Senate Republicans eye Democrats’ old rule change to push Trump nominees through blockade

Senate Republicans are getting closer to changing the upper chamber’s rules to allow for a slew of President Donald Trump’s lower-level nominees to be confirmed, and they’re closing in on a revived proposal from Democrats to do it.

The hope among Republicans is that using a tool that Senate Democrats once considered would allow them to avoid turning to the “nuclear option,” meaning a rule change with a simple majority vote.

“The Democrats should support it, because it was their original proposal that we’re continuing on,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News Digital. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if they won’t. This historic obstruction by the Democrats is all playing to their far-left liberal base, who hate President Trump.”

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Republicans met throughout the week behind closed doors to discuss their options and have begun to coalesce around a proposal that would allow them to take one vote to confirm a group of nominees, also known as “en bloc,” for sub-Cabinet level positions.

So far, the only nominee to make it through the Senate with ease was Secretary of State Marco Rubio in January. Since then, various positions throughout the bureaucracy have stacked up and have not received a voice vote or gone through unanimous consent — two commonly-used fast-track procedures for lower-level positions in the administration.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that before Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was in charge of the Democrats, “this was always done in a way where, if you had some of the lower-level nominees in the administration, those were all voted en bloc, they were packaged, they were grouped, they were stacked.”

“This is the first president in history who, at this point in his presidency, hasn’t had at least one nominee clear by unanimous consent or voice vote,” he said. “It is unprecedented what they’re doing. It’s got to be stopped.”

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And the number of nominees on the Senate’s calendar continues to grow, reaching 149 picks awaiting confirmation this week. The goal would be to make that rule change before lawmakers leave town for a week starting Sept. 22.

The idea comes from legislation proposed in 2023 by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Angus King, I-Maine, and former Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. Republicans are eyeing their own spin on it, such as possibly not limiting the number of en bloc nominees in a group or excluding judicial nominees.

Republicans would prefer to avoid going nuclear — the last time the nuclear option was used was in 2019, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., lowered debate time on nominees to two hours — but they are willing to do so, given that Democrats haven’t budged on their blockade.

They may only be making a public display of resistance, however.

“Democrats privately support what Republicans are talking about,” a senior GOP aide familiar with negotiations told Fox News Digital. “They’re just too afraid to admit it.”

Sen. James Lankford, who worked with Thune and Barrasso over the recess to build a consensus on a rule change proposal, told Fox News Digital that his Democratic colleagues acknowledged that they’ve “created a precedent that is not sustainable.”

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“But then they’ll say, ‘but my progressive base is screaming at me to fight however I want to. I know I’m damaging the Senate, but I got to show that I’m fighting,’” the Oklahoma Republican said.

“We feel stuck, I mean, literally,” Lankford continued. “Some of my colleagues have said, ‘We’re not the ones going nuclear. They’re the ones that are going nuclear.’”

Klobuchar told Fox News Digital that she appreciated the prior work she’s done with Lankford on “ways to make the Senate better” but wasn’t ready to get behind the GOP’s version of her legislation.

“When I proposed that, it was meant to pass as legislation, which means you would have needed bipartisan votes, and the reason that’s not happening right now is because the president keeps flaunting the law,” she said.

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Not every Senate Democrat is on board with the wholesale blockade, however.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told Fox News Digital that lawmakers should all behave in a way in which administrations, either Republican or Democratic, get “those basic kinds of considerations” for nominees.

“That’s not the resistance,” he said. “I just think that’s kind of unhelpful to just move forward. I mean, you can oppose people like the big ones, whether it’s [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.] Kennedy or others.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment but did not immediately hear back.