Editors at National Review Online urge the U.S. Senate to do its job.
Since Donald Trump won the election on November 5, a number of prominent voices have suggested that, courtesy of his “electoral mandate,” the president-elect should face no scrutiny from Congress whatsoever. Presumably, the details of this claim will evolve over time, but for now it has manifested itself in the insistence — echoed by Trump himself — that the Senate ought to put itself into recess rather than to meaningfully evaluate his executive-branch nominees.
Anticipating the criticism that, by conferring upon the U.S. Senate its powerful “advise and consent” role, the Framers of the Constitution had deprived the American presidency of the sole authority “to make the appointments under the federal government,” Alexander Hamilton laid out two persuasive arguments in the pages of Federalist No. 76. “It is not likely,” Hamilton predicted, “that their sanction would often be refused, where there were not special and strong reasons for the refusal.” But on the rare occasions that it happened, it “would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.” The result, Hamilton concluded, would be “stability in the administration” and a reduction in the numbers of those “disadvantages which might attend the absolute power of appointment.”
A quarter of a millennium later, these words have proven wise. It is, indeed, relatively rare for the Senate to deny the president his appointments. But it is not unknown. And, when it does occur, it typically benefits the executive every bit as keenly as the legislature that stands in opposition. Now, as then, the core of the American system of government remains the division of power — horizontally, among the three federal branches, and, vertically, between the federal government and the states (or the people). In some circumstances, this arrangement exists to foster a diversity of political opinion. In others — including the appointments process — it reflects the understanding that to increase the number of people who are required to make a decision is to reduce the opportunity for caprice. After all, presidents — even wildly popular presidents — are still liable to err.
