Pick up the nomination pace, Joe Biden

Follow Us Get the newsletter Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. With the confirmation of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Monday, it's a good time to assess the job President Joe Biden is doing working with the Senate to fill his cabinet and other executive branch jobs. Interim grade: Pretty good, with a few warning signs. To begin with, Biden has had one rejected nominee, which is basically the norm for all the presidents after Ronald Reagan. That was Neera Tanden, who had been a risky choice to head the Office of Management and Budget. Her aggressive partisanship and participation in Democratic factional fights was bound to have made her some enemies, and many Democrats would give her only lukewarm support. Biden seemed to handle the situation well, sticking with her long enough to demonstrate that he couldn't be easily rolled by a little threat of controversy, but withdrawing the nomination before it dominated Washington reporting for long. As defeats go, this one was relatively minor — Tanden's weaknesses with the Senate are inside baseball that few if any voters will have noticed, let alone remember. Beyond that, Biden has faced strong Republican opposition to most of his selections, but most of that is from senators who are looking for reasons to oppose any Democratic president's nominees. That was the case with a lot of Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump's early picks as well. Biden's nominees, however, haven't given Republican senators much to object to, so they retreated to familiar partisan talking points. Biden moved swiftly and firmly to support the one nomination that faced bipartisan criticism, that of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, on the principled grounds that a civilian, not a recently retired general, should lead that department. Opposition to Austin, and to granting a waiver needed to allow him to serve, dissipated quickly.  It appears now that all of Biden's picks for department secretaries will be confirmed (the three remaining seem to have the votes), and with the exception of Tanden, his other cabinet-level nominees have been confirmed or will be. (The confirmation of Eric Lander, the pick for director of Office of Science and Technology Policy, is moving slowly but without any public opposition to this point). Perhaps surprisingly, Vice President Kamala Harris may get through the initial cabinet confirmations without needing to cast a single tiebreaking vote.  I should also add that Biden's commitment to diversity has been exceptional. In particular, the majority of his executive branch nominees (55%) have been women. That would shatter the old record; in President Barack Obama's first 300 days, 28% of his confirmed nominees were women.  The Senate has moved slowly so far. Only 18 Biden executive branch nominations have been confirmed, which is a slower pace than any of the last four presidents. That does not appear to be Biden's fault. He was probably slowed a bit by Trump's refusal to allow the transition to proceed normally, but the more serious issue was Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's decision to hold almost no confirmation hearings during the period from Jan. 3 to Jan. 20, when he was still majority leader, and then for a while after that when he stalled the organizing resolution needed for Democrats to become committee chairs in the current Senate session. Since then, the new (slim) Democratic majority has been playing catch-up. Which gets us to the warning signs. Biden's picks have avoided trouble, and he's handled what controversy there's been well. However, he doesn't seem to be showing any signs of urgency. Tanden's OMB replacement still hasn't been named; the White House said it would wait until its choice for deputy director, Shalanda Young, is confirmed, but it's not clear why waiting makes sense. Until just last week, meanwhile, Biden was falling behind in nominating officials below cabinet rank. Even with two new batches, including four more announced on Monday, he's only reached a total of 67 executive branch nominations in key positions so far (not including Tanden) — while Obama was able to get 68 nominees confirmed in his first 100 days, a mark Biden won't reach. One other sign of Biden's lack of urgency: Despite an overwhelming demand for Senate floor time for his legislative program and early executive branch confirmations, he hasn't pushed the Senate to take fewer or shorter recesses. Or at least threaten to if Republicans continue to drag their feet on nominations.  After all, soon those executive branch nominations will presumably be joined by judicial nominations. Both Trump and Obama made their first selections for the federal bench in mid-March. We'll see soon whether Biden can match Trump's accelerated pace — and how the Senate will handle their obligations. 1. Dave Hopkins on the Republican focus on "cancel culture." 2. Lise Herman, Julian Hoerner and Joseph Lacey at the Monkey Cage on the European People's Party and Hungarian authoritarianism. 3. Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine on why Democrats may not be using the Congressional Review Act procedure to roll back Trump administration regulations. 4. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Brian Chappatta on state and local governments after the pandemic relief act. 5. And Geoffrey Skelley on presidential approval ratings. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. 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