There is an illuminating Op-Ed in today’s NYT by Frank Bruni that tells two stories, one about Cassandra Butts who was nominated by Mr. Obama to be our Ambassador to the Bahamas. She was never confirmed due to holds placed on the nomination by Republican Senators.
Butts died suddenly at 50 years old from leukemia, after waiting more than 820 days to be confirmed.
The second story is about the Senate’s process and specifically, GOP Senators who no longer even try to work across the aisle. From Bruni’s article:
The Senate held a hearing about her nomination in May 2014, and then… nothing. Summer came and went. So did fall. A new year arrived. Then another new year after that.
Bruni continues:
The delay had nothing to do with her qualifications, which were impeccable. It had everything to do with Washington. She was a pawn in its power games and partisanship.
At one point Senator Ted Cruz, (R-TX) had a “hold” on all political nominees for State Department positions, partly as a way of punishing President Obama for the Iran nuclear deal.
Later, Senator Tom Cotton, (R-AK), specifically placed a hold on Butts and on nominees for the ambassadorships to Sweden and Norway. He had a gripe with the Obama administration over a Secret Service leak of private information about a fellow member of Congress; and he was trying to pressure Obama to take punitive action. But that issue was unrelated to Butts and the Bahamas.
From Bruni: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Cotton eventually released the two other holds, but not the one on Butts. She told me that she once went to see him about it, and he explained that he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s — the two first encountered each other on a line for financial-aid forms at Harvard Law School, where they were classmates — and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.
Bruni says that in a subsequent call to Sen. Cotton’s office, his spokeswoman did not dispute Butts’s characterization of that meeting, and stressed, in separate emails, that Cotton had enormous respect for her and her career.
There we have our two stories. In one, a Harvard educated lawyer, a classmate of the president, who could have cashed in by joining the private sector. But instead, she worked in DC, for the N.A.A.C.P.’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, for the Center for American Progress and for Obama, including time as deputy White House counsel.
Tom Cotton on the other hand, is a Harvard educated lawyer. He was in the US Army. He did stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he earned a Bronze Star. He is a Tea Party Republican who is likely to be a candidate for president in 2020.
Cotton’s actions were not tied to ideology. Apparently, he just wanted to hurt President Obama. He is a US Senator. Think about the oath of office for the Senate. Mr. Cotton’s duty is to defend the Constitution, and to serve his constituents and the people of this nation, not to act out his retribution fantasies. The oath a Senator takes does not include ‘inflicting special pain on the president’. It does not include stymieing foreign relations or, in the case of Merrill Garland and 83 other judicial vacancies, our justice system.
Remember this when Sen. Cotton positions himself for his own quest for the White House. Think of the opportunities he would have for enhanced retribution, should he reach the Oval Office.
Senators from both parties use holds on nominations for leverage with the White House. But it has become extreme and egregious: a tactic that’s turned into a tantrum. Politicians sometimes do bad things. Usually, for money, or power, or to assist an ally. Cotton’s action was none of those. It was done purely for spite.
These Senatorial blocking privileges are being abused and should end. They are helping the Senate become a body of obstructionists for whom the verb “to serve” no longer has meaning.
In addition, why not change the Senate’s rules so that any nomination not acted upon for a reasonable time (90-120 days?) should be automatically approved.
It wouldn’t take a Constitutional amendment to accomplish this, just a change in Senate rules.
However, changing the rules in a body that has no accountability will require a “political revolution”, and as we have said before, the revolution has to be won precinct-by-precinct.
