The Trump administration is waiting on all manner of assistant secretaries, under secretaries, deputy secretaries, general counsels, and financial officers, reported our friend Rachel Bovard in a must-read article for the Federalist.
As of this writing, the comptroller of the currency and assistant secretary of the Treasury are both awaiting confirmation, as is the director of the Office of Personnel Management, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the deputy secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, and the general counsels for the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development — among more than 50 others. The nominee to be the deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has been sitting on the calendar since mid-March.
Cabinet secretaries are certainly important and often famous, observed Ms. Bovard. But everyone in Washington knows agencies’ sub-Cabinet-level officers and below are just as critical to executing the president’s agenda.
The entire country watched the permanent bureaucracy subvert President Trump’s first term. And most Republican voters now understand how critical these appointees are — everyone, it seems, except the people whose job it is to confirm them.
Senate Republicans blame “Democratic obstruction” for the glacial pace of confirmations this spring. But that only takes them so far. Yes, Democrats can object to Republican attempts to expedite nominations. But the minority can no longer block them.
As a result of bipartisan actions taken in 2013, 2017, and again in 2019, explained Ms. Bovard, today the Senate filibuster no longer exists for presidential nominations. And for the vast majority of nominations, neither do the once-compulsory 30 hours of post-cloture debate time.
In other words, presidential nominations today are confirmed with a simple majority, and most only require two hours of debate — and even then, only if a senator is willing to use that time. When the minority lost the power to block nominations, the majority lost the ability to credibly blame them for a slow pace of confirmations. In today’s Senate, Democrats can slow the process down, but they no longer have the unilateral power to block any nomination.
The Senate could easily clear every nomination now on the Executive Calendar if they voted on nothing but nominations while working 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., for a full five-day workweek (right now, a normal workweek in the Senate runs from Monday at 5:30 p.m. to Thursday at noon), noted Ms. Bovard.
If they were willing to work just one weekend a month, they could clear the entire backlog in one or two weekends. Things would move even faster if the GOP senators committed themselves to being on the Senate floor to force Democrats to either use or forfeit their debate time.
The glacial pace of work in the Senate offers a stark and shameful contrast to the frenetic pace of President Trump’s work week. Most of these nominations are without controversy, so it’s not a matter of Senators trying to keep too many balls in the air or walking and chewing gum at the same time – getting these nominees confirmed just requires putting in the time to do the job voters elected them to do.
We urge all CHQ readers and friends to share this important information widely. The Capitol Switchboard is (202-224-3121), we urge CHQ readers and friends to call their Senators TODAY to demand they work five days a week until President Trump’s subcabinet and ambassadorial nominees are confirmed.
Here’s your one-minute, 60 Second Activist message for Senators:
Senators should be embarrassed to be putting in only two and a half days a week while President Trump is working 24/7. As your constituent I demand the Senate work at least five days a week until the comptroller of the currency and assistant secretary of the Treasury, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the deputy secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, and the general counsels for the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development, the nominee to be the deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and our Ambassador to the Vatican are confirmed.
- Trump nominees
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- Sub cabinet level officers
- Trump first term
- Trump appointees
- Filibuster
- presidential nominations
- 5-day work week
- ambassadorial nominations
