Wait what? I specifically said I could find only one example which was under Trump and the nominee was ultimately accepted. I also quoted Schumer and the Democrats saying this was without precedent. I’m really not sure what you’re getting at here.
Please don’t ignore my response as well as my request for any examples and then tell me an article I cited says something it doesn’t.
Nomination is not the same as confirmation. The US congressional system is built on a system of checks and balances. Even a single senator, lacking an opposed super majority, can indefinitely delay and ultimately kill any nomination. This, coincidentally, happened with Rosenworcel's initial nomination (in 2012) when the senate, thanks to a single minority party senator, refused to even consider her nomination for months until other conditions were met.
There's no gentleman's agreement like you seem to think, or at least are certainly implying. The reason that the minority party gets to select their nominees is because of the implicit threat of rejecting anybody except their picks.
Just because one senator (without an opposed supermajority) could theoretically indefinitely delay a nomination to the FCC, it has never happened. Has it?
In the example you gave, Grassley put Rosenworcel and Pai's nominations on hold for a time. Notice he did this to one person from each party simultaneously and still allowed both to be confirmed after a little while. Mitch was a big fan of Pai so there is no doubt they could have scraped 60 votes together to get the two through if he hadn't relented.
I asked for examples where the nominee was "withdrawn or otherwise not accepted" and you gave me one where they blocked all nominations, regardless of party or point of view, for only a few months due to a personal dispute.
Everything points to what I said originally which is that the majority party gets 3 FCC nominees, the minority party gets 2 FCC nominees, and they traditionally all get approved due to the "gentleman's agreement" as you call it. While no one has 60 votes in the Senate right now, many FCC nominees have sailed through for the minority party even though the majority party had 60 votes to stop any nomination holds from the minority.
