WASHINGTON — Politico.com reported Thursday afternoon that Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan was blocking the confirmation of the Navy’s top officer.
“The last-minute drama had nothing to do with (Admiral Daryl) Caudle, whose confirmation seemed virtually assured,” Politico reported. “Sullivan, a relentless booster for his home state, had objected to a speedy confirmation to put pressure on the Pentagon to reopen the long-shuttered Adak Naval Air Station.”
It proved to be a short-term hold. A few hours after Politico posted the story, a Sullivan spokeswoman said the hold was over but provided few specifics.
As it happens, when the news broke about Sullivan’s block on that confirmation, Sullivan had just finished a speech denouncing Democrats for slow-walking the confirmation of other White House appointees.
“We have this unprecedented blockade by the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer,” Sullivan thundered on the Senate floor. “That's not good for the Senate, as an institution …. It's not good for the country, to (deny) the president his people confirmed to help run the government.”
Sullivan’s complaint was that Democrats aren’t following the collegial tradition of moving lists of nominees by unanimous consent, dozens or hundreds in one fell swoop. Without unanimous consent, senators are slogging through President Trump’s appointees to sub-Cabinet positions one at a time, taking hours for each one.
Sullivan referred to a posterboard, showing the percentages of Senate confirmations that the previous six presidents achieved through unanimous consent. Then Sullivan pointed to the percentage of fast-track nominations for Trump’s second term.
“I want the American people to see that: Zero. Zero! Zero!” Sullivan said, his tone growing in outrage with each repetition.
Sullivan lamented the lack of collegiality from the other side of the aisle. He said his Democratic colleagues are letting “wackos” set their strategy.
“I mean, the far-left crazies of the Democratic Party are driving the Senate minority leader to go to zero,” Sullivan said, “because they're telling him, ‘You got to resist the Trump administration.’ So he's listening to them.”
Democrats gave a variety of reasons for not granting unanimous consent in recent days, often citing Trump’s refusal to spend money Congress already appropriated for things like education, cancer research and aid to farmers.
“Democrats don't have many tools, being in the minority,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “But an important one is doing everything we can to slow down this Trump march to increase costs, lost health care and ultimately an economic catastrophe.”
A few hours after Politico broke the news of Sullivan’s hold, it was over.
“Senator Sullivan had a very constructive conversation last night with the Secretary of Defense, with whom he has a strong relationship,” a Sullivan spokeswoman said by email. “After the conversation, Senator Sullivan lifted his hold on Admiral Caudle.”
Sullivan did not respond to an interview request and his spokeswoman answered no further questions about what progress he may have achieved.
The Senate confirmed Caudle late Thursday night without a rollcall vote, by unanimous consent. (Senate Democrats are still granting unanimous consent for military confirmations.)
The Democrats refusal to fast-track confirmations is already cutting into the August recess. Senators have taken vote after vote on ambassadors, undersecretaries and commissioners, one nominee at a time. And, they’ve made progress.
While Sullivan talked about percentages of confirmations that were fast-tracked, the total number of confirmations in Trump's second term is not particularly low.
As of July 31, the Senate had confirmed 124 of Trump’s civilian appointees. That’s two more than President Biden achieved at this point in his presidency.
Meanwhile, on the Aleutian Island of Adak, City Manager Breck Craig said the community of 50 hopes Sullivan succeeds in his drive to re-open the Naval base.
“It would be everything,” Craig said. “You know, Adak used to have 6,000 people here, when the base was fully operational.”
Now, he said, it doesn’t have the minimum number of children for a public school.
