Rick Scott Wants Senate Republicans Racing Chuck Schumer’s Clock Through Christmas and New Year’s

Chuck Schumer promised Democrats will block every judge Trump sends them.

Rick Scott wants the Senate working through Christmas to beat that deadline.

The Senate's actual calendar for November and December tells a different story.

Schumer and Brown Already Told Republicans What Is Coming in January

Two days after Democrats won back the Senate majority, Schumer told the Associated Press exactly what that majority is for.

"The bottom line is we're not going to allow a right-winger on the court," he said.

He added that Democrats are "not going to allow any crappy nominees" onto the Supreme Court, the lower courts, or Trump's Cabinet.

He called it a "durable" majority, one that could grow to 56 seats once Mississippi and Alaska finish being called.

Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown had already previewed the mood on MS NOW weeks earlier.

"We're not, obviously, confirming judges that are Trump judges," he told viewers.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley described it as a "no deliberation" pledge.

It's the kind of blanket refusal that abandons the Senate's constitutional duty to actually weigh a nominee's qualifications.

That is the wall Rick Scott is racing.

In a November 7 post on X, he wrote that the American people "would love for us all to shut up and just do our job."

He wants the Senate in session every day until the new majority is sworn in around January 3.

On Fox News' Saturday in America, he said Republicans should "just stay every day" through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.

Mike Lee backed him, posting that there are "eight weeks in the majority remaining" and "a lot of work left to do."

Republicans Penciled in Only Twenty Two Working Days Before Democrats Take Over

Here is the problem.

The actual Senate calendar, reported earlier by The Hill, schedules just eight session days in November and fourteen in December.

Twenty two days combined, spread across two months, to confirm judges and nominees before Schumer gets the gavel and makes good on his promise.

Scott and Lee are describing a five alarm fire.

The calendar reads like a long holiday with a few meetings squeezed in.

Mike Lee Promised a Floor Fight and Took a Voice Vote Instead

This isn't the first time Republicans have talked tough and folded.

During an earlier standoff over the SAVE America Act, Lee threatened to block adjournment until the bill got a real roll call.

Majority Leader John Thune's chamber brushed past him with a voice vote instead.

No roll call.

No accountability.

Lee and the other holdouts lost without a fight anyone could point to.

John Thune is the one man who can fix the calendar.

He controls the floor schedule, and he has the power to cancel recesses and force the chamber to stay in Washington.

He would need enough Republican votes behind him to make it stick, and nothing in his record this year suggests he is eager to spend his political capital doing it.

The pattern is not new.

Senate Democrats ran the same play in December 2014, using the final weeks of a majority they knew they were about to lose to push through a wave of judicial nominees before Republicans took the gavel in January 2015.

They worked nights.

They worked weekends.

Their leadership wanted it done, so it got done.

What Twenty Two Days Buys Trump Before Schumer Shuts the Door

Twenty two days is not a lot of runway for confirming judges, and judges are the whole point.

Every seat Trump fills now is a seat Schumer cannot touch.

Every seat left open becomes a vacancy Brown and Schumer get to sit on, or fill however they like once they hold the votes.

Scott and Lee know this.

That's why they are not asking for a symbolic gesture.

They are asking Thune to burn through Thanksgiving and Christmas because the clock does not care how exhausted anyone is.

The excuse that always shows up next is that senators have families, fundraisers, and flights booked.

Fine.

Democrats had the same complaints in 2014 and showed up anyway.

Republicans now have the same math and less time to prove they take it just as seriously.

Rusty Weiss put it bluntly in his original report: Republicans should have been working this hard months before the election, not after voters already decided to hand Democrats the gavel.

Better late than never only counts if Thune actually cancels the recess.

Every day Republicans let slip by between now and January 3 is a day closer to Chuck Schumer deciding which of Trump's nominees never get a hearing at all.

Sources:

• Rusty Weiss, "Rick Scott Wants Senators Working Through Christmas – and the Senate's Calendar Shows Why," RedState, November 8, 2026.
• Lisa Mascaro, "Schumer Says Democrats Will Stop Trump from Placing 'Right-Winger' on the Supreme Court," PBS NewsHour, November 6, 2026.
• Jonathan Turley, "We're Not Confirming Trump Judges: Sherrod Brown Goes Full Jaime West in Ohio," Jonathan Turley, October 15, 2026.
• NPR Staff, "Senate Democrats Use Waning Majority to Push Through Judges," NPR, December 16, 2014.