US Capitol / Envato Market
by Emmitt Barry, with reporting from Washington D.C. Bureau Staff
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – Senate Republicans on Thursday confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s executive branch nominees in a single vote, advancing his agenda to fill key government positions after invoking a new rules change last week.
The 51-47 vote clears more than a quarter of the 173 pending nominees who had already advanced out of committee but were held up by Democratic opposition. Under the revised Senate procedures, Republicans can now group sub-Cabinet executive nominees into batches for confirmation, bypassing the need for time-consuming individual votes that Democrats had been demanding.
Among those confirmed were former Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) as Energy undersecretary for nuclear security, and eight nominees to ambassadorial posts. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former television host and ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., was approved as U.S. ambassador to Greece, while Callista Gingrich, wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, will serve as ambassador to Switzerland after previously holding the post at the Vatican.
Other key confirmations include Theodore J. Garrish as assistant secretary of Energy, Jessica Kramer as assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Sean McMaster as administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Justin Overbaugh as deputy under secretary of Defense, Scott Pappano as principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Peter Thomson as inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Andrea Travnicek as assistant secretary of the Interior.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) defended the new approach, saying Democrats had “fully broken the confirmation process” by filibustering all civilian nominees except Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Republicans have fixed a broken process and restored the Senate precedent that applied to previous presidents,” Thune said, stressing that most of the nominees had bipartisan support in committee and would traditionally have been approved by unanimous consent or voice vote.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted the move as a dangerous precedent. “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 warned.
The so-called “nuclear option” does not apply to Cabinet-level, Supreme Court, or other high-ranking judicial nominees, but Republicans say they plan to use it again in coming weeks to reduce the backlog further, aiming to clear all pending names by mid-October.
Two Republicans, Sens. Jim Banks (IN) and Mike Lee (UT), missed Thursday’s vote.
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