WASHINGTON Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said frustration over Republican blocking actions on presidential nominations could prompt the Democratic majority in the Senate to change the rules to prevent filibusters on nominations, such as the one being mounted to prevent a final vote on Richard Cordray to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“All within the sound of my voice, including my Democratic senators and the Republican senators who I serve with, should understand that we as a body have the power on any given day to change the rules with a simple majority, and I will do that if necessary,” the Nevada Senator said in an interview with Nevada Public Radio.
“If the Republicans in the Senate don’t start approving some judges and don’t start helping get some of these nominations done, then we’re going to have to take more action,” said Reid, of the Republicans efforts to block Senate votes on several high-profile presidential appointments.
The Senate Banking Committee has voted to endorse Cordray, who is serving an abbreviated recess appointment, to a full five-year term as CFPB director, but Republicans in the Senate have promised to amass the 40 votes necessary to filibuster, or block a final vote on the Cordray nomination. Republicans say they will not vote on any CFPB director until President Obama and Senate Democrats agree to change the structure of the CFPB from a single director to a multi-person board.
Sen. Reid and Senate Democrats, who control 55 of the Senate’s 100 seats, contemplated changing the rules to bar filibusters on regular presidential nominations known as the “nuclear option” but so far have decided not to do so, mostly because they would be hampered when the Republicans win a majority of the Senate seats.
Cordray’s recess appointment is scheduled to expire at year-end unless the Senate confirms him to a full term.
