I've never been able to get a straight answer on why, exactly, senators should be able to place anonymous holds on nominees. I can see the arguments for holds themselves: They allow senators to express strong opposition and, from a bargaining standpoint, they give senators leverage to use on other priorities. But making a hold anonymous undermines both arguments: It means no one knows why there's opposition and no senator can bargain on the issue.
Ezra Klein writes: he Senate has more pressing things to do than spend a week voting on the deputy director of the Peace Corps, so the Peace Corps ends up going without a deputy director
Secret holds are not the problem (but the Democrats would like to make them the problem)
I've never been able to get a straight answer on why, exactly, senators should be able to place anonymous holds on nominees. I can see the arguments for holds themselves: They allow senators to express strong opposition and, from a bargaining standpoint, they give senators leverage to use on other priorities. But making a hold anonymous undermines both arguments: It means no one knows why there's opposition and no senator can bargain on the issue.
That said, if the problem is that Republicans have bottled up more than 90 nominees, the answer isn't to get rid of secret holds. The answer is, on the one hand, to make fewer positions Senate confirmable (there's no reason the Senate needs to vote on the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs), and on the other, to make it harder to obstruct nominations. In reality, holds work because breaking a filibuster takes about a week even if you have the votes. The Senate has more pressing things to do than spend a week voting on the deputy director of the Peace Corps, so the Peace Corps ends up going without a deputy director.
To think about this differently, imagine how much hiring would get done at IBM if their board of directors had to spend a week considering each and every potential employee.
As it happens, Democrats would prefer to make the issue about secret holds because, on the one hand, Republicans are already on-record against them, and on the other hand, they're wildly objectionable. And we should get rid of secret holds. But the problem is much deeper than that. The Senate shouldn't be confirming so many nominees. I mean, look at this list. It's absurd. And it shouldn't be so easy for the minority to stop the Senate from conducting its business.
