WASHINGTON—Republicans muscled through committee approval of President Donald Trump’s nominees for Treasury and Health on Wednesday, suspending a key Senate rule in the latest escalation of partisan tensions in Congress.
Democrats boycotted a Finance Committee meeting and Republicans responded by temporarily scuttling a rule requiring at least one Democrat to be present for votes. The committee then approved Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to become Health secretary and financier Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary by a pair of 14-0 votes.
Democrats had been demanding time to ask more questions about both nominees. Democrats say there were unresolved questions about both nominees’ financial backgrounds.
Separately, the Senate planned to vote later in the day on Trump’s nomination of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state after several Democrats crossed party lines to back the former Exxon Mobil CEO.
The vote on Tillerson comes as tension builds among congressional Republicans and Democrats over Trump’s executive order on immigrants and refugees.
