Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared that Senate Democrats would fight President-elect Donald Trump throughout the entire confirmation process of cabinet appointees, according to a Sunday report from the Washington Post.
Schumer reportedly told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Senate Democrats planned to fight Trump’s picks for secretaries of state, justice and education, as well as the proposed head of the Office of Management and Budget, Rep. Mick Mulvaney.
“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,” Schumer told the Washington Post.
“If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken,” he added, before alleging that Trump’s appointees “would break key campaign promises and have made billions off the industries they’d be tasked with regulating.”
Democrats don’t appear to be satisfied with any of Trump’s appointees. Senate Democrats don’t have the power needed to actually stop any of the appointees from being confirmed, but they can drag out the process, forcing as much as 30 hours of debate per appointee.
Such a delay is sure to slow the progress of Trump’s key reforms from the campaign trail, a result Democrats are working hard to achieve.
“They’ve been rewarded for stealing a Supreme Court justice. We’re going to help them confirm their nominees, many of whom are disqualified?” fumed Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown in the first week of December. “It’s not obstruction, it’s not partisan, it’s just a duty to find out what they’d do in these jobs.”
McConnell extended an olive branch in early December by offering to work together on several key issues.
“It is always the intention, at the start of a new administration, to have a smooth transition. That’s something President Obama recently called for and that Democrats always say they want,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, according to Politico. “When the shoe was on the other foot, Republicans worked with Democrats to confirm the president’s Cabinet in a very, very timely manner.”
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