JENNY BETH MARTIN: Time For The Senate GOP To Grind Out Trump’s Nominees

Senate Democrats are denying the will of the American people – and Senate Republicans must fight harder to overcome Democrat obstruction.

Using every weapon in their arsenal to delay and block the confirmation of President Trump’s nominees, Senate Democrats are obstructing Trump’s efforts to implement his policy agenda. In doing so, these Democrats are willfully denying the American people the implementation of the policy agenda they chose in last year’s presidential election.

In this battle, both sides know that “personnel is policy.” That is the guiding principle behind the Trump administration’s efforts to install its nominees at the top of the federal Leviathan. (RELATED: JENNY BETH MARTIN: Medicare Waste, Fraud, And Abuse Must End)

The federal government workforce is composed of approximately 3 million people. To manage them, and ensure they are carrying out the president’s policy agenda, the president is given the right to name about 4,000 political appointees, of which roughly 1,200 require confirmation by the Senate.

President Trump took office in January leavened by the experience of his first term. He and the team he installed in senior positions in his administration knew how important it would be to move quickly to fill those slots at the top of the bureaucracy, and they moved aggressively to do so.

In fact, Trump didn’t wait until he was inaugurated the second time to use the lessons he learned in his first term. Less than two weeks after winning a decisive victory in the presidential election, he had named almost two dozen Cabinet and top level administration aides, far outpacing his own first-term mark – and those of Joe Biden following the 2020 election and Barack Obama following the 2008 election.

In fact, an analysis by the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service showed that “By the time [Trump] named a nominee for each Cabinet department, his most recent predecessors had named just two or fewer nominees,” and “Trump named all 15 Cabinet secretary nominees before [Barack] Obama or George W. Bush had named one.”

During the first 100 days of his second term, Trump’s nominees moved quickly through the Senate – at the 100-day mark, in fact, 45 of Trump’s nominees had been confirmed, outpacing the confirmation pace for the administrations of George W. Bush and Joe Biden, and more than doubling the number of confirmations at that point in his own first term.

But even as the arbitrary First-100-Days deadline was approaching, some Senate Democrats were making moves to block lower-level Trump nominees – the level of nominee which, in previous administrations, were regularly approved by unanimous consent, rather than by holding individual cloture and confirmation votes.

Several Senate Democrats – including Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, Arizona’s Ruben Gallego, and Hawaii’s Brian Schatz – desperate to show their party’s (increasingly small) leftwing base that they were doing everything they could to oppose Trump, began placing “holds” on Trump nominees, indicating to both parties’ leaderships that they would deny any unanimous consent requests and would instead insist on floor votes for the nominees. By one count, Democrats have announced holds on 300 Trump nominees.

There are now 97 Trump nominees “at the desk” – Senate parlance meaning they have been approved by their respective committees of jurisdiction and are ready to be considered by the full Senate, first, if necessary, with a vote to end debate on the nomination, and then, after the two-hour post-cloture debate period has ended, a floor vote on confirmation.

Democrats are in the minority in the Senate. They cannot defeat Trump’s nominees, all they can do is delay consideration of Trump’s nominees.

Consequently, if Senate Republicans hold firm for President Trump’s nominees, this will be a simple exercise in grinding it out – nothing fancy, no razzle-dazzle, just using the Senate GOP’s numerical advantage to slowly advance until they get their way.

That means that the Senate calendar will have to change, so that the Senate can begin processing these nominees one after another, hour after hour, day after day – at least until Senate Democrats recognize and capitulate to the fact that Senate Republicans are truly committed to implementing the Trump agenda by doing what it takes to confirm his nominees.

Once the Democrats have capitulated to reality, they will lift their holds, and Trump’s remaining nominees can be confirmed in a more timely fashion, as they are made ready for consideration by the Senate.

It’s time for Senate Republicans to acknowledge that Senate Democrats’ delay tactics are working, and take the necessary action to counter them. The implementation of the Trump agenda – the people’s agenda, for which the American people voted in November – demands it.

Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action. 

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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