Senate GOP Invokes ‘Nuclear Option’ to Change Rules by Simple Majority

By Andrew Duehren (WSJ)

Updated April 3, 2019 6:54 p.m. ET

Simple-majority vote to reduce debate time for nominees to executive and judicial branches deepens trend in chamber

WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans invoked the so-called nuclear option to use a simple majority to change the chamber’s rules for confirming many appointees to the executive and judicial branches.

Under the new, permanent procedures, the Senate will allow for two hours of debate after cloture votes on nominees to noncabinet executive positions and district courts, down from 30 hours. Nominees to circuit courts, cabinet positions, and the Supreme Court are exempt from the reduction in debate time.

The new rules deepen the procedural arms race that has eroded the power of the chamber’s minority party in recent years. Both Republicans and Democrats accused the opposing party of abusing procedural tactics and dangerously departing from the Senate’s storied status as the world’s greatest deliberative body. In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday that grew heated at times, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) exchanged barbs about the damage the other was doing to the institution.

“This is a very sad day for the Senate,” Mr. Schumer said, arguing that an emboldened minority party has long been a signature of the Senate. “The majority, by taking yet another step to erode that legacy, risks turning this body into a colosseum of zero-sum infighting, a place where the brute power of the majority ultimately rules.”

Republicans have maintained that Democratic efforts to slow-walk President Trump’s nominees break from longstanding tradition to allow the president to staff his administration and have repeatedly disrupted the chamber’s business. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, implemented a temporary set of procedural changes similar to the ones Republicans permanently enacted on Wednesday.

“This is not a bad day for the Senate,” Mr. McConnell said. “This is a day we end this completely outrageous level of interference and obstruction with this administration.”

“I don’t think anybody ought to be seized with guilt over any institutional damage being done to the United States Senate,” he added. Mr. McConnell has made confirming conservative judges a priority in the Trump administration, and the new rules change will speed the body’s ability to process the nominees.

Republicans formalized the rules change over a pair of procedural votes on Wednesday to confirm Jeffrey Kessler as an assistant secretary of commerce and Roy Altman as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida. Two Republicans, Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, broke with their party on the votes.

In an interview, Mr. Lee said he was concerned that the rule revision could lay the groundwork for more dramatic changes, including the elimination of the filibuster on pieces of legislation.

“I worry that we might be accelerating our march towards that,” he said. “One reason they call this the nuclear option is once it’s set in motion, it can be difficult to control.”

Conflict over the Senate’s process for confirming presidential appointees has only escalated since Mr. Reid used the nuclear option to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for confirming the vast majority of executive and judicial nominees in 2013.

After Republicans won control of the chamber in 2014, they made a series of moves to cement the majority party’s control over the appointment process. Mr. McConnell refused to hold a hearing on Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to fill an open Supreme Court seat in 2016, arguing that the winner of the 2016 presidential election should select the court’s next justice.

After Mr. Trump won the White House in 2016, Republicans eliminated the 60-vote filibuster threshold for Supreme Court nominees using the nuclear option, clearing the way for the GOP to confirm two of the president’s nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, with simple majority votes.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the latest rules change should spur a cease-fire on future procedural changes.

“My hope is that there will be a stopping point here and that we can preserve the bipartisanship and collegiality that some of these rules reflect,” he said.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.), one of the architects of the rules change, said Wednesday’s vote will help bring the Senate back to its historical process for confirming appointees.

“This really takes the Senate back more to the traditions of: Nominees deserve a vote, the president deserves the chance to nominate people who get voted on,” he said. “Whether they get confirmed or not is a different thing.”

Write to Andrew Duehren at andrew.duehren@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 4, 2019, print edition as '‘Nuclear Option’ Adopted.'