Democrats launch effort to lift secret holds on 69 of Obama’s stalled nominees

Senate Democrats launched an effort Friday to force Republicans to lift secret holds on 69 of President Barack Obama’s nominees.

Junior lawmakers led by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) repeatedly asked for unanimous consent for the Senate to consider Obama’s stalled nominees, meeting objections each time.

{mosads}McCaskill said 64 of the 69 blocked nominees did not encounter any GOP objection at the committee level, an indication they are not inherently controversial.

“As I look at the list, I am confused because most of the people on the list, we don’t know why they’re sitting there,” said McCaskill. “We don’t know who’s making them sit there.”

McCaskill said the Senate has conducted 51 roll call votes on Obama’s nominees this year; more than 80 percent of them were confirmed by large margins.

Democrats charge that Republicans have held up nominees to use them as bargaining chips with the administration, not because of concerns with the nominees themselves.

But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who repeatedly objected to McCaskill’s request to consider the stalled nominees, defended his colleagues’ holds, saying some of the nominees are “truly unqualified.” 

The Senate put limits on secret holds when it passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 but Democrats say Republican lawmakers have not followed the new rules.

McCaskill asked colleagues last week for unanimous consent to move 74 of the nominees. Under the rule adopted by the Senate, lawmakers had to reveal their holds after six days of legislative session.

Some Republicans lifted their holds during that time but 53 of those 74 nominees continue to be held up anonymously.

The failure to follow the rule has brought to light the lack of an enforcement mechanism, spurring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to suggest he might refer the issue to the ethics committee.

But, according to a liberal-leaning ethics watchdog group, the ethics panel has signaled it doesn’t plan to wade into the parliamentary fray.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said the ethics panel’s chief counsel, John Sassaman, wrote in a letter that the committee lacks jurisdiction to investigate violations of the ban on secret holds.

McCaskill and other Democrats have said they will introduce an amendment to the Wall Street reform bill to shorten the period between the time consent is sought to move a nominee and when a hold must be revealed publicly.

Even so, enforcement of the rule might continue to be a problem.

“I had someone come up to me the other day and say there’s no enforcement,” said McCaskill. “I said who would have thought you’d have to make it a misdemeanor for a senator to identify their hold.

“They voted for the bill,” she added, in reference to GOP colleagues. “The just don’t want to live by it.”

Coburn argued that colleagues prefer to remain anonymous so that special-interest groups don’t malign them for holding nominees.

“The impugning of motives really worries me on this, because it has nothing to do with not wanting President Obama to have his people,” said Coburn. “It has to do in many instances with people who are truly unqualified or truly divergent on what their past has been versus what they say.”

Coburn was the only senator to reveal his holds on Obama nominees after McCaskill made consent requests to move them last week.