Happy to share my first @BrookingsInst FixGov piece was published today. I take stock of the Senate confirmation process at the 200-day mark of the Trump administration. Among the key findings is the unprecedented degree to which Trump’s nominees have faced procedural barriers.

RT @Thomas_A_Berry: This opinion has three major holdings, one interpreting the statute specific to acting U.S. attorneys, and two interpre….

Some of these reforms were pursued by Senate Democrats in the last Congress. However, no major reform of the process has occurred since 2012-2013, when they eliminated the confirmation requirement for 166 positions, and the threshold for cloture on most nominations was lowered.

Reform may be possible to expedite the confirmation process. Senate Republicans have discussed shortening post-cloture debate time, bundling lower-level nominations for joint consideration, and reducing the number of positions requiring Senate confirmation.

Senate Republicans have argued that they are facing “historic obstruction.”Minority Leader Schumer has explained that the “historic levels of scrutiny” are due to nominees’ lack of experience, conflicts of interest, and perceived extreme views.

Trump’s nominees have faced the longest confirmation delays of any administration in the first 200 days. They have waited 74% longer compared with his first term and nearly four times longer than nominees in the Reagan administration.

Every nominee has required a final recorded vote and nearly all have required the invocation of cloture. These processes require limited floor time and create a bottleneck in the Senate.

RT @JDRackey: It sounds counterintuitive but Congress should invest in itself *more* if it wants to better oversee, control, and even downs….

Urgent reform is needed to reduce the number of Senate confirmed positions, streamline the paperwork and vetting processes, increase transparency in the holds process, and allow for nominations to be bundled and considered at once.

All of the individuals we talked to were passionate public servants. However, the cost required to get to confirmation discouraged many from future service. One interviewee said, “It discourages qualified people to look at the positions because why would I go through that hell?”.

While nominees used to be able to expect a confirmation process to be completed in around 3 months, there are now much longer waits with a lot more uncertainty. 90% of Reagan’s first term nominees were confirmed in 3 months, while 25% of Biden’s were confirmed in the same time.

The interviews revealed three key challenges: 1. Uncertainty characterizes nearly every step of the process. 2. Long delays harm agencies and present national security risks. 3. The hurdles of the current process dissuade talented individuals from considering nominations.

New report out by me and my team. We conducted interviews with former nominees of Senate-confirmed positions to highlight the stark challenges faced by nominees, their families and the agencies they aim to serve.

RT @mollyereynolds: There are real consequences for real people who rely on federal programs of many stripes on the line in the short term,….

RT @jacklgoldsmith: I'll be writing about the inspector general firings soon. Meanwhile some background:.1. The 2022 IG law that Trump dis….

RT @Thomas_A_Berry: The selection of acting leaders should be publicly announced and available at the White House website, not hidden away….

This is in large part to increasing procedural barriers. It is now the norm for nominees to go through the cloture process and the expectation for nominees to need a final recorded vote. This requires increased floor time which is precious in the start of a Congress.

Despite the importance of Cabinet secretaries, it has taken recent presidents much longer to get their nominees confirmed. Despite having no nominees withdrawn, Biden still waited until March 22 for his final confirmation.

These delays have caused at least 3 confirm. hearings to be postponed. Despite this, Trump is still about on par with his predecessors on getting hearings scheduled. The last few hearings have been difficult for recent administrations to get scheduled, often due to withdrawals.

By the time Trump named a nominee for each Cabinet department this cycle, his most recent predecessors had named just two or fewer. However, delays in getting MOUs signed with DOJ meant that nominees were announced before completing FBI background checks.