Why Is Obama Still Waiting to Fill His Staff?

WASHINGTON (Dec. 14) -- When it comes to its constitutional duty to confirm presidential nominations, the U.S. Senate often spends more time on advice and far less on consent.

But here is one thing all can agree on: The system for confirming presidential appointees is broken and puts the country in peril. How else to explain "the near crisis" in the early days of the Obama administration when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner found himself "Home Alone," facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression while his key deputies awaited Senate confirmation?

The problem, the subject of one commission and study after another for a quarter century, is well-known and cuts across partisan lines. Yet despite reams of recommendations, little has been done to address the problem.

Two political scholars who have watched the unwieldly confirmation process for years are out today with a new study to jump-start reform efforts not by proposing new solutions but by reviving old ones that have been ignored.

The report has a title almost as long as the confirmation process it critiques: "A Half-Empty Government Can't Govern: Why Everyone Wants to Fix the Appointments Process, Why It Never Happens, and How We Can Get It Done."

The authors are Brookings Institution senior fellows William Galston and E.J. Dionne Jr., who also writes columns for the Washington Post. They call for a new urgency and political will to reform a dysfunctional system. Yet they note the challenges before them.

"The Senate jealously safeguards its confirmation powers as a check on the executive," the authors write, "and many senior Cabinet and agency officials regard Senate confirmation as a sine qua non for membership in the elite circle of men and women with principal responsibility for the president's agenda."

Getting through that process, however, has become a nightmare. Why should one nominee sail through confirmation in less than three months while his wife's appointment is held up for more than a year because of a question about her taxes -- even though they filed an identical joint tax return? And was the 63-item review required of President Barack Obama's nominees, an ordeal one expert termed "death by questionnaire," really necessary?

Indeed, by the midterm elections, nearly one in five key policymaking slots in the Obama administration were still unfilled, and most still remain that way. The problem is particularly acute for Obama's judicial appointees. The Huffington Post points out today that only 39.8 percent of his judges have been confirmed, compared to 76 percent for George W. Bush and 89 percent for Bill Clinton at the same juncture in their presidencies.

The problem also has been aggravated by a proliferation of presidential appointees requiring Senate confirmation. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he filled 295 core policy jobs in Cabinet departments and executive agencies. Obama had 422 such positions and a total of 1,177 full-time appointments that required Senate confirmation.

"The burden of processing them further inundates an already overwhelmed system," the report said.

Then there is the frustration over anonymous "holds" by senators that can freeze a nomination without explanation. Senators from both parties use the tactic as leverage, often on unrelated issues.

To get around roadblocks for controversial nominees, both George W. Bush and Obama have resorted to recess appointments. The president also has named aides who couldn't get confirmed as "special advisers" or -- to the chagrin of the right -- made them "policy czars" unbeholden to Senate confirmation.

The report offers lots of reforms. Among the easy, or "low-hanging fruit":

• Start early. Presidential candidates should start no later than the middle of the election year to plan their transitions to ease the surge of vetting responsibilities in the first days in office. One hitch: Campaigns would have to call a truce on charges of "measuring the drapes" before the votes are in.
• Speed vetting. Simplify financial statements, begin background checks on previously vetted candidates not from scratch but from where the last one left off, increase the number of vetters in the first days of an administration, and reserve the most stringent background checks only for top-level positions.

Among reforms requiring "heavy lifting" to overcome opposition:

• Eliminate secret holds by individual senators. The "tradition" of anonymously holding nominees "as hostages and bargaining chips to attain policy objectives otherwise out of reach" is "indefensible," the report says. But political reality means "eliminating this practice altogether is not now in the cards."
• Set time limits for action. Nominees would be automatically confirmed if committees stall their confirmation. This, however, "would entail a major surrender of Senate prerogatives," which is highly unlikely.
• Reduce the number of Senate-confirmable positions. Another nonstarter since it reduces the Senate's power over the executive branch.