Ezra Klein at The Washington Post argues Obama can’t fire anyone because he can’t be guaranteed they’ll be replaced in a timely manner because of the extreme gridlock in the Senate. Quote:
The Treasury Department is a good case in point. This may be the most turbulent economy since the 1930s, but the agency tasked with navigating it is still waiting for a number of key nominees to be confirmed, including the undersecretary for international affairs and the undersecretary for domestic finance. Meanwhile, the boss himself, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is under tremendous criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Some even want him fired.
But he can’t be fired, and it’s not because he’s doing a bang-up job. It’s because Obama can’t be confident that he could be smoothly replaced. The only thing worse than an unpopular Treasury secretary is no Treasury secretary at all.
The problem gets worse as it goes deeper. It’s not just that Geithner can’t be fired. It’s that he, in turn, can’t fire anybody. Treasury is understaffed, and there’s little reason to believe that the Senate will consider its nominees anytime soon. If Geithner is displeased with the performance of an appointed subordinate, he can’t ponder whether America would be better off with another individual in that office. Instead, he must decide whether America would be better off if that office were empty.
Klein’s solution?
The easiest way to fix all this would be to reduce the number of positions requiring Senate confirmation. It’s obvious why the nominee for Treasury secretary must come before the Senate, but do we need a hearing for the director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development? The undersecretary of commerce for export administration? The co-chair of the Northern Border Regional Commission? How many senators, exactly, do we think have an informed opinion on these positions, much less on the nominees to fill them? There’s a reason that a board of directors will pick a company’s chief executive but not vote on each and every product manager.
I’m not familiar enough with the appointment process to know if Senate confirmation is necessary on these lesser positions by tradition (aka “we’ve always done it this way, so that’s they way we’re going to do it,” like voting on a Tuesday) or by codified law, but if confirmation is necessary by tradition, perhaps we need to rethink the tradition. When said tradition no longer makes any sense, we need to move on.