Thune: Senate Republicans to Restore the Senate’s Confirmation Process

"So all we're simply talking about … restoring that precedent, going back to the way that has been done historically, and seeing that a lot of these sub-Cabinet, lower level executive branch nominees are able to get confirmed so the president can have his team in place, implement the agenda that the American people elected him to implement."

Click here to watch the video.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:

Thune's remarks below (as delivered):

"Good afternoon, everyone.

"I think, as everyone knows, Senate Republicans are in the process of coming up with a solution to the Democrat blockade on nominees.

"We've laid this out for you many times in the past, but I think, as everyone here knows, the Democrats now, for the past eight months of this administration, this president's term in office, have resisted the idea of confirming any nominee by unanimous consent or voice - something that was a routine practice just up until this last eight months.

"And so as a consequence, President Trump, a lot of his nominees are sitting on the sidelines waiting to go to work.

"That's got to change.

"This is a problem the Democrats created, and we intend to fix it.

"And so we have started that process, I think as you know, of getting a rules change in place that would enable us to process nominees in batches - which is something that, as I said, has been a routine practice around here for decades, up until this Democrat leader, Senator Schumer, and this Democrat minority decided that, because of their Trump Derangement Syndrome, that they were going to force votes on sub-Cabinet level people who, in the past, as I said, had been confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.

"So all we're simply talking about doing is restoring that precedent, going back to the way that has been done historically, and seeing that a lot of these sub-Cabinet, lower level executive branch nominees are able to get confirmed so the president can have his team in place, implement the agenda that the American people elected him to implement.

"And so we intend to go about, make that change.

"We think this is the time to do that.

"And obviously we have seen no cooperation, zero cooperation from the Democrats with respect to trying to put together any kind of a deal that would make this unnecessary.

"It is a necessary change, we are moving forward with it, and but we also are going to give the Democrats an opportunity, which Senator Cornyn, who has been very engaged on this issue, is going to talk about, an opportunity this afternoon.

"He's going to put forward a unanimous consent request that would allow them to actually put in place something that, in the past, they've indicated support for - and that is moving these nominees en bloc or in batches."

[…]

"Let me just make one final point about that.

"If you look at historically how this has worked, and we said this earlier, but every administration has been able to get their people in place.

"This administration so far, only 12 percent.

"And as Senator Barrasso pointed out, the Democrats thought this was worth fixing back in 2023, at a time when 62 percent of the Biden administration nominees were being confirmed - 62 percent - by unanimous consent or voice vote.

"Now, to put this in perspective - as you, I think, all know, because you've all been here - this is the busiest Senate in the last 40 years in terms of hours in session, days in session, and votes cast.

"We've cast over 500 votes already, and to do what we have to do to catch up with the backlog by the end of this year - and that's just to get the backlog caught up, that doesn't include all the new nominees are going to be coming through the pipeline - it would be another 600 votes.

"So we would have to cast more votes over the next three and a half months than we've already cast in the first eight - which is a record, a 40-year record that goes back to the 1980s.

"So this can't continue.

"This process is broken.

"This is a business model that does not work when it comes to running and operating a government and that's why it's got to be fixed.

"And it can be fixed one of two ways.

"Behavioral change on the part of the Democrats, but they seem unwilling to do that.

"They have shown no evidence that they're willing to do that.

"And so the other option is to do what we're doing, and that is to fix the rules."

Permalink: https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/9/thune-senate-republicans-to-restore-the-senate-s-confirmation-process