Obstruction for the sake of destruction

An incoming president should be able to install a working cabinet within a reasonable timeline. It is a forgone conclusion that depriving the president of a functioning cabinet is more than a hindrance. It is a crippling situation. The senate confirmation process is completely flawed because it provides a perfect instrument for the opponents of an incoming president to play politics strictly for the purpose of interfering or totally preventing an incoming president from working effectively. This not only prevents effective government during the interim, it also sets up a scenario that is dangerous for the security of America. While the opposition is playing political games, terrorists or hostile governments can use the ineffectiveness to attack America. This really needs to be corrected.

A simple and effective change to the process of filling the cabinet positions could provide a solution to this problem. First of all, do away with the ‘confirmation’ process in its present form. An incoming president would install his cabinet nominees into their cabinet position with full authority to perform their cabinet functions as ‘acting’ cabinet members as soon as the president announces his selections. Then the senate has a given time period, probably 30 to 60 days, in which by a majority vote they can reject the nominee. This preserves the senate’s power to vet cabinet nominees while avoiding the problem of crippling the incoming president’s effectiveness.

However, there is one other problem which needs to be addressed. Clearly, the direction of the political environment in America is toward total non-cooperation between democrats and republicans. Clearly, the democrats have demonstrated the possibility of making a newly-elected president completely ineffective by destroying the process of cabinet selections. It is imperative that for the sake of America, the president must be allowed to build a working cabinet. Therefore, it is obvious that if an incoming president is opposed by a congress controlled by the opposing party, there must be safeguards in place to prevent the congress from preventing the president from building his cabinet. Therefore, the first senatorial rejection of a cabinet nominee should require only a majority of the senate to pass. The second cabinet nominee rejection and all subsequent rejections should require a super-majority of 60 votes in the senate.