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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, filed cloture Thursday evening on the nomination of Brian Burch to serve as US Ambassador to the Vatican.
Burch cofounded CatholicVote in 2005, serving as its president for 17 years. President Donald Trump nominated him for the ambassador post in December. Kelsey Reinhardt was named the second president in CatholicVote’s history this June.
Thune’s decision to file cloture on Burch’s nomination comes as the Senate sits on a backlog of over 150 nominees tapped to serve in the Trump administration. The move initiates a “ripening” period of two session days, after which the Senate can vote on cloture.
It is possible that Democrats will choose to make a deal and participate in a vote on the nomination Friday, August 1, so that senators will be free to go home for the August recess.
If a deal is not made, Republicans have indicated that senators may work over the weekend. A vote to invoke cloture could occur as early as Saturday, August 2, at which point they would start two hours of debate over Burch’s nomination before a final vote.
While the historical norm has been for the Senate to approve most nominees by unanimous consent, Democrats in the Senate have obstructed Trump’s nominations since his inauguration in January.
In the absence of the routine process of unanimous consent, nominees must be voted on individually in roll call votes with required periods for debate, grinding nominations to a trickle.
By filing cloture on this nomination, Thune has likely ensured that there will be either a unanimous consent agreement Friday because of a deal, or the more likely roll-call vote on Burch’s ambassadorship as early as Saturday night.
