Recall that part of the "deal" struck in the opening days of the Senate session was that the party leadership teams would negotiate changes in the way executive nominations are handled, with an eye toward reducing the number of positions subject to Senate approval. Non-controversial judicial appointments (which will continue to require approval, of course) have made it through in drips and drabs, with nominees who were forced to wait in limbo for months finally receiving overwhelming votes of support in confirmation. And along the way, negotiations progressed on working out a deal on which appointments could be removed from the tedious confirmation process.
Now, the NYT reports that such a deal is near. Or rather, that the elements of such a deal are present. All that's missing are the parties willing to agree to it.
The proposal to end Senate review of about 200 executive branch positions would be the most serious effort in recent years to pare the chamber?s constitutional power of advice and consent. It amounts to a rare voluntary surrender of Congressional clout, and it has high-caliber, bipartisan support with the endorsement of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.?We are losing very good people because the process has become so onerous, so lengthy and so duplicative,? said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a leading advocate of the bill. ?Why should there be a full F.B.I background check back to age 18 for an individual serving on a part-time board??
Good point. Can they get it done? Of course not! And why not? Because Mitch McConnell isn't the Republican leader in the Senate. Jim DeMint is. And when Jim DeMint needs some thinking to back up his program of undermining McConnell's control, he can always turn to the Heritage Foundation. And if delivering the message himself becomes inconvenient, he can always turn to the reliably cuckoo-bananas Rand Paul. So he does:
Writing for the conservative Heritage Foundation, David S. Addington, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, urged defeat of the bill, saying the drafters of the Constitution ?did not give the president the kingly power to appoint the senior officers of the government by himself.?Conservative senators have raised similar objections.
?Allowing the president to appoint czars and bureaucrats without Congressional oversight adds to the problem of an ever-expanding, unaccountable government,? said Moira Bagley, a spokeswoman for Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who has expressed objections to the measure.
Does DeMint, speaking through Paul and the Heritage Foundation, have a point? Sure. Was it a predictable point? Sure. Does the point matter? Not much, by itself. What matters more is that it was entirely predictable that there'd be an objection, whether one could be found that made some arguable sense on its face or not.
So, we'll have to wait and see. Does the bill proposed as part of the deal to end the standoff over filibuster reform get filibustered? Does a mischievous Republican House try to find some way to play havoc with the deal, since they'd have to approve it, too? (Remember, it's not a Senate Rules change, it's a actual statutory change.)
It's still possible, of course, for some portion of the Republican Conference to shake off the ultra-right and join with Democrats to defeat their effort to block the reform. That might even be the most likely outcome. After all, it's at least arguable that some other parts of the deal are working. There have been just six cloture motions filed to date in the 112th Congress, whereas there had been 19 by this time in the 111th Congress. On the other hand, the deal was that motions to proceed wouldn't be filibustered, and three motions to proceed have in fact required cloture petitions be filed this Congress, which is a drop of just one compared to last Congress.
But I can't think of any incentive the ultra-right would have for getting out of the way of this deal. Or any other deal, for that matter. And that, really, is the overarching point here. At any given time, there are a dozen "deals" on various issues in the works, and they all rely on the presumption that Democrats are negotiating with someone who actually speaks for Republicans, and can ensure that they'll feel bound by the results in numbers that matter. As long as Republicans continue to allow themselves to be directed and derailed by Tea Party pressure and leadership rivalries?and there's really no end in sight for that?there's just no telling whether these "deals" are worth a damn.
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