The Confirmation Process Is Broken

The reflexive rejection of nominees is corrosive to the working of the system.

Nahal Toosi reports on the withdrawal of a Biden administration State Department nominee:

President Joe Biden’s nominee for a top human rights position is withdrawing from contention in the face of unrelenting opposition from a Senate Republican who questions her support for Israel.

Sarah Margon’s decision to withdraw is unfortunate, but it is understandable that she doesn’t want to remain in limbo after waiting for more than a year for her nomination to be considered and advanced. Here is a Foreign Policy article on Margon’s stalled nomination that was published almost a year ago. At that point, she had been waiting for four months since her initial hearing with the Foreign Relations Committee. It is unacceptable for nominations made in 2021 to still be pending today. Nominations should be processed as quickly as possible so that they can be voted on and so that the nominees can either begin their work in the government or get on with their lives.

It is appropriate for executive branch nominees to be vetted and scrutinized, but the reflexive rejection of nominees is corrosive to the working of the system. It ultimately discourages qualified people from accepting these nominations in the first place. Blocking nominations out of spite or to use them as pawns in a game with the administration is also obnoxious and destructive.

This case exemplifies much of what is wrong with the confirmation process today. A senator raises unfounded and irrelevant objections to a nominee, the nominee is subjected to unfair and dishonest attacks, and all the while the nominee’s qualifications for the position are never actually in doubt. Then the process stalls, and the qualified nominee gives up in frustration with the broken system. Sen. Risch has been blocking Margon’s nomination over a view she doesn’t even hold, and it appears that he was not going to relent no matter how many others vouched for her. His conduct in this matter has been reprehensible. There is no substantive case against Margon’s nomination, and even if there were one that wouldn’t excuse preventing it from coming to a vote.

Margon is hardly alone in being left waiting while senators abuse their role in the confirmation process. The Senate’s dereliction in filling ambassadorial posts is well-known. The blockades by Sens. Cruz and Hawley delayed confirmations for dozens of nominees at both the State and Defense Departments. U.S. foreign policy already has enough flaws without adding the problems that come from missing key personnel in confirmable positions throughout the government.

Biden was right to nominate Margon for this position. She does not give U.S. client governments a pass on their abuses, and she has been critical of U.S. policies that support those clients. She would have been an important advocate for human rights at the State Department. She should have been confirmed more than a year ago. Her withdrawal is a major loss for the department and for the administration.