It’s July in Washington, D.C. That means the heat is sweltering, the humidity is high, and federal lawmakers’ (and their staffs’) desire to get out of town for the annual August recess – a sacred tradition on Capitol Hill – is growing by the minute.
Some lawmakers are getting their wish. Yesterday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced he would send members of the lower chamber of Congress home early to avoid a floor vote that would compel the U.S. Department of Justice to release files in the case related to related to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (If you haven’t been keeping up with this controversy, we’ll leave it up to you to research.)
The U.S. Senate is a different story, however. President Donald Trump is pushing Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to keep that body in session through August and, potentially, over weekends, in order to work through the nominations the president has put forward for vacant executive and judicial branch slots.
Does President Trump have a point? Is the Senate lagging in its “advice and consent” role? How likely is it that Majority Leader Thune will acquiesce to the president’s demands?
Let’s take a look. But, first, a quick refresher on what “advice and consent” means.
The Senate’s Duty to Approve, or Deny, Nominations
Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for.”
In plain English, that means that while the president has the right to put forward his preferred people for positions in the executive and judicial branches, the U.S. Senate has the right to scrutinize and approve these nominations. Senators meet with nominees in one-on-one meetings, hold committee confirmation hearings, conduct committee votes, and debate nominations on the floor. Only after all that activity has taken place do all 100 members of the body get to vote on final approval of the nominee.
Broadly, as the U.S. Senate website explains, “The vast majority [of nominees] are routinely confirmed, while a small but sometimes highly visible number of nominees fail to receive action or are rejected by the Senate.” For example, since 1789, the Senate has confirmed 127 Supreme Court nominations and more than 500 cabinet-level nominations (the U.S. attorney general and secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, State, Education, etc.). The chamber has rejected only 11 Supreme Court nominees — another 26 nominations were withdrawn — and only 25 cabinet nominations have failed to be confirmed either due to outright rejection or withdrawal.
For most of U.S. history, judicial and executive branch nominees needed to clear two hurdles on the way to final confirmation. First, they had to win a cloture vote to end floor debate on their nomination. To win that vote, the nominee needed the agreement of three-fifths of the body, or 60 senators. Next was the final vote for approval. That step required positive votes by a simple majority of the chamber.
Senate rules have changed multiple times in recent years. Now it only takes the assent of a bare majority of the members of the Senate for executive and judicial branch nominees to be confirmed.
Now: how are President Trump’s nominees faring?
Current Status of President Trump’s Nominees
President Trump has a nearly full cabinet in place. In fact, the Senate confirmed most of these nominees within about six weeks of his inauguration, which is about the standard amount of time for presidents in recent history.
Trump administration nominees also got through the Senate at a much quicker pace than the Biden administration’s initial rounds of nominees did. President Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was confirmed the day of his inauguration, for example. The same post took the Senate six days to fill in 2021. It took President Trump’s secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development only 16 days to gain Senate approval. It took senators 49 days to fill that post during President Biden’s first months in office.
Only one Trump cabinet nominee — Mike Waltz, the president’s choice to be ambassador to the United Nations — has not yet been confirmed. And, it should be noted, his nomination was only sent to the Senate last month.
There are, however, a number of lower executive branch posts for which the president has named nominees and for which the Senate has not yet fully executed its “advice and consent” role. Indeed, according to the Partnership for Public Service, President Trump has picked 356 nominees to fill key, non-cabinet roles in his administration so far; the Senate has confirmed only 94 of those nominations. At this point in President Biden’s term in office, the Senate had confirmed a similar number of executive branch nominees. During President Trump’s first term in office, only about half as many nominees had been confirmed.
Where President Trump may have an argument is if we compare how his nominees are faring versus President George W. Bush’s and President Barack Obama’s executive branch nominees at this point in their presidencies. By July 2001 and July 2009, respectively, the Senate had confirmed about 300 nominees each for these two presidents.
Among the posts for which President Trump has no one in place are the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (there currently is no nominee), the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (a nominee has been named and a hearing was held in June), the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (there is no nominee), the National Credit Union Administration (there is no nominee), and a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Commission (there is no nominee).
There are also currently 50 vacancies within the U.S. court system, but President Trump has only put forward nominations for 11 of these spots.
In other words, while the Senate may have some work to do, the lag in action on confirmations may also be because of a lag in nominations made.
Given that knowledge — which senators are almost certainly aware of — how likely is it that their leader will cancel the coveted August recess?
Will The Senate Cancel Its August Recess?
The August recess is coveted by members of Congress not only because it’s a vacation or because it’s the perfect time to hit the beach, but because it’s a chance to return home to connect with constituents.
The prospect of losing that opportunity 15 months out from a midterm election is not something Republican leaders relish. Indeed, yesterday, The Hill wrote, “While some in the GOP would welcome lopping off a portion of the recess, Republicans view a monthlong messaging push on the ‘big, beautiful bill’ as imperative for electoral success.” (Polling on the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act is mixed, at best.)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is up for reelection next year and who faces a difficult primary challenge from the state’s incumbent Attorney General, told The Hill, “We’ve got to go back and be able to talk to our constituents and explain to them what we just did in a way that will help in the midterm elections, which I know the president and we all care about.”
Other senators seemed ready to fall into line behind President Trump’s request. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said members can remain in Washington and still sell the “big, beautiful bill” in other creative ways. He told The Hill that he completed three tele-town halls last week, for example, that attracted 5,000 listeners each. “Whatever it takes to get his [nominations] across the finish line, we need to do. … We can still get back [home] on weekends.”
Like Sen. Cornyn, Sen. Marshall is up for reelection next year.
For his part, Senate Majority Leader Thune said he is “open” to the idea of canceling the August recess. He laid blame for the slow pace of confirmations at Democrats’ feet, pointing out to The Hill that President Trump is the first president who has not seen any of his nominees be greenlit via voice vote or by unanimous consent. “Not a single one,” Sen. Thune said. “Trying to get his team in place is something that we’re very committed to, and we’re going to be looking at all the options in the next few weeks to try and get as many of those across the finish line as we can.”
The Senate is supposed to begin its August recess on July 31. Senate Majority Leader Thune has a little over a week to make his decision.