Feb 14, 2019 · Majority rule. The 54 senators voting “yes”, thereby confirming Barr as attorney general, represent 48 percent of voting age Americans, or 107 …
Mar 10, 2021 · © Getty Images Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland Senators voted 70-30 on Garland's nomination to lead the Justice Department, easily topping the 50 votes needed.
Feb 14, 2019 · The Senate on Thursday confirmed William P. Barr as attorney general by a vote of 54-45. Virtually every Republican, along with three Democrats, voted to …
Sep 25, 2014 · Holder was sworn in as the 82nd Attorney General in February 2009 after serving as President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general, the first African-American to serve in that position. He was...
[The president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he 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 ...Sep 17, 2021
The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all legal matters. ... Under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution, the officeholder is nominated by the president of the United States, then appointed with the advice and consent of the United States Senate.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 15–7 to advance Garland's nomination to the Senate floor, and on March 10, the Senate confirmed Garland's nomination by a vote of 70–30.
The heads of the executive departments and all other federal agency heads are nominated by the president and then presented to the Senate for confirmation or rejection by a simple majority (although before the use of the "nuclear option" during the 113th United States Congress, they could have been blocked by ...
The Constitution also provides that the Senate shall have the power to accept or reject presidential appointees to the executive and judicial branches. This provision, like many others in the Constitution, was born of compromise.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the average number of days from nomination to final Senate vote since 1975 is 67 days (2.2 months), while the median is 71 days (or 2.3 months).
On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier.
Lynn GarlandMerrick Garland / Wife (m. 1987)
69 years (November 13, 1952)Merrick Garland / Age
PA positions (approximately 400 positions): Presidential appointments that do not require Senate confirmation. These are senior-level positions, including jobs within the Executive Office of the President such as senior White House aides and advisors.
According to a Congressional Research Service report, these presidentially-appointed positions requiring Senate approval can be categorized as follows: Secretaries of the 15 Cabinet agencies, deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries, and general counsels of those agencies: Over 350 positions.Jun 3, 2021
1,200 positionsPresidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation (PAS) About 1,200 positions across the federal government. In the first 100 days in office, the Senate confirmed 67 of President Obama's appointees. approximately 320 for Trump and 460 for Obama.
3 nominees. In the past 100 years, the Senate has rejected three nominations on a recorded vote. Americans tend to think of their president as the most powerful person in the world, but the Constitution limits the power of all three branches of government—the president as well as the Congress and the federal courts.
At this writing, the Senate has rejected only nine of a president’s Cabinet nominations. Four were made by embattled Whig-turned-Independent John Tyler in 1843 and 1844, including choices for secretary of war and treasury secretary.
In the high court’s first-ever decision on the breadth of the president’s power in making recess appointments, the justices said such appointments must be made during a Senate recess lasting at least 10 days. And if the Senate says it is in session, the court ruled, it’s in session.
Article II, Section 2 empowers the president to nominate and—“by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate”—to appoint principal officers such as department heads as well as subordinate ones such as deputies. The process of the president’s nomination of Cabinet secretaries, and the Senate’s confirmation of them, ...
In 2011, to ease the logjam of President Obama’s appointees awaiting confirmation, the Senate adopted a resolution allowing nominations for specific positions to bypass a committee and go to the full Senate for a vote. The committee still collects background, however.
The appropriate committee investigates the nominee, holds hearings, and reports to the full Senate.
The Office of Government Ethics is available to guide a candidate through the paperwork. The FBI typically does a background check and submits a report. The Office of Government Ethics, along with an ethics official from the relevant agency, reviews the financial disclosures.
If the nomination is not sent to the floor of the Senate, it doesn’t mean that the nomination is dead. Senators can invoke cloture to move the nomination to the floor for a vote. Cloture is the only procedure by which the Senate can vote to set an end to a debate. Cloture sets a time limit on debate over a nominee. The time limit is 30 hours.
After the hearings, in which senators question the nominee on virtually anything they wish, one of two things will happen: The nomination will be sent to the floor for a full Senate vote with a favorable recommendation, an unfavorable recommendation or no recommendation at all; or the nomination will not be sent to the Senate floor.
Cloture sets a time limit on debate over a nominee. The time limit is 30 hours. Cloture keeps opponents of the nominee from endlessly debating the qualifications of a candidate, keeping a nomination from reaching the Senate floor for a vote and keeping the position for which the person nominated open.
But a rule that grew out of a Democratic-led measure in 2013 led to what is now called the “nuclear option,” which means that with 51 votes, instead of 60 votes, filibusters against nominees are basically prohibited, except for Supreme Court nominees.
The practice of vetting – or confirming the information provided by the nominee – generally happens before the person’s name is made public as the president’s choice for a position. Usually, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducts a background investigation, in addition to having his or her financial information certified by ethics officers.
Shaub said he could not recall a time when the Senate held a confirmation hearing without the process being completed . While there have been only a few nominees who were not confirmed for their positions, the process is designed to be rigorous, and can be contentious. Here’s a look at how it works.
As the Senate prepares to hold committee hearings on President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, Democrats and the top government ethics officer are suggesting that Republicans slow the process down since not all those nominated have completed the necessary ethics review process.