Senate Republicans just approved a rule change that will allow Trump and McConnell to dramatically reshape the courts

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Senate Republicans voted to change the rules for confirming judges and other positions, reducing the required debate time from 30 hours to two.
Only two Republicans voted against the rule change.
Senate Republicans have been confirming Trump’s judicial nominees at a breakneck speed for years and now will be able to do it even faster.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans voted to change the rules for confirming judicial and other nominees on Wednesday, reducing the required debate time.

The rules change now allows Republicans to push through President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees at an even faster pace than they have for the past two years, which has been a key component of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s legislative agenda.

The final vote was 51-48 for rule change. Only two Republicans voted against the rule change, Mike Lee of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine.

Typically, executive nominees, whether they are for the Supreme Court or a host of other positions with in the federal government that the Senate has to shepherd through and confirm, receive 30 hours of debate on the floor. This debate period can be waved in some cases, but throughout the Trump presidency, Senate Democrats have used the full 30 hours. Exceptions have been when Senate Minority Leader cut a deal with McConnell to push through judges in big waves.

The new rule of two hours for debate only applies to district court nominees and sub-cabinet nominees. The full 30 hours of debate will still be in effect for Supreme and Circuit Court nominees as well as individuals selected for the president’s cabinet.

But Republicans have grown frustrated with the long process, causing Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri and James Lankford of Oklahoma to craft a resolution to slash the required debate time to just two hours.

After the initial vote for Blunt and Lankford’s resolution failed on Tuesday, McConnell used a parliamentary procedure to change the rules on Wednesday. This involved McConnell raising a point of order that there are two hours of postcloture debate, not 30. The chair of the Senate ruled that is not correct, prompting a vote to uphold the ruling.

This resulted in Democrats, along with Lee and Collins, voting "yes" to uphold the current rules and the rest of the Republicans voting "no" to change the rules of the Senate. California Sen. Kamala Harris did not vote.

Republicans and Democrats going at each other over judicial nominations has reached boiling points before, such as when McConnell canceled the annual August recess in 2018.

In October, shortly after the long and tumultuous confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer cut a deal to confirm a slew of judges in exchange for letting lawmakers depart Washington for the final stretch of the midterm elections cycle.

And Senate rules have changed to make confirmations move more swiftly and with ease in the past. In 2014, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrapped the 60-vote threshold for certain nominees by using the "nuclear option."

The nuclear option allows the majority leader to bypass the filibuster or the 67-vote threshold for Senate rule changes. While rare, McConnell has utilized this parliamentary tool before, as did Reid, his Democratic predecessor.

McConnell took it another step further when he removed the filibuster option for Supreme Court nominees and confirmed Neil Gorsuch.

McConnell has set records in judicial confirmations during the past two years, enabled in part because of how long he kept open vacancies during the Barack Obama administration. Now, McConnell has gone "nuclear" again, changing the rules to usher in more judges and continue his quest to dramatically reshape the federal judiciary in a textualist mold.

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Source: Business Insider – jperticone@businessinsider.com (Joe Perticone)