CONGRESS
Permanent Vacancy
The U.S. Senate is broken, and its rampant dysfunction is slowly hollowing out the other two branches of government. Conservative senators have waged an unprecedented campaign of obstruction against President Obama's judicial nominees, leaving nearly one in nine federal
judgeships vacant
. Senators routinely hold uncontroversial nominees hostage to extract petty concessions -- Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) once placed a blanket hold on more than 70 White House nominees in order to extort tens of billions of dollars in pork for his home state. In perhaps the most absurd example of Senate obstructionism, Shelby also
single-handedly blocked a nominee to the Federal Reserve Board whom he
deemed too unqualified to set economic policy, only to have that nominee win the Nobel Prize in Economics a few months later. Because it is now so easy to stall a nominee, potentially keeping an entire federal agency leaderless for years, powerful industry groups have spawned an entire industry devoted to keeping the government from functioning -- and no one has mastered this game better than the National Rifle Association.
ENSURING A PERMANENT VACANCY:
In 2006, the NRA successfully lobbied Congress to require the Director of
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to be confirmed by the Senate. Since then, the ATF has never had a Senate-confirmed head. President Bush nominated U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan to head the ATF, but even a Republican president's choice proved unacceptable to pro-gun lobbyists. The NRA accused Sullivan of "overly zealous enforcement activities" because, while Sullivan served as Acting Director of ATF, the agency revoked several gun dealers licenses to sell firearms. Sens. David Vitter (R-LA), Larry Craig (R-ID) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) soon took up the NRA's cause,
placing a hold on Sullivan's nomination until he agreed to comply with the NRA's demands. President Obama did not nominate an ATF Director until Nov. 2010, in no small part because the administration "had a tough time even finding a candidate interested in the ATF job because of likely gun-lobby resistance." When Obama finally did nominate Andrew Traver, a 23-year veteran of the ATF and the head of its Chicago office, the NRA officially announced its opposition the very same day. Many of the NRA's objections to Traver call into question whether anyone actually interested in enforcing the nation's gun laws could breach the NRA's wall of obstruction. The gun lobby complains that Traver once was interviewed in a local news segment about a 14 year-old girl who was killed by an AK-47, and it objects to Traver's belief that civilians should not be able to purchase guns that fire 5 inch long .50 caliber rounds that are
capable of punching a fist-sized hole in 2.5 inches of bulletproof glass.
THE PRICE OF OBSTRUCTION:
When entire agencies sit without confirmed leadership for years at a time it
has very severe consequences for the government's ability to provide the most
basic services. The gun lobby may object to the ATF's decision to control the
most dangerous weapons or require gun dealers to follow the law, but when the
NRA gums up this agency's leadership it also hurts its ability to
keep guns out of the hands of Mexican drug cartels or prevent arson and bombings. Agencies without a confirmed head also lack clout within an administration and thus have less ability to assert their need for additional budget appropriations. Accordingly, difficult budgeting decisions
wind up being decided based on which agencies' leaders are able to wield
their influence with the Office of Management and Budget rather than on the
nation's actual needs. And leaderless agencies are understandably reluctant
to pursue new regulations or other long-term initiatives for fear that they
will not be embraced if a permanent leader is ever confirmed. Nor are the
costs of Senate obstruction limited to the federal agencies. Because of the
Senate's inability to confirm
judicial
nominations, a federal court in Illinois currently has only one active judge doing the job of four, and the average civil litigant nationwide must wait nearly two years for a jury trial. And if the Senate isn't fixed, the judiciary will soon become completely incapable of functioning. Nearly half of the 876 federal judgeships
will be vacant by the end of the decade if the current confirmation rate does not speed up, according to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy.
