WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s nominees at once, voting for the first time under new rules to begin clearing a backlog of executive branch positions that had been delayed by Democrats.
Frustrated by the stalling tactics, Senate Republicans moved last week to make it easier to confirm large groups of lower-level, non-judicial nominations. Democrats had forced multiple votes on almost every one of Trump’s picks, infuriating the president and tying up the Senate floor.
The new rules allow Senate Republicans to move multiple nominees with a simple majority vote — a process that would have previously been blocked with just one objection. The rules don’t apply to judicial nominations or high-level Cabinet posts.
“Republicans have fixed a broken process,” Thune said ahead of the vote.
The Senate voted 51-47 to confirm the four dozen nominees. Thune said that those confirmed on Thursday had all received bipartisan votes in committee, including deputy secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Interior, Energy and others.
Among the confirmed are Jonathan Morrison, the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Kimberly Guilfoyle as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle is a former California prosecutor and television news personality who led the fundraising for Trump’s 2020 campaign and was once engaged to Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
Fair, and pointless.
It’s not pointless. If we all complain when conservatives flush the rules down the toilet and kick open Pandora’s box, then do nothing when liberals lick their corporate donors’ toes while fretting over the propriety of the tiniest changes, then the Overton window keeps moving right and we’re all fucked.
The original complaint is absolutely pointless. It’s bitching about what happened literal decades ago.