Senate Republicans Implement Plan To Push Through Federal Nominees As Shutdown Looms

With just three weeks to go before the federal government runs out of money, Senate Republicans have taken steps toward a rule change that would at least allow them to navigate around Democratic roadblocks and push through a number of stalled federal nominations.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), as reported by Punchbowl News, kick-started the process on Monday that would allow for an unlimited number of federal nominations to be approved “en bloc” — simultaneously — so long as they were not judicial or cabinet-level positions.

The outlet’s Andrew Desiderio explained on Monday, “Thune will file a resolution tonight that’ll include dozens of bipartisan noms awaiting confirmation. He’ll file cloture tomorrow, setting up Thurs vote at 60-vote threshold which will fail, at which point R’s will vote to overrule the chair. Vote on the res next Monday … Once the resolution is passed, Thune will file cloture on the bloc of nominees, setting up the first vote for next Wednesday. That’ll be the first time R’s will use the new rules to confirm a huge batch of Trump nominees simultaneously.”

Once the resolution is passed, Thune will file cloture on the bloc of nominees, setting up the first vote for next Wednesday. That’ll be the first time R’s will use the new rules to confirm a huge batch of Trump nominees simultaneously.

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) September 8, 2025

Desiderio then shared the list of 48 nominees named in Thune’s resolution — which included eleven War Department positions, five ambassadorships, and a host of other positions across multiple departments — and noted that all of them had already passed with bipartisan support in their respective committees.

Here are the 48 (!) nominees listed in Thune’s resolution. Includes Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was nominated for U.S. ambassador to Greece

All of these were approved w/ bipartisan support in committee https://t.co/pVu7XPwn1d pic.twitter.com/tbN3oBiIVg

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) September 9, 2025

Thune called out the Democrats for stonewalling President Donald Trump’s nominees from the Senate floor on Monday before filing the resolution, arguing that as former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had previously said, nominees should only be held up or blocked for “legitimate” purposes.

Noting that Democrats were supporting the nominees in committee and on the final votes, they were intentionally stalling the process by refusing to allow the nominees to be confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent, as is traditionally done with civilian nominees.

WATCH:

Democrats have destroyed Senate precedent, and we’re going to fix it.@SenateGOP will ensure that in the future, duly elected presidents are able to get their teams in places without unnecessary delay so that they can fulfill their responsibilities to the American people. pic.twitter.com/wYw7l2XNjd

— Leader John Thune (@LeaderJohnThune) September 8, 2025