Senate skips town – and responsibility
The Senate left town last week, its work unfinished. Majority leader Mitch McConnell’s partial government shutdown continues. Among other things, Republicans still refuse to take up many of Barack Obama’s judicial and executive-branch nominations – a roadblock that makes it hard for the courts and the federal government to work efficiently.
Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost describes one embarrassing example: The undersecretary of the Treasury in charge of the terrorism and financial crimes division hasn’t been confirmed. Adam Szubin was nominated in April, more than seven months ago. Republicans don’t oppose him. The Banking Committee chairman, Richard Shelby, praised Szubin at his confirmation hearing. And then? Nothing.
The numbers: The Senate has confirmed 135 Obama nominees (including both executive branch and judicial) so far this year. By contrast, in 2007, when Democrats had just won the Senate, and a Republican president was in his seventh year in office, the Senate had confirmed 234 of George W. Bush’s nominees through the end of November.
Only 10 judges have been confirmed this year, leaving 66 judicial vacancies. The last time judges were confirmed so slowly was in the 1950s, during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency.
So this isn’t the normal partisan back-and-forth. This isn’t what Democrats did to Bush, or what Republicans in 1999 did to Bill Clinton, or what Democrats in 1987 did to Ronald Reagan. It’s new, it’s a big deal, and it’s terrible.
I’m a strong supporter of a powerful Senate. If McConnell’s Republicans want to defeat the nominees they believe are poor choices – judges outside the mainstream, for example – they have a right to do so. And it’s fine if the Senate uses confirmations as leverage over the executive bureaucracy and in fights with the president over policy.
But the Senate isn’t using this influence to govern. It is engaged in pure partisan harassment of Obama, and indifferent to the functioning of government. Agencies can’t function at their best without confirmed presidential picks in place; diplomacy suffers when ambassadors aren’t in place.
We’ll never know what the specific consequences are of not filling crucial positions. For example, if the Treasury Department was fully staffed, would it be able to stop money flowing to terrorists to finance a particular attack? It’s grossly irresponsible of McConnell and his colleagues to keep government from doing what they say it should do: operate efficiently and protect its citizens.
This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 3:42 PM with the headline "Senate skips town – and responsibility."