The Senate on May 18 confirmed 49 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a single vote, advancing a broad slate of administration officials as Republicans continue using streamlined procedures to clear a confirmations backlog that had frustrated the administration.
The chamber voted 46-43 to approve nominees across roughly 20 categories, including more than a dozen U.S. attorneys, several U.S. marshals, ambassadors, and officials at multiple departments’ agencies.
Among the nominees confirmed was former Republican Rep. Stevan Pearce of New Mexico, who will lead the Bureau of Land Management, an agency that oversees vast areas of public land and underground mineral reserves. Republicans have backed Pearce as an experienced, pro-development choice for the role, while critics raised concerns about the administration’s push to expand drilling and mining on public lands, AP News reported.
The action came under S.Res. 690, which the Senate adopted May 11 to allow the nominees to be considered as a group rather than through separate floor votes. With this action, Republicans say they have now confirmed roughly 60% of Trump’s civilian nominees, according to FOX News.
This marks the fourth major batch of en bloc confirmations since Senate Republicans changed procedures to allow grouped votes on civilian nominees, bypassing separate votes Republicans said Democrats had used to slow the confirmation process.
As Zeale News reported in 2025, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Sept. 8 that none of Trump’s civilian nominees had been confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent since the President’s inauguration for his second term. He contrasted that pace with Trump’s first term and former President Joe Biden’s administration, when more than half of civilian nominees were confirmed by voice vote at the same point.
The latest confirmations come as the Trump administration continues filling positions more than a year into his term, following earlier packages that approved dozens of lower-level and regional officials.