Senate Republicans cleared a key hurdle on Wednesday toward confirming four dozen of President Trump’s lower-level nominees, teeing up a final vote after they changed the chamber’s rules last week. 

The Senate last week invoked the so-called nuclear option to allow the chamber to confirm large numbers of nominees in a single bloc and on Wednesday held a series of votes that put the first of those blocs on the precipice of confirmation. The final vote is slated for Thursday. 

“Democrat obstruction ends today,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on Wednesday. “Democrats failed to defeat President Trump in November at the ballot box, so instead they’re trying to sabotage his team right here on the Senate floor.”

All 48 of the nominees included in the tranche advanced from the committee level with bipartisan support. Many of them are slated for under or assistant secretary positions at various departments and agencies. 

Also included are a half-dozen ambassador nominees, with Kimberly Guilfoyle (Greece) and Callista Gingrich (Switzerland and Liechtenstein) being among the most notable names.

The rules change to allow the vote was based on a proposal offered by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Angus King (I-Maine) two years ago, which would have allowed 10 nominees from a specific committee to be bundled together and passed “en bloc” on the floor. 

The GOP’s successful push now allows them to clear nearly 150 civilian nominees in the coming weeks and months without having to hold individual votes and use the full clock for them, which Democrats had forced them to do ahead of the August recess. 

Notably, the rule change does not apply to judicial nominees, as they are still subject to the requisite two hours of floor consideration. 

Cabinet and Supreme Court nominees also fall outside the bounds of nominees eligible to be included for “en bloc” passage. They still require 30 hours of consideration.

Up until now, Republicans this year have not had a single nominee passed via unanimous consent or a voice vote. By contrast, former President Biden and Trump’s first term saw more than 50 percent of those choices confirmed in those ways, with those figures hovering around 90 percent for former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush. 

The two parties tried to stave off a rule change ahead of the month-long break via a nominations package, but Trump nixed the deal at the last minute. He argued that Democrats wanted too much in return.