American Voters Got Coal in their Stocking from Senate Dems: Over 100 Nominees Must be Re-nominated.

Now career government workers cannot do their jobs because dozens of empty leadership positions remain unfilled. Before you complain that some of Trump’s nominees are underqualified – you are correct – consider these facts:

• No President has ever nominated only people competent and worthy to serve in vital government roles.
• Put aside the visible controversial picks and most nominations are for technical or manager roles where the nominees tend to range from ok to solid. You just never hear about those people and their vital work.
• The career civil servants – the ones who run day-to-day government generally are surprisingly non-political in their actions, but they cannot perform many tasks without an appointed leader who is paid to make decisions – much like NCOs in the military, they make those directions happen.
• When, as numerous Democrat Senators decided to do last week, one blocks wholesale numbers of appointees, one prevent or hinder the career civil servants from doing their jobs – including jobs that you value.

Everybody tweets and pontificates about a poor choice for a judge or someone that the writer deems biased, but what about the numerous Military Officer promotions held up. Does anyone think that the President even knows the names of these people – let alone arranged their promotion? Complete List via Atlanta Journal AJC.

THE REPUBLICANS ONLY DID THIS TO EIGHT (8) NOMINEES, and THE DEMS ONLY DID SO TO 17 BUSH NOMINEES.

WHY AM I SO WORKED UP?

For a record setting 11 months, we have operated with no head of OSHA. When the career civil servants have no Political Leader and Advocate, they cannot adequately protect workers. An imperfect Assistant Secretary of Labor – OSHA is better than no OSHA appointee. Ask the careers and see what they say.

And Scott Mugno, the Administration’s pick, was a genuine safety professional with credentials of having addressed some of the pressing new issues facing OSHA – such as over 2000 transportation-related workers deaths last year – and he is not an anti-OSHA guy.

UHH … EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED, HOWARD.

Senate rules require that at the end of the first session, any nominees who have not yet been confirmed are sent back to the White House, unless the Senate votes unanimously to carry the nominations over.

If even one Senator objects, the nominee cannot be carried over – even though many, such as Mugno, have already been approved by the relevant Senate Committee.

I’ll quote from the AJC’s always insightful Jamie Dupree: 

While no one knows for sure who objected to the individual nominations – the Senate does not release that information – the feeling in the halls of the Capitol was clear, that most of these moves were probably made by Democrats, already at odds with President Trump on a number of fronts, especially over nominations.

At issue is a Senate rule XXXI, which plainly states that “Nominations neither confirmed nor rejected during the session at which they are made shall not be acted upon at any succeeding session without being again made to the Senate by the President.”

Normally at the end of the first year (session) of Congress, most of the nominations that have not been acted on are ‘held over’ to the next year – but that did not happen in 2017.

This list of nominees sent back to the White House is so expansive, that it takes almost five full pages to list them in the Senate’s “Executive Calendar” for nominations.

In a review of similar year-end situations in the Senate over the last 25 years, this was by far the largest number of nominees returned to the White House. (Emphasis added).

The Administration does not now simply send notice that they are re-submitting candidates, the enormously time-consuming process must largely be re-done to bring the candidates’ submissions current – and many of the nominees have languished for months. That’s a lot of paperwork and investigations by the overworked FBI and others. Many of the candidates’ paid for attorneys to assist them, and will probably withdraw.

I apologize for my rant. Neither FP nor I are promoting this or any Administration. Nor are we ideologically neutral, but we want to see good government, especially with regard to worker safety, which both parties have neglected.

Howard