About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (July 13, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govemfr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: \Congressional____ '.Research Service Holds on Nominations July 13, 2023 In the Senate, a hold on a nomination is a communication to the majority or minority leader that a Senator would object to approving the nomination by unanimous consent. When Senators inform their leader that they would object to approving a category of nominations by unanimous consent, such as all nominations to a particular government agency, they are said to be placing a blanket hold on those nominations. Unanimous consent is not necessary to approve a nomination in the Senate, but unanimous consent facilitates approving a nomination quickly. The President sends the Senate thousands of nominations each year, a majority of which are military promotions and appointments. The Senate routinely considers and approves most of them in large groups (en bloc) by unanimous consent. Absent unanimous consent, the Senate must consider and vote on each nomination separately (that is, on each individual nominated to each position). As a result, nominations subject to a blanket hold may have their consideration delayed or prevented due to the amount of floor time it would take to consider them individually. Approving a nomination by unanimous consent requires that a Senator ask, during a session of the Senate, for that action to occur. Such requests are usually made by the majority leader (or his designee), and the Presiding Officer responds by inquiring if any Senator objects to the unanimous consent request. If no Senator objects, then the nomination or nominations are approved-more formally, the nominations are said to be confirmed by the Senate. In practice, the majority leader does not ask unanimous consent to confirm nominations without first communicating with the minority leader and all other Senators to determine if any Senator would object. If the majority leader learns any Senator would object, he usually does not ask unanimous consent on the floor and may try to address the concerns of the Senator. If a consent request has not been cleared in advance, a Senator opposed to the request must formally object on the floor to block the action. In response to a hold, the Senate could choose to pursue consideration of a single nomination without unanimous consent. The Senate can approve nominations using the cloture process in Senate Rule XXII. The cloture process was designed to bring the Senate to a vote on a matter, even in the face of determined opposition to having a vote. In recent years, the Senate has interpreted the cloture rule to require majority support to end debate on a nomination, and also to establish that two hours is the maximum time for debate on most nominations after cloture is agreed to. Absent unanimous consent, the steps to confirm a nomination include: Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN12200 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most