Three months in and Trump’s Cabinet already has more ‘no’ votes than any other

After votes on all 15 of President Trump’s major department heads, his Cabinet has already received the most combined “no” votes in history, just three months into his administration — a clear indication of a more combative opposition in the Senate than nominees of Trump’s predecessors faced.

Eight of Trump’s Cabinet members have received more “nays” than any previous nominee for their respective positions. These votes reflect a confirmation process increasingly driven by stark policy differences and partisan political concerns.

Opposing senators were mostly deferential to the president’s picks until about four decades ago, and more voted “no” on President Barack Obama’s picks than those of any previous president. Trump’s nominees broke that record after a vote that ultimately confirmed Alexander Acosta as labor secretary.

Both Republican senators under Obama and now Democrats under Trump have fought political battles on this new front by requesting that legislators go on the record for or against each nominee in a roll call vote.

Eight of Obama’s initial nominees were easily confirmed without that record of how each senator voted. None of Trump’s nominees have been confirmed this way.

 In the past, whole presidencies might have passed without a single roll call vote on the Cabinet. The Senate often confirms several nominees to a new president’s Cabinet with zero recorded “no” votes.

Since Democrats ended the filibuster on Cabinet nominations in 2013, a minority party has little power to stop an undesired pick. Senators can stage a display of dissent, request a roll call and cast a “no” vote.

A more political process

Experts said the 1980s were a turning point. More so than his predecessors, President Ronald Reagan prioritized ideology when making his appointments, using the process to install conservatives across government. In this increased politicization, Congress found more reason to push back on the executive branch.

This trend continues today.

“The minority party is much less willing to go along with the president’s choice,” said Lauren Cohen Bell, the dean of academic affairs at Randolph-Macon College, who is an expert on presidential appointments. “They don’t want to be seen as capitulating to whatever the White House’s partisan perspectives or goals might be.”

Bell, whose 2002 book "Warring Factions" explored what is driving these changes, said interest groups have seized on the confirmations process, especially to politically charged departments such as Labor and Interior, as a way to attack policy positions they oppose, as was the case with DeVos and school vouchers.

Senators use the nomination process to warn the administration of their opinions on policy battles they expect to come up. Since the filibuster remains on legislation, Trump will need to persuade 60 senators to support some of his key agenda items. Even senators who eventually supported his nominees have fired warning shots, such as when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) questioned Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson’s stance on Russia.

“No policies are settled here, but clearly the opposition is laying out the groundwork for what they expect to be later policy debates,” James King, a professor at the University of Wyoming, said.

While a drawn out fight can slow the president’s momentum and drain political capital at the start of his first term, it’s almost unheard of that the opposition could vote down nominees on policy complaints alone. Usually some sort of illegal behavior in the nominee’s background contributes to their withdrawal.

[The popular uprising that threatens the Betsy DeVos nomination]

Democrats have pledged that several other Trump nominees will face a Democratic wall of “no” votes in the coming weeks, but it’s likely that Republicans will get most of their picks.

In the last 80 years, only two Cabinet nominations have made it to a floor vote and failed, in part because presidents try to pick experienced nominees who will pass the Senate’s test. 

But attempting to block a nominee — or more precisely, showing their supporters that they’re attempting it — is one of the only options for Democrats, who remain largely shut out of power.