Senate Confirmations, Senate Time Off and How Many Votes When? – GovTrack.us

Senate Confirmations, Senate Time Off and How Many Votes When?

Aug. 1, 2025 · by Amy West

Legislative Recap

The Senate continues to grind through the thousands of Trump Administration nominees. We’ll mention two notable now confirmed Administration appointees below, but first we want to say that we’re taking two of the shorter questions we got from y’all because they relate directly to what’s going on in the Senate right now.

The Senate was supposed to start its August Recess today, August 1st. But between public pressure from President Trump and Democrats insisting on voting on most nominees one by one, they’ll be in session at least through the weekend.

It’s possible to approve nominees in batches by unanimous consent, as has happened with military promotions. But doing that requires both a sense of trust and collegiality and for the chamber’s minority to feel they gain politically from doing so.

Military promotions? Democrats feel those are worth getting done en masse. But other positions? Not so much.

So until both parties in the Senate can agree to some group unanimous consent confirmations, they’ll stay in session.

One of the reasons that Democrats have insisted on one by one votes is because they often feel strongly that the nominees should not be confirmed. Here are two examples:

• Emil J. Bove III, United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit was confirmed 50-49. Bove negotiated a quid pro quo with Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, to drop a corruption prosecution if Adams would agree to help with the Administration’s deportation efforts. Several whistleblowers also came forward before the vote claiming that Bove had directed them to ignore the courts when judges ruled against the administration. Previously Bove was one of President Trump’s personal lawyers. Now, at 44 and with a record of loyalty to the President regardless of law or circumstance, he has a lifetime appointment as a judge, a position in which he is supposed to render judgements in an unbiased manner.
• Joe Kent, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence was confirmed 52-44. Kent, a twice failed Congressional candidate for Washington’s 3rd District (held now by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez), has a long history of association with white nationalists and conspiracy theorists

Senate Time Off

A couple of folks asked us why the Senate takes so much time off. Well, as noted above, they may not in fact take much time off. But also, Congress members use time out of session to campaign, to promote legislation they’ve passed (for example, the reconciliation bill has polled extremely poorly), hold meetings with constituents, go on Congressional Delegations (quasi-official trips covering topics relevant to Congress) and yes, even to take some vacation.

We also want to note that collegiality – mentioned above – plays a big role in how the Senate operates. Time off lets everyone get a break from each other and come back ready to maybe find points of compromise.

This might seem trivial, but the next big hurdle is keeping the government open. The government’s fiscal year ends September 30. That gives both chambers 8 weeks to pass something that keeps the government operating in October. Negotiations will probably go better if the Senators don’t start out sick of the sight of each other.

Lastly, while the Senate is often out Mondays and Fridays, they work when not in session and often hold all-night votes and rarely, committee meetings. It probably averages out to a less leisurely schedule than it seems on its face.

How Many Votes Does it Take in the Senate?

Mostly it takes 50, 100 or 60:

• 50 (or a simple majority) for passage of bills and votes related to administration nominations including judicial nominations; these are the most partisan votes
• 100 for unanimous consent; or more accurately, no one who dislikes a bill or nomination enough to object; obviously, least partisan votes
• 60 because senators agreed behind the scenes to skip the step below and go straight to passing the bill, but with a higher winning threshold; less partisan votes
• 60 to end debate (and some other similar procedural steps) so you can get to the vote on the bill; less partisan votes.
• • This is the modern filibuster. While both parties have been flipping back and forth with just over 50 votes for several years now, 1977 was the last year either party had 60 or more seats. The next closest year was 2009 with 57 Democrats, two Independents and 41 Republicans. Otherwise, the Senate tends to stay pretty closely split. Because getting 60 votes to end debate has meant getting at least a few members of the opposing party on board since 1977, the votes to end debate give the minority party considerable power if they choose to use it.

The common thread here is that except for votes requiring only 50 votes / a simple majority, senators have to work together to get a bill through the chamber. So, again, collegiality is a crucial factor to actually getting anything done. Yet another argument for at least a little bit of an August Recess.

There are many, many, many exceptions to the vote numbers I listed above. But those are the most common situations in the Senate over the last several years. If you really want to keep up with procedural minutia, @ringwiss.bsky.social‬ (and probably other social media) is a good follow. The Senate also publishes lots of information on their rules and procedures.

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