Among serious pundits and analysts, it's become commonplace in recent weeks to talk about the need to "fix" our "dysfunctional" government. The political struggle over health care and other elements of the program that voters approved by a wide margin in November 2008 has focused most of the attention on an ineffectual Congress and on the Senate filibuster. I agree those are problems, but there are many, many others that add to the accumulating evidence of dysfunction in our democratic legislative process.
Here's one: The appointment and confirmation of senior government officials. With each new administration, this process appears to take longer and longer. The failure of the Senate to confirm a nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration, at a time when the TSA's performance in the Nigerian bomber incident has been called into question, has focused some much needed attention on the problem. But it's far larger than one or two key positions. Currently, scores of nominations remain stalled in the Senate, either from simple inefficiency and sloth, or (as in the TSA case) because some solo Senator with an ax to grind has decided to "hold" action on the nomination.
The stallers and blockers this year are mainly, if not entirely, Republicans, but Democrats engage in the same kind of petty obstructionism when the shoe is on the other foot. Whichever party they belong to, the bottleneckers usually complain (as the GOP is doing now) that the Administration has been too slow in making its nominations, or has made them at a time when the Senate is too preoccupied with important legislative business to act on mere government appointments. (Haven't you noticed how the minority party has demonstrated its desire to pass legislation rapidly, by using every conceivable device to delay certain initiatives, including blocking funding for our troops at war?)
Yes, it's undeniable that incoming Administrations could be quicker about making their nominations, but of course one of the reasons they aren't is the need to vet every detail of the nominee's life against the pet peeves of 100 Senators, peeves often unrelated to the candidate's ability to serve effectively. And the fact remains that even nominations submitted very early can languish for months in the Senate without being acted upon.
The need for change is evident. The solutions are pretty evident, too: Quicker - much quicker! - processing times for Senate approval. Fifteen (working) days from the date of formal submission to the Senate ought to be plenty. A realistic approach would help, too: The fact that a Presidential nominee might have made a mistake on his taxes, or taken a stand against apple pie when she was 15, or got a speeding ticket 10 years ago, or parts his hair on the wrong side, has little to do with fitness for office. Let the Senator who is blameless cast the first stone; for those who can't (don't want to) dinstinguish truly disqualifying missteps from the vagaries that occur in all our lives, maybe the answer is to provide a specific list of acts that could be disqualifying.
George Will has written a bizarre column today that will convince many people he's finally lost it. Asteroids, cataclysms, dinosaurs, and the U.S. Constitution? If I can make any sense of it at all, I think he's suggesting that the Constitution (about 225 years of age) is as enduring as the universe and doesn't need change. There are a lot of holes in that argument, and I personally have suggested that there are areas where the Constitution itself needs to be changed. But luckily for us and for George, the most glaring dysfunctions in how the Senate works (or fails to) -- such as the filibuster and the appointment process -- reside not in the Constitution, but in mere Senate rules. To use Will's geological frame of reference, the problems are not tectonic plates, but merely one hard winter, albeit a winter of man's devising. What man has wrought, man can put asunder, and we need to get on with it.