President Biden’s slow start in filling his Cabinet may not bode well for his ability to get legislation passed, with small congressional majorities and even less margin for error than he has for nominations.
The vast majority of Biden’s nominations will be confirmed eventually, though his pick for director of Office of Management and Budget looks imperiled. The week began with only about one-third of his Cabinet-level appointments in place, thanks to a closely divided Senate in which Democrats can afford few defections.
“It’s hard to govern from the Left in a 50-50 Senate,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. Democrats have a majority in the upper chamber, thanks only to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
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Harris comes to the vice presidency from the Senate, where she represented California. Biden spent 36 years in the Senate before serving eight years as vice president himself. They were billed as one of the most prepared tickets to lead on Day One in recent memory.
Biden and Harris were also heavily favored in the polls and expected to win the election, in contrast with former President Donald Trump’s team, which was largely taken by surprise in 2016 and early 2017. Trump stumbled out of the gate on quickly filling some positions despite Republican control of the Senate.
Trump’s refusal to concede and leading congressional Republicans’ hesitance to recognize Biden’s victory until it was affirmed by the Electoral College did slow the transition, as did the fact that Democrats did not take even their razor-thin majority until Inauguration Day. At the same time, the Senate has taken time off and conducted an impeachment trial of the departed former president.
“I think we were right to try to hold Trump accountable, even if Republicans refused to do so,” a Democratic strategist said. “But I would have liked to have gotten more of the president’s Cabinet confirmed, too.”
Senate Republicans, so far, have been selective about which executive branch appointments they have opposed. Merrick Garland, whose Supreme Court nomination was largely ignored by a GOP majority for a year under then-outgoing President Barack Obama, has received bipartisan support to become attorney general.
On legislation, Republicans will have fewer opportunities to pick their spots. GOP efforts to arrive at a compromise with Democrats on COVID-19 relief spending proved fruitless after an ineffectual White House meeting with Biden, who has predicted he will win some crossover votes. And most bills will be subject to the filibuster, raising the effective threshold for passage from 51 to 60 votes. Liberals had expressed hope on the campaign trail of eliminating this legislative maneuver but don’t have the votes to do so.
“The president is in touch with a range of members of Congress about issues ranging from the American Rescue Plan to his nominees,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who had earlier declined to specify which Republican lawmakers endangered OMB nominee Neera Tanden may have spoken with, assured reporters at Tuesday’s briefing. Asked whether Biden was working the phones for her too, Psaki replied, “I don’t have any other calls, though, to read out from him either.”
However, the White House did reaffirm its support for Tanden. “There’s one candidate to lead the budget department, and her name is Neera Tanden,” Psaki said. If all Republicans hang together with Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, and oppose her, she will be defeated — the same arithmetic reality that faces plenty of liberal policy proposals that will need to be advanced through legislation.
There is also significant Republican opposition to Xavier Becerra for secretary of Health and Human Services and Deb Haaland for secretary of Interior. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, on Tuesday, slammed Agriculture secretary nominee Tom Vilsack, who held the same post in the Obama administration, for an “erroneous belief that developing trade and business relationships with Cuba’s despotic regime would magically lead to the island’s liberalization and democratization.”
Yet, Vilsack was confirmed Tuesday. Alejandro Mayorkas was earlier approved to lead the Department of Homeland Security over GOP objections. After a brief battle over a congressional waiver to allow a recently retired general to ascend to civilian leadership of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin was easily confirmed as secretary of Defense.
Biden is nevertheless sure to face a fight over his favored immigration bill, which contains a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. The conservative group Americans for Prosperity has launched a six-figure ad campaign against the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 package, targeting 13 senators in 10 states. And even some centrist Democrats oppose a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.
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“A lot is going to come down to whether Biden can govern as well as he said he could,” Ken Walsh, author of Presidential Leadership in Crisis, said last month.
