber to actually "object" ). Thing is, you often had douchebag teabaggers who would station someone in there before the GOP took over the Senate and would object to the unanimous consent requests for Obama nominees, forcing the nominees into debate periods. And then they would start with the "holds". And then DUers started going ballistic because Obama was not getting nominees approved as if it were his fault because he didn't pound the podium or stomp his feet loud enough.

So the process is where it is today because of the GOP's unprecedented bullshit.

[CrispyQ]

11. McConnell bragged that he's making "generational changes" to the judiciary.

It will be decades cleaning this shit up and climate change is barreling down the pike. "We create our own reality." Well there you go. I can't even imagine the changes kids born now are going to see.

[greblach]

12. When we take over...

When we take over the Senate, we should remove the filibuster rule, because it only serves the Repubs purposes. In addition we should name the rule change the "McConnell / Garland" rule...