In the 119th Congress, the Senate established a new procedure to allow it to consider multiple nominations at once (referred to as en bloc consideration). Previously, en bloc consideration required unanimous consent. The Senate also reinterpreted Rule XXII to lower the threshold for cloture—from three-fifths to a simple majority—on steps necessary to reach a vote to confirm certain types of nominations en bloc. Judicial nominations and some other nominations are not eligible for en bloc consideration with a majority threshold for cloture (see Figure 1). To take up nominations en bloc, the Senate must first adopt an executive resolution making it not out of order to do so. The executive resolution allows the Senate to proceed to the en bloc consideration of the nominations specifically identified in the measure itself. In practice, an executive resolution is not submitted to the Senate for referral to committee. Instead, its sponsor will seek recognition on the floor to “send to the desk” the executive resolution and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration. The Senator will then object to his or her own request in order to place the measure onto the Executive Calendar. On the next calendar day, any Senator may make a non-debatable motion to proceed to executive session to take up the executive resolution. Taking up the executive resolution is not debatable, but consideration of the measure itself is debatable, meaning a cloture process may be necessary to reach a vote on the resolution itself. The vote on a cloture motion occurs two calendar days of session after the motion was filed and requires the support of a simple majority. If cloture is invoked, up to 30 additional hours of post-cloture consideration occurs before the Senate votes on adoption of the executive resolution. Adopting the resolution does not have the effect of confirming the nominations listed in the measure, but instead allows for the Senate to proceed to consider those nominations with a single motion (whereas otherwise it would only be in order to proceed to one nomination at a time). After the Senate has adopted such an executive resolution, a Senator may move to proceed to executive session to consider the nominations listed in the resolution. If the motion is agreed to by majority vote, all of the listed nominations become pending before the Senate as a single item of business. The question of confirmation is debatable. If cloture is filed on the nominations en bloc, a vote to invoke cloture occurs two calendar days of session later and requires the support of a simple majority of Senators voting. If cloture is invoked on the nominations en bloc, up to 30 hours of post-cloture consideration occurs before the vote to confirm en bloc. (See Figure A-1.) To establish the new procedures, the Senate took three actions. First, a majority of Senators voted to table—meaning, adversely dispose of—a question submitted by the presiding officer: Is a resolution for the en bloc consideration of specific nominations on the Executive Calendar required to be considered in legislative session? By disposing of this question, the Senate determined that a simple resolution providing for the consideration of multiple nominations qualified as an executive resolution. The Senate has long considered executive resolutions differently than other simple resolutions: they can be placed on the Executive Calendar directly, without committee consideration, in a status where they are eligible to be taken up by a simple majority with a nondebatable motion to proceed. Second, the Senate, by reversing a ruling of the chair, lowered the threshold necessary to invoke cloture on an executive resolution providing for consideration of multiple executive branch nominations. The Senate did so by taking a series of steps similar to those taken in 2013 and 2017 lowering the cloture threshold for nominations. The steps included a vote to reconsider a failed cloture vote (in order to create a parliamentary posture in which an appeal would not be subject to unlimited debate); a point of order that contained elements of the desired new procedure; a ruling by the chair that the point of order was not well taken because the cloture threshold was three-fifths; an appeal of that ruling; and a majority vote defeating the question submitted to the Senate: Shall the decision of the chair stand as judgment of the Senate? Third, the Senate repeated those basic steps—reconsideration of a failed cloture vote, a point of order, and a reversal of the ruling of the chair—to establish that cloture on nominations considered en bloc also requires only a majority threshold. The establishment of a process to consider nominations en bloc could impact certain routines and practices of the Senate, including committee action on nominations, the nature of negotiations concerning the approval of a group of nominations, and the number and timing of roll call votes taken in relation to nominations.
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