Filibustering presidential appointments

[JFN]

Can you assess the legitimacy of the filibuster against particular 
nominations by reference to the President's removal authority? Aren't 
limits on the notion that "the President is entitled to have whomever 
he wants" at least roughly marked by the constitutional or statutory 
distinction between those officers who serve at the pleasure of the 
President and those who have protected tenure?

While tenure protection is designed to assure independence, it also 
provides an incentive to nominate officers whose political alignment 
with the President effectively substitutes the President's 
appointment authority for his removal authority. When the threat of a 
filibuster forces a nomination that can be confirmed by a 
supermajority, only to be fired by a majority of one, it seems 
pointless. But unless the filibuster can be used to block the 
nomination of a loyal partisan to an office that is supposed to be 
independent, limitations on the President's removal authority are 
beside the point when his nomination authority is all he needs with a 
sharply divided Senate that marches in partisan lockstep with or 
against the President on confirmation votes.

John Noble

At 10:38 PM -0500 6/2/05, Sanford Levinson wrote:
>
>There is a strong argument that the President is entitled to have
>whomever he wants to fill cabinet positions (including, arguendo, the UN
>ambassadorship) because, after all, they are all political appointments
>in the specific sense of legitimately being devoted simply to carrying
>out the President's agenda (for which he is, at least in theory,
>accountable).  Obviously, some of us believe that less deference is due
>to judicial appointees, because of their lifetime character and the
>myth, at least, that they have some function other than pushing the
>party-in-power's agenda.  But where do chairs of "independent agencies"
>fit.  If one is appalled by the replacement of SEC Commissioner
>Donaldson by Rep. Cox (a devotee of Ayn Rand, we are told in tomorrow's
>New York Times), then would it be proper for the Senate Democrats to
>indicate the degree of their displeasure by filibustering the
>nomination.  Or, let me put it a slightly different way:  If in fact one
>thinks it's legitmate to filibuster judicial nominees, then why isn't it
>equally legitimate to filibuster appointees to "independent agencies"?
>I mean this as a serious question, because I do begin with the
>presumption that presidents are entitled to pick (and have confirmed)
>whom they want for cabinet positions save for truly "exceptional
>circumstances."  (One might ultimately ask the same question about Alan
>Greenspan's successor:  I.e., should the standard be "unless something
>truly exceptional turns up" or "do we really trust this person to
>exercise the enormous discretion he/she will have responsibly, which
>means, among other things, that one thinks of something other than
>furthering the president's agenda"?)
>
>sandy
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