Under pressure from base, Senate Democrats stall Trump nominations

Liz Goodwin
·Senior National Affairs Reporter

Senate Democrats delayed three of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations Tuesday, using parliamentary tactics as fury mounts in their base over the president’s recent immigration order temporarily barring refugees and travelers from seven predominantly-Muslim countries.

All 12 Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted the vote on Health and Human Services Department nominee Rep. Tom Price and Treasury Department nominee Steve Mnuchin. The boycott forced the committee’s chair, Sen. Orrin Hatch, to delay the vote until Wednesday since the committee did not have a quorum. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a statement that he boycotted the vote because both nominees “misled the public” — in Price’s case about the details of his investment in a biomedical firm and in Mnuchin’s case about whether his former bank “robosigned” mortgages.

Hatch, a Republican, called the Democratic boycott “the most pathetic thing I’ve seen in my whole time in the United States Senate.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer railed against the Democrats at his briefing Tuesday. “The mere idea that they’re not even showing up to hearings is truly outrageous,” he said.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats also sought to delay the vote on their colleague Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general in a Judiciary Committee hearing. Democrats ignored Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s request to keep their statements explaining their votes to five minutes. Each Senate Democrat dragged out his or her statement so that the hearing lasted hours, triggering an obscure rule that allowed them to demand that the hearing come to an end and the vote not take place that day. (Republicans had used the so-called two-hour rule to delay some of Obama’s nominees as well.) Grassley scheduled the vote on Sessions for Wednesday around 11 a.m.

While stalling the Sessions vote, Democrats tied him to Trump’s controversial executive orders on immigration. “Just yesterday [White House chief strategist] Steve Bannon called him the administration’s clearing house for policy and philosophy,” Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont said. Sen. Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California, praised former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ “guts” for refusing to defend Trump’s executive order. Trump fired Yates Monday night. Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii recounted the experiences of Japanese-Americans who were interned during WWII, expressing her concern that the executive order targeting predominantly Muslim nations was discriminatory.

“I hope they get beyond the anger they’re currently feeling,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, complained as the Sessions hearing dragged on.

Democratic senators, most of whom voted for Trump Cabinet picks Nikki Haley, Gen. John Kelly, and Gen. James Mattis, are under pressure from their base to put up more resistance to the Trump administration. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts wrote a Facebook post defending herself from criticism from the left for voting to advance Ben Carson’s bid to be secretary of housing and urban development. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, also facing blowback for voting for several of Trump’s nominees, announced Monday that he would oppose many of Trump’s remaining ones.

The resistance is largely symbolic, since Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate and need just a majority to confirm. (Supreme Court nominees, however, need 60 votes to overcome a minority filibuster.) Some of Trump’s nominees fared better Tuesday. His pick to lead the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, made it out of committee, even with all the Democrats opposing her. The Senate also confirmed Elaine Chao, the former secretary of labor under George W. Bush, as secretary of transportation by a nearly unanimous vote.

On Monday night, Senate Republicans were able to muster enough votes to end a Democratic filibuster on the secretary of state nomination for Rex Tillerson. But the Democrats then began using up every one of the 30 hours they’re allotted before the vote must take place, talking on the floor until late in the night. The vote is now expected to take place Wednesday. Democrats are criticizing Tillerson, who was CEO of ExxonMobil, for his ties to Russia.