UPDATE (Jan. 9, 11:16 p.m.): The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions announced on Monday night that the confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, will be moved to Jan. 17. With that change, there are four hearings scheduled for Wednesday, not five.
On Wednesday, five of Donald Trump’s nominees for high-level administration positions are scheduled to face Senate committees for their confirmation hearings. Some Democrats say that the number of hearings1 taking place in a single day — the same day on which Trump is scheduled to hold his first news conference since July, potentially drawing attention away from the hearings — won’t give senators or the public enough of a chance to assess the nominees. But scheduling multiple confirmation hearings on the same day — even as many as five — is not particularly rare when the Senate is considering the nominees of recent incoming administrations.
Since 1981, there have been four dates on which the Senate held at least five hearings for Cabinet-level and formerly Cabinet-level positions,2 including two five-hearing days in the lead-up to President Obama taking office. There was one date — Jan. 18, 2001 — when the Senate held six such hearings, discussing George W. Bush’s nominees.
| DATE | PRESIDENT | NUMBER OF HEARINGS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 18, 2001 | George W. Bush | 6 | |
| Jan. 15, 2009 | Barack Obama | 5 | |
| Jan. 11, 2017 | Donald Trump | 5 | |
| Jan. 13, 2009 | Barack Obama | 5 | |
| Jan. 6, 1981 | Ronald Reagan | 5 | |
| Jan. 17, 2001 | George W. Bush | 4 | |
| Jan. 7, 1993 | Bill Clinton | 4 | |
| Jan. 19, 1993 | Bill Clinton | 4 | |
| Jan. 21, 1993 | Bill Clinton | 4 | |
| Jan. 14, 2009 | Barack Obama | 4 | |
| Jan. 19, 2001 | George W. Bush | 4 | |
| Jan. 12, 2017 | Donald Trump | 3 | |
| Jan. 26, 1989 | George H.W. Bush | 3 | |
| Jan. 12, 1993 | Bill Clinton | 3 | |
| Jan. 14, 1993 | Bill Clinton | 3 | |
| Jan. 12, 1981 | Ronald Reagan | 3 | |
| Jan. 24, 2001 | George W. Bush | 2 | |
| Jan. 15, 1981 | Ronald Reagan | 2 | |
| Jan. 19, 1989 | George H.W. Bush | 2 | |
| Jan. 21, 2009 | Barack Obama | 2 | |
| Jan. 13, 1981 | Ronald Reagan | 2 | |
| Jan. 27, 1989 | George H.W. Bush | 2 | |
| Jan. 11, 1993 | Bill Clinton | 2 | |
| Jan. 10, 2017 | Donald Trump | 2 | |
| Jan. 7, 1981 | Ronald Reagan | 2 | |
| Jan. 8, 1981 | Ronald Reagan | 2 | |
| Jan. 25, 1989 | George H.W. Bush | 2 |
That’s not to say such jam-packed schedules are good. Scheduling multiple hearings on the same day forces many senators to split their time. Six senators, for example, sit on both the Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold the hearing on Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson at 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, and on the Commerce Committee, which will hold the hearing on Transportation Secretary nominee Elaine Chao at 10:15 a.m. Five senators are on both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which will hold the hearing on Trump’s choice for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, at 10 a.m. In all, there are 28 senators who sit on more than one of the committees that are scheduled to hold confirmation hearings on Wednesday.
Still, it’s fairly typical for the Senate to hold multiple hearings in a day when considering the Cabinet nominees of incoming presidents. Some officials, however, have raised another scheduling-related complaint: The Office of Government Ethics reports that it is concerned that several of Trump’s nominees haven’t completed the ethics review process, meaning that some nominees may have ethical issues that have not yet been revealed or addressed.