GOP agrees to votes on three Obama nominees

Senate Republicans agree to speed up consideration of three of President Barack Obama’s nominees after Democrats last week threatened late-night sessions.

As a result, the Senate will vote on Tuesday to confirm three of Obama’s stalled nominees: Lael Brainard, appointed to be an undersecretary at the Treasury Department; Marisa Demeo, to be an associate judge on D.C.’s superior court; and Stuart Nash, to be another associate judge on the D.C. court.

The nominees are not considered controversial.

The agreement was announced Monday evening after the Senate voted 84-10 to end a filibuster of Brainard’s nomination. Republicans could have forced the Senate to spend a full 30 hours on post-cloture debate.

Instead, Brainard’s confirmation vote will take place at noon on Tuesday. After six more hours of debate, the Senate will then vote to confirm Demeo and Nash.  

Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Democratic conference, held a press conference last week decrying GOP obstruction of Obama’s nominees.

Schumer vowed that Democratic leaders would “rev it up” and hold sessions late into the nights and on weekends to break Republican holds on the nominees. 

“It takes just one senator to slow up or hold a nominee and that’s what we’re facing with a lot of the nominees,” said a Democratic aide. “These are qualified nominees and they deserve to be confirmed.”

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