How we count nominations

Where the record comes from

• Congress.gov: each nomination, its nominees and every action on it, read every hour.
• The Senate’s own nomination files and its daily Executive Calendar: calendar numbers, unanimous-consent agreements that set votes (quoted word for word), and notices of intent to object.
• Senate roll-call votes, for how each senator voted.
• For the posts: the federal courts’ vacancy lists, the Justice Department’s list of US attorneys, the State Department’s list of ambassadors, and the Federal Register’s descriptions of agencies.

What each stage means

A nomination’s stage comes from all of its actions, not only the latest one.

• In committee: referred to a committee, with no hearing or committee vote yet.
• Hearing held: the committee held a hearing on it and has not voted to report it.
• On the calendar: reported by the committee, or placed directly on the Executive Calendar (some posts skip committee unless a senator asks for a referral), and waiting for the full Senate.
• Confirmed or rejected: the Senate decided it.
• Withdrawn: the President took it back.
• Returned: the Senate sent it back to the President at a long recess or the end of a session (Rule XXXI). The same person is often nominated again under a new number.

“Waiting” counts the first three stages; civilian totals leave out military promotion lists, which are counted by officer.

Days waiting and how long it takes

Days are counted from the day the Senate received the nomination to today (Washington time), or to the day it was decided. “How long it takes” uses the nominations confirmed this Congress: each dot is one confirmation and the tick is the median for that kind of post.

How nominees are confirmed

• Roll call: a recorded vote on one nomination, usually after a cloture vote ends debate. A Vice President’s tie-breaking vote is shown when the record has one.
• Package (en bloc): one recorded vote on an executive resolution that confirms every nomination it lists. Under the Senate’s precedent of September 11, 2025, judges and cabinet secretaries cannot be included. A package’s members are the nominations whose own record names the resolution.
• Voice vote or unanimous consent: no senator asked for a recorded vote, so there is no record of how each senator voted. Almost every military promotion passes this way.

Scheduled votes and holds

A vote is shown as scheduled when a unanimous-consent agreement printed in the Executive Calendar, or the Senate Press Gallery’s floor schedule, sets it. Times can change; an agreement the Senate replaces is no longer shown. A hold is shown only when a senator’s notice of intent to object is printed in the Executive Calendar; many holds are never made public.

The nominee’s background

The one or two sentences on who a nominee is come only from one official document about the nominee: the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire, answers to a committee’s policy questions, the nominee’s written hearing statement, or the State Department’s certificate of competency. The page links that document with its date. Every name, number and date in the sentences must appear in it; otherwise the page says no background is published yet. Personal details, party and opinions are never included. When the document is a scan with no text, the nominee’s education and employment answers are first copied from the scan word for word, and the finished sentences are then checked against the scan itself; a sentence the scan does not support keeps the background off the page.