I liked the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein’s op-ed yesterday on the U.S. Senate’s abuse of the filibuster: gradually, and then suddenly, 60, not 51, Senators, are now required to pass any significant piece of legislation. The Senate effectively has made the federal government dysfunctional: “The government can function if the minority party has either the incentive to make the majority fail or the power to make the majority fail. It cannot function if it has both.”

I would add that while the filibuster has the biggest, and most harmful, impact of any Senate procedural rule, the rule that causes the most immediate damage is the “hold.” Here the whimsy of one Senator can prevent the entire body from considering White House appointments to executive branch leadership positions. For example, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter for months had a hold on the nomination of Craig Fugate as new head of FEMA. Fugate has since been confirmed. However, the same can’t be said of Patricia Smith who is supposed to head the Labor Dept’s Wage and Hour division, which has done a woeful job protecting worker rights. Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi put a hold on Smith’s nomination and now the Senate has sent back her nomination to the White House. Smith never received a chance to get a yes/no vote on the Senate floor (nor, for that matter, a yes/no vote where 60 “yeses” were required).

Unfortunately, not much attention is paid to holds on White House nominees. But a great deal of attention was paid to the Senate’s crafting of a health care bill. Perhaps the silver lining with frustration over Republican obstructionism and the indulgences given to Senators Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson is that more people will realize that the federal government does not equal Barack Obama. Especially on domestic policy, the Obama administration will do what a seemingly irrational Senate allows it to do. And, thanks to the hold, the competency of several federal agencies, including the Labor Department and Justice Department, is adversely affected by a Senate that behaves more like a privileged college fraternity than representative body.

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