Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., introduced the bill last week along with Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
A new Senate bill would make it easier to track appointees’ confirmation status
The Improving Senate Confirmation and Vacancy Oversight Act would create a publicly accessible dashboard to track the status of a president’s nominees to the 1,300 Senate-confirmed appointments across government.
A bipartisan group of senators announced Tuesday that they have introduced legislation that would create a new publicly available database tracking the status of the president’s nominees to serve in the more than 1,300 Senate-confirmed political positions throughout the federal government.
The Improving Senate Confirmation and Vacancy Oversight Act (S. 5133), introduced last week by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., would require the Government Accountability Office to develop a new public “data dashboard” to track Senate-confirmed positions, as well as data from the Office of Personnel Management’s PLUM list of all political appointments.
Since the Senate now spends more time voting on a president’s judicial and executive branch nominees than it does considering legislation, according to the Partnership for Public Service, the lawmakers said the public needs better insight into the confirmation process, particularly for sub-cabinet level appointments. A better understanding of the process, along with real-time data on the president’s slate of nominees, could lead to reforms to get them placed more quickly.
“The Senate has a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent on presidential appointees, but unfortunately the cumbersome confirmation process and growing number of nominees is cutting into the amount of time Congress can devote to moving legislation that benefits the American people,” Peters said in a statement. “My bipartisan bill will ensure there is more transparency and accountability in the nomination and confirmation process, help identify and address the backlog of vacant positions waiting to be filled, and enhance the Senate’s ability to swiftly process pending confirmations.”
Federal employees have borne the brunt of the arduous Senate confirmation process in more ways than one. First, extended vacancies at leadership positions within an agency hamstrings the agency’s ability to meet its mission—acting officials often have less authority than their Senate confirmed counterparts. And secondly, both the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears appeals of adverse personnel actions across the government, and the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which enforces federal sector labor law, have endured years-long vacancies atop their organizational charts that have hampered up the agencies’ ability to issue decisions.
“Instead of confronting the real economic and national security problems facing America, much of the Senate’s time is taken up by confirming a seemingly endless number of political appointees,” Lankford said. “This bill will allow us to identify and address the causes for chronically vacant positions and ultimately free up floor time for the Senate to debate the issues Oklahomans care about.”
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which Peters serves as chairman, will consider the bill in a markup hearing Wednesday.