WASHINGTON (TNND) — Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is teeing up to change the chamber's rules for confirming the president's executive branch nominees, as Democrats have blocked nearly all of President Donald Trump's nominees.

Under current rules, a single senator's objection to an executive nominee will force a procedural vote, which can take days of floor time. Prior to August recess, Thune and other Republicans have been in negotiations with Democratic leadership on how to effectively confirm Trump's picks without having to resort to a rule change. But on Monday, Thune revealed he's taking steps to establish a new rule, calling out Democrats for their historic levels of obstructing the work of the executive branch.

“It’s time to take steps to restore Senate precedent and codify in Senate rules what once was understood to be standard practice — and that is the Senate acting expeditiously on presidential nominations to allow a president to get his team into place,” Thune said Monday on the Senate floor. “And so this afternoon, I’ll be taking the necessary procedural steps to amend the rules.”

Thune intends to change the procedural rules by introducing 48 nominees in a bloc vote. Only nominees that are subjected to two hours of debate time under Senate rules can be included in a bloc vote, such as ambassadors and sub-Cabinet-level picks. Judicial nominations would be excluded from the rule change. An unlimited number of nominees in a bloc will be able to be voted on by the Senate. Only the majority party, which is currently the Republican party, will be able to select any of the nominees, leading to either the nominee's name being pulled or a discussion with leadership.

Procedural votes to change the rules will likely begin on Thursday, and they will only require a simple majority. This means that only 51 of 53 Republicans would have to approve the rule change, leading to an overturn of long-standing precedent —known as the "nuclear option."

“If Republicans go nuclear, the historically bad nominees we’ve seen so far under Donald Trump will get only worse,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor Monday. “Sometimes it’s almost as if the more corrupt, the better, because then Donald Trump will totally control what they do. It’s as if he wants the Senate to confirm people willing to lie for him, to even cheat for him. He wants people who are willing to stand up for him without question.”

“If you don’t debate nominees, if you don’t vote on individual nominees, if there’s not some degree of sunlight, what will stop Donald Trump from nominating even worse individuals than we’ve seen to date, knowing this chamber will rubber-stamp anything he wishes?” Schumer continued.

Both Republicans and Democrats have a long-standing history of stalling the opposing party in the White House's nominations picks, but this is the first time that not a single executive nominee was confirmed by a voice vote. There are more than 600 nominees still awaiting to be confirmed by the Senate.

“That’s more votes than this record-breaking Senate has taken all year up until now,” Thune said. “There is no practical way that we could come close to filling all the vacancies in the four years of this administration, no matter how many hours the Senate works.”

Republicans based their rule change on a proposal presented by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Angus King, I-Maine, which would have allowed lower-level nominees to be voted on in blocs of ten.

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