Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Republican Senate caucus have left Washington for their August recess. But before the doors closed behind them, Thune quietly arranged something that’s drawing serious scrutiny: pro forma sessions scheduled every few days, keeping the Senate technically “in session” and blocking President Trump from making recess appointments while his own party’s leader is on vacation.
That deserves to be stated plainly. When a Republican president and a Republican Senate majority are both in power, the normal expectation is simple. If confirmations are stalling, the Majority Leader adjourns without pro forma sessions, giving the president the ability to make recess appointments and work around the bottlenecks. That’s the mechanism the system provides.
Thune didn’t do that. He arranged the sessions specifically in a way that prevents Trump from using that tool.
As originally reported, before leaving Thune met with Senators Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott. The group reached an agreement to postpone the Senate budget resolution until after recess, with a promise to vote immediately on the voter ID component of the SAVE America Act when senators return.
The SAVE America Act, of course, was supposed to pass before recess. Senators had pledged to stay in Washington to get it done. Trump traveled to Capitol Hill personally to push for it. Seven senators publicly threatened to block adjournment. Thune’s position was put on the line by the president himself.
He went home anyway.
The positions left unfilled during this recess haven’t been specifically enumerated publicly, but the broader picture is hard to miss. Trump is nearly two years into a four-year term. The confirmation process, which Thune controls, has moved slowly, with several nominees facing active resistance. The pro forma sessions now guarantee Trump cannot make end-runs around those delays for an entire month.
Promises from this Senate Republican caucus have a pattern. There is always a reason to wait, always a more convenient moment just around the corner, always a deal struck in a hallway that conveniently delays the hard vote for another week. The SAVE America Act has been that deal for months.
The voter ID vote is now promised for after recess. Given what happened before recess, confidence in that timeline seems difficult to justify.
What makes this moment notable isn’t just the delay on legislation. It’s the pro forma sessions themselves. Thune didn’t simply leave. He took the specific technical step necessary to prevent the president from acting in the Senate’s absence. That is a choice, and it benefits nobody in the Republican coalition.
The confirmation backlog continues. The vacancies remain. And the Majority Leader who controls the calendar is at home, having made sure things stay exactly as he left them.