In his opening statement during Tuesday morning's Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing for Health and Human Services nominee Rep. Tom Price, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch demonstrated a remarkable degree of selective memory. Or maybe he's a victim of amnesia.
I'm serious when I say that I am worried about what my colleagues on the minority side are doing to the Senate as an institution. While the overriding sense of comity and courtesy among senators has admittedly been in decline in recent years, I have never seen this level of partisan rancor when it comes to dealing with the president from an opposing party.
I have never seen a party in the Senate from its of leaders on down, publicly commit to not only opposing virtually every nomination, but to attacking and maligning almost every single nominee. Let me be clear, I'm not suggesting that the Senate start rubber stamping nominees, nor am I suggesting that any member of the Senate should vote against their conscience or preferences, simply out of respect for tradition or deference. What I am saying is that the same rules and processes, courtesies, and assumptions of good faith that have long been the hallmark of the Senate confirmation process, especially in this committee, should continue to apply, regardless of who is president. If what we're seeing now is the new normal for every time control of the White House changes hands, the Senate, quite frankly, will be a much lesser institution.
Senator, let me introduce you to Merrick Garland, whose nomination before the Senate lasted 293 days without action simply because your party did not want President Obama to have a nominee.
Let me also introduce you to your leader, Mitch McConnell, who said in 2010: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. […] Our single biggest political goal is to give our nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful."
And to popular vote-losing Vice President Mike Pence, who said in 2010, back when he was in the House, "And if I haven't been clear enough yet, let me say again: No compromise." Or Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who blocked a nominee who was a personal friend of Obama’s “to inflict special pain on the president.”
Spare us your sanctimony, Senator.