More on Appointments: Obama's Biggest Failure

Brad DeLong suggests filling the empty Fed vacancies with recess appointments; Matt Yglesias dissents.  I mostly agree with Yglesias here.  The problem of unfilled executive branch positions is to some extent the Senate's fault, but to a much larger extent Barack Obama's fault.  It's hard to blame the Senate for failing to confirm people who haven't been nominated.

As far as confirmation problems are concerned, what Obama needs to do is:

1.  Convince the Senate he cares.  The best way to do that is to nominate people for all the vacancies (and this goes for judicial vacancies, as well).

2.  Establish a believable threat of recess appointments.  That's going to require some actual recess appointments, either in cases where a successful filibuster stopped confirmation, or where the Senate is just going slowly, or both. 

It seems to me that the first of these is far more important than the second.  If, for example, Obama gives a recess appointment to Craig Becker right now, it's going to be interpreted as a payoff to labor.  Which is fine, but it won't affect other nominations.  However, if Obama suddenly raises the visibility of the entire issue of executive nominations, which would require actually appointing a lot of people, then recess appointments would be seen in the context of Senate stalling and/or Republican obstruction. 

In my view, this has been Obama's biggest failure as a president to date.  Presidents often get bashed unfairly  for episodes in which they lose.  But presidents are bound to lose on some issues, even if they play the cards they're dealt perfectly.  Here, however, is an example of a president who isn't even bothering to play the game.

Last Minute Failures?

At this point, the main basis I have for believing the health care reform bill will pass (here's my latest while I was at the Dish...for perspective, here's Jonathan clubber Chait's view, and here's Nate Silver's take)  is that I would be shocked if Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Henry Waxman moved things to this stage without knowing they could get the votes.  We're talking about some very skilled pols, here. 

I can't think of any historical precedent for a failure this large in a House vote -- a major policy with the full support of the president and the majority party leadership that got this close without winning.  The two most notable floor defeats that I remember are the first vote on TARP in fall 2008, and the vote (if I recall correctly) on the rule on the Bush deficit reduction package in 1990.  In both cases, radical Republicans defected from a bipartisan agreement, in both cases between majority Democrats and a Republican president.  And in both cases the policy eventually passed.

Another thing that can happen is a bill getting pulled from the floor after a killer amendment is adopted, either because the leadership no longer supports the bill or because the bill no longer has the votes.  I can't think of examples from memory, but that does happen. 

Neither of those is relevant to this case.  What we need are either cases in which a bill gets pulled from the floor at the last minute, or cases in which a bill just goes down to defeat on a floor vote.  I tend to think both, especially the latter, are rare, and at any rate I'm not thinking of any cases off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are some.  Anyone have examples?

Housekeeping

Hey, I'm back!  Thanks to Andrew for the gig; to Patrick and Chris for making it easy to do; and to Andrew's terrific readers for their emails and comments.  They certainly know their crazy Members of Congress!

And while I'm at it, thanks especially to long-time readers here, and to all those who have linked to Plain Blog. 

I'm not sure what kind of posting schedule I'll keep over the weekend (I'll at least get to a "Friday" Baseball post), but by Monday I'll certainly be back to normal. 

TX-22

Is there a "Stuff Political Junkies Like" page out there somewhere?  Because if there is, you know that LaRouchies are high up there, maybe #2 overall.

(I hardly need to point out that Traficant is, was, and forever will be #1, do I?  Didn't think so).

Worst Poker Player In Washington?

It just must be Raul Grijalva (D-OfCourseHe'sBluffingAgain).  As a native of the Grand Canyon State, I've always been proud of our ability to play far above our size...Barry Goldwater, Bruce Babbitt, Mo Udall, John McCain, Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist...that's a pretty good first line, and add to that Stewart Udall, John Rhodes (House GOP leader after Ford) and Carl Hayden (who established Congressional longevity records).  It may not be Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, but it's not bad for a state that was born after Ronald Reagan. 



I'm definitely getting the feeling that Grijalva isn't going to be up on whatever Arizona's version of Mt. Rushmore is.  The guy has one move, right?  Step One: Raul Grijalva threatens that he'll vote against health care reform because the bill isn't far enough to the left.  Step Two: No one pays any attention.  Step Three: Raul Grijalva supports the bill.  Step Four: The bill moves a little bit further away from Grijalva's preferences.  Step Five: Repeat.

Assuming there's enough time to do it, I fully expect him to try this maneuver a couple of times between when he votes for the Senate bill and when he votes for the reconciliation patch.  I'm not certain whether he'll also threaten to barricade Pennsylvania Avenue to block the bill from getting to the White House for the presidential signing ceremony, but I won't be surprised. 

Open invitation: he's welcome to a seat at my poker game whenever he wants.

Election Day

For me, today: it's Texas primary day.  No time, alas, to rewrite and update, so I'll just link back to my standard election day post.  Shorter me: Very partriotic.

I'll just add that Medina, the Crazy Party candidate for the Republican nomination, appears to me to be quite a talented pol (except of course for the crazy).  If it does turn out that there's a Senate special this year, and she decides to run, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she did very well, perhaps even well enough to cost the GOP the seat.  If not that, though, I can definitely see her as becoming the next Ron Paul in the House at some point.

Vote early, vote often, and all the rest of that good stuff.

Tom P. Baxter, Business Visionary

The important thing to remember about Tom P. Baxter, Business Visionary is that he's a total fraud.  This time, it's Rick Hertzberg, Jonathan Chait, and Matt Yglesias who pass the Bill McNeil test.  As everyone knows, Bill usually has great instincts about who's on the up-and-up, what with his twenty-two years of experience in the art of interviewing.

Update: Ezra Klein piles on.   Still waiting on Drum.