Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) moved Monday to lower the threshold needed to overcome a filibuster for a slate of roughly 40 of President Donald Trump’s lower-level nominees, setting the stage for a parliamentary maneuver often called the "nuclear option."
Thune introduced a resolution intended to expedite consideration of the nominees and scheduled a procedural vote on Thursday to invoke cloture, which by current Senate precedent requires 60 votes to break debate, according to reporting by Fox News. Thune’s plan, as described by the network, relies on a failed cloture vote and a subsequent appeal of the chair’s ruling to establish a new Senate precedent that would allow the confirmations to proceed on a simple majority vote instead of the 60-vote threshold.
Under the sequence described by Thune’s allies to colleagues, the initial cloture motion will be expected to fail because Democrats will withhold the 60 votes. Thune would then switch his vote after the roll call, which under Senate practice allows him to demand a revote, placing the chamber in a posture that limits further debate. At that point Thune would make a point of order asserting that the type of resolution he introduced does not require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. The presiding officer — potentially President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) or Vice President Vance, who serves as president of the Senate — is expected to rule the point of order out of order under existing precedent.
Thune would then appeal the ruling of the chair, putting the question to the full Senate. If a majority of senators vote to overturn the chair’s ruling, the appeal itself would create a new precedent allowing the chamber to treat this category of nominations as subject to a simple-majority threshold for overcoming debate. Proponents of the maneuver say it would permit the Senate to hold another procedural vote under the new precedent on Monday, Sept. 15, and to confirm the nominees en masse on Wednesday, Sept. 17, Fox News reported. The plan, as outlined by the outlet, would not apply to Supreme Court nominees, other judges or cabinet secretaries.
The move recalls earlier changes to Senate precedent. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) curtailed the filibuster for most executive branch nominees, and in 2017 then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) further reduced the threshold for Supreme Court and judicial nominations. Those precedent shifts, often described as "nuclear options," altered how many categories of nominations are considered under Senate cloture rules and set legislative and institutional debates that have continued to influence confirmation fights.
Democrats are expected to oppose Thune’s gambit, arguing that changing Senate precedent on cloture for nonjudicial nominations would further erode the chamber’s minority protections. Republican backers counter that the backlog of executive nominees requires an expedited path to confirmation and that precedent — not a formal change to the written rules — permits the chamber to adapt its practice.
The dispute is likely to play out on the Senate floor this week. If Thune and a majority of senators successfully appeal the chair’s ruling, the chamber would have set a new precedent that shortens the cloture threshold for this category of nominations, allowing confirmations by a simple majority going forward. Fox News’s account of the plan credits senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram for the procedural outline. Senate offices did not immediately provide on-the-record comments about the timing or final scope of the maneuver.