The Democrats have filibustered just about every Trump nominee. That is because the rules allow unlimited debate. The Republicans are about to change the rules, likely in April. The rule change will limit debate.
The rule has remained the same as neither party ever used the rule to prevent nominees from getting a vote. No time limit has been announced and different members of the Senate are throwing out different numbers.
The filibuster was passed in the 1800s and President Trump has had more judges filibustered than all the presidents in the last 120 years………..COMBINED.
Article II of the Constitution specifies that all federal judges require Senate confirmation, as do senior positions in the administration. Currently, 1,200 positions out of 4,100 political appointments in a presidential administration are “principal officers” that are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Theoretically, the Senate could use its confirmation power to keep seats on the federal judiciary – including even the Supreme Court – open indefinitely. Senators could also employ it to hamstring a presidential administration by denying a vote to presidential nominees for key positions in the government.
In fact, that is what Senate Democrats are doing now. Judges are being slow-walked, with more cloture votes being required in two years for President Trump’s picks than all the judicial nominations of every previous president combined since the filibuster was created in the late 1800s. Similarly, hundreds of the 1,200 Senate-confirmed positions in the Trump administration are still vacant.