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Senate Republicans inched closer to history on Wednesday after blowing past yet another procedural obstacle on their way to confirming nearly 100 of President Donald Trump’s nominees.
As part of their mad dash from Washington ahead of the upcoming holiday recess, Senate Republicans advanced a tranche of 97 of Trump’s picks. The successful party-line vote puts the GOP one step away from confirming the batch of nominees.
The final confirmation vote is expected on Thursday, barring an agreement with Senate Democrats to speed up the process.
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And if that vote is successful, which it is expected to be, Senate Republicans will have confirmed more of Trump’s picks than any other president in one year.
The current nominees package would place Trump at 415 total confirmed during the first year of his second term, which leapfrogs his total of 323 during his first term. It also blows past former President Joe Biden, who, at the same period at the end of his first year in office, had 365.
Senate Republicans have rapidly confirmed hundreds of Trump’s picks since changing the Senate’s rules surrounding the confirmation process in September in a bid to smash through Senate Democrats’ blockade against advancing even the most low-level positions throughout the Trump administration.
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The GOP went nuclear — the fourth time in the Senate’s history — to lower the threshold for certain picks to just a simple majority, rather than the typical, 60-vote filibuster.
That change has allowed Republicans to quickly move through sub-cabinet level positions at a brisk pace and to tee up Trump’s expected historic moment.
Among the list of nominees are former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., to serve as inspector general at the Department of Labor and two picks for the National Labor Relations Board, James Murphy and Scott Mayer, along with several others across nearly every federal agency.
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Lawmakers also separately confirmed Trump’s choice to run the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), billionaire Jared Isaacman, and his pick for a spot on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Douglas Weaver.
Isaacman’s confirmation sailed through on a bipartisan 67-30 vote but served as the second go-round for the upper chamber to ruminate on his ascension atop NASA.
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Trump had previously nominated him to run the nation’s space agency in December last year, but he was pulled earlier this year after a “thorough review of prior associations.”
But Isaacman was later renominated in November for the same post, where Trump lauded his “passion for space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new space economy.”
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