The Cable reported today that Senator Kyl lifted the hold that he had placed on Ellen Tauscher’s confirmation for her new gig at State. Hopefully, that will allow her (and CSIS alum Kurt Campbell) to get voted on before the July 4 recess. This is yet another example, however, of the problem with the confirmation process. As the Cable notes in their Monday post about the initial hold:
Republican Senators — as well as some Democrats — have indicated that placing holds on nominees is one of the only ways they have found to get the administration, overwhelmed with multiple challenges, to respond to various gripes and concerns.
While Congressional members need an outlet to express their views and frustrations with the White House, it can’t be the confirmation process. The Obama administration has an extremely crowded plate of issues to deal with and delaying the ability of Senate confirmation level positions to get to work (and hire their teams) will not help matters one bit. This is particularly true in the nuclear arena where both the NPR and a START follow-on are due by December. Not to mention issues like trying to get the CTBT to the Hill on time to try to have it in place before the May 2010 RevCon or the host of other policy priorities mentioned in the Prague speech. If it is true Congress needs more avenues to get to the Administration, the White House needs to develop new strategies to help assuage the concerns of Congresspeople that don’t involve delaying the ability of nominees to get to work ASAP.
*UPDATE: Tauscher was confirmed late yesterday as reported by the SF Chronicle*