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Senate Democrats are using their tools to fight back. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) was one of the first Democrats to start placing holds on Trump’s nominees.
A Senate hold is an informal procedure where a senator declares that they will object to any unanimous consent measure to move a nominee forward. Since almost all Senate business is done with unanimous consent, because business can’t move forward unless the entire body agrees to move forward, a hold stops nominations in their tracks.
Axios reported that Sen. Schatz has increased the number of Trump’s nominees that he has placed a hold on to over 300:
That brings the total number of Trump nominees Schatz has now ground to a halt to more than 300, intensifying his protest of what he calls the White House’s “lawlessness.”
The fresh holds include former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), Trump’s pick to be Labor Department inspector general, and Scott Kupor, tapped to lead the Office of Personnel Management.
The new holds span nominees at more than a dozen Trump administration agencies and departments. Schatz has already placed holds on all State Department nominees.
Schatz also is blocking nine bipartisan bills that recently cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in protest of what he characterized as the committee’s lax oversight of the Trump administration.
Schatz and other Senate Democrats are putting holds on legislation and Trump nominees, which creates a tremendous backlog and basically grinds the Senate to a halt.
Republicans can get around these holds, but the process is slow and tedious, and each nominee that takes the long way around only uses up more Senate time and adds to the backlog.
Democrats were on the other side of this when Mitch McConnell did it to then-president Obama for years.
Democratic voters have been demanding that the Senate wake up and fight back, and it is happening.
Democrats are in the minority but have more power to jam things up in the Senate than they do in the House, and they are using that power to protest the lawless presidency of Donald Trump.
What do you think about the Senate holds? Share your thoughts in the comments below.