Schumer urges Thune to respect Senate tradition for Trump Cabinet picks

WASHINGTON (CN) — With just weeks left in control of the Senate, Democrats implored the incoming Republican top brass Monday to respect the chamber’s longstanding responsibility of confirming White House officials, despite calls from the next administration to abandon the process.

The call for bipartisanship in the next Congress, issued by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, comes just weeks after the GOP leveraged Senate procedure to score key concessions on President Joe Biden’s own confirmations agenda.

“In our system of checks and balances, the Senate plays a vital role in ensuring the President appoints well-qualified public officials that will dutifully serve the American people and honor their oaths to the Constitution,” he wrote in a letter to South Dakota Senator John Thune, the incoming Republican leader.

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in January, he has repeatedly bemoaned the traditional Senate confirmation process for Cabinet officials, where lawmakers collect evidence, hold hearings and vote on many of the president’s nominees to lead an array of executive offices.

Trump, complaining that the slow-moving Senate procedure will hinder his policy agenda, has called on Republicans to employ a method known as recess appointments to cement his Cabinet. That process, which requires the consent of both House and Senate leadership, would see Congress take an unplanned vacation from Washington and give the Trump administration freedom to unilaterally appoint Cabinet officials.

Beyond giving the incoming White House a speedy avenue for filling its Cabinet, recess appointments would also allow Trump to ram through some of his more controversial picks — such as defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth — who have caused heartburn for even some Republican lawmakers.

The method is seen by some, particularly Democrats, as an end-run around constitutional checks and balances as well as the Senate’s role of “advice and consent” with respect to the White House.

Thune has not said directly whether he would consent to recess appointments but acknowledged ahead of the Thanksgiving recess that “all the options” were on the table for confirming Trump’s Cabinet picks.

Schumer, writing to the incoming GOP leader Monday, urged Thune not to abandon what he called the “sacred duty” of Senate confirmations.

Democrats, he added, are “ready and willing” to work with Senate Republicans to evaluate all of Trump’s nominations in a bipartisan fashion. The outgoing majority leader committed to working across party lines to undertake the standard confirmation process, including a review of FBI background investigation material, holding hearings for nominees and voting on each appointment on the Senate floor.

“[W]e should not waver in our constitutional duty,” Schumer said.

But while Democrats urge their GOP colleagues to respect Senate tradition, Republican lawmakers have taken steps in the waning weeks of the Biden administration to block some of the president’s most critical nominations.

Democrats, who pledged to confirm all of the White House’s pending nominees for federal district and appellate courts, faced obstruction in recent weeks from Republicans, who leveraged Senate procedure to drag out each confirmation.

The GOP’s delay tactics scored them a major victory just ahead of Thanksgiving. In a late-night deal between Schumer and Republican leaders, Democrats agreed to abandon a slate of four circuit court nominees — the GOP, in exchange, would allow smooth votes on more than a dozen lower court judges.

Schumer framed the agreement as a move to triple the number of Biden nominees the Senate can confirm before Democrats give up the majority, adding that the four appellate nominees were “lacking the votes” for their own confirmations. But legal experts pointed out that there were likely still avenues for Democrats to push through all the White House’s pending judges in spite of Republican obstruction and without making such a sacrifice.

Further, the deal effectively hands the incoming Trump administration four additional appointments for the judiciary’s influential circuit courts — just one step below the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration continues to fill out its Cabinet and executive offices. The president-elect over the weekend announced that he had tapped his former national security aide Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, replacing current agency chief Christopher Wray. Patel has a long history of inflammatory political rhetoric, including calls to shutter the FBI’s headquarters and fire its leadership, and would be sure to face a contentious confirmation process in the Senate.

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