Senate Republicans seek continuity with no immediate rules changes on agenda

Senate Republicans are aiming for continuity as they prepare to expand their majority Thursday, with no immediate rules changes and hopes their increased numbers will prevent the sorts of hiccups that dented their agenda over the last two years.

While Democrats plan a number of big changes to operations in the House, where they will take control, senators won’t even broach changes until later in the month.

“Lots of people have ideas. Conference and other rules don’t have to happen on day one,” said Donald Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who will continue to set the floor schedule as the GOP retains control.

One of those ideas is a proposal by Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, to speed up confirmation of presidential nominations. They would still have to survive a filibuster, but the debate time would be trimmed, limiting Democrats’ ability to throttle the pace of confirmations to a trickle.

Aides said that plan is still floating, but no action is imminent.

The Senate is a “continuing body” in which two-thirds of its membership will be the same at the start of the new Congress, due to staggered elections for six-year terms, so rules changes can wait.

And unlike the House, where rules are set by a majority vote at the beginning of each Congress, it takes a supermajority to rewrite Senate rules.

“The opening of the Congress doesn’t play the same special, action-forcing role on rules changes in the Senate as it does in the House,” said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow on governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee did, however, cue up a key piece of the early agenda late Wednesday.

They said confirmation hearings for William P. Barr, Mr. Trump’s pick for attorney general, will be held Jan. 15 and Jan. 16.

Senate action on Thursday will center on pageantry, as Vice President Mike Pence swears in eight new senators — six Republicans and two Democrats — and incumbents who won another term.

Republican Sen.-elect Rick Scott will be sworn in next week, after he wraps up his tenure as Florida governor.

Following the floor action, the new senators will have a ceremonial photo-op swearing in with Mr. Pence in the Old Senate Chamber.

When Mr. Scott takes his seat, the GOP will have 53 seats, up from 51 in the previous Congress.

That should give Mr. McConnell more breathing room after a tumultuous two years that saw the GOP fail by a single vote on a vote to repeal Obamacare.

Other changes are symbolic.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, who as the senior Republican in the chamber served as president pro tempore, will end his service at noon Thursday, giving way to Sen. Chuck Grassley, who will take his place in the line of presidential succession.

Mr. Hatch’s Utah seat will be filled by Mitt Romney, a two-time failed GOP presidential candidate who came out this week with a blistering attack on President Trump.

He could fill the role formerly played by Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, both of whom are giving up their seats after two years of frequent Trump criticism.

Mr. Flake is being replaced by a Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, while Mr. Corker’s replacement, Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, is signaling she’s going to be a team player for the president on the economy, dealing with China and border security.

“Tennesseans want to see more of that action,” Mrs. Blackburn told Fox News Wednesday.