Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
Which nominations were affected by the 2013 nuclear option and which were excluded?
Executive Summary
The 2013 “nuclear option” changed Senate precedent so most presidential nominations — broadly executive-branch appointments and non‑Supreme Court federal judicial nominees — could be advanced to confirmation by a simple majority rather than the 60‑vote cloture threshold, while Supreme Court nominations remained exempt until 2017. Democrats argued the change was necessary to overcome sustained obstruction of President Obama’s nominees; Republicans called it a power grab and later used a similar rule change to eliminate the Supreme Court filibuster in 2017, dramatically narrowing the chamber’s minority‑protective tools [1] [2] [3].
1. A Rule Shift to Break Confirmation Gridlock — What Exactly Changed and Why
The core factual claim is that the Senate’s 2013 move eliminated the ability to filibuster most nominations by reducing the cloture threshold to a simple majority for executive and lower‑court judicial nominees, and that this was adopted by Senate Democrats to overcome Republican blocks on Obama’s picks. Contemporary reporting documents that Majority Leader Harry Reid led the change amid a sustained impasse over D.C. Circuit nominees and other appointments, and the maneuver was explicitly framed as a targeted fix to move past what Democrats called unprecedented obstruction [1] [2]. Opponents framed the change as a historic breach of Senate norms and a partisan power play; both characterizations reflect distinct political agendas and help explain the rapid institutional follow‑on in the years after the change [4].
2. Who Was Included — The Nominations Whose Filibusters Were Ended
Multiple contemporaneous accounts and later explainers converge on the list of nominations affected: most presidential appointments to the executive branch (Cabinet and agency heads) and federal judicial nominees below the Supreme Court, including the three blocked D.C. Circuit nominees whose stalemate prompted the reform. Sources note the immediate practical effect: cloture motions for confirmations moved from a 60‑vote threshold to a 51‑vote standard, enabling confirmations like Patricia Millett’s and others to proceed after years of blockage [2] [4]. The change applied to both current nominees and future nominations while the new precedent stood, meaning the Senate majority gained sustained leverage over the confirmation calendar so long as it controlled 51 votes [5].
3. Who Was Excluded — The Supreme Court Exception (Until 2017)
A consistent factual thread across sources is that the 2013 precedent explicitly excluded Supreme Court nominations, leaving the 60‑vote threshold intact for the Court at that time. Reporting from November 2013 documents that Senate Democrats deliberately drew that line, partly to limit the procedural rupture and partly due to the high institutional stakes around changing confirmation rules for the nation’s highest court [1] [6]. This limited carve‑out did not settle the debate permanently: Republicans later invoked their own “nuclear option” in 2017 to eliminate the Supreme Court filibuster, showing how the 2013 precedent both altered the landscape and set a template for subsequent majority parties to push further [7] [3].
4. Competing Narratives — Reform for Functionality Versus a Power Grab
Analyses at the time and in retrospective pieces present two competing narratives rooted in factual claims: proponents said the change remedied sustained partisan obstruction that left courts understaffed and agencies leaderless, producing quicker confirmations and restoring functionality; opponents said the reform eroded minority rights and Senate norms, increasing short‑term efficiency at the cost of long‑term institutional reciprocity. Both narratives are supported by factual events: the confirmations that followed and the 2017 expansion of the rule. Noting these agendas is crucial for context — Democrats framed the move as corrective and procedural, while Republicans framed it as precedent‑weakening and politically self‑serving [1] [4] [8].
5. Broader Consequences and Contemporary Context — The Filibuster's Shrinking Role
Beyond the immediate list of affected nominations, sources place the 2013 change in a broader legal and historical context: the Senate filibuster had accumulated numerous exceptions for budget reconciliation, trade, war powers, and arms sales, and the 2013 move substantially narrowed the minority’s ability to influence confirmations, changing the incentives around nominations and Senate majorities. Commentators later linked the 2013 precedent to an escalation culminating in the 2017 removal of the Supreme Court’s filibuster; that follow‑through illustrates how a targeted procedural change can produce cascading institutional shifts when each majority recalibrates norms to its advantage [5] [3] [8].
6. Bottom Line: The Facts, the Timeline, and What to Watch Next
The verifiable facts are straightforward: in November 2013 the Senate changed precedent so most non‑Supreme Court nominations could be clotured by a simple majority, applying to executive and lower federal court nominees; the Supreme Court remained exempt until Republicans extended a similar rule in 2017. This sequence — targeted procedural change, immediate confirmations, and later expansion — demonstrates both the specific practical impact on confirmation mechanics and the broader institutional risk that majorities will further revisit rules when norms break. Observers tracking Senate procedure should note that future majorities retain the capacity to redefine cloture standards, making the institutional balance between majority rule and minority protection an active and consequential debate [1] [3] [6].