Northeast South Dakota News

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) addressed reporters in Washington today, outlining efforts by Senate Republicans to address what he described as a blockade of executive branch nominees by Senate Democrats.

Thune stated that the traditional practice of confirming sub-Cabinet and lower-level executive branch nominees through unanimous consent or voice vote has been disrupted during the past eight months. He said this change has resulted in many of President Trump’s nominees waiting for confirmation.

“This is a problem the Democrats created, and we intend to fix it,” Thune said. He explained that Republicans are pursuing a rules change to allow nominees to be confirmed in batches, restoring what he called “a routine practice around here for decades.”

Thune attributed the current situation to Democratic leadership under Senator Schumer, saying they have forced votes on positions typically handled more swiftly. “So all we’re simply talking about doing is restoring that precedent, going back to the way that has been done historically, and seeing that a lot of these sub-Cabinet, lower level executive branch nominees are able to get confirmed so the president can have his team in place, implement the agenda that the American people elected him to implement,” Thune said.

He noted there has been no cooperation from Democrats on resolving nomination procedures but indicated Republicans would continue with their proposed changes. Senator Cornyn will present a unanimous consent request later today intended to facilitate group confirmations for some nominees.

Thune pointed out historical differences in confirmation rates between administrations: “If you look at historically how this has worked...every administration has been able to get their people in place. This administration so far, only 12 percent.” He contrasted this with 2023 figures when 62 percent of Biden administration nominees were confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.

The Republican leader also emphasized the workload facing the Senate: “This is the busiest Senate in the last 40 years in terms of hours in session, days in session, and votes cast. We’ve cast over 500 votes already…to catch up with the backlog by the end of this year…it would be another 600 votes.”

Thune concluded by saying that unless there is a change in Democratic behavior regarding nominations, Republicans will proceed with changing Senate rules: “This process is broken…It can be fixed one of two ways. Behavioral change on the part of the Democrats…but they seem unwilling to do that...the other option is to do what we’re doing, and that is to fix the rules.”