Hold On For One More Day

The New York Times is inveighing against Senatorial holds on Obama administration nominees today, thundering that "Good governance requires Republicans to drop groundless holds." I think there's no question that Senatorial process is, um, deeply if not irretrievably broken, and holds on nominees does gum up the works a lot. But there's a far bigger problem here: many of the officials who are going to do the actual management work, in other words, who are going to be doing the actual "good governance" at the agencies, haven't been nominated. And some critical nominees who have been selected haven't gotten Senate hearings.

The Washington Post's very valuable Head Count tracker has a list of 241 jobs the president hasn't even tapped people for yet--and it doesn't even include CXOs! Christine Griffin, the president's nominee to be deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, has been languishing for months without a confirmation hearing. I realize that the Senate calendar is packed, especially with the House on overdrive passing legislation. But frankly, when it comes to management confirmation hearings, it doesn't exactly seem like Senators are busting down the doors to attend. So the Senators who are interested should prioritize getting nomination hearings moving. And if President Obama is super-concerned about governance, he should send them management nominees to question. Holds are one problem, but they're not the only issue here.