Amid Democratic boycotts, Senate Republicans suspended the rules to advance Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin and HHS Secretary nominee Tom Price, CNN reports:

With the committee rules suspended, the 14 Republicans in the room voted to move the Mnuchin and Price nominations to the full Senate, even without the presence of a single member of the opposite party.

“They on their own accord refused to participate in the exercise,” Hatch said about the Democrats on the committee. “They have nobody to blame but themselves.”

Hatch said the Senate Parliamentarian had approved of the procedural maneuver, and insisted to reporters after the exercise was a “just utilization” of the rules. “This is all approved by the Parliamentarian,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been.”

The committee’s call for a 9:30 a.m. gathering was so sudden that even some members of the media scrambled to arrive at the hearing room in the Dirksen building on time.

Hatch chuckled when confronted by questions from reporters about the little notice that the public received about Wednesday s meeting. “You were scrambling? Well, you know, that’s neither here nor there,” he said.

Watch:

Description of video on YouTube:

Heath and Human Services and Treasury Secretary Nominees The Senate Finance Committee suspended rules obliging Democrats to be available amid voting to propel the selections for Treasury secretary and Health and Human Services secretary. The chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), said he counseled with the parliamentarian to push ahead with the vote after Democrats boycotted a previous vote. Every single Republican of the committee took part and voted to move the two selections to the Senate floor for a vote. Here’s the segment of video that was Brought forth. Note there was audio difficulties at the beginning and chairman gave comments after the vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmRFMlwKxSE