Senate 2010 in one chart: product of 30 hour cloture motions, constant procedural delays, and a portrait of a broken confirmation system. Why does anybody below Secretary level and lifetime-bench-appointment need confirmation anyway?
Up or down vote. Remember when that was all the rage? Oh, to be young and fancy-free again.
I think there’s only one way to fight this trend: you force the issue by recess appointing everyone on the docket at the first available opportunity. Only when the system is shown as unalterably broken will anything be done to fix it, and that moment only comes when President(s) throw up their hands and don’t even bother submitting nominees anymore.
The solution, I think, is either:
A) No confirmation process below the Secretary level (and, of course lifetime appointments to the various benches); the President gets whoever he/she wants
–or–
B) Confirmation hearings at Secretary level, everybody else into one big bolus that’s up-or-down voted and can’t be filibustered
Let’s be real, the whole nominations process is simply political theater, and that’s when it’s working. Now it’s not even theater: it’s a weapon with which the gears of the Senate are daily sanded. It guarantees bad governance and bad policy outcomes and it’s got to stop.
Lemkin 