The following article by Anthony Adragna was posted on the Politico website February 8, 2018:
Republican senators seeking concessions on issues like disaster funding, marijuana and ethanol are one reason Trump’s picks have had trouble getting confirmed
A throng of Republican senators is holding up the confirmations of some of President Donald Trump’s nominees — even as he continues to blame the logjam on Democratic “obstruction.”
At least 11 Republican senators in recent months have disclosed they’re blocking votes on nominees for agencies including the Energy, Agriculture, State, Homeland Security and Justice departments. The vast majority of those delays remain in place while the lawmakers demand concessions on issues such as ethanol regulations, marijuana, disaster funding and nuclear waste.
Such legislative roadblocks are not unusual in themselves: Senators of both parties frequently use whatever leverage they have to extract policy concessions from the executive branch. But the number coming from the GOP side is notable, especially as senior Republicans have raised the possibility of changing the Senate’s rules to make it harder for Democrats to block Trump’s appointees. And the delays are worsening a leadership shortage at many agencies, which have already been stretched by Trump’s slowness to nominate people for senior positions.
Even some fellow Republicans are starting to gripe about the GOP-caused delays.
The most recent GOP obstacle came from Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso when he announced he was blocking an Energy Department nominee over the agency’s practice of selling excess government-controlled uranium onto the market.
“You were unable to give me a firm commitment to immediately halt these barters, something that [Energy Secretary Rick] Perry has told me he wants to do,” the Wyoming Republican told Anne White at her Jan. 18 nomination hearing to be assistant secretary for environmental management. “So for this reason, I am unable to support a confirmation at this time and withhold the confirmation until the department ends its practice of bartering excess uranium.”
This came just two months after Barrasso accused Democrats of turning the Senate “into the world’s most paralyzed deliberative body.”
A spokeswoman for Barrasso declined to comment on his hold or how it’s different from the tactics Democrats have used.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called these Republican-on-Republican delays “silly” and said her fellow GOP members should “knock it off.”
Legislative foot-dragging lost some of its power in 2013 when Senate Democrats invoked the so-called nuclear option for most nominees, allowing them to be confirmed by a simple majority instead of requiring 60 votes, and Republicans expanded that approach to Supreme Court nominees last year.
But because the Senate operates almost entirely on unanimous consent, a single senator can still threaten to significantly gum up the procedural works if his or her hold is not honored. And with Republicans occupying only 51 seats, a GOP senator’s objection carries even more weight.
In practice, a senator looking to prevent a vote only has to announce — or quietly make it known — that he or she will not consent to fast-tracking a nominee, forcing leadership to burn multiple days to bring up the matter.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is objecting to an Agriculture Department nominee to push for changes to national ethanol policy. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), an opponent of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in his home state, is blocking a nominee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is blocking Justice Department nominees over marijuana policy. Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) barred a vote on the nominee for the No. 2 spot at the Office of Management and Budget over Hurricane Harvey relief funding.
Meanwhile, Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has blocked several Defense Department nominees over inadequate information on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) this week lifted a hold he had placed on a Trump trade nominee to draw attention to issues in his state. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) previously stood in the way of a Department of Homeland Security nominee to pressure the agency on immigration. Todd Young (R-Ind.) temporarily blocked a State Department nominee to force action related to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. And Rand Paul (R-Ky.) put a hold on a Justice Department nominee over his past work on National Security Agency surveillance.
Even more Republicans may be anonymously blocking nominees.
Democrats have thrown up plenty of roadblocks of their own, of course, galvanizing opposition to scores of Trump nominees. Just this week, pressure from lawmakers of both parties helped force the White House to withdraw the nomination of former Texas regulator Kathleen Hartnett White, who had expressed doubts about the human role in climate change, to head its Council on Environmental Quality.
Trump’s ire on these delays focuses on Democrats, a theme to which he keeps returning. “Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors,” he tweeted in early January. “They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals.”
It’s hard to make broad conclusions about who is behind these delays because senators can place them on nominees for any reason and don’t always have to disclose them, although the Senate has taken some steps to add transparency to the process. A resolution passed in 2011 requires senators to make public their holds on nominees or legislation if they submit written objections to party leaders. During the 2011-12 session, 24 objections were published, but that number fell to nine the following session and rose to 34 in the 2015-16 session, according to the Congressional Research Service.
In 2017, the first half of the current congressional session, eight objections were published, half of which came from Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, according to a Politico review of the Congressional Record.
Those numbers are not comprehensive, CRS warns, noting that senators do not have to publish their plans if they tell leaders in person or over the phone that they would block a vote on a nominee. Several other Republicans last year announced holds that were not included in the Congressional Record.
Democrats occasionally engaged in some of the same intraparty tactics during the presidency of Barack Obama. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for example, placed separate holds on Obama’s Food and Drug Administration nominee in January 2016 over his ties to the drug industry and handling of the opioid epidemic. Markey and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) blocked a vote on a Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee in November 2016.
Still, this is an “uncommon period” for intraparty delays, suggesting that some lawmakers believe they aren’t getting enough input into some of the agency selections, said Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.
“Holds have definitely lost their partisan edge, certainly. They haven’t gone away,” Huder said.
But, he added, it is “virtually impossible to tell which holds are because they have personal differences with a nominee and when they’re holding something up for leverage on something else.”
Last fall, delays in confirming Environmental Protection Agency picks led Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to object to a vote on a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission nominee, Democrat Rich Glick, which had the effect of snarling an entire package of carefully negotiated Energy, Interior and FERC nominees. Inhofe eventually lifted his objections in early November, allowing the confirmation of a pair of FERC commissioners.
Cruz blocked a vote on Bill Northey for a senior Agriculture Department post last fall after some of his corn-state Republican peers held up consideration of several EPA picks in committee as part of an effort to extract concessions on federal ethanol regulations. That prompted Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to describe the delay in confirmation as “pretty crippling, quite frankly.” A spokesman for Cruz didn’t respond to request for comment on what he would need to lift his hold.
Heller blocked a vote on Republican Nuclear Regulatory Commission nominee Annie Caputo last summer. His office declined to comment on the status of his objections, though Caputo remains waiting for Senate action.
Congressional veterans aren’t surprised by the tactics that lawmakers use to extract policy concessions or commitments from federal agencies.
“Elected officials will frequently use whatever leverage is available to accomplish political goals they deem to be important,” former Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) told Politico in an email.
Robert Dillon, a former aide to Murkowski, said Republicans are “not monolithic” and senators will push for the interests of their states even when their positions on nominations are “at odds with leadership.”
Several senators said the hold process is something for each lawmaker to navigate on his or her own and supported the right to block nominations, even those that came from their own party.
“Every senator has the reason and prerogative to put holds no matter which party the president comes from,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) told Politico. “I respect — but may not always agree with — where my fellow senators may land on these issues.”
View the post here.