HOLDS FOR SALE
: The gun lobby may be the most effective special interest group at ensuring
that the agency that oversees its members is completely unable to function,
but it is far from alone in exploiting the broken Senate. Indeed, as
ThinkProgress' Lee Fang recently reported, corporate lobbyists have created
an entire holds-for-sale industry which connects powerful interest
groups with senators willing to place a hold on Senate business which could
hurt the interest group's bottom line. One lobbying firm, Endgame Strategies
LLC, openly advertises to potential clients that it can help its clients find
just the right "backbench Senate Republicans" to "exercise their prerogatives to delay or obstruct." And this firm is hardly a lone wolf. The American League of Lobbyists recently pitched a
seminar to DC lobbyists with a provocative question and answer: "Can
you turn Congressional rules and procedures into a tactical advantage for achieving your policy goals? Absolutely!" In other words, while the United States slowly loses its ability to function due to its broken Senate, corporate lobbyists are wildly profiting off that very dysfunction.
In a moving speech before an audience of more than 26,000, President Obama offered the nation's condolences last night to the victims of the shooting in Tucson. Calling for a "more civil and honest public discourse," Obama urged Americans to "live
up
" to the expectations of slain nine-year-old Christina Green, who had
recently been elected to her student council. "I want America to be as
good as she imagined it."
Three colleagues and friends who were in the room when Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords (D-AZ) opened her eyes for the first time last night describe the moment as "like a miracle" and "spectacular." Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, "It was a girl power moment because we were striving -- amusing and reminding of things
that she was going to come back to when she came to the Congress."
Helen Darling, President of the National Business Group on Health, a
collection of nearly 300 big employers, said that business executives should
think twice about advocating for a repeal of the new health care law
. "If they really understood it, they wouldn't," she said. "I
don't think we'll get a better solution in the U.S. in our lifetime. If it
gets repealed, or gutted, we'll have to start over and
we'll be worse off."
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said that if Sarah Palin continues to avoid
unscripted exchanges with media and the public, "
she'll never be president
." "People need to be judged by the way they conduct themselves in
the public arena, in a way that is as minimally staged as possible," he
said. "That's where you really
get to know people."
Banks repossessed one million homes in 2010
and a record 2.9 million homes received foreclosure notices. "Lenders
are poised to take back more homes this year than any other since the U.S. housing meltdown" started in 2006.
Delivering a "scalding critique" in Qatar today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Arab leaders they needed economic and resource reforms, or "risk having extremists take root in their societies." At the end of her Persian Gulf trip, Clinton's “litany of criticism" on corruption, repressive political systems, and abysmal human rights records were
"notable for their vehemence."
In a letter to both parties' leadership Wednesday, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) urged Republicans and Democrats to "sit together in mixed company" during the Jan. 25 State of the Union address to end "an arrangement that has become a negative symbol of divisions in Congress." While members customarily sit by party, Udall said "there is no rule or reason" to "emphasize divided
government."
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is drafting a bill that would allow members of Congress to carry weapons in the District of Columbia, including on the Senate and House floors. "I know friends that walk home from the Capitol. There's no security for us." he said. "There is some protection in having protection."
Many gun control advocates are
upset with the Obama administration
for not pushing tougher gun control in the wake of the Tucson shooting.
"If he was serious about it, he would have done it," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) of Obama's campaign promises of reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole.
And finally: Vice President Biden made a surprise visit to Afghanistan
yesterday, and perhaps fearing they wouldn't recognize him without a heads
up,
Biden greeted troops by introducing himself. "Hi, I'm Joe Biden
,"
the veep said, sticking out his hand to troops eating breakfast at Bagram
Air Base. He "went on to take pictures with fans and talk to troops from
Delaware about the
Philadelphia Eagles' disappointing loss in the NFL playoffs."
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"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end
with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of
a state, not with those who listen to talk radio...not with law-abiding
citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign
rallies."
-- Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, 1/12/11
VERSUS
"To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families
of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks. ... I agree with the
sister of one of the 9/11 victims (and a New York resident) who said:
"This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were
torn to pieces by Islamic extremists. I think that it is incredibly
insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that
site, but to do it specifically so that they could be
in
proximity to where that atrocity happened."
-- Palin, 7/22/10, placing blame on Muslims for the 9/11 attacks
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