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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that he's filing cloture (aka the first step towards a vote) on a resolution to decrease the amount of time it takes to get to a final vote on district court nominees — from 30 hours after cloture to 2 hours
This would not change the rules for circuit court or SCOTUS nominees. Sen. Lankford has been pushing this proposal for a long time, and the resolution McConnell is putting forward is the version that Lankford and Blunt intro'd earlier this year: rules.senate.gov/news/majority-…
Although Trump has broken records with circuit court judges confirmed, there's been grumbling on the right about the slower pace on district court nominees. Rs blame Ds, saying forcing cloture and the 30-hour debate period for most nominees is unreasonable
Ds have argued that for lifetime appointments, the extra time is warranted. This is one the only tools Ds still have to hold up Trump's judicial nominees — groups on the left have used this time to do last-minute pushes to swing Republicans on controversial nominees
We've written about this previously: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil… As McConnell noted today on the floor, there was a temporary change to the postcloture timing for district court nominees (from 30 hours to 2 hours) in 2013, but it was by bipartisan agreement
There are 37 district court nominees waiting for a final vote in the Senate right now. The Senate has confirmed 53 district court judges under Trump to date
TLDR: McConnell is moving ahead with a plan to change Senate rules so that they can confirm district court nominees much faster. With two hours of postcloture time, instead of 30 hours, McConnell can stack nominees and get through multiple votes in a single day
Let's say McConnell files cloture on nominees on a Monday. There's a day in between when cloture ripens. On Wednesday, they can have a cloture vote on Nominee A, wait two hours, and then go to a final vote. And then immediately restart that process for Nominee B
(Shout out to our resident Senate rules expert @mimms)
