The Senate version of the Freedom Caucus maniacs, in this case Sens. Ron "Genius" Johnson (R-WI), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Steve Daines (R-MT), are pushing Mitch McConnell to further split his conference and align vulnerable senators even more to Donald Trump by going nuclear on nominations. The problem, they say, is that the really horrible people Trump has chosen aren't being put in place fast enough to destroy the republic.
“It’s completely gotten out of hand,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “It’s ridiculous we have all these 30 hours of post-cloture time. It’s chewing up the clock and we can’t address the major problems facing this nation.” […]
Other Republicans agree with Johnson that it’s time to deploy the nuclear option if Democrats balk at changing the rules for nominees under regular order, which requires 67 or 60 votes under different scenarios.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) on Wednesday said they also support using that path if Democrats refuse to reduce the length of procedural time required for nominees.
Cruz said he “strongly” supports reducing floor time for nominees and would back the nuclear option. […]
Republican leaders want to negotiate an agreement with Democrats to limit how much time must elapse on the Senate floor after lawmakers vote to proceed on a nominee.
So here are some realities. Right now there are 145 Trump nominees who are stuck at the committee level. Committees that are controlled by Republicans, that is. Also, too, Trump hasn't bothered to nominate people in dozens and dozens of positions. As an example there are about 60 high-level State Department jobs that don't even have nominees.
So by all means, Mitch, tie yourself and all your Republican senators even more inextricably to Trump. We can work with that in November.
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