The hidden cost of Senate gridlock: Obama can't fire anyone
By Ezra Klein
WashPost
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Like virtually all of Washington, the Senate shut down last week in the face of heavy snow. But while a closed gas station is very different from an open gas station, a closed Senate is increasingly hard to distinguish from an open one. On Tuesday, for instance, the body held a vote on whether it would hold a vote on the nomination of Craig Becker to sit on the National Labor Relations Board. Becker, a Yale-educated law professor and an associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union, got only 52 votes in favor of a vote, and he needed 60. Thus, no vote, and his nomination was left undecided.
But Becker was one of the lucky ones. There are hundreds of open positions that need Senate confirmation to be filled. The process, however, has ground to an ugly halt. Dozens of nominees are sitting in limbo because the Senate either hasn't made the time to act on them or one senator or another has decided to prevent action on them. The politicization reached its logical apogee when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) put a hold on nearly all of Obama's nominees because he wanted some pork projects expedited in his home state.
It's tempting to write this off as more partisan bickering in a town where partisan bickering is the official pastime. But it's much more pernicious than that. The politicization of the nomination process is usually understood as an obstacle to the president's ability to hire people. In reality, it may be doing even more damage to his ability to fire people. And that's not something members of either party should support.
The Treasury Department is a good case in point. This may be the most turbulent economy since the 1930s, but the agency tasked with navigating it is still waiting for a number of key nominees to be confirmed, including the undersecretary for international affairs and the undersecretary for domestic finance. Meanwhile, the boss himself, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is under tremendous criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Some even want him fired.
(More here.)
WashPost
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Like virtually all of Washington, the Senate shut down last week in the face of heavy snow. But while a closed gas station is very different from an open gas station, a closed Senate is increasingly hard to distinguish from an open one. On Tuesday, for instance, the body held a vote on whether it would hold a vote on the nomination of Craig Becker to sit on the National Labor Relations Board. Becker, a Yale-educated law professor and an associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union, got only 52 votes in favor of a vote, and he needed 60. Thus, no vote, and his nomination was left undecided.
But Becker was one of the lucky ones. There are hundreds of open positions that need Senate confirmation to be filled. The process, however, has ground to an ugly halt. Dozens of nominees are sitting in limbo because the Senate either hasn't made the time to act on them or one senator or another has decided to prevent action on them. The politicization reached its logical apogee when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) put a hold on nearly all of Obama's nominees because he wanted some pork projects expedited in his home state.
It's tempting to write this off as more partisan bickering in a town where partisan bickering is the official pastime. But it's much more pernicious than that. The politicization of the nomination process is usually understood as an obstacle to the president's ability to hire people. In reality, it may be doing even more damage to his ability to fire people. And that's not something members of either party should support.
The Treasury Department is a good case in point. This may be the most turbulent economy since the 1930s, but the agency tasked with navigating it is still waiting for a number of key nominees to be confirmed, including the undersecretary for international affairs and the undersecretary for domestic finance. Meanwhile, the boss himself, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is under tremendous criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Some even want him fired.
(More here.)
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