President Joe Biden has renominated a handful of people to plum administration positions whose confirmations were parked in the Senate during the last Congress.
But Democrats expanding their Senate majority after last year’s midterm elections will not expedite the process amid Biden’s classified documents scandal, with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), for example, promising not to support any of the president’s nominees until the administration discloses the records recovered from both Biden and former President Donald Trump‘s homes.
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Cotton’s hold underscores systemic shortcomings with both nomination and confirmation procedures, in addition to the White House‘s strategy to counter them, particularly regarding Biden’s more controversial picks, including former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, tapped to become the president’s ambassador to India, and Boston Consulting Group Managing Director and partner Danny Werfel, selected to head the IRS — even Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, which is under renewed scrutiny after this month’s nationwide grounding of airplanes.
Garcetti, Washington, and Werfel are three of 80 Biden nominees currently being considered by the Senate, according to the Partnership for Public Service. The nonprofit organization is tracking 810 of the roughly 1,200 administration roles that require confirmation, with lawmakers in the chamber approving 509 so far.
But with Biden needing to choose another 80 nominees, Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition, implored the White House and the Senate to act or to introduce reforms since average confirmation time frames are becoming longer with each successive incumbent — reforms such as reducing the number of confirmable people, streamlining nomination proceedings, and leveraging the Senate’s so-called privileged calendar for noncontroversial candidates.
“It’s a disservice to everyone involved,” Boyd told the Washington Examiner. “Candidates are spending a long time going through the nomination process, waiting in personal and professional limbo for confirmations that may not ever come, and the Senate is spending a fair amount of valuable time reviewing these nominations.”
For instance, State Department Foreign Service officers are more than capable of representing the United States and its interests abroad. But an ambassador demonstrates “the prioritization of Washington’s relationship with that country,” Boyd said.
“We often talk about the substitute teacher effect, that if there is someone in an acting capacity, it is a challenge for them to make long-term decisions or to announce and enact strategies on pressing issues,” she added. “Many, many career officials and others can serve in acting capacities with vigor and faithfulness, but there is very little that replaces the strength of someone who is empowered with the title on a full-time basis.”
Having an ambassador to India would assist Biden as he deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine and tensions with Chinese President Xi Jinping. But although Garcetti, the two-term mayor who served as co-chair of Biden’s 2020 campaign, has “fairly decent” approval ratings in Los Angeles, his popularity has not helped him overcome concerns about how he handled sexual harassment allegations against a former aide, according to independent political analyst Dan Schnur.
“That is causing him real problems in the Senate,” the communications director of John McCain’s (R-AZ) 2000 presidential bid and founder of the University of Southern California-Los Angeles Times state poll said.
To that end, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) repeated his opposition to Garcetti in a floor speech last month. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has also expressed her dissent.
“I’m compelled to vote against Mayor Garcetti due to the serious allegations that he enabled sexual harassment and racism to run rampant in the Los Angeles Mayor’s office,” Grassley said at the time.
As with Cotton’s hold, Ernst and Grassley’s remonstrance means Garcetti cannot be confirmed by unanimous consent, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) required to schedule a roll call vote in the chamber. Schumer’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment related to his strategy.
While Boyd declined to comment on the Garcetti complaints, she emphasized that it is “not acceptable” for a nomination “to linger” for 500 days, adding, “The situation deserves review and thought, but it needs to be resolved.”
Unlike Garcetti and Washington, opposition to Werfel is more ideological as congressional Republicans criticize Biden and their Democratic counterparts for weaponizing the federal government against the public, including the IRS. As their first order of business under Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House Republicans, for one, voted to repeal $80 billion in funding for the federal agency to hire 87,000 new agents.
For Schnur, Garcetti’s confirmation is not politically impossible “if Biden were willing to invest significant political capital.”
“But unless the White House decides they’re willing to make more of an effort on Garcetti’s behalf, he’s going to continue to twist in the wind,” he said. “They renominated him. Now let’s see if they try harder to get him confirmed than they did last year.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has reiterated the “consequential” nature of the U.S.-India relationship and how Garcetti is “well qualified” to fulfill the “vital” post. Of Washington, Jean-Pierre went on to say Biden had “nominated an experienced, qualified candidate who currently runs one of the busiest … airports in the world” to head the FAA.
“As I talk about the swift confirmation, not just of the FAA administrator but many other crucial, high-qualified nominees to serve across the administration, we will be renominating a number of officials in the upcoming weeks, and when we have updates to share, we certainly will share that,” she said last week.
Cotton, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pledged “there will be pain” for Biden if the administration is not transparent about the classified materials found at the president’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence and Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, private resort, Mar-a-Lago.
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“Until the administration stops stonewalling Congress, there will be pain as a consequence for them,” he said this week. “Whether it’s blocking nominees or withholding budgetary funds, Congress will impose pain on the administration until they provide these documents.”
