Understanding Government

This weekend might have marked a turning point in U.S. Senators putting holds on Barack Obama nominations for executive branch positions. On Saturday, the Washington Post had a story with the uncharacteristically assertive headline: “Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama holding up Obama nominees for home-state pork.” The piece, by Scott Wilson and Shaliagh Murray, then reports the claims of Harry Reid that Shelby is holding up more than 70 nominees for two home-state projects: the manufacturing of the KC-135 Air Force Tanker Fleet and a demand that Congress continue to fund an FBI terrorist analysis center in Alabama.

Also, Reid pointed out that during the Obama administration holds have become an even greater Senate problem: (more…)

Apropos of my criticisms earlier today of Senate holds and piece last week on Dawn Johnsen, the New York Times’ Charlie Savage reports that Barack Obama will re-nominate Johnsen to head the Justice Dept. Office of Legal Counsel. Johnsen’s nomination was automatically sent back to the White House because the U.S. Senate did not even vote on her confirmation in their 2009 session. Obama also has decided to re-nominate other potential appointees that the Senate didn’t vote on. Will Obama’s vote of confidence pressure the Senate into at least giving Johnson et. al an up/down vote? Don’t hold your breath.

Today’s newspapers are saturated with coverage about aviation security — yet the U.S. Senate is not likely anytime soon to hold a confirmation vote for Errol Southers, Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration. The Wall Street Journal’s Yochi J. Dreazen reports that South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint has put a “hold” on the nomination because he wants Southers to come out against the unionization of TSA employees.

Let’s be clear that the DeMint hold is the reason why the appointment has stalled. The Washington Post had front-page stories this weekend about a 20 year-old incident of Southers snooping around FBI files for dirt on his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. However, no Senator has thought to put Southers and the entire TSA in limbo over the incident (the Senate has known about it for months). The delay is purely because DeMint wants to show his anti-union bona fides.

The day before Barack Obama’s inauguration I wrote (on this very blog):

But as the Bush administration mercifully ends, its consequences endure. Barack Obama inherits multiple disasters: the worst economy since the Great Depression, a quagmire in Afghanistan, a slightly less terrible quagmire in Iraq, the Israeli invasion of Gaza, the subversion of the rule of law, accelerating global warming, addiction to foreign oil, 47 million Americans without health care, and a war on terror that has left the masterminds of 9/11 still at large.

Each of the above predicaments is greater than anything Bush faced when he became president in 2001. As a result, sweeping problems – from the evisceration of the federal regulatory system to a broken food industry to a hobbled safety system for medicines and imported consumer goods – may be relegated to the backburner.

This remains the way I look at the Obama administration — it’s defined by the depressingly immense number of problems bequeathed by the Bush administration. (more…)

The New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse reported yesterday that the Senate labor committee voted 13-10 to confirm M. Patricia Smith, to the third highest post in the Labor Dept. So months after her nomination, the full Senate will vote on whether to confirm Smith, the current New York state labor commissioner.

No, wait: it turns out that Mike Enzi, a Republican Senator from Wyoming and top GOP member of the labor committee, has put a “hold” on the Smith nomination. That mean’s 60 members of the Senate need to vote “yes” not to Smith’s confirmation, but the question of whether the Senate should even have a yes/no vote on Smith. Enzi’s ostensible reason for the Smith hold is too arcane and petty for me to possibly have success summarizing, so here’s what Greenhouse writes:

Mr. Enzi first urged Mr. Obama to withdraw the nomination in August, complaining of the inaccuracies in Ms. Smith’s testimony concerning New York Wage Watch, a program created by her department in which labor unions and groups advocating on behalf of low-wage immigrants work with state officials to uncover wage and hour violations.

At one point in her confirmation hearing, Ms. Smith said she had not had discussions about expanding Wage Watch. At another, she said the idea for Wage Watch had been developed within her department, before outsiders were approached about the program.

Ms. Smith, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has acknowledged since the hearing that she “misspoke.” In saying she had not discussed the program’s expansion, she had intended to say only that she had not authorized the expansion, her Democratic defenders say. And, they say, as for her testifying that the idea for the program originated within the department, she had not known that one of her deputies had consulted with a labor group about it.

The world’s greatest deliberative body should be more democratic than letting a lone crusader from Wyoming obstruct the work of the Labor Department.

Besides Smith, the labor committee also has not got around to voting yes/no on Lorelei Boylan, the president’s nominee to head the department’s wage and hour division. The wage and hour division could use the leadership: a scathing GAO report this March revealed that the division does not enforce basic wage laws like overtime pay and is unresponsive to worker complaints.

Enzi appears to have no interest in whether the Labor Dept. enforces basic labor laws — in fact, he is actively preventing the department from working. It’s his right as a Senator to  cynically exploit the rules of the upper chamber. However, given the number of holds and delayed confirmation votes it’s a wonder Congressional Democrats don’t publicize such obstruction more. The Democratic majority in the Senate could use their status to change the rules. The biggest suggested change is to get rid of the filibuster. But less blockbuster moves like getting rid of holds would also lead to more representative — and likely better — government