Senate Republicans on Monday formally got the ball rolling on their bid to invoke the so-called nuclear option and change the chamber’s rules in order to expeditiously confirm dozens of President Trump’s stalled nominees in the coming weeks.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday started the process of making the rules change on the floor by filing a resolution that includes dozens of nominees awaiting confirmation. 

The initial procedural vote on the resolution is expected to take place on Thursday, with the rule change expected to be finalized early next week, followed quickly by a vote on the first batch of nominees themselves.

“We’ve got a crisis, and it’s time to take steps to restore Senate precedent and codify in the Senate rules what was once understood to be standard practice,” Thune said on the floor on Monday. “Eight months of petty partisanship is long enough.”

The plan Thune teed up is based on a Democratic proposal made by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) two years ago, which called for allowing 10 nominees from the same committee to be confirmed “en bloc.”

The GOP blueprint goes further, however, as it would allow Republicans to pass an unlimited number of nominees in a single tranche, including scores of sub-Cabinet selections and picks to serve as U.S. attorneys. 

While Senate Republicans have loudly beat the drum citing those with bipartisan support, the rule will also extend to those who have advanced from committee with partisan backing.

The rules change would not apply to judicial nominees, who would still be subject to the requisite two hours of floor consideration. 

Cabinet and Supreme Court nominees will still require 30 hours of consideration and are not eligible to be greenlighted in a bloc.

Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) headed up a working group during the August break to discuss and work through potential changes. Part of the calculus for that cadre of lawmakers was coming up with an idea that they would not regret when they are eventually in the minority and Democrats are able to wield the “en bloc” power.

“Quite frankly, the resolution is: Would this work for Democrats or Republicans regardless of who [is in the majority]? Yes, because this is the way it was typically done in the past,” Lankford told reporters. “We’ve got to get back to that.”

For much of the past two months, Republicans have cried foul that none of Trump’s nominees, especially those who are considered noncontroversial, have been able to clear the chamber via unanimous consent or voice vote. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the lone nominee who was not subjected to a filibuster this year. 

By contrast, 57 percent of former President Biden’s choices were confirmed via voice vote or unanimous consent, with that number being 65 percent during Trump’s first term. Roughly 90 percent of confirmations made by former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama were done through those two avenues. 

“Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this obstruction any longer,” Thune said in an op-ed earlier on Monday. “We have tried to work with Democrats in good faith to batch bipartisan, noncontroversial nominees and clear them expeditiously, according to past precedent. Democrats have stood in the way at every turn.”

Monday’s move comes more than a month after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and top Republicans were unable to strike a deal on a nominations package in the final hours before the August recess.

Trump panned Schumer for wanting too much in return in talks. The New York Democrat declared victory in the battle, having argued that Trump’s nominees deserve increased scrutiny — a claim he reiterated on Monday while railing against a judicial nominee the chamber was voting on later in the evening. 

“Now, rather than giving those [pre-August] talks another chance, Republicans would rather change how the Senate operates to weaken this chamber’s traditional and powerful sense of deliberation,” Schumer said. “If Republicans go nuclear, the historically bad nominees we’ve seen so far under Donald Trump will only get worse.”

“Think carefully before taking this step,” he added. “If you go nuclear, it’s going to be a decision you will come to regret.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) warned Republicans on Monday that they’ll regret their decision to reexamine the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Jeffries said Democrats will use their participation in a newly launched GOP investigation of the rampage to highlight President Trump’s role in fomenting the violence that day.

“Republicans will regret that they’ve decided to go down this road,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol.

Republicans last week voted to create a new Jan. 6 investigative committee, which will revisit the attack almost three years after the initial Jan. 6 select committee delivered its report blaming Trump for inciting the riot. The new panel also has powers to investigate the old one.

Republican leaders have defended Trump’s actions surrounding the attack, bashing the initial investigation as a one-sided witch hunt aimed solely at hurting Trump politically. They’re expected to use the new committee in an effort to exonerate their White House ally, who was impeached for a second time in the immediate wake of the 2021 tragedy.

“Our goal is to answer the remaining questions, uncover all the facts, and implement reforms so this level of security failure never happens again,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who will chair the committee, said after the panel was created. 

“It’s time to finish the job.”  

Democrats say they’ll use the new investigation to shine a light, not only on Trump’s actions, but also on the violence directed against police officers by his supporters and the crimes committed by some of those MAGA loyalists since Trump pardoned them in January. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, is automatically considered an ex officio member of the new panel. And Jeffries named three other Democrats to the committee on Monday: Reps. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), Jasmine Crockett (Texas) and Jared Moskowitz (Fla.). 

“Donald Trump is trying to do with Jan. 6 what many fringe groups have done with Sept. 11, telling us it wasn’t planes that flew into the buildings but holograms, or missiles, or that it was an inside job,” Swallwell said Monday. “And here’s why we didn’t buy the 9/11 crazy talk then, or the Jan. 6 lies now: Because we saw them with our own eyes.”

Raskin, who was a member of the initial Jan. 6 committee, characterized a previous Loudermilk investigation as “an attempted Orwellian rewrite” of the events surrounding the attack. He challenged the Republicans to find any inaccuracies in the first select committee’s probe of the event. 

“The fact of the matter is they have not laid a glove on a single fact that was presented in the report of the bipartisan select committee on Jan. 6. All of their bizarre counter-theories about antifa and about the FBI have been completely and thoroughly debunked. They have gotten nowhere, and yet they insist once again on returning to the scene of the crime,” he said. 

“That gives us the chance to reeducate new generations of Americans about the dangers of political authoritarianism, and about the dangers of political and religious cults.”

While Jeffries has the power to name his Democratic picks for the new committee, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) retains the power to veto any of those lawmakers as he deems appropriate. That was the case in 2021, when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) removed two of the initial Republican picks — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) — for controversial statements and actions they made surrounding Jan. 6. 

It’s unclear if the Speaker is ready to accept the four Democratic appointees. Jeffries said he has informed Johnson of his selections, but suggested there has been no response. 

“We let him know our choices for this subcommittee, and there’s zero precedent for anyone from the other party determining who is going to sit on a subcommittee — if, in fact, they want to take that subcommittee seriously,” Jeffries said.  

Johnson’s office did not respond Monday to a request for comment.