I Wanna Hold Your Nominee

I have a new piece for Newsweek Online about the pernicious “hold” trend that’s preventing us from having a properly staffed administration:

There is a forum in which these policy disputes are supposed to be resolved—the ballot box. After an election, the country needs a well-staffed executive branch. Putting the squeeze on an administration by holding up its appointees is a way of holding the interests of the whole country hostage to a petty agenda. When Regina Benjamin’s nomination to be surgeon general was held up through the end of October it wasn’t primarily Obama or Benjamin herself who suffered, it was the government’s ability to inform people about how to deal with the swine-flu epidemic.

If the rules allowing these holds didn’t exist, nobody would be crazy enough to suggest implementing them. So they ought to be done away with. Senators of both parties like the power it gives them, but it’s power that’s acquired not so much at the expense of the president as at the expense of effective government and common sense. The days when norms of courtesy could be counted on to prevent holding from getting out of control. Appointees confirmed by the relevant committee should be voted on by the full Senate.

I’ll probably be waiting a long time for this to happen, but it’s still true….