Senate Republicans consider rules change to speed up approval of Trump nominees

Senate Republicans this week are debating possible rule changes to the chamber's confirmation process as it faces a massive backlog of judicial nominations. 

President Donald Trump has slammed Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley for not abandoning the chamber's "blue slip" tradition, which is when the Judiciary Committee sends blue slips to senators from a U.S. attorney or federal judicial nominee's home state for feedback on the nomination. If the senators fail to return the blue slip, then typically the nomination would be rejected.

Senate Republicans are hoping to move quickly on changing the rules to approve scores of Trump's nominees during a meeting on Wednesday. Many ideas have been floated recently, according to The Hill, but the most popular appears to be based on a Democratic proposal from two years ago that would allow a single vote on up to 10 nominees.

Other suggestions include limiting debate time on a nomination from two hours to just minutes, making some nominations nondebatable and limiting the amount of procedural votes required for a nominee, the outlet reported.

Senate Republicans can approve rule changes on their own because it requires a simple majority, but the partisan vote would be considered a "nuclear option," and Republicans have created a working group tasked with sorting a rule change.

“Everybody has been talking through various options," Alabama GOP Sen. Katie Britt, the leader of the group, said. "One of the things that that process does is empower the committee process."

Britt said she is also working with Democrats to come up with a suitable rules change, and the group has been working through some of the August recess on a path forward on the remaining nominations.  

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.