Study: Senate OKs few Obama picks

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., flanked by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., left, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., right rear, talks to reporters on Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 8, 2016, following a closed-door policy meeting.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., flanked by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., left, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., right rear, talks to reporters on Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 8, 2016, following a closed-door policy meeting.

WASHINGTON -- Since taking the reins of the Senate last year, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has striven to portray the upper house as "working again" under his Republican majority after years of partisan gridlock -- passing major legislation on transportation, Medicare, drug abuse and more.

But by one measure highlighted by Democrats, the Senate has done remarkably little: An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that, under McConnell, the Senate has confirmed the fewest civilian presidential nominees of any Congress in the past 30 years.

Through Saturday, 198 of President Barack Obama's nominees have won confirmation in the 114th Congress, excluding military appointments. That's compared with the 345 nominees confirmed up to that date -- April 30 -- in the final two years of President George W. Bush's tenure and 286 nominees confirmed in the comparable window under President Bill Clinton.

The analysis was commissioned by Senate Democratic leaders, who have bristled at McConnell's attempts to portray the Senate as newly well-functioning. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blamed repeated Republican filibusters for shutting down the Senate earlier in Obama's term and said the only reason the Senate is working again is because Democrats are willing to work with the majority to pass bipartisan bills.

"The Republican Senate is making history for all the wrong reasons," Reid said in a statement. "Since taking the Senate majority, Republicans have doubled down on their commitment to gridlock, confirming the fewest nominations in decades. This is yet another example of Senate Republicans refusing to do their jobs."

The difficulty of getting Obama's nominations confirmed was highlighted last week when the Senate acted, after months of delay, to confirm Roberta Jacobson as ambassador to Mexico after a political deal among three GOP senators.

The report comes as Democrats make a push for the confirmation of Obama's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February. Republicans have vowed to block Merrick Garland's confirmation until the next president is elected, and Democrats are seizing on the divide within the GOP caused by the ascension of Donald Trump to be the presumptive presidential nominee to undermine that stance.

The current Senate's record is particularly dim on judicial confirmations. Obama has seen 17 lifetime judges confirmed in the past 16 months, compared with 45 for Bush in the same time frame, 40 for Clinton, and 82 for George H.W. Bush, including a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas.

But Republicans have countered by pointing out that a similar number of Obama and Bush judicial nominees have been confirmed overall, thanks to a lame-duck flurry of confirmations in late 2014, after Democrats lost the Senate.

A Section on 05/06/2016

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