Will need to work together...

Biden's Cabinet nominees could be stalled until Senate cuts deal on power-sharing agreement

Manu Raju

Many of President Joe Biden's Cabinet nominees could be stalled until Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer cut a deal on a resolution outlining how they'll share power in the Senate, GOP and Democratic senators said Wednesday.

That's because the power-sharing agreement will specify how many Democratic and Republican senators will sit on the various committees and will formally allow Democrats to assume the chairmanships of the key committees.

Without an agreement, the committee ratios from the last Congress, when Republicans maintained control of the Senate, will continue. And that means that Biden will need cooperation from Republicans to begin committee consideration, or he'll have to wait until McConnell and Schumer reach an agreement on the resolution.

 "Committees, I think, will be stalled until it's agreed to," Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Senate GOP leadership, told CNN.

Some context: That raises the stakes for the talks between McConnell and Schumer, which hit a snag on Tuesday when the GOP leader demanded that Schumer take off the table the possibility that Democrats may try to gut the filibuster, which is the potent stall tactic that could derail legislation absent 60 votes.

Many Democrats have called for changes to filibuster rules to reduce the threshold to 51 votes, but Schumer lacks enough support within his caucus to invoke the so-called nuclear option to change the rules.

Nevertheless, McConnell has asked Schumer for assurances that the filibuster will be spared, something that Schumer has yet to do. Schumer has called on the Senate rules to mirror the 2001 agreement when the chamber was also initially split 50-50, with both sides holding an equal number of seats on committees and tied votes on legislation and nominations would go straight to the floor.

The two most likely nominees who might get confirmed quickly are Janet Yellen to the Treasury Department and Avril Haines to be director of national intelligence, but there still needs to be an agreement to hold votes on the nominations. It remains to be seen when other nominees might be considered.