Nominees at Standstill as G.O.P. Flexes Its Muscle

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
NYT

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are blocking a wide range of presidential nominees as a means of reshaping and restraining the Obama administration’s economic policies on prominent issues like housing, finance, foreign trade and offshore drilling.

The list of vacancies in senior economic and regulatory positions has lengthened to roughly a dozen since last November, when Republicans won enough Senate seats to prevent confirmations. The White House has not tried to fill several of the positions. Some of the people it has named have been stuck in legislative limbo, while others have given up, including the Nobel laureate Peter A. Diamond, who withdrew his nomination for a seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

Senators have long exercised their constitutional prerogative to derail nominations. And, for just as long, the party in the White House has accused its opponents of abusing that power. But several of the current standoffs differ in at least one respect: Republicans have said they are not opposing a particular nominee but rather any nominee, whoever it may be.

Republicans say the blockade reflects their frustration with the White House and the last Congress for passing broad policies without winning broad support. Republicans are consigned to defensive tactics because they lack the votes to pursue their own agenda.

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