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The Senate on Thursday confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a single vote, the first use of new Republican-backed rules designed to speed up the confirmation process and clear a backlog of executive branch appointments.
The chamber voted 51-47 along party lines to approve the group of nominees, which included deputy secretaries for several Cabinet departments and high-profile ambassadors. Among them: Jonathan Morrison, now administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former prosecutor and Trump campaign fundraiser, as U.S. ambassador to Greece.
Background on the rules change
Last week, Senate Republicans triggered the so-called “nuclear option” to rewrite chamber precedent and allow multiple non-judicial, lower-level nominees to be considered en bloc. Under the previous rules, a single objection from the minority party could force time-consuming, individual roll-call votes.
Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., led the effort after weeks of stalled negotiations with Democrats, who had blocked quick votes on nearly all of Trump’s nominees. Thune said the changes were necessary to “fix a broken process” that had left dozens of positions across government unfilled.
Legal and political arguments
Republicans argued that Democrats’ tactics amounted to obstruction. Trump himself lashed out at Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in August, telling him to “GO TO HELL!” on social media after a bipartisan deal collapsed.
Democrats countered that their resistance reflected the poor quality of Trump’s nominees. “What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more, to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked,” Schumer said last week. He warned Republicans would regret the move, echoing a caution made by GOP Leader Mitch McConnell in 2013 when Democrats changed the rules to help President Barack Obama.
Government and expert response
The confirmations mark another step in a decade-long tit-for-tat over Senate procedure. Both parties have used procedural changes to weaken the filibuster and diminish the minority’s power in nominations. Democrats acted first in 2013 to lower the threshold for most executive branch and judicial nominees. Republicans followed in 2017, eliminating the 60-vote requirement for Supreme Court picks to secure Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation.
“Republicans have fixed a broken process,” Thune said Thursday, insisting the rule change brings the Senate closer to historical norms when nominees often moved quickly by unanimous consent.
Broader context
Thursday’s vote underscores the rising partisanship over staffing administrations. Unlike past minority parties that allowed at least some routine confirmations, Senate Democrats have uniformly resisted Trump’s nominees under pressure from their base. The fight highlights how procedural warfare in the Senate has escalated from occasional filibusters into routine blockades.
Next steps
Republicans signaled they will bring up another large bloc of more than 100 pending nominees in the coming weeks, gradually reducing the backlog of unfilled posts across government.
“There will be more to come,” Thune said. “And we’ll ensure that President Trump’s administration is filled at a pace that looks more like those of his predecessors.”
