President-elect Donald Trump this morning announced his picks for three of the most prestigious jobs in the executive branch -- Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Rep. Mike Pompeo as director of the Central Intelligence Agency and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security advisor.
Two of those jobs require a check from the legislative branch -- a Senate confirmation vote.
Here's how the process works:
All cabinet-level officials, except the White House chief of staff, require Senate confirmation, including: the secretaries of agriculture, commerce, defense, education, energy, health and human services, homeland security, housing and urban development, interior, labor, state, transportation, treasury, and veterans affairs, as well as the attorney general, director of the Office of Management and Budget, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Trade Representative, ambassador to the United Nations, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and the administrator of the Small Business Administration.
Hundreds of other senior posts and agency heads (1,212 to be exact) require Senate confirmation too after background checks. Essentially, heads of agencies and a lot of deputies need to be confirmed, whereas adviser positions for the president do not. For example: CIA director: yes; national security advisor: no.
The level of Senate confirmations has created a backlog within committees on Capitol Hill and left agencies understaffed. The Washington Post reported in 2013 that when Janet Napolitano resigning as Secretary of Homeland Security, there were 15 vacant leadership positions in that department.
Before a nomination can formally move to the Hill, the candidate must submit several forms and undergo a fair amount of vetting by the White House and FBI. What is gathered in this process (by looking at, for example, financial disclosure reports, criminal checks and questionnaires about ties to foreign governments) could be used by the president or president–elect to withdraw a nomination or present it to the Senate as evidence in hearings.
In 2004, Congress passed legislation to "encourage a President-elect to submit, for security clearance, potential nominees to high-level national security positions as soon as possible after the election," according to the Congressional Research Service. The goal was to "reduce the elapsed time between a new President’s inauguration and the appointment of his or her national security team."
1) A nomination is given to the relevant Senate committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, will handle the attorney general nomination. 2) That committee can then hold hearings, vote to move the nomination straight to the Senate floor for a vote, or not move on it at all (in which case the committee effectually kills the nomination.) 3) After hearings, the committee then votes to report a nomination to the full Senate via simple majority. It can vote too to report the nomination favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation. If a committee sits on an appointment, the full Senate can vote to invoke cloture and move the nomination along. 4) If a nomination clears committee, it moves to the Senate floor for a simple majority vote. Filibusters are not an issue here, because Democrats changed Senate rules three years ago to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for most nominations. Supreme Court picks are still subject to filibuster.
The GOP barely kept its majority in the Senate after this election, but rejections of major appointments are rare. Republicans have 51 seat right now, but will likely have 52 by January (Louisiana’s race is in a run off, but ABC News' race rating is solid Republican). But that number includes Sen. Sessions, who was just announced as Trump’s pick for attorney general.
That fact alone raises some questions. Will Sessions vote for himself? When Secretary of State John Kerry was in the Senate and confirmed, he voted “present.”
Could some Republicans deflect? Yup. Could there be a tie? Maybe. Would Republicans need to use soon to be Vice President Mike Pence’s vote as a tie-breaker? Possibly.
Hearings can and will likely start pretty soon after the 115th Congress is sworn in Jan. 3, 2017. The hearing and legislative schedule has not been set yet.
A nominee cannot be confirmed, however, until after the president-elect is sworn in on Jan. 20.
The first time the Senate rejected a nomination was on Aug. 5, 1789 -- Benjamin Fishbourn to be the naval officer for the Port of Savannah.
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2fEfN6Y
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