Senate Democrats Plan to Delay Confirmation Votes for Trump’s Cabinet Nominees

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., talks with reporters after the Senate policy luncheons in the Capitol, May 5, 2015. (Photo: Getty/Tom Williams)

Incoming Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Senate Democrats plan to obstruct the confirmation of eight of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees. The strategy to delay the confirmation vote for a president-elect’s Cabinet picks represents a truly radical departure from tradition in the U.S. Senate.

“Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist,” Sen. Schumer said in a statement. “If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken.”

According to a report in the leftwing Washington Post, Sen. Schumer recently told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of their intentions. People’s Pundit Daily has been told the delay is part of a larger strategy to obstruct the GOP in response to their promise to repeal ObamaCare. Senate Democrats, who along with House Democrats will meet with President Barack Obama on Wednesday to discuss the strategy further, are hoping to use the votes as leverage.

Senate Democrats intend to attack the following nominees:

• Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state
• Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general
• S.C. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s nominee for the director of the Office of Management and Budget
• Activist Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for education secretary
• Georgia Rep. Tom Price, Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary
• Andrew Puzder, Trump’s nominee for labor secretary
• Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary
• Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump’s nominee for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency

Noticeably absent from Schumer’s list is Retired Gen. James Mattis, who was nominated for secretary of defense. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was nominated for ambassador to the United Nations, as well as and John Kelly, a former Marine general nominated for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, also are not on the list.

Sen. Schumer claimed President-elect Trump is “attempting to fill his rigged cabinet with nominees that would break key campaign promises and have made billions off the industries they’d be tasked with regulating.”

Congress reconvenes this week and the Senate hearings are scheduled to begin next week. will begin hearings. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold two days of hearings with Sen. Sessions, and the Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to hold a one-day, two-part hearing with Mr. Tillerson. However, Democrats want hearings for each of the eight nominees to be held on separate weeks and no more than two Cabinet picks getting a hearing in the same week.

Republicans rejected the proposal, citing how the Senate in 2009 unanimously confirmed 7 of President Obama’s Cabinet nominees on Inauguration Day and another five later that same week. Not surprisingly, Sen. Schumer had no problem with that at the time.

“It’s curious that they’d object to treating the incoming president’s nominees with the same courtesy and seriousness with which the Senate acted on President Obama’s nominees,” Antonia Ferrier, a McConnell spokeswoman, told The Washington Post in an email. “Our committees and chairmen are fully capable of reviewing the incoming Cabinet nominations with the same rules and procedures as the same committees did with President Obama’s nominations.”