President Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees may surpass the record for most "no" votes cast in the Senate as Democrats remain uncooperative.
Half the Senate voted against Trump's choice to lead the Department of Education, bringing the total amount of "no" votes up to 111, according to The Washington Post. Over former President Barack Obama's two terms, his nominees received a total of 406 "no" votes, but eight of his choices were confirmed without a formal roll call vote. None of Trump's have been so easily confirmed.
"In the past, whole presidencies might have passed without a single roll call vote on the Cabinet," writes the Post's Kevin Uhrmacher and Kevin Schaul. "The Senate often confirms several nominees to a new president's Cabinet with zero recorded 'no' votes."
Only two Cabinet nominees have lost a floor vote in 80 years, but Democrats abolished the filibuster on Cabinet confirmations in 2013, leaving them with few options.
FiveThirtyEight confirms that the amount of roll call votes for Trump's candidates far exceeds the norm. Obama had 13 Cabinet members confirmed without a roll call vote and six with, former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter all had the majority of their choices confirmed without a roll call, though George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan both endured full roll call votes for the vast majority of their nominees.
Eight of Reagan's nominees received at least one "no" vote. Obama had six, which Trump has already matched.
"The minority party is much less willing to go along with the president's choice," Lauren Cohen Bell, Randolph-Macon College dean of academic affairs and an presidential appointments, told the Post. "They don't want to be seen as capitulating to whatever the White House's partisan perspectives or goals might be."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.