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A Half-Empty Government Can't Govern: Why Everyone Wants to Fix the Appointments Process, Why It Never Happens, and How We Can Get It Done

A Half-Empty Government Can’t Govern: Why Everyone Wants to Fix the Appointments Process, Why It Never Happens, and How We Can Get It Done. William A. Galston and E.J. Dionne, Jr., The Brookings Institution, December 14, 2010.

  • “Abuses of the confirmation process, far from strengthening the executive’s accountability to the legislative branch, instead call forth ever more creative executive actions to get around Congressional scrutiny. And that creativity has, in turn, led to an executive branch potentially weaker and less able to control and influence the departments and agencies it depends on to implement its policies. Without any formal Constitutional change, the very structure of the American government is being altered. A confirmation process designed to safeguard Congress’ prerogatives has, in important ways, undermined them. And some of the problems should, in principle, be easily fixed. As scholar Paul Light observed in a New York Times op-ed piece in March, 2009: “At least half of the delays in the presidential appointments process appear to involve bureaucratic red tape and duplication of effort, while a quarter appear to reflect the rising and inappropriate use of personal holds by the senators to extract concessions from the president and fellow legislators.”
